On Monday, company joined several dozen other media outlets in Los Angeles for a chance to drive Ford’s new 2010 Fusion hybrid for the first time. After a brief repeat of the technical highlights of the new hybrid sedan, Ford spokesman Alan Hall challenged the group to go out and drive a route through Beverly Hills and Hollywood to see who could achieve the best mileage. The final EPA numbers aren’t done yet for the Fusion but Ford is saying it will be at least 39 city/37 highway, handilly beating its primary competitor, the Toyota Camry Hybrid.
We can’t yet share our full driving impressions until the end of the week but we can tell you all what happened during the mileage challenge. We paired up in the cars and each driver got to drive half the route before we switched places. Ford’s hybrid applications manager Gil Portalatin went out Sunday set the baselines for each half of the route. Nobody matched Portalatin’s results of 46 mpg on the first segment or 43.5 mpg on the second part, but some of us came close. On the first route Steve Siler of Car and Driver managed 43.6 mpg while yours truly achieved 43.1 to capture the second part. Stayed tuned this weekend for all the details on how we topped 40 mpg in the Fusion.
Leading UAE based magazine and one of the world’s most established and authoritative motoring titles, CAR Middle East, has named the Chevrolet Lumina SS as “Best Sports Saloon” for 2007. The ‘Car of the Year (COTY)’ awards were launched this year to coincide with the 9th Middle East International Motor Show.
According to Shahzad Sheikh, Editor of CAR Middle East, “The Chevrolet Lumina SS has a 6.0-Litre V8 Corvette engine under the bonnet. Need I say more? This all new-car from ‘down under’ is a fantastic reinterpretation of the cult Lumina SS. No other car offers this level of practicality, performance, and potential tail-sliding fun for the money.”
This is the first time the influential Middle East edition of CAR magazine has presented awards in the region and Sheikh added that: ‘The Lumina SS edged ahead of some fierce competition to deservedly take the ultimate sports saloon award and perfectly demonstrates GM’s renewed commitment to giving us the cars we really want to drive. Well done!” A jury of six regional automotive experts carefully picked the winners from 125 cars in total judging on quality, innovation, engineering, style and relevance to the Middle East market to crown the winners.
[Source]
Barely weeks after Audi first showed the Q5 officially, the German marque has revealed an S Line version of the Q5.
The car attracts a sportier demeanor through a number of exterior changes. Some of these are 19-inch wheels which if you didn’t know, would certainly put you off the idea of going off-road in the swashbuckling Audi SUV.
An optional 20-inch alloy is available, put around 255mm of black rubber. A groovy grille with a matching mesh pattern of air vents around the fog lights accentuates the aggression of S Line.
Interior features layons of brushed aluminium with the three-spoke steering wheel featuring multi-function capability and wrapped in perforated leather.
[Source]
Driving pleasure has been written large at AC Schnitzer for 20 years. And happily, nothing will change for the 62nd IAA. But this goal can be reached in a totally alternative way, as the superb AC Schnitzer GP3.10 GAS POWERED shows.
This high-performance coupé has LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas) drive, where power and efficiency, economy and ecology, meet in an exciting study.
As if the extravagant exterior of the project vehicle, based on the current 3-series coupé, were not enough, under the bonnet growls the V10 engine of the current M5/M6 which AC Schnitzer is presenting at the show for the first time in bivalent design: The vehicle has a fully sequential LPG system with two parallel 5-cylinder vaporizers.
There’s no loss of power or dynamics. The engine, tuned with a remapped control unit and modified exhaust tract with sports catalyst and exhaust manifold, develops 552 HP/406 kW and produces up to 540 Nm at the crankshaft. In itself, that’s 45 horses more than the M5/M6. But why power this with LPG?
[Source]
Mistubishi’s Evolution X, known to us mere mortals as the Evo X or simply goddess, is getting even feistier.
The Evo X MR (Mitsubishi Racing) edition is set to hit the streets of Japan later in 2008, but not after going through the normal channels of spec upgrade.
Evo X’s engine has been looked at and found to be underperforming, even at its current highly-strung levels.
