One of these cars is two years old and has a base price of £19,365 in the UK (it is not sold in the US), while the other is brand-spankety new and starts at £88,325 in that same UK market (it arrives stateside this fall). Which is which? And, since this is an easy one for the crazy car-identification ninjas that prowl this site, is this much family resemblance good or bad for Mercedes?
There I was yesterday, nattering away about how Tesla can’t keep its focus, unaware that Tesla was releasing “Version 2.5” of its Roadster EV. And by the looks of it, Tesla is almost taking the “Ferrari of Silicon Valley” thing too far, by giving its latest roadster a Ferrari 599 GTO-style red-and-black paint job. What Tesla clearly hasn’t learned from Ferrari however, is that you need to offer more than a revised fascia, improved heat management and an optional back-up camera if you want to trumpet something as new. This is what the industry refers to as a facelift or a new model-year. Still, it doesn’t look half bad…
Audi’s new A8 and a prototype of its upcoming “four-door coupe” cousin, the A7, get caught looking mighty similar by Auto Motor und Sport’s Erlkönig spy photographers. And though it’s unfair to judge prototypes too harshly, the Nürburgring footage at AM und S reveals an A7 that leans in the sweepers and looks confused in kinks. With the rumors of an S7 and RS7 sporting the R8’s V8 and V10 respectively floating around, one hopes that Audi gets the chassis sorted quick smart. The A7 has to offer something besides worse rear headroom.
One Ford? Not in the all-important D-Segment. While America’s poncy Taurus languishes in sales, Europe’s Mondeo has been facelifted and is ready for another round of competition. And with a full compliment of Ecoboost four-cylinders and diesels, it’s likely to continue selling well there. Meanwhile, the Fiesta, Focus and more models from Ford’s European stables are headed stateside, but there’s still no word of a global unification of Ford’s D-segment offerings. Given that the Taurus has sold 60k units in the last 12 months, it might be time to consider bringing the Mondeo to America.
Nagare is done. After the 5, it’s highly unlikely that there will be another nagare car. Mazda has moved on
Mazda’s Peter Birtwhistle gives Mazda fans the brand’s best news in a long time [via AutoExpress]: the crazy design language inspired by the Nagare show car of 2006, will die with its first victim, the 2011 Mazda5. Mazda’s new direction?
[Becoming] more like a Japanese Alfa Romeo, producing cars which are great to drive, but crucially that also have the right premium feel, particularly inside.
Great idea. It would have been even better, say, five years ago. Better late than never…
The Porsche Consulting website previews the look of a forthcoming two-door GT based on the Panamera architecture. And surprise! It looks like a flattened 911. Who could have seen that coming?
Tesla, a firm that its CEO Elon Musk describes as a “technology velociraptor,” has unveiled these first hints at future applications of its Model S sedan platform [via Darryl Siry, Full presentation here]. Far be it from us to call Tesla a dinosaur, but if the sedan costs $50k base, who’s going to buy a commercial van based on the same chassis and technology? Tesla had a chance as long as it remained the Ferrari of the Silicon Valley, but these designs hint at a deep lack of focus behind the scenes.
How does he stand now in your eyes, this captain,
the look and bulk of him, the inward poise?
Homer’s Odyssey, Book 11 lines 391-392
Via dinosaursandrobots.com come pictures of what may be the most predictable conversion ever… and it looks like this particular Kia owner went the full Amanti with it.
Ford gives us [via Facebook] as good of a view of the 2011 Explorer… as you’ll get from the seat of a 2011 Explorer. Unless this is some kind of appeal to the spelunking lifestyle segment (you never know), we may have a new ridiculous pillar size champ on our hands.
Are pillars the new tailfins?
In the midst of a nearly 3,000 word InsideLine treatise on the forthcoming Equus and Hyundai’s upmarket intentions in general, Hyundai’s USA boss John Krafcik reveals that the car pictured above very nearly became the Hyundai Genesis. No, really.
There was a lot of internal debate on design direction for Genesis. We used a European design house as an early consultant, and its proposals informed the core design elements of the first approved exterior model, which got as far as the tooling stage. In our industry, when you’ve built tools to stamp the exterior sheet metal, you’ve committed millions of dollars, and so you’re pretty much committed at that stage to bring that design to market. But in the end, we weren’t happy with the design. So we made the right decision (albeit a difficult and expensive one) to redo the exterior with a cleaner, more athletic and more enduring design, homegrown from our own design studio.
I got one word for you Krafcik: ballsy.
It’s all speculation until we get official pricing from VW of North America, but according to Autoblog, the new Jetta will be priced starting “around $16,000” when it shows up stateside this October. With Chevy’s Cruze starting at $16,995, we face an interesting prospect: VW’s entry sedan might well be cheaper than Chevrolet’s. Of course the base Jetta will continue to be saddled with its predecessor’s agricultural 2.5 liter, but the Cruze’s base 1.8 hasn’t exactly earned many accolades either. Of course the base Cruze comes with a goodly amount of equipment, but it’s got an uphill fight on its hands if the more desirably-branded Jetta pips it on pure price point.
Doubtless somewhat shocked and surprised about GM Chairman/CEO/Non-Car-Guy Ed Whitacre’s decision to take over product planning responsibilities, Automotive News [sub] did some digging into the decision, and offers a full report. According to AN’s GM sources, the decision comes down to one fundamental goal: holding lower-tier executives accountable for decision making. By reducing executive reviews of forthcoming vehicles by one third, or about four times per development cycle, lower-level executives and engineers will have more freedom to make decisions, and will spend more time developing and less time preparing data for executive reviews. And lest you think this decision doesn’t merit your attention, consider this: though GM’s bureaucracy had created incredibly long lead times, most automakers hold about ten executive reviews per new product. By cutting to four, GM is taking something of a step into the unknown.
Meet the Renault Vel Satis, erstwhile flagship of the Renault range. Dreamed up in the go-go ’90s for “non-conformist” customers who sought to “distance themselves from the traditional saloon,” the Vel Satis ended up being something of a whipping boy for styling critics. And why not? In retrospect, it’s hard to deny that the thing looks a bit like the love child of a Nissan Versa and a Cadillac DTS. And yes, it is the only car on earth that can make Nicolas Sarkozy look attractive by comparison. In fact, the most apt critique of the Vel Satis’s styling was probably Stephen Bayley’s assesment that it wasn’t quite ugly enough.
As yesterday’s sales graph proves, this is not the greatest time to be re-launching an entry-luxury brand. With Kias and Fords offering the kind of tech gadgets once found only in the upper echelons of true luxury brands, and with well-regarded import luxury marques moving into the front-drive, mass-market, the so-called “premium” brands are finding themselves caught in the middle and losing sales. But in spite of these damning dynamics, GM is moving to overhaul its entry-luxe Buick brand at top speed. Why? Because it can…
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