Fresh on the heels of today’s release of Opel Zafira pictures, Buick has confirmed to Automotive News [sub] that rumors of a rebadged Opel Astra for the US market are indeed real. But wait, you say, isn’t the Buick Verano just an Astra sedan? Perhaps… but since there’s no Astra sedan to rebadge, that leaves only three choices for this future Buick Astra: the five-door hatch, the three-door coupe-hatch or the “Touring” wagon. C&D would like to see a 300 HP Buick Hot Hatch to come in the form of the Astra GTC OPC, although we’re skeptical that Buick will offer 300 HP in a car smaller than its “detuned image changer,” the Regal GS. If the Meriva represents the “Baby Enclave,” it’s possible there’s room for a C-Segment wagon, but the rumors insist that younger buyers are the target for this US-market Astra. So, chromed-out five door? Detuned “Skyhawk” GTC coupe? Gentlemen, start your speculation…
Tag: Future Vehicles
From “promisingly awkward” mule to multiple styling “concepts” we’ve had plenty of looks at the many possible shapes that Toyota is considering for its forthcoming “FT-86” rear-drive budget sports coupe. But now, with Toyota finalizing the production look of its eagerly-anticipated sports coupe, we’re finally getting a good look at the FT-86’s production-ready proportions, if not its approved styling cues. And by the looks of it, it’s a clean, conventional coupe with just enough of a convention-defying low-hood look (enabled by Subaru’s boxer engine) to avoid looking like a scaled-down Z. In fact, this car’s ability to appear conventional yet subtly distinctive seems to be rooted in its small, rear-drive proportions rather than any one styling feature we’ve seen on a concept. Given the inherent challenge of building sportscars that offers broad appeal as well as enough distinctiveness to get enthusiasts fired up, this looks like a good sign for the FT-86’s future.
Does that headline seem ripped from the pages of TTAC’s 2008-2009 headlines, or what? But really, who’s shocked? Chrysler spent early 2009 trying to convince the government that it was worth a (second) taxpayer-funded second chance, and now that it’s looking for a private-sector bailout in order to escape the terms of its publicly-funded bailout, Chrysler’s still got some ‘splaining to do. The DetN reports:
Chrysler Group LLC does not intend to speed up plans for new cars despite media reports that investors see a high degree of risk in an automaker that has been so dependent on truck sales…
“Nothing has changed from the five-year plan,” [Chrysler Group VP of Design and Dodge boss Ralph Gilles] said.
New small and midsize cars for Chrysler, engineered by Fiat, “are coming strong and heavy,” Gilles told reporters following a speech. “There is no need to speed up.”
Now, nobody would suggest that Chrysler should mess with its product timing simply to please some bankers. If it’s even remotely possible to hurry new products to launch without cutting serious corners, Chrysler should/would be doing it anyway (ask Sergio). Still, Gilles’ “nothing has changed” sound bite isn’t exactly true.
Yesterday we gave GM kudos for addressing its lingering vehicle weight issues by redesigning the head of its popular 3.6 liter V6, and shedding 13 lbs in the process. It was, we noted, the kind of news that showed GM is staying focused on the nitty-gritty of product development, sweating the details. But, according to a fascinating piece by GMInsideNews, new-product development at GM still has its issues. Specifically, Cadillac’s development of a new BMW 3-Series fighter, known as ATS after its “Alpha” Platform, has faced more than its fair share of what GMI calls “drama.”
Turf battles, unnecessary “wants” on checklists and ultimately a severe case of “Mission Creep” have created a vehicle that now needs a crash diet, according to GMI’s sources both within GM and at suppliers working on the Alpha/ATS program. For a vehicle that’s taking on an institution like the BMW Dreier (not to mention costing a billion dollars to develop), these are troubling signs indeed.
(Read More…)
Ford’s arduous Lincoln turnaround is having another one of those awkward moments, as Ford and its dealers seem to once again be at odds about how to go about fixing Lincoln. And though it’s tough to tell what exactly is going on in Ford’s fandango with Lincoln dealers, it’s easy to see that it ain’t good. For starters, last week, Automotive News [sub] ran a blog item that noted
In just a few weeks, a group of Lincoln dealers will converge on Detroit for an invitation-only brand meeting with Ford Motor Co.
Mark Fields, Ford’s president of the Americas, promises that the meeting in early June will spell out some specifics about Ford’s plan to reignite its luxury brand.
But some dealers have put their invitations in the round file.
One says he won’t “waste” his money on airfare, adding that when Ford has “actual future product to show us, then I’ll go meet with them.”
One Lincoln dealer with a stand-alone store did not get an invitation, but he doesn’t care.
