With the debut of Audi’s A7 Sportback, and a BMW four-door GranCoupe coming in 2012, it’s clear that the four-door coupe segment is here to stay. At least in Europe. This year Mercedes is coming back into the segment swinging, with an updated CLS shown here in the first leaked official images [via Autocar]. But will the four-door coupes ever make serious headway in the US market? In the last 12 months, the CLS has sold fewer than 2,000 examples in the US market. VW’s Passat CC on the other hand has sold 29,114 units in the last 12 months, more than double the volume of the regular Passat. What does this say about four-door coupes in the US market? Probably that their sales depend heavily on the appeal of their sedan versions: Mercedes sedans have become handsome enough to make the CLS look overstyled, while the CC offers much-needed visual flair to the otherwise-anodyne Passat. But will the segment grow as BMW and Audi wade in?
How does a brand built on small, fun, efficient city cars build up to its inevitable first-ever SUV? Apparently the answer is very little. MINI’s seems to be aiming its forthcoming Countryman squarely at current MINI owners, with the first US market ads portraying the Countryman as little more than a MINI Cooper with four doors and All-Wheel-Drive (as opposed to Subaru-style outdoor lifestyle marketing). In other words, it’s not so much a Countryman as a city hipster with a flair for rural evangelism. But are four doors, AWD and a “sliding center rail” enough to bring new buyers into the fold? There’s almost no doubt that the Countryman will be a hot fashion item for a while, but the world’s first Austrian-built MINI is going to face high prices, weak power in the base spec (1.6 liters moving over 3k lbs), and intra-brand anti-SUV snobbery. On the plus side, it’s apparently very hip.
In its first public appearance, the Porsche 918 Spyder prototype delivers an aural experience that its cousin, the GT3 R Hybrid, just can’t match. In fact, at this point it’s probably safe to say that the 918 is already the best-sounding hybrid yet created.
Jeep’s Grand Cherokee has earned consistently positive reviews by maintaining its off-road capability and nailing one of the few untouched crossover market positions between mass-market minivan replacements and high-end luxury SUVs. Does that mean the Dodge version, which will bear the Durango nameplate, will be similarly received? Not necessarily. Expected to be less off-road capable than its Jeep cousin, the Durango will compete head-to-head with the new Ford Explorer, GM’s Lambda juggernaut, and a pack of established mid-large CUV competitors. The Durango will also be the toughest trial yet for the tortured relationship between Dodge and the ostensibly spun-off Ram brand, as the Durango has traditionally resembled the Ram off which it used to be based (need proof? Dodge is calling the Durango a “three-row performance SUV”). On the positive side of the Durango’s balance sheet: an optional Hemi engine. Sure, the Grand Cherokee offers that too, but the Jeep brand doesn’t get to call it a Hemi. Now that’s what you call differentiation!
OK, so we’ve been convinced that the re-born “Lancia Stratos” isn’t just a photoshop… but honestly, we wish it was. Because then the autoblogosphere might not have spent half the week running silly headlineslike “It’s Real!” and “Headed To Production!” and “My Sophisticated Appreciation For The Iconic Lancia Stratos Just Got All Over My Favorite Pair Of Blogging Sweatpants!” The reason that these headlines need to stop are simple: 1) Nobody will ever see this car on the road, 2) it will never be offered for sale, 3) It’s not even a freaking Lancia and 4) the entire story is so knee-deep in bullshit that it’s amazing anyone pays even the remotest bit of attention to it. And since we’re speaking truth to fanboyishness, I’ll just go ahead and say it : nobody actually wants a Lancia Stratos anyway… and even if they did, they certainly wouldn’t want this new one. Yes, you heard me.
In the last installment of our New Or Used? series, Sajeev, Steve and our Best and Brightest teamed up to help a reader find the modern equivalent of a Volkswagen Microbus. Because answers were limited to US-market vehicles, this CrossTouran wouldn’t have made the cut, but in a perfect world, this might just have been the car our reader was looking for. But with a starting price of €27,700 ($35k) for a 105 HP version, it’s still missing the kind of US-market appeal that might tempt VW planners to send it stateside… especially with the more American-friendly Tiguan starting at $23k, and the more off-road-capable Touareg going for about $40k. But if a small, AWD van is what you’re looking for, there is an automaker willing to take a risk on your peculiar tastes: the next-gen Mazda5 may not be a looker, but it’s said to come with an AWD option when it debuts in the US early next year.
TTAC’s writers don’t always agree with each other, but we can’t help but rub off on each other a little bit. After all, as our Jack Baruth puts it, “great artists steal.” Lately we’ve been treated to a tour of Jack’s love-haterelationshipwith thePorsche brand in his take on Paul Niedermeyer’s “Deadly Sins” series. And if the latest news on Porsche’s product plans [via Auto Motor und Sport] are anything to go on, we can probably expect more Baruthian takedowns of Zuffenhausen’s flights of fancy going forward.
