Finally, somebody in top brass gets it. When CEO Alan Mulally oversaw the development of the Explorer upon taking charge of Ford in 2006, he ordered engineers to cut weight and improve fuel economy, or kill the Explorer altogether. “Alan told us we need to truly reinvent the Explorer,” said product development chief Derrick Kuzak....
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When Chrysler went through its unpleasant bout of restructuring in June of 2009, it shut down 789 dealerships in an effort to reduce its dealer network by 25%. Now, 64 of those dealers are filing suit against the United States Treasury Department, claiming that the government terminated those dealerships and violated the U.S. Constitution. More...
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Volkswagen has unveiled its new Tiguan ahead of its Geneva debut in March. The small SUV gets new front end styling that brings it in line with the rest of the new Volkswagen lineup. The Tiguan also gets three new engines in Europe, for a total of seven: four gasoline engines and three diesels, including...
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Famed design house Bertone, of Lamborghini and Alfa Romeo fame, has given Jaguar a hint of Italian flair with the B 99 concept. Slated to be unveiled at Geneva, advance pictures have leaked and given us an idea of what it’ll look like. The B 99 is what Bertone believes a modern Jaguar should look...
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Factory Five is a company mainly known for their inexpensive, popular Cobra kit cars, but the company has dabbled in original designs more than a few times. Their GTM supercar is a looker with Corvette power, and a rare beast at that. Now the company is expanding their own designs with a mid-engined convertible under...
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Don’t label RUF Automobiles as a mere Porsche tuner. They install enough of their own parts in Porsche bodies to be considered by the German government to be an independent manufacturer. And while Porsche is experimenting with electricity on their own, RUF has beaten them to the punch, with three different electric drivetrains, stuffed in...
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Honda has announced a recall of 700,000 Fits worldwide, with 97,000 in the U.S., for a problem with valvetrain springs, which may break and cause the engine to stall. The recall has caused no injuries so far, yet Honda is taking no chances: the recall covers the Fit, the Freed and the City models across...
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De Tomaso is back! But not with the Pantera, arguably the company’s most legendary model. No, the troubled Italian company, constantly flirting with bankruptcy and liquidation and angry customers, has introduced for Geneva the SLC, a Pininfarina-designed crossover in the mold of the BMW 5-Series GT. Unfortunately, the overall effort is underwhelming; the oddly-proportioned car...
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StarTech, a division of Brabus, is bringing performance and design options for Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles this side of the Atlantic. And if parent company Brabus is any indication, the results will be wild. Or, maybe not as much. So far StarTech’s available packages are larger wheels, suspension lowering and interior trim. The company...
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There are few places in the world where you can get a 5.7-liter V8 for the price of a well-equipped Civic Hybrid. But Chrysler has appealed to cheap truck fans with the Ram Adventurer, a base-model Ram 1500 with the 5.7-liter HEMI V8 for the low, low price of $23,830. Get ’em before they’re gone,...
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Now that Lotus is under the tutelage of Danny Bahar, the company is trying to revamp the Evora, a car many enthusiasts forgot even existed. Lotus’s “Porsche-killer” seats four (two adults and two man-children in the backseat) in the guise of a grand tourer, but sales in North America have been sluggish, to say the...
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In Finland, rally champion Juha Kankkunen has cracked the 200-mph barrier on ice in a Bentley Supersports, setting a new world speed record on ice. Atop the frozen Baltic Sea at temperatures of minus 30 degrees, he drove the AWD, W12-engined, biofuel-powered Bentley Continental Supersports convertible to a record 205.48 mph, which bested his own...
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The Evoque shown above is an attractive, compelling vehicle, designed to attract equally attractive and compelling owners. But its full name is the “Land Rover Range Rover Evoque,” a name straight out the Department Of Redundancy Department, and sure won’t help you attract Victoria Beckham, who helped unveil it back in July of 2010. This...
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Ahead of the Geneva show, BMW has unveiled their first electric vehicle, the ActiveE: a 1-Series coupe that’s good for 170 horsepower, 184 pound-feet of torque, and 100 miles on a single charge. This gives the ActiveE a 0-60 time good for nine seconds. And BMW says the batteries can be fully charged in four...
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In Europe, hot-hatch enthusiasts can enjoy a faster version of the Golf in the form of the GTI, or they can go absolutely mad with the V6-engined, all-wheel drive Golf R32. But while they can also buy the Polo GTI, Volkswagen isn’t so sure about building a quicker and AWD version of the smaller hatch....
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Audi can’t get ’em out the door fast enough. The comapny’s factories are running at full capacity to meet record demand for the A6 sedan and A3 hatchback, forcing buyers to wait an average of three to four months to take delivery. During normal sales periods customers usually take delivery of their cars within eight...
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Five consecutive quarters of being “in the black” has paid off for Jaguar Land Rover. The luxury automaker is set to make over a billion pounds in profit ($1.6 billion) after strong sales around the world, especially in Asia. In the last three months of 2010, the company netted a record profit of $440 million. Just...
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Saab is planning to show off four new models at the Geneva Auto Show, including an all-new hatchback concept that will help put the company back to its five-door (or three-door) roots. The four-car range will feature the 9-5 SportCombi wagon, which was previously teased and will debut at Geneva. There will be the 2012...
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Tesla is making a big name for themselves. As if the Model S and and Roadster weren’t enough, the battery-powered company is planning to introduce more models to their lineup: the Model X, as they plan to call it, will be an electric crossover based on the same architecture as developed by Lotus, the Versatile...
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