Car News Articles

The Honda Odyssey has long been regarded as a step above the competition in the people-mover market.

Its quality cabin and its car-like dynamics have won plenty of admiration from motoring journalists. The new model made a good vehicle better, plugging a couple of gaping holes in its safety armoury by adding six airbags, stability control and three-point seatbelts in every seat.

But the critical acclaim doesn’t appear to translate into popularity in a market where space and practicality are paramount.

So far this year, the cheaper Kia Carnival has outsold the new Odyssey by a margin of roughly three-to-one, while the Toyota Tarago has doubled the Honda’s sales.

No doubt a fair chunk of both vehicles’ sales are to hotels and airport transfer companies, but the people-mover market does seem to gravitate to vehicles that either offer loads of space, value-for-money, or both.

Last year’s winner, the Kia Rondo, ticked the “value-for-money” box. It’s the cheapest seven-seater on the market by a considerable margin and is bigger on the inside than it appears from the outside. But it needs a more powerful engine (a diesel is due next year).

The Carnival’s drawcard is space and plenty of it. But its ride and handling feel too truck-like, while the interior looks a little downmarket and the diesel engine lacks refinement.

The Odyssey’s cabin ambience is a step above its Korean rivals, with better quality materials and a more stylish looking dash.

On the road loop of our testing process, it was a clear winner, with car-like handling and steering, combined with a comfortable and well controlled ride.

The engine, while not the punchiest powerplant on the planet, was smooth, quiet and willing to rev hard, suggesting it would cope well with seven on board. It was also relatively efficient.

It all added up to a win for the Honda. Whether that will translate into better sales remains to be seen.

A weekly wrap of motorsport from around the tracks.

JASON Bargwanna has locked down a drive for the 2010 V8 Supercar season, joining Kelly Racing in one of the family team’s Holden Commodores. Bargwanna loses his drive soon with the closure of Sprint Gas Racing but becomes the third Bathurst winner at the Kelly team alongside brothers Rick and Todd. His current team mate Greg Murphy is now expected to move to Super Cheap Racing in 2010 alongside Russell Ingall in a Commodore sponsored by Castrol.

KEVIN Weeks and Bec Crunkhorn did it again in the tragic Classic Adelaide rally last weekend, scoring their third straight victory in a Porsche 911. The pair considered withdrawing after the fatal crash of Glen Tierney and David Carra, but carried on to the finish as Allan Simonsen won the modern category in a Mitsubishi Evo and Rob Devenish took the classic category.

Gabriele Tarquini clinched his first World Touring Car Championship in Macau on Sunday driving a Seat, defeating his team mate and defending champion Yvan Muller. Tarquini was only fifth for the weekend but the one-time Bathurst V8 racer, who competed for TeamVodafone in 2008, picked up enough points to edge Muller - who has also raced at Bathurst with Triple Eight Racing - in the battle for the driver’s championship.

CHAD Reed took the lead in the Super X motocross championship with a clean sweep of the second-last round at Waikato in New Zealand last weekend. He heads to the grand final in Brisbane on December 5 with a 14-point lead over Dan Reardon after dominating on his Monster Kawasaki, taking 80 points in NZ from Tye Simmonds on a KTM and Reardon on his Honda.

JUNIOR go-kart racers will get an elite championship series in 2010 when the baby class is returned to the four rounds of the official Australian CIK Championship. The KF3 category, formerly Junior Intercontinental, will be added to the KF2 and KZ2 titles in the championship program as karting officials look for a junior to succeed the likes of Ryan Briscoe, Michael Caruso, Tim Slade and Andrew Thompson as previous winners of the championship.

THE Alannah and Madeline Foundation, set up following the massacre at Port Arthur in 1996, is the official charity of the 2010 Australian Grand Prix. The Foundation will received the proceeds from the official auction at the grand prix ball, to be held at Crown on Friday, March 26 next year.

FORMER V8 Supercar team boss John Briggs has called time on his motorsport career because of a health problem. Briggs had just returned to the Australian GT Championship as a driver and agent for the Mosler sports car brand.

