When we arrived at the launch of the new Chrysler 200 Convertible in San Diego, we wondered whether the Sebring’s successor would be better enough for us to want to hold onto the keys after our test drive was over.
The Mazda MX-5 GT, which will compete in the Britcar MSA British Endurance Championship this year, weighs just 1,874 pounds while packing nearly twice the punch of the standard MX-5.
We think Buick appeals to luxury buyers who have lost a lot of money in the market, and had to sell their stuff, including the Mercedes, to keep junior in Country Day School.
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Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 ad spot – Click above to watch the video
We’ve seen plenty of luxury sports cars that are later tuned for the 12 Hours of Sebring. , and all do it, and so does General Motors with its Corvette Racing team. So why do the advertising types at GM feel it necessary to talk up their car at the expense of the aforementioned makes by way of this 30-second commercial? GM has earned bragging rights because, unlike the other cars, the stock actually had to be de-tuned by 168 horsepower in order to qualify.
Unfortunately for Chevrolet and its racing team, the race cars could have used a few of those ponies, as BMW , while The General had to settle for third place. Still, the spot serves as a reminder of just how ridiculous it is that the ZR1 comes fresh from the factory with 638 horsepower and a whole world of whoop-ass. to watch the commercial for yourself.
showed off the GT3 at this year’s Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, giving the well-heeled a first look at Benz’s latest big boy toy. Ever the gracious blue-bloods, Merc made a high-def video detailing the car for us peons who couldn’t make the show.
For the GT3 SLS, Mercedes took a break from its usual conservatism and got all liberal with the carbon fiber, crafting the seat, safety cell, much of the bodywork and the splitter, diffuser and rear wing out of the black stuff.
The car also gets an air jack system and 19-inch centerlock wheels to help make it GT3 competitive. The best part of the video, though, is the sound of the SLS GT3’s raucous, 563-horsepower V8 barking through unsilenced side pipes. to check it out.
What We Like: The cinematography of the Regal in this spot makes the car look even better than it does when it sits in your driveway. And if your TV or computer speakers are any good at all, the sound of the engine and the turbo comes through. This is a simple ad, and the simplest messages are generally the most effective. “Turbo. Buick. Turbo. Buick. Get used to the sound.” We like that they are not loading us up with the car’s stats, as well. You can always get that stuff online anyway. The ad pretty effectively says, “This car looks good, sounds good and, dude, has a turbo! Yeah, we know it’s a brand that’s normally associated with Fred Mertz, ‘Mr. C’ from Happy Days or pretty much any Junior High School principal. But, seriously, it’s worth checking out.” We agree.
What We Don’t Like: The driver looks a little too much like Rocco DiSpirito, or a Men’s Health metro-sexual, and that’s just annoying. But we are pretty sure that was what the ad agency was going for. We say we like the ad’s simplicity, but is it too simple? Is this going to keep the average bloke from leaving the couch to refill his beer or nutbowl during a commercial break in March Madness? Maybe there could have been more of a hook in the copy… or a female? Or maybe we are just looking for things to poke at because we have to.
Strategy: Oldsmobile is gone. Pontiac is gone. Saturn is gone. Hummer is gone. is sold. Thank the Chinese for saving Buick. They see Buick as some sort of - hybrid. Go figure. General Motors sells more of the tri-shield vehicles in the land of the Great Wall than in the land of the Grand Canyon. GM is pitching Buick as “luxury,” and says there is room for both Buick and Cadillac in the company’s luxury play, that they appeal to different luxury buyers. We think Buick appeals to luxury buyers who have lost a lot of money in the market, and had to sell their stuff, including the Mercedes, to keep junior in Country Day School. But there is no denying that the , and are vehicles we would not be ashamed to drive to the dance, the kid’s soccer game, or poker night. But luxury? Wethinks Buick doth need to find another way to communicate what it stands for. Oh, by the way, thanks for the turbo.
Grade: B
Watch the commercial and give it your own grade below.
2012 Ford Focus ST hits the road – Click above to watch the video
We haven’t heard much about the lately, but never fear, it’s still destined for our shores. After all, it would be downright cruel for to not offer the hottest variant of its new global here in the States, especially when we’ve been denied all of the Euro-spec hot hatch fun for so long.
