Car News Articles

Francisco Javier Garcia Sanz is the new president of ANFAC, Spain’s automakers association. Sanz, 51, is Volkswagen group’s head of procurement.

Read more

Citroen today unveiled its new eco branding: its cleanest models will wear the Airdream badge. The company claims that 50 models in its range meet the clean-fuel criteria to qualify for the Airdream tag:

• CO2 emissions of less than 120g/km or
• Diesel particulate filter with CO2 below 158g/km or
• Run on superethanol or
• Fitted with stop-start

Which all makes sense, although we can’t quite get our heads around the diesel 158g/km cut-off; sounds like a fudge to us, especially as diesels have lower CO2 than petrols anyway.

Airdream from C1 to C4’s MPV

Cars that qualify for the Airdream badge range from the C1 (Europe’s best-selling car emitting less than 110g/km of CO2, says Citroen) to the C4 Grand Picasso.

The Airdream tag also denotes models that are manufactured in an ISO 14001 certified factory and is at least 95 percent recyclable at the end of its life.

Aren’t these new eco labels just confusing the buyer? Read Tim Pollard’s blog here

Read more

Ahead of its 2009 American Le Mans Series debut, BMW has starting testing its M3 race car. This official BMW video shows the new car being put through its paces.

Read more

News of the imminent death of large off-roaders is mostly exaggerated. We’ve just caught an early engineering prototype of the next Volkswagen Touareg – codenamed VW726 – out on a shakedown test.

This mule outwardly looks like identikit Touareg 2008 but we hear the Mk2 will be lightly refreshed. Expect a Bauhaus-inspired design, with a wedgier profile, more dynamic glasshouse and a broad-shouldered stance emphasised by flared wheelarches and 19 or 20in wheels. Look out also for some styling tips garnered from the current R50 sports version of the Touareg.

Insiders predict a pair of relatively small upper and lower grille apertures, two extra-large lateral air intakes in the bumper, oblong headlamps, subtle sill extensions and a C-post treatment quite similar to the first-generation vehicle. Like the Tiguan, the next Touareg will be offered in two versions badged Track & Field (read off-road) and Sport & Style (read on-road).

And what’s under the skin?

The new luxury SUV will stick with today’s engineering package, sharing the Porsche Cayenne/Audi Q7 platform. Our sources suggest that the length and wheelbase will be stretched by around 50mm this time round, although the boot volume remains the same. VW hopes to liberate more rear legroom with a re-engineered trick back seat.

The big news of project VW726 is a considerably lighter kerbweight. Although hardly svelte at around 2050kg, that engineering target is a handy 200kg lighter than today’s heavyweight.

The on-road model looses a further 100 kilos by doing without such mud-wrestling gear as air suspension, rear limited slip differential and low-range transfer case. VW could have shaved off another 150kg by switching to an aluminium spaceframe body, but this option was discarded early on as too expensive.

Click ‘Next’ to find out more about the engines in the new VW Touareg (2010)

Read more

Ryan Newman, in his ninth season with Penske Racing, announced Monday he will be leaving the team and the No. 12 Dodge at the end of the Sprint Cup season. It has been widely speculated that Newman will join Tony Stewart in 2009 at Stewart Haas Racing. Read more about Newman here.

Read more

As a former full-size-SUV owner, I know that driving a big vehicle is really about hauling people. But owning a Yukon Hybrid is more than that — it’s also about hauling gear, being comfortable on long trips and doing it all with a dash of green, earth-loving sassiness.

Read more

As a privately held company, Chrysler doesn’t have to tell anyone anything. But in an enterprise as vast and well-charted as the American automobile industry, you can run, but you can’t hide from market reality. Automotive News [AN sub] raises an interesting question: why is “fast moving” ChryCo asking its dealers to pre-order products five months in advance? In a July 3 memo to store owners, Chrysler claimed demand for its Belvidere-built products had ’skyrocketed.’ Really? While Patriot sales were up 5.5 percent in June, Caliber sales tumbled by 43.6 percent, and the Compass crashed 38.8 percent. Apparently, “Chrysler is taking aggressive actions to realign our product volumes to coincide with market demand.” Really? Chrysler killed Belvidere’s third shift in March; it’s currently running on two shifts with overtime. Would orders in hand inflate Chrysler’s worth to a potential buyer? Anyway, buried in the article: an assertion [by AN] that “Chrysler is trying to stick to its guns on slashing unprofitable fleet sales.” According to ChryCo, they’ve cut fleet sales by 20 percent. In truth, even the rental fleets don’t want the cliff face depreciation cars, SUVs, minivans and pickups (despite a recently revealed, post spin-off, long term contract with Thrifty). And the automaker’s retail/fleet mix is getting worse, not better. AN reckons fleet sales account for about 35 percent of Chrysler’s total– not including dealer fleet sales.

Read more

The new 3G iPhone went on sale on July 11. So people lined up overnight. In the first three days, Apple moved one million iPhones worldwide (but none of them into my pocket, thank you). Meanwhile, the Blackberry folks have confirmed their next generation models: the Bold and Thunder. No release date’s been set. No specs revealed. In fact, The Thunder might not even be called The Thunder. So I have my hands up in the air, waiting for RIM to let us know. It strikes me that GM’s Volt is running along the lines of this second business model– even if phones are infinitely easier to develop than cars. What GM really ought to do is shut up about their plug-in electric - gas hybrid Volt until the automaker can tell us exactly what, how, and when. That said, I continue to believe the Volt per se will never be offered for mass consumption. GM will merely say the Volt was an excellent tech development platform, and maybe lease a few prototypes to celebs or government agencies. Its R&D and innovations will trickle into other vehicles. I’d be thrilled for them to prove me wrong. God knows they’re working hard on it. But I’m having a really hard time paying attention.  

Read more

According to The Gainesville Sun, Mark Sexton was the director/actor for the local Hippodrome State Theatre. In August 2004, Alachua County hired Sexton as their official, part-time spokesman, at a salary of $50,298 (now $59,475). After a couple of tropical storms, County Manager Randall Reid authorized a county-paid car for Sexton AND “unlimited use” for his personal Prius. So now… “The accident happened on Christmas night 2006. Sexton was on vacation in Miami when he struck Miami Beach resident Felix Lopez while Lopez - who was dressed as a woman - was crossing the street. A police report states the officer was unable to determine who was at fault and that no injuries were reported at the scene. Sexton did not tell county officials of the accident until about a month later, when a legal notice was sent to the county. Lopez has since sued the county. Commissioners discussed whether to defend Sexton in the suit and eventually decided to do so. Sexton said he had consulted an attorney and threatened to sue if the county did not defend him.” Needless to say, this is just one example of the nationwide scrutiny suddenly facing government workers’ use of taxpayer-funded vehicles (e.g. LA County’s $433m fleet of 12,780 vehicles) now that gas prices have soared. As for Sexton, “he doesn’t remember how much gas was in the tank when he left for Miami but added he is pretty certain he bought gas with his own money during the trip.” And no, this is not the plot of a Carl Hiassen novel.

Read more