Sometimes I miss Bob Lutz so much it hurts. First we’re teased with rumors of a Cadillac flagship and now this: a Zeta-based Buick flagship that’s the spiritual successor to the 1996 Buick Roadmaster. The news is exciting, even if it lacks the panache of a Lutzian rear-wheel-drive screed. But you have to read a little deeper for the real punch line.
A Chevrolet Spark concept set to debut at the Paris Auto Show shows a typical US-market subcompact in its natural environment… as imagined by a couple of particularly unimaginative Daewoo product planners. Anybody miss the PT Cruiser yet? [via Jalopnik]
Just because I want to believe doesn’t mean I should. Or that I can. Even by the gonzo standards of 1970s Italy, the Stratos was always a wild one… precisely the kind of car that has no obvious place in the homogenized, safety-crazed world of 21st Century automobiles. Besides, Lancia and Chrysler are becoming two names for the same brand, and it’s tough to imagine a Chrysler Stratos ever coming stateside (if only to avoid the “Cloud Car” associations). Besides, if Fiat is keeping Alfa around as a sporty brand, why would it develop a Lancia sportscar? Other than Old GM-style branding confusion, of course. But the least believable part of these pictures, purportedly showing a Stratos prototype testing at a Fiat test track [via Italiaspeed] are the photos themselves… and the story going along with them.
The idea behind the Automotive X-Prize was to prove that 100 MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) is attainable in practical, daily-driver-type cars. And with competition moving into the final stage, 15 cars are still in the running. But how good are those cars actually? With only $10m in prize money, the X-Prize attracted few established OEMs to the competition, and as a result only a single car has made it through to the finals in the Mainstream class. This class was the main focus of the competition, as its requirement that each car “must seat at least four passengers, have four wheels, and have a minimum 200 mile range” meant Mainstream entries could be alternatives to “real cars.” Instead, the competition is being dominated by the “Alternative” class (two passengers, 100 miles range and any amount of wheels), which was included to open the competition smaller teams. And despite the fact that most of the entries had few restrictions on their designs, you might assume that they have performed impressively. The numbers, however, paint a very different picture. (Read More…)
Our Korea-based contributor Walter Foreman already suspected that the new Hyundai Avante might be one of the world’s first mass-market compact car with a self-parking feature (similar systems are offered on the Toyota Prius and Euro-market VW Golf), and this video proves that he was dead right. What’s still not clear is whether self-parking is standard on the new Avante (launching August 2 in Korea), or whether it will be offered when it comes stateside as either the 2011 or 2012 Elantra. This would be the ultimate challenge for such technology, as legal concerns allegedly kept Volkswagen’s pioneering system out of the US. Still, Hyundai had the cojones to equip its mass-market C-segment car with technology that just a few years ago was available only on the Lexus LS. That’s exactly the kind of decision that has Hyundai raising eyebrows across the industry.
With Audi’s A7 four-door coupe making waves at its release yesterday, the segment-defining Mercedes CLS just had to remind the world that its successor is on the way. Accordingly, these photos of the 2012 CLS have hit Autoexpress, granting the internet its first look at the redesigned not-quite-coupe. And though there’s definitely some Audi-inspired headlight gizmology going on with the new CLS, the overall design doesn’t seem to pop quite as dramatically as the A7. Perhaps it’s because the E-Class is already a quite handsome sedan (especially by recent M-B standards), or maybe Mercedes is saving the visual drama for a planned five-door coupe-wagon version. Either way, it’s difficult to see the CLS dominating the segment it invented going forward.
No, this has nothing to do with a Hollywood blockbuster… we think the new Avante/Elantra could be the first self-parking mass-market compact car. Take a closer look at the now infamous video clip of men in suits trying to park the next-generation Hyundai Avante. The first 20 seconds clearly show the driver’s hands on the steering wheel. After that however, the audience never gets a clear view of the cockpit. Someone is either obstructing the camera or the scene cuts away. When we do happen to catch a glimpse of the steering wheel (at 00:25 for example), it appears to move on its own. Granted, the driver could be grasping the wheel at the six o’clock position, out of view of the camera, but I think there’s something more to the situation than that.
Audi has just revealed its new A7 Sportback, a “four-door coupe” in the European fashion that slots between Audi’s A6 and A8 sedans. The A7 will debut in Europe this fall, starting around €50,000, and will likely launch in the US sometime next year with the S4’s 3.0 supercharged V6 making 300hp. Which makes the A7 something of a larger S4 (or smaller A8) for fashion victims, a general strategy Audi largely got right with its A5 Sportback. The big question going into today’s reveal: would Audi’s stylists be able to pen a distinctive enough vehicle to differentiate the A7 from its closely-packed siblings. Based on our first peek, we’d say they pretty much pulled it off, as the A7 looks sharp enough to hang with the Jaguars, Panameras and Quattroportes of the world. But just how many sales will be pulled into Audi by a cab-rearward take on the A8’s perhaps overly-bland looks still remains very much to be seen.
Recent Comments