Thanks to our friends over at Autospies, you can get a better look at the Lexus LF-NX crossover concept, officially introduced today at the Frankfurt Motor Show. One might say that the LF-NX is a polarizing design, that is, if there was anyone who said that they liked it. The response since studio photos were released last week has been pretty much unanimously negative. Judge for yourself.
Self-reported times on the Burgerkingring have long been the accepted currency of keyboard-racing morons, which has led to an increasingly bizarre series of manufacturer-sponsored “assaults” on the track. Real racers know how worthless the times are, but real self-funded racers only come in two categories: broke-ass dudes running a Neon ACR (yo!) and zillionaires racing Daytona Prototype. The two groups combined buy supercars at approximately the rate of two teenagers in Dubai — and teenagers in Dubai do care about Ring times.
Thus, we see that Porsche is now reporting a 6:57 for its hybrid supercar. This breaks the six-minute mark for self-reported times of factory-prepared “production” cars, ending a very long time where the fastest times were in the sevens. To see how it was done, click the jump.
Two years ago, your humble author had some very nice things to say about the revised, Pentastar-powered Dodge Grand Caravan. Since then, I’ve put a couple thousand more miles on Caravans, including a fairly harrowing trip to Nashville in a low-spec variant, and, to quote Sean Connery, “I haven’t changed my opinion.”. I never deliberately […]
Porsche has released the final, official data on their hybrid supercar, the 918, developed alongside of the car the the company will be racing at LeMans in 2014. The 11,000 word press release has everything you could possibly want to know about the 918, plus the new 911 Turbo as well as the rest of Porsche’s presence at the Frankfurt show, which focuses on the 50th anniversary of the 911. The 918 is powered by a 4.6 liter V8 gasoline fired ICE, dry sumped and mounted behind the cockpit, that puts out 608 hp, along with three electric motors that combined produce 286 hp, giving the driver up to 887 horsepower at his or her discretion (there is, apparently, a loss of 7 hp somewhere in full power mode). Performance is rated at 2.8 seconds for 0-100 kmh (0-62 mph) and 0-200 kmh in only 7.7 seconds. The 918 is a plug in hybrid, with a recharging time for the 7 kw/h lithium-ion battery of 4 hours on Germany’s 230 volt AC mains. Fast DC charging is said to take 25 minutes. If you want to, you can even get a speeding ticket while retaining green cred, top speed on electric power alone is 93 mph. Electric-only range, though, is limited to 10 to 20 miles per charge. Porsche is claiming 85 to 94 miles per gallon, but that probably isn’t when doing 0-62 kmh runs. (Read More…)
It does sounds like it should be the name of a spaceship on Star Trek but the Enterprise DSG-36 engine was made for more earthbound vessels. Enterprise Engine and Foundry dated back to the 19th century and they started building engines for stationary and marine purposes in 1917. Located near San Francisco, they were known for “their very heavily constructed four-stroke cycle diesels that had operating speeds on the lower end of the medium speed range.” The DSG-36 is a six cylinder four cycle diesel with a 12 inch bore and a 15 inch stroke. If I remember my geometry, that works out to 1.7 liters of displacement per cylinder, over 10,000 cubic inches total. In normally aspirated form it was rated at over 600 horsepower @ 600 rpm and with a turbocharger, more than 900 hp. During World War II, Enterprises engines were in high demand by the military and some can still be found in marine service. From the landscape in the background and the patina on the engine, this particular Enterprise DSG-36 hasn’t been near water for a while. It looks like it was used to run a generator, perhaps having been purchased as war surplus. Enterprise’s reputation for heavy duty construction appears to have been well earned. According to the poster on YouTube, it hadn’t been started in 30 years and it seems to have started right up. Time to call the Blastolene boys. (Read More…)
Thierry Bolloré, left. Jérôme Stoll, right.
Following the departure of chief operating officer Carlos Tavares, Renault Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn has announced that the company will be adding two new divisions to the existing finance, human resources and CEO office functions. Thierry Bolloré is being appointed Chief Competitive Officer, with responsibilities for Design-Product-Programs, Engineering-Quality-IS/IT, Purchasing, Manufacturing and Supply chain. Bolloré’s replacement as executive vice president in charge of manufacturing and supply chain will be Jose Vicente de los Mozos, reporting to Bolloré. The new position of Chief Performance Officer will be filled by Jérôme Stoll, with responsibilities for Sales & Marketing function, and coordinating Renault’s international operations, which apparently will have more autonomy. Michael van der Sande was named senior vice president for Marketing, replacing Stephen Norman, a member of Renault’s management committee, whose future appointment will be announced separately. Bolloré and Stoll will both report to Ghosn, whose published statement said, “Our objective was to take fast, transparent action by putting in place a clear and simple organization. The aim is threefold: to accelerate and expand our ongoing progress, to ensure performance at Group level and to give the regions more responsibility.”
Biographies after the jump. (Read More…)
Jaguar has a core competency in aluminum architecture that will be applied to their new sedan and crossover. Pictured, XJ bodies being assembled.