V8 Supercars will race under lights for the first time at Yas Marina in the Middle East at the start of the 2010 championship season. The format for the meeting on February 18-20 will follow the successful pattern of the Abu Dhabi grand prix last month, with a day-night competition that will see the Falcons and Commodores blazing through dusk and into a fully-lit after-dark finale.

No two Bentley Mulsannes will leave the Crewe factory looking the same.

The iconic British brand’s new flagship arrives late next year with more than 100 exterior colour options, 24 recommended two-tone combinations and a host of exterior chrome trims.

Product manager Hans Holzgartner said that inside there was even more choice with 24 leather trim colours, five coloured leather pipings, nine wood veneers, even 23 seat belt colours plus a range of optional extras such as cross or contrast stitching and extra Bentley ‘wing’ badges.  “Someone actually did the calculations and came up with a figure of more than a trillion combinations,” he said.

However, there is only one engine and one transmission.  The Mulsanne, named after a 1980s model and the notorious high-speed straight at Le Mans, will be powered by a lightweight aluminium 6.75-litre V8 with multi-displacement so it can cruise on just four cylinders.  “Why a V8, we have been asked,” Holzgartner says.  “We didn’t need the car to be any faster but we did want it to be more fun to drive and accelerate harder so we went for more torque for more strength at slow speed.’’

He says the engine is the ‘strongest production V8’ on the market with 1020Nm of torque from just 1600rpm.  The V8 is married to an eight-speed auto/manual transmission that can short shift and skip gears changing up or down to achieve a smooth drive, performance and efficiency.  Bentley claims the engine and transmission combine to reduce CO2 emissions and fuel consumption by more than 15 per cent.

Asia Pacific marketing manager James Barclay said the Mulsanne would arrive in Australia in the last quarter of next year and cost ‘more than the current top of the fleet’ which means more than the $744,132 Bentley Azure two-door convertible.  The new Mulsanne is 150mm longer than the Arnage with all of that extra length in the wheelbase to provide more interior space.

Despite the 23kg lighter engine, 10kg lighter gearbox and use of aluminium in all panels except the steel roof and polymer boot, Holzgartner says the vehicle would weigh much the same as the Arnage because of the extra interior features.  “Even the carpet is thicker to provide a feeling of quality,” he says.

Bentley Mulsanne

Price: about $750,000
On sale: late 2010
Engine: twin-turbocharged, 6750cc, alloy V8 with variable displacement
Power: 377kW
Torque: 1020Nm
Transmission: ZF 8-speed automatic, rear-wheel-drive DIMENSIONS (mm): 5562 (l), 1926 (w), 1526 (h), 3266 (wheelbase)

Rivals:

Rolls-Royce Phantom 6.8L ($107,500)
BMW 760Li 6.0L ($386,000)
Mercedes-Benz 6.3L 63 AMG ($371,400) and 6.0L 65 AMG ($477,400).

Before this year ends, Beijing will have 4 million cars on the roads. Not to worry, says a city official, there is room for more.

Beijing’s car population reached 3.96 million last week, writes the state news agency Xinhua. The city adds 2100 new cars per day. At that rate, the 4m mark will be reached in 19 days.

The Beijing municipal environmental protection bureau said at a press conference yesterday that the city already has removed more than half of its 200,000 high-polluting vehicles from streets this year.

“This contributes to a reduction of 25 percent of the total car emissions in Beijing,” Li Kunsheng, director of the vehicle emission management division of the bureau said. What’s more, “this leaves more room for Beijing’s roaring car population.”

Some Beijingers beg to differ. After a long streak of clean air days, Beijing’s sky is covered by a layer of haze. The smell of coal fires and burned plastic is in the air. Twenty-five out of 28 of the city’s air pollution monitoring stations reported the air as “unhealthy,” Air quality statistics from the US Embassy in Beijing, using a stricter air pollution index calculating, gave a “very unhealthy” warning.

From my admittedly unscientific perspective, the rotten air has more to do with the winter heating season and the very cold weather which causes mostly coal fired power plants to run on full blast. A few weeks ago, Beijing had celebrated  the best air quality in 11 days.