Therefore engineers have reworked things to their better liking to squeeze off 20 more bhp out of it than what you have in the standard car, adding up to 305 bhp in total. Driven by an uprated version of the brand’s SST double-clutch transmission, the Evo X MR remains less powerful than the FQ-330 and FQ-360 UK spec cars, but is the most powerful SST-driven Evo X in the range.
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Sometimes, timing is everything.
When DaimlerChrysler announced in 2006 that it planned to bring the Smart Fortwo micro car to the United States after nearly a decade in Europe, gas prices had reached about $2.80 a gallon. Now, Americans are paying more than $4 a gallon at the pump, SUV sales are plummeting and consumers are hungry for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.
The little Smart has been riding a wave of consumer interest, attracting thousands of shoppers willing to put down $99 and wait about nine months for the two-seater. So when I sat in the driver’s seat of a blue Smart Fortwo last week, turned, and touched the back window with my finger tips, I had to wonder: Do Americans really want to go this small?
Without question, the pint-sized, whimsical Smart makes a statement.
At a traffic light near the Washington Monument, a group of school kids clad in blue T-shirts cheered when they walked past the car. One boy whipped out his digital camera. When I drove up 14th Street, a young girl screamed, “Nice car. Woo hoo!” Near a construction site, a group of workers in green hard hats and reflective vests huddled around the car to take a closer look.
“They’re making the space age come real quick!” exclaimed another man, who pulled over in his SUV to ask me about the pod-shaped car.
Friends and colleagues had their doubts and wondered how I would handle the highway. No car can repeal the laws of physics, and at 1,800 pounds, the Smart would be no match for a big truck, they said.
The fortwo received the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s top rating in front- and side-impact testing, and it’s equipped with standard side air bags, anti-rollover technology and a reinforced steel cage structure, but the car is dwarfed by the competition. So when I merged onto the Washington Beltway at the tail end of rush hour, I saw their point — in the form of a massive tractor trailer bearing down on me.
I hit the brakes and stayed in the merge lane as the truck blew past me and then steadily (the Fortwo does zero-to-60 miles per hour in 12.8 seconds) drove into suburban Maryland. Even when I surpassed 70 miles per hour at times, I felt comfortable.
This is not a car built for a quick getaway, however. I can’t imagine Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron outrunning the bad guys in a fleet of Smarts, like they did aboard Mini Coopers in the 2003 remake of “The Italian Job.”
And the 70-horsepower, 1-liter, three-cylinder engine felt somewhat lacking as I was left in the dust, simultaneously, by a Honda Civic on my left and a Saturn SL on my right.
But most car shoppers want to use the Smart’s size to their advantage. In a town where finding a parking spot can turn into a 30-minute Tour de DuPont Circle, the Smart offered instant attraction.
The vehicle is so tiny — its length of 8 feet, 10 inches is about three feet shorter than a Mini Cooper — that it can easily fit tight parking spots. The sight of a Fortwo parked in a space marked for “compact only” vehicles evokes laughter. I could even turn into the curb at a right angle and not worry about the back sticking out into the street.
It gets good gas mileage, about 33 miles per gallon in the city and 41 mpg on the highway. While it lags behind hybrids such as the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic hybrid, it gets better gas mileage than larger compact competitors like the Toyota Yaris and the Honda Fit, but not by much.
I found the transmission could be sluggish and halting at times, sometimes jerking the car forward as it shifted between gears. It occasionally struggled to muster the strength to climb hills, and even with its suspension, I could feel practically every bump on the road.
The Smart does have a surprising amount of interior space. I’m about 6 feet tall and had plenty of head and legroom. It sits higher on the road than most passenger cars, and the sunroof gave me the feeling of a larger interior.
Even without a national advertising campaign, Smart has sold 11,399 vehicles in the United States through June and helped boost Daimler’s U.S. sales last month. The Fortwo is within the reach of most car shoppers. A basic version will cost little more than $12,000. A convertible costs around $17,000.
The company says it has more than 30,000 customers on a waiting list and about 80 percent are buying when they reach the front of the line.
This is not a family car or the best set of wheels for a weekend trip to Home Depot or Sam’s Club. But for people wanting a fuel-efficient second or third car, empty-nesters who no longer need to haul around children, or city dwellers, it’s worth a look.
If nothing else, you’ll certainly spark conversations — and maybe more.