To recap, the Focus ST uses FoMoCo’s 2.0-liter EcoBoost inline-four, good for 247 horsepower and 266 pound-feet of torque. There’s a six-speed manual gearbox to send that power to the ground, and though the car is fitted with front-wheel drive, the automaker’s torque-vectoring power control system is on hand to keep things from getting too squirrely. Inside, there are Recaro sport seats, orange trim and a thick steering wheel that we can’t wait to get our hands on.
Until the Focus ST officially hits the road, we’ll have to satisfy our craving for Blue Oval hot hatchery with this video, which you can view . It’s certainly not the most exciting piece of film ever published on the Interwebs, but it’s enough to make us fall in love with the ST all over again.
It’s been talked about for months, and now it’s here: China recently aired its first episode, joining the original Top Gear UK, Top Gear America, Top Gear Australia and Top Gear Russia. The Chinese spin-off follows the same format as every Top Gear franchise, sporting three energetic hosts, silly challenges and a studio audience made up of attractive girls and trendy-looking dudes.
We have no idea what the hosts are saying, but it looks as if the banter of the original three Top Gear hosts is alive and well in China, and we only hope they fire back off-color jokes about Brits. It would only be fair, after all.
The first episode of Top Gear China includes a comparison test between a and a donkey, apparently to see which is better at making corn meal. The idea is hilarious, and from what we can tell, the execution doesn’t disappoint. for the fist 15 minutes of Top Gear China.
BMW M3 ute captured on video – Click above to watch video
The one-off pickup truck/ute has taken the automotive world by storm. conversion hit the Internet last week, and comment sections and forums were maelstroms of speculation soon after. As Autoblog learned yesterday straight from the horse’s mouth, by an automaker with enough money and free time to pull off such a prank.
to watch the first video we’ve seen of the M3 ute out running errands through dense fog around its only stomping grounds, the famed Nürburgring in Germany.
Buick Enclave rolls over, plays dead – Click above to watch the video
Here’s an interesting statistic: Rollovers account for just 2.2 percent of all accidents. A small number, no doubt, but those rollovers account for a massive 35.4 percent of all traffic fatalities. With that in mind, engineers are hard at work perfecting technology like the company’s StabiliTrak electronic stability control. Available on the , among other vehicles, the system features anti-lock brakes, traction control, panic brake assist and rollover mitigation to keep the Enclave and other Buicks on four wheels whenever possible.
When a rollover is unavoidable, Buick’s rollover sensing technology will sense the danger within a fraction of a second, firing off seatbelt pretensioners and deploying side-curtain airbags. to pore over GM’s press release, then watch the Buick Enclave go head over heals in the name of traffic safety.
If you were going to ride a bicycle designed by a British automaker, who would you want to build it – or McLaren? If it were a mountain bike, maybe Land Rover. But for a racing bike like this one, we’ll go with McLaren.
Shortly after the debut of the comes this very slick racing bike, designed and fabricated collaboratively by McLaren and Specialized. The latter, as you might have guessed, contributed the basic bicycle-building know-how, while McLaren Applied Technologies brought the expertise in lightweight materials garnered from winning 169 grands prix, 12 drivers’ Championships and eight Constructors’ titles over the course of its years in Formula One. The result is a frame that weighs just 2.09 lbs – some 10-15 percent lighter than other carbon-fiber bike frames, achieved through a new way of cutting the fiber sheets.
The S-Specialized + McLaren Venge made its debut at the classic Milan-San Remo race this past weekend, where 2009 Tour de France winner Mark Cavendish rode it to finish a respectable 52nd out of the 156 cyclists who actually completed the race. , if you’re so inclined, to watch video footage of one of McLaren’s engineers geeking out on how the Venge was developed, or just skip straight to the high-resolution images in the gallery below.
Tommy Milner made his mark driving for Rahal Letterman in last year’s ALMS series alongside Bill Auberlen and Dirk Werner. Together, they won the team and manufacturer championships in the ALMS GT Class.
Milner also managed to win the Dubai 24 Hour race overall in the Need For Speed BMW Z4. This year, Milner’s behind the wheel of the Compuware GT2 C6.R, and managed 3rd in class at Sebring.
To promote Need For Speed Shift 2: Unleashed, Milner took some hot laps of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca driving a GT1 Corvette C6.R. Without any driving aids, Milner laid down a 1:21.709 lap, just two seconds behind the GT1 lap record of 1:19.304. Click past the jump to check out a video of Milner’s lap.