So, clearly things don’t sound happy in Lincoln Land. And what does Ford have to say to the non-attending and uninvited dealers? Ford’s Alan Mulally personally delivered a response the next day at Ford’s annual shareholder’s meeting…
When Lotus showed five new cars at the Paris Auto Show last summer, the British Sports Car brand raised a number of eyebrows amongst the motoring press. Not only was Lotus abandoning its lovable but hugely unprofitable enthusiast/trackday niche, but it was also reaching for Ferrari and Porsche-style brand recognition while offering an ambitious but underwhelming (on paper anyway) vision of its future product lineup. Five new vehicles (three mid-engine, two front-engine, four two-door coupes, one four-door sports sedan) is a lot of development work, and initial reports that Lotus would use Toyota power including hybrid drivetrains didn’t create much for enthusiasts to get worked up over. Lotus has since backed away from using Toyota power, but developing engines for five new vehicles creates a whole new set of challenges. And, as it turns out, Lotus has wuietly backed away from the most ambitious elements of its plan, and the firm now plans to launch only two cars at first. Has Lotus turned the corner from hype machine to credible competitor?
It started as a flippant Twitter comment, in which GM Global Marketing Officer Joel Ewanick agreed to champion a return for the “El Camino” if 100,000 potential buyers raised their hands for it. Smelling an opportunity for some publicity, Jalopnik quickly picked up on the “challenge” and urged readers to leave a comment in support of the trucklet. At first Ewanick tried to hedge, saying he needed 100k deposits, rather than blog comments, to approve an El Camino for the US market. But now the former Hyundai marketer has taken Jalopnik’s challenge to Chevy’s Facebook page, giving a surprising amount of credibility for a “challenge” that began with a throwaway tweet. What makes Chevy’s endorsement of the “El Camino Challenge” even more surprising: the total lack of apparent enthusiasm.
The reboot at Lotus has been much discussed in the motoring press, but amidst all the talk of styling and strategy, one of the brand’s major competitive issues has been widely overlooked. Lotus’s strategy is, in essence, to build up its brand to the level of a Porsche or Ferrari… in other words, reviving the UK’s position in the brutally competitive world of European sportscars. But just as Lotus is eying a return to greatness, targeting the top-tier of the sportscar market, another UK competitor with (at least) equally-burnished credentials is making is own play for a slice of the high-performance road car market: McLaren. Unlike Lotus, McLaren’s racing roots aren’t just deep, but are recent as well; the brand is rebuilding its legacy on the strength of its Formula One racing heritage as much as its legendary F1 road car. And unlike Lotus, McLaren has already delivered one of the more intriguing road cars in recent memory, the MP4-12C, which is lighter and faster than Ferrari’s lauded 458, while breaking new technical ground with its carbon fiber monocoque and adaptive hydraulic suspension.
And now Autocar reports that McLaren is following up its Mp4-12C with a limited-edition flagship hypercar boasting 800 HP from a 5 liter V8 that should hit 100 MPH in 5.5 seconds. With a 2014 launch date, the “Mega Mac” should hit the market just after Lotus introduces its first, rapidly-developed sportscars… and make Lotus’s task of capturing the position of UK’s top sportscar brand much, much harder. Can Lotus make up the difference with branding alone? We’ll sure enjoy watching the battle unfold, as nerdy, product-led, race-tech-happy McLaren takes on splashy, branding-led, glamor-happy Lotus.
Apparently possessing the institutional memory of sperm, the auto media is once again trotting out the 50-year-old rumor that will never die: OMG, the new Corvette is going to be mid-engined! Or, as we are so fond of saying around here, not. The madness started earlier this week, when GM North America boss Mark Reuss blew his dog whistle by hinting that the C7 Corvette would be “completely different.” The media needed no further encouragement to trot out the mid-engine rumor once again. As Paul Niedermeyer has pointed out, the mid-engined ‘vette speculation has been an industry institution since Zora Arkus Duntov posed proudly with his CERV I concept in 1959. Besides, Corvette engineers have been emphasizing the C7’s evolutionary nature for some time. Reuss’s hints could be about something as mundane and pre-signaled as a split rear window, or as out-there as Two-Mode hybrid option. Hoping for more is, I fear, would amount to a failure to learn the lessons of history.
We’ve seen the next-generation of front–drive Mercedes hatchbacks in both heavily-camo’d and concept forms, but now thanks to automobilemagazine.fr [via Auto Motor und Sport], we have what appears to be the first look at a production version of the Mercedes A-Class. From some angles it looks fantastic… while from others, it reminds a little too much of a Subaru Impreza. Either way, Americans won’t have to sweat the details when it comes to this bodystyle, as we will be receiving this chassis only in Coupe, Sedan and CUV format. Still, this vehicle will be of major importance to the Benz brand in nearly every other market around the world. Plus, it’s the first time Daimler has entered into direct competition with Audi’s A3 in the Compact class. And all told, Mercedes seems to have done a fairly effective job at transmitting its rear-drive-oriented design language into the front-drive hatch segment.