The mid-sized mass-market luxury car segment is defined by the BMW 3 Series. Jaguar once tried to enter that segment with the X Type, but the “mini XJ” never caught on, in part because it was derided as a badge engineered Ford Mondeo. According to Automotive News The C-X17 crossover concept revealed in Frankfurt this week is based on a new all-aluminum platform that will underpin a “range of future Jaguars”, the most important of which will be a mid-sized sedan to again take on the BMW 3 and its competitors. Jaguar has a core competency in aluminum construction and having the first all-aluminum car in the C and D segments will be a selling point for the new models. While Jaguar Land Rover’s current sales are the strongest the British car maker has had, JLR’s owners, Tata, are hoping that JLR will reach three quarters of a million units by 2020 and ultimately joining the ranks of automakers selling a million or more cars a year. To do that Jaguar needs a volume product, the most logical being a mid-sizer. With CUVs sales booming, a crossover based on the C-X17 will also help reach that volume. While differentiating between a Jaguar crossover and the Land Rover lineup will be an issue, Jaguar does say that the CUV will have some off-road capabilities. (Read More…)
The hot August sun beat down with real intensity, its heat baking the dun colored earth into a hard packed surface that flecked away in a fine powder that puffed skyward with every footstep I took. The area before me seemed large, but like so many things in Japan its sense of scale was distorted by the fact that, over time, I had grown accustomed to tiny plots of land and buildings crowding in upon one another so closely that they blotted out the sky. In reality the space was little more than a fraction of an acre but even so it seemed like an oasis of space in an otherwise crowded urban desert. The fact that it was packed with junk cars was just icing on the cake. (Read More…)
We’ll confirm it. Again. America is becoming ever more hungry for small premium brand crossovers, and that’s not simply a result of there being more $40,000 German utility vehicles from which to choose.
It’s time to talk about Volkswagen. You know Volkswagen: they make the Jetta, which is possibly today’s most adept compact sedan at churning out lifelong Toyota customers.
The Mégane Renaultsport that our E.I.C pro tempore liked so much is going to get a new look along with the rest of the Mégane lineup. The idea is to harmonize the Mégane, one of Renault’s core models, with more recently introduced cars like the Clio, to strengthen brand identity. The changes include the larger grille that is used on the company’s latest models along with a new bumper, hood and elliptical headlights.
In festivities on the eve of the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung (IAA – International Automobile Exhibition), also known as the Frankfurt Motor Show, the Volkwagen Group took the wraps off of the Audi nanuk quattro concept, an apparent derivative of the Giugiaro Parcour concept shown earlier this year. The nanuk quattro (Audi’s spelling) has AWD and unlike the Parcour it is powered by a diesel engine, turbocharged. The 4,189 lb vehicle is said to be capable of 3.8 second 0-60 runs and a top speed of 190 mph, with overall fuel economy of 30 mpg. The engine is a V10 with twin turbos and TDI and it puts out 544 horsepower, which doesn’t sound that impressive these days, but being a diesel it brings the torque, 738 pounds feet. It features Audi’s next generation of adaptive air suspension with that the driver can adjust up or down through a range of 2.76 inches. Four wheel steering has been making a comeback lately over at Audi’s VW Group stablemate Porsche, and the nanuk features something similar that Audi is calling integral steering. Rear wheels turn up to 9 degrees opposite to the front wheel’s direction to quicken steering at low to medium speeds, helping maneuverability. The wheelbase is effectively shortened by ~100 centimeters (about 40 inches), reducing the turning circle to roughly 10 meters (32.81 ft). At higher speeds, the rears turn up to 2.5 degrees in tandem with the fronts, effectively lengthening the wheelbase by about 140 centimeters which is said to enhance stability.
If you want to know why Jaguar and Lexus are introducing compact crossover concepts at the Frankfurt Auto Show this week, all you have to do is check the sales data. Crossover sales are soaring, particularly compacts. Last month, Toyota’s RAV4 was up 50% year to year, and the CR-V at Honda had its best sales month yet. Car sales in general are good in the United States right now, with overall August sales up 17%, but sales of smaller crossovers have doubled that and then some at 36%. Crossovers have gained market share for 10 straight months and now take just over a quarter of the total market, on a pace to sell about 4 million units this year. Overall crossover sales are up about 2% from last year, with compacts making most of that difference. As recently as 2007, crossovers only made up 15% of U.S. light vehicle sales. Pickup trucks are usually seen as America’s favorite vehicles, but in August crossovers outsold pickups by almost a 2 to 1 margin. (Read More…)
For the third time this year, workers at Hyundai’s Montgomery, Alabama, assembly plant have set a production record. The factory turned out a grand total of 37,764 cars in August, 390 more than the previous May record. After an expansion last year, the plant now operates on a 24-hour schedule Monday through Friday. Even so, the company still claims that production constraints are holding back sales, especially of the Sonata and Elantra.
This picks up where Part One leaves off — JB
So, where were we? Oh, yes — driving in Europe. As previously mentioned, I hadn’t been to Europe in quite some time, and had never driven there. The first thing I learned is that there didn’t appear to be a very good way to get anywhere. Unless you were going from one huge city to another, the route invariably included some one-lane, barely paved roads and some bridges that virtually no car sold in America would fit on (more on this later).There wasn’t any good way to bypass the towns along the route-you simply had to drive through them and get stuck in whatever traffic you encountered.
There also appeared to be no such thing as a “grid” in these small to medium sized European cities. The roads twisted and wound in a way that made absolutely no sense to me. When we arrived in Hamme for soundcheck, we had to stop three times and ask people walking on the street for directions to the gig. We had entered the part of Belgium where Dutch was more prominent than French, which was somewhat of a problem because none of us spoke Dutch. Luckily, after several left turns that would have made one travel in a circle in America, we arrived at the town square.
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