What Hyundai has done here is create a truly bona-fide luxury car capable of standing toe-to-toe with its Japanese competition and coming pretty darn close to the likes of its lofty German rivals.
The next Volkswagen Beetle will debut in April at the Shanghai Motor Show. Even better news: we may get a 335-horsepower version in the States.
Will we get the next generation of the Chevy Colorado in the States? General Motors isn’t saying… yet.
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Ford Visual Performance Evaluation Lab – Click above to watch video
Engineers get to play with all the fun toys. Just look at the researchers within the kingdom. In a quest to make sure FoMoCo cabins are easy to use no matter what the lighting conditions, the automaker has set up a special room with enough artificial light to accurately mimic the sun. All told, there are over 6,000 watts of power on hand, and the lamps ride on an automated track to provide various lighting angles. The room is part of the Ford Visual Performance Evaluation Lab.
Why go through the trouble of subjecting vehicle interiors to massive rays? With the increased number of LCD screens spread throughout its vehicles’ cabins, Ford wants to make sure that drivers can accurately and quickly access applicable information without being hindered by pesky hangups like screen glare.
It also sounds like a sweet place to spend time during the darker months of Michigan’s winter. to see a video of the lighting system for yourself.
2011 Pagani Huayra – Click above to watch the video
You’ve seen the glorious new hurtling around the European countryside like the mystic wind it’s named for, but so far, the little details that really make the Huayra a Pagani have been scant.
Allow us to remedy that. The following video gets up close and personal with the glorious Huayra, and its level of fit and finish appears to be as ridiculous as its performance figures and deified lineage. From the buckled leather straps that hold down the front and rear decks, to the willowy, leaf-like carbon fiber rearview mirrors, this thing is every bit a super car.
What we like most is that none of this stuff, with the possible exception of the seat belts, appears to be parts-bin material. From the hand-formed quad exhaust, to the LED lighting, to the milled aluminum dash, Pagani has gone the extra five miles to make this car exclusive and unique. Given the price they’re expected to charge, such attention-to-detail only seems fair. Thanks for the tip, Marco!
Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Coupe in action – Click above to watch video
The is a 451-horsepower lust-creation device that we can’t wait to see in the flesh. We’ll get that chance when the doors open at the 2011 New York Auto Show in April. Until that time comes, we must force ourselves to be content with still photos and video of the coupe in action.
has provided us with footage of the car in action. Both clips, unfortunately, have the sound levels all wrong, as the 6.2-liter V8’s glorious exhaust note has been pushed into the background. Regardless, the videos serve to temporarily satiate our desire for more. to watch them both. Thanks to all for the tips.
The next-generation pickup will be available for sale in Thailand later this year, and the assembled media at the Bangkok International Motor Show received an early look at what the midsize truck will look like. The unveiled pickup, which General Motors is officially calling a “show truck,” features a 2.8-liter diesel engine and very attractive sheetmetal, along with showy (and probably non-production) touches like 20-inch wheels and a stylized body-colored tonneau cover.
While we covered the , we weren’t able to see it with our own eyes. That changes now, though, with video of the live event. to watch the wild and crazy unveiling, which includes a pair of trucks scaling the backdrop wall, followed by a light show that reminds us of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The video is a bit choppy at first (and not of the highest quality), but you can skip ahead to the unveiling at the 4:30 mark, followed by a question and answer session with management at 8:45. Hat tip to Chermarn!
Robonaut 2, NASA’s C-3PO lookalike, is the first humanoid robot in space, and it began duty a few days ago as a member of the Expedition 27 crew. The /NASA joint venture project went to space packed in boxes instead of a space suit, and was unpacked and assembled by flight engineers Cady Coleman and Paolo Nespoli.
In their transmission to , however, Robonaut appears to have unpacked and assembled itself. For our money, the thought of a humanoid robot operating a space station is a scary enough realization of hundreds of sci-fi fantasies. The idea that Robonaut could unpack and assemble itself is a terrifying 2001: A Space Odyssey sequel waiting to happen.
Brabus iBusiness 2.0 – Click above for high-res image gallery
Brabus does bonkers. So when it decided to cook up the latest iteration of its rolling ode to executive connectivity, it went all out – both under the hood and inside the leather-clad cabin – so lets work from the inside out.
