For many years now, Americans have had the option to turn to small, fuel-efficient cars. Surprisingly every time the option came close, they hated what they got.
You don’t even need to think far. How about the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo? Do any of you remmeber it? The shortage of fuel and fist fights at gas stations scared U.S. drivers to considering small cars like the Ford Pinto, Chevrolet Chevette, Dodge Colt, Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, and the Plymouth Cricket.
Eventually to no one’s surprise fuel was available at a much cheaper price once again and the US soon got back to the old standard V-8 powered cars and trucks. If one looks into the money aspect of it, the bigger and traditional American vehicles made much more sense to them.
Well it looks like this time (the Fiat 500 just made it’s first appearance in the US) things are going to change from the roots, as Ford Motor Company along with the likes of General Motors have got their collective engineering and manufacturing acts together to give the Americans a small car worth owning. What’s going to happen this time? What’s your guess? And would you go for a small car just for saving on fuel?
You have to say that when you have to pronounce 14 syllables to indicate what car you’re talking about that the name needs a bit of trimming. BMW thinks that the new Z4 needs just that to describe how awesome its car is.
So then this is the BMW Z4 sDrive 35is. Count them people – 14 syllables. The newest Z4 gets the awesome 335i engine and is mated to a 7speed dual clutch transmission. Performance is up there with the quickest BMW has to offer with the 100km/h mark flying by in 4.8s onto a limited top speed of – you guessed it – 250km/h.
The car will go on sale toward the end of the first quarter of 2010 and pricing is yet to be announced.
Bentley Continental Supersports:
Engine Size: 6L, W12, Twin Turbo
Performance: 0-100km/h 3.7 seconds
Max Speed: 330km/h
Power: 463 kW
Torque: 800 Nm
Weight: 2240 Kg
Price: R2Mill
Size doesn’t matter, its what you do with it that counts. It seems Tata has taken it literally and tried to do the most it can with their smallest new member.
The problem is that while the little fella has had to go through so many changes to make “Europe friendly” it has had to become 2 times more expensive than the price of one in India.
The European pricing structure has now placed it in competition with a whole host of other vehicles offering much more space and are closer related to real cars than dinky toys.
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As is the case with the S Class and the GL, the C from Mercedes will also receive the LED driving lamps treatment.
According to some scans from an upcoming brochure, the changes will be minimal. Just a few changes to the fog lamps and I assume the LED’s will only be offered with vehicles with the Bi-Xenon option.
I suppose its a sad day when the addition of LED’s to golfs become newsworthy, but news on the automotive front have been a bit dull this week.
Anyway, for those who care the new Golf R is going to have LED taillights like the ones pictured above offered as standard and the GTI and GTD will have it offered as a R3500 option. Why can’t they just include it in the price and add it anyway? Well they’ll make more money this way is the obvious answer.
The benefits of using LED’s are they last longer and illuminate quicker – 0.2 seconds quicker than conventional bulbs in fact.
All this means that people will see you hitting the brakes a fifth of a second quicker, shaving a full 5 meters off the braking distance from 100km/h.
Plus they look cool.
If you had to choose between Audi’s R8 sports car or pay more to buy the electric e-tron which would you choose?
Sure, it would depend on a couple of things, but the one that really concerns me is the range. Will the be able to make an electric car with the R8’s performance levels that can literally go the distance. I mean what good is a sports car if you can only go quick for a 100km or so?
We’ll have to wait till about 2012 for the answer to that question when Audi is going to build a 1000 units of the e-tron. Audi reckons it can sell a 1000 of these babys through its worldwide dealer network of about 5000 dealers, but they would make more if the merket wanted it and would make less if nobody waned it…so the 1000 units is only a guesstimate.
Pricing? It’ll be priced above the R8.
This is up Lite concept from VW. It is Lite on fuel. Using only the faintest whisker of fumes of fuel to go on to a consumption figure of just over 2 liters per 100km.
How? Well the name kinda gives it away. Weighing in at only 695kg it really is Lite. It weighs as much as a stack of feathers because of the extensive use of Aluminium, Carbon fibre and lightweight batteries.
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Today, the good folks from Wheels24 have announced the launch of the annual Alternative Car of the Year Awards. Following on last year’s success when more than 48,000 South Africans have voted, the 2009 ACOTY awards have kept the same jock (straight), chop (middle-finger) and frock (gay) categories to choose from. More to it, this year’s winner will walk home with nothing less than R5 000 just by picking their favorite (until December 4th).
Nominees for the 2009 Alternative Car of the Year are:
Jock
Nissan 370Z
Audi Q5
Kia Soul
Toyota Prado
Volkswagen Scirocco
Chop
Nissan GT-R
Subaru Impreza WRX
Volkswagen Golf GTI
Mazda3 MPS
Renault Twingo RS
Frock
Mini Cooper Cabriolet
Alfa Romeo Mito
BMW Z4
Audi A5 Cabriolet
Peugeot 308 CC
Voting starts here
As per a recent survey conducted part of the WesBank-sponsored Focus on Excellence Awards, it turned out that reliability is the biggest factor that influences the purchase of both medium and heavy commercial vehicles. More to it, looks like the price was listed as the sixth most important factor amongst buyers of medium commercial vehicles and the ninth most important factor for buyers hailing from the heavy commercial segment.
The FOE Survey clearly indicates that recession hasn’t got much to do with the declining sales of vehicles belonging in this segment, as buyers are looking for reliability and after-sales service more than anything. But could it mean that automobile manufacturers are going to focus on these things from now on to get their sales up again, probably not! Other important factors include the easy availability of spare parts, brand loyalty, product quality, low CPK, longevity of a product, performance, value for money, dealer network and the driver’s comfort.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock you definitely know that when released off the production lines, the all new Jaguar XJ will be a scorcher, however, the fact is that an aspirer needs to stack his pockets with an estimated £62,000 to get one of those devils home.
But there’s light at the end of the tunnel as Jaguar has teamed up with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and in a charitable effort you can can contribute £125 to the NSPCC (registered as a single entry) and actually win the first Jaguar XJ. Jaguar has had a long term alliance with NSPCC and continuing furthermore on that bonding, Jaguar is keen to raise £1m for the NSPCC’s helplines.
The £125 entry has no limit as the same individual can have as many numbers of entries as desired. Jaguar is supporting NSPCC’s three year Child’s Voice Appeal program to raise £50m for its helplines and hence benefit more and more number of children by reaching out to NSPCC directly. The Jaguar Prize Competition to support the cause runs until 25 November and the winner will be made public on December 1. The only requirement is that the entrants will be required to answer three questions about the upcoming XJ to stand a chance of winning the first production ready Jaguar XJ.