When I pulled out of a downtown garage one afternoon, a young man paused to admire the car with his girlfriend. She tilted her head, looked at the Smart like it was a puppy, and smiled. As I drove off, she grabbed her boyfriend’s hand, planted a kiss on his cheek, and they walked off arm-in-arm.
A car that’s a prelude to a kiss. I mean, did the Yugo ever have this kind of effect on people?
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What’s fun right about the Concours is the staggering variety of cars on hand. Finned classic Cadillacs shared the grass provided a especially clean Allanté, whose Pininfarina lines hold that much aged pretty nicely, thank you remarkably much. The circle of Lincolns and Mercurys featured Tony Kotula’s gorgeous yellow ‘70 Cougar XR7 (above), a reminder of a opportunity when Mercury was not only a branding afterthought celebrated additionally for its Jill Wagner commercials as opposed to the cars properties advertise. Tony graciously exhausted a few seconds forecasted during his pride and joy, that he is frequently endeavoring on when he’s not at his day job. From taping off the vertical slats in the grillework so he should ideally spray the inner servings matte black, to endless searches for larger depleted and NOS replacement parts, each painstaking hour depleted on the total attempt is visible. One of the newly drafted additions, the green steering wheel in on its proper (and hard-to-find in this condition) Cougar badge, was just now one of several examples. You’d own never predicted too it was remarkably black when he got it not for a long while ago. You are able to eat off of the 351 it packed underhood, and it is continued made to be driven — the clutch is modern, Wilwood brakes lurk behind the pristine wheels, the underbody is coated amongst Rhino Liner for protection, and it is got making an attempt A/C.
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But who is expected to complain around coming across as at new high-res photos of the 2009 Chevy Corvette Z06? Sure, it is not the ZR1, but it is that much a damn excellent car and for 2009 is receiving a few tweaks the present could be noteworthy to some. The mostly that is right away obvious is the Cyber Gray Metallic smother color, that is additionally joined by Blade Silver Metallic. With the deletion of Machine Sliver Metallic, the Z06 exterior color palette now stands at nine colors. Also new are ’spider’-design 10-spoke wheels exclusive to the Z06, and properties give the impression damn astronomical framing individuals substantial rotors and red calipers. Less incredible is the new bright surround something like the Corvette logo on the hood and redesigned Z06 sill plates, even though possessors of the ‘09 exemplary might get a regular fuel hatch pull-down, Bluetooth as an choice and the 10.5-quart dry sump oil method on the ZR1. There’s Other additionally new junk in GM’s own expressions following the jump, but we are too busy seeming at the pics to inform you how properties are.
[Source: GM]
A few cycles back, Tesla Motors sued Fisker Automotive for allegedly stealing hints tethered to the creation of its arriving plug-in electric sedan named Whitestar and paying for it to improve its series-hybird, the Karma. Yesterday, a judge ruled in favor of Fisker Automotive by letting the state of affairs to go to arbitration outside the courtroom, that was apparently half of the initial agreement between Tesla and Henrik Fisker in the mainly place. It looks which Tesla headed outside so earliest agreement by bringing forth its lawsuit in the mostly place, although Tesla may hold judged the present contract void as the earliest lawsuit assumed such a it was signed only to increase in value entrance to confidential information.
Although the arbitration is to be handled outside of court, the judge has scheduled a management conference the current August, probably to be certain too negotiations are moving along. This is favorably info for Fisker, that is at this moment making an attempt to get its Karma PHEV sedan to economy by the fourth-quarter of 2009.
[Source: CNET]
Just as it mostly did amidst “official” spy shots of the creation Camaro coupe, General Motors has released a pair of compressed shots shooting the creation Camaro Convertible in its recent state of affairs of development. We’re informed on the GM FastLane Blog such a the pics are a reward for the overwhelmingly enthusiastic response to the original set of shots of the Camaro Coupe, that apparently lead to a lot to the council of engineers testing the vehicle. While not even is revealed on such preproduction cases such a we did not currently know, the instant try signals the convertible’s profile surrounded by the soft-top up, and it looks as if it’s which the firm lines of the coupe hold not continued sacrificed by the retractable roof. Feel free of charge to peruse both pics in our gallery beneath additonally we wait for large sites to pop up.
[Source: GM FastLane Blog]