This may be the first time that you’ve heard about the Berlin based tuning firm XTR Carchip, but after taking a look at this wide body super sport Porsche Cayman X-Wide, XTR is a name that you won’t soon forget. Built on top of a Cayman S platform, XTR reworked almost every square inch of sheet metal in order to create the track ready machine wearing a set of gold BBS racing rims measuring 18 inches in diameter and shod with sticky Pirelli rubber that lays before you. Complete with a detachable carbon fiber reinforced plastic front splitter for more civilized use and a full jungle gym surrounding a pair of GT3 spec Recaro buckets and matching four point Scroth racing harnesses making it the ideal track day toy.

Although the X-Wide looks like it is a purpose built fire breathing beast, the mid engine flat six remains a bit tame and only benefits from a Super Sprint Magnum cat back exhaust and a slight ECU retune that brings the wide body Cayman’s maximum output up to 310 HP, raising the car’s top speed to 177 MPH. However this is just the beginning, because XTR is also working on a twin turbocharged version that will produce upwards of 850 HP. So it would appear that the X-Wide is simply a test mule for XTR Carchip’s future plans, and boy do they seem big.

Geiger continues excessive use of bright paint, boost with 790-horsepower Ford GT

by Drew Phillips (RSS feed) on Nov 27th 2009 at 7:58PM

Geiger Ford GT HP790 - Click above for a high-res image gallery

Geiger, the German tuner with a fascination with American performance cars, generally produces modified vehicles in not-so-subtle and “look at me!” variations. This Ford GT encompasses both varietys, with plenty of performance upgrades to boot. Geiger has previously modified the Blue Oval’s retro supercar and ended up with impressive results - 701 horsepower, 617 lb-ft torque, and 0-60 mph in 3.5 seconds.

This latest version takes it one step further, and the 5.4-liter V8 now produces 790 horsepower and 637 lb-ft torque thanks to a larger 4.0-liter supercharger that replaces the stock 2.3-liter unit as well as a larger throttle body and a new air filter. Geiger claims the same 0-100 km/h time of 3.5 seconds, probably limited by traction, but top speed has been stretched to 223 mph. Hit the jump for more details on this lime green beast and browse through the high-res image gallery below.

Gallery: Geiger Ford GT HP790

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

[Source: GeigerCars.de]

PRESS RELEASE:

Red is supposed to be the standard colour of warning. US car specialists GeigerCars.de from Munich have turned this established wisdom on its head, presenting their hottest shot with eye-catching bright green paintwork. The Ford GT “Geiger HP 790″ is the third star after the Dodge Challenger SRT-8 (569 HP) and the Corvette Z06 Bi-Turbo (890 HP).

Karl Geiger’s latest creation lives up to its name: the super sports car’s 5.4 litre V8 engine can reach a terrific 790 horsepower, an impressive 240 HP more than its series equivalent. The source of this explosion of power? Above all the replacement of the series-produced 2.3 litre with a more powerful 4.0 litre compressor which blasts the combustion chamber at over 1.25 bars. Larger throttle valves and a sports filter were also installed to supply the eight cylinders with even more fresh air. The engine and gear cooling systems had of course also to be adjusted to the new design as well as engine electrics.

Geiger HP 790 shoots to 100km/h in just 3.6 seconds, breaks the 200km/h mark 6 seconds later and reaches 300 kilometres an hour in only 22.8 seconds - all this to bloodcurdling roars from the two 110-millimetre sports exhaust tail pipes - an in house development. Thrust and air resistance don’t balance until you hit 360km/h. The supercharged V8 reaches maximum power at 6320 rpm and its maximum torque - 863 Newton metres - at just 4600 revolutions.

No question that a ride like this is not for the beginner, but experienced drivers will find the specially developed coilover suspension a great asset. Its hydraulic shock absorbers have adjustable pressure and rebound damping which can be set to suit drivers’ needs and preferences - and of course the terrain.

Low and wide: the classic Ford sports car proportions are taken even further with 60-millimetere lowering. The wheel housing can’t high superb matt black alloy wheels outlined in the car colour, mounted in 9×20 inches at the front and an impressive 11×21 at the rear. 245/35R20 Dunlop SP Sport Maxx tyres on the front axle ensure precise transmission of wheel commands whilst the drive axle 325/30R21 tyres constantly fight for grip and traction - if only so they don’t disappear in a cloud of blue smoke.