The conversion of the rather staid into the Brabus “iBusiness 2.0″ begins in the boot, with a Mac Mini mounted in a leather-lined tray inside the trunk. The Mac connects up with a 15.2-inch TFT, 16:9 aspect ratio display that mechanically unfolds from the alcantara-coated headliner and can also be used as an auxiliary display for the – not one, but two – iPad 2s mounted in the electronically deployed and adjustable custom tables mounted behind the two front seats. The tables secure both the tablets and a Apple Bluetoothkeyboard, and allow the Russian mobster in back to chat with his Swedish princess over Apple’s Facetime video conferencing system.
Naturally, all this tech isn’t any good without solid connectivity, and to that end, Brabus has fitted the S with a WiFi network comprised of UMTS and HDSPA networking to wireless wire everything together. More impressive, the German tuner developed a custom app for the iPads that allows backseat passengers to control every aspect of Mercedes’ COMAND infotainment system. Jeeves will not be pleased…
When it’s time to crank up the tunes, a 64-gig Apple iPod Touch is mounted in the rear center console and sends music to either the standard S-Class sound system or a pair of Sennheiser Noise Gard headphones, which can also be used to plumb in one of a few hundred channels provided by the wireless DVBT television receiver.
And naturally, since this is Brabus, the package wouldn’t be complete without a serious dose of pavement-pummeling power. The Brabus 800 iBusiness 2.0 lives up to its name with 800 horsepower and 1,047 pound-feet of torque pulled from the twin-turbocharged V12, shuttling the S to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds and on to an electronically-limited top speed of 219 mph. If you’re less interested in the power and more enthralled by the tech, Brabus is offering the complete iBusiness 2.0 package for any S-Class – from the lowly S 350 to the aforementioned S 65 – but if you take your life on the road seriously, why opt for anything less? Full details in the press blast after the break.
Ferrari 458 Italia versus Shelby Cobra with $400K on the line – Click above to watch video
Take a moment and pretend you’re a wealthy man or woman. (If you’re already wealthy, take a moment to enjoy the warm green glow from your money… otherwise, time to get back to pretending.) Would you rather spend your money on a modern Italian sportscar or a classic American muscle car?
Let’s say you pick one and your wealthy friend picks the other… you’d probably want to take both to the track and see who bought the faster machine, right? That’s just what the two folks in the following video do with a Ferrari 458 Italia and Shelby Cobra.
Not content with a basic Gentleman’s Bet, the duo decide to put serious cash on the line. The winner of the race gets $400,000. The clip, which you can see , is just a teaser, but the full video is promised soon. Which car is going to make that quarter-mile trip in less time and have its owner walk away $400,000 richer, the Cobra or the Ferrari? Sound off in the comments.
2012 Infiniti M Hybrid in “Remember” – Click above to watch video
believes its new is the first such vehicle built for people who actually enjoy driving. With 360 horsepower on tap, they might just be right. Yes, we are aware of the , which can run from 0-60 miles per hour in just 5.2 seconds. So is Infiniti for that matter because, in a new spot that has been playing during the NCAA’s March Madness tournament, the automaker takes a not-so-subtle jab at the hybrid sport sedan.
Dubbed “Remember,” the clip briefly takes a look back at the past 100 years of hybrid technology. Ultimately, the M Hybrid comes into view as it blows past a Lexus GS450h sitting at a stop-light. From there, we see the Infiniti drifting down the road as the narrator tells us why we’re going to love it. He must have a soothing voice… because the clip does a pretty darn good job of getting our attention. to see if it does the same for you.
Congress’ Anthony Weiner on Car Talk – Click above to watch the video
U.S. congressman Anthony Weiner has had more than his fair share of rants during his time in the House of Representatives. And let’s face it, the man seems to really enjoy grandstanding and shouting – or perhaps he just suffers from .
At a recent hearing concerning the de-funding of National Public Radio, the Democrat from New York took to the podium packing some serious decibels. The congressman didn’t show up for rant duty empty-handed, either, carrying a poster of NPR Car Talk hosts Click and Clack. In his own unique tongue-in-cheek fashion, the New York congressman takes the stance that the longtime gearhead show is worthy of government funding. to watch the impassioned clip. Hat tip to Marcus!