This video is now almost exactly two years old, depicting what was likely a relatively early test of the next-generation Porsche 911 (codename:991). Wait for the GTR to come by and a hardtop test mule bearing the Turbo-style side vent decals that identify 991 test mules barrels through the corner before gathering everything up with a well-controlled drift on the exit. It may not break the Clarkson-meter (what do we give it, B&B… maybe 3.5 Clarkson-units?) but it’s not a bad little bit of ass-outery for a test mule. And for comparison, the very latest spy videos of 991 mules (after the jump) show far more poise in fast corners. After all, Porsche doesn’t want to revisit its reputation for tail-happy antics after working so hard (too hard, some might say) to dial out its rear-engine tendencies.
(Read More…)
One of Bertel and my favorite Chinese car blogs, ChinaCarNews, has been reporting since October than the next-generation of MG/Roewe midsized sedans would be based on GM’s Global Midsized (Epsilon II) chassis (which underpins Buick LaCrosse/Regal and the new Chevy Malibu), and now the rest of the media appears to be catching up. From InsideLine to Autocar, everyone’s running with the story that MG/Roewe, which is owned by GM’s main Chinese partner SAIC, is working on an Epsi II-based MG7 for launch in the 2015 timeframe. According to InsideLine
[In 2015], the MG7/Roewe 750 sedan replacement appears some 15 years after the debut of the Rover 75 they’re based on. A coupelike four-door, it uses GM’s Epsilon platform and will be powered by 2.0 and 2.4 four-cylinder gasoline engines and a 1.9 diesel, all with dual-clutch transmissions.
GM and SAIC signed a Memorandum Of Understanding back in October [.DOC file here], which included the provision that, in addition to developing a next-gen electric architecture,
SAIC and GM anticipate sharing an additional vehicle architecture and powertrain application in an effort to help reduce development costs and benefit from economies of scale.
This could explain MG/Roewe’s rumored use of the Epsilon II chassis, but for the moment GM dismisses these rumors as “speculation.” And no wonder: even GM hasn’t announced when it will offer a dual-clutch transmission in its Global Midsized platform. Chances are, The General will want to offer that combination before its Chinese partners use it to beef up its MG/Roewe brands, which have been in product rehab for some time now.
Mazda’s CX-7 and CX-9 are masterpieces of scaled design, distinguishable largely by proportion or badging rather than any real differences in design cues. And, by the looks of this camo’d test mule, Mazda’s forthcoming CX-5 will be yet another CX… just, you know, smaller. But don’t be fooled: the production CX-5 should be one of the first applications of Mazda’s Kodo design language first shown on the Shinari concept. In fact, the Minagi concept has already previewed the CX-5’s use of the new “Japanese Alfa Romeo” aesthetic, but as this hypnotic video proves, the language can go a lot of different directions. At least it will definitely be different… and not in the Cheshire Cat-meets-Pokemon way, either.
There have been a number of important meetings in the auto industry over the last several years that TTAC dearly wishes it could have been a fly on the wall for, including GM’s decision to keep Opel, Fiat’s negotiations with the White House and Saab’s visit to its local payday loan store, to name just a few. But perhaps one of the more interesting boardroom battles of recent years has to be the new VW-Porsche Group’s struggle over how to brand its forthcoming mid-engine sportscar platform which first debuted as the VW BlueSport. Bertel reported last Summer that Porsche, Audi and VW were all bidding for the group’s sportscar development work, but that Porsche was likeliest to emerge with the title.
And it turns out he was right, as Auto Motor und Sport reports that VW has solved the problem by canceling Audi’s planned version of the BlueSport, leaving small mid-engine sportscar efforts in the hands of Porsche and VW. Though the decision makes the BlueSport’s branding challenge quite a bit easier (while cementing the prominence of firms related to Ferdinand Porsche at the expense of the Horch-created Audi brand), it has one less-than-ideal outcome: it removes Audi’s ability to bracket Tesla’s Roadster, a move which would have surely hurt the Silicon Valley upstart. Still, internal politics are more important than obliterating a limited-production competitor… and at least VW has its branding ducks back in one relatively orderly line.
No? Never? Well, technically this isn’t a Buick, but an Opel Astra GTC OPC (at least according to Auto Motor und Sport). And given that Buick is holding off on bringing serious power to its Regal GS (at least until a coupe comes out of Germany), it’s fairly unlikely that they would bring a 290 HP, limited-slip, six-speed hot hatch to the Buick brand any time soon. Or is it? The line for “Mr Euro”-style self-delusion forms here…
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