A concept car is a car prototype made to showcase a new vehicle’s styling, technology, and overall design before production. They are often shown at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not have a chance of being produced.
BMW is starting to explain itself with the development of its Progressive Activity Sedan (PAS), which is good because we’ve been having a little trouble placing the car in the lineup. We know it will be 5-Series based, but we’re still trying to figure out the need for the car. It seems like we’re not the only ones, so BMW put together a little fun animation as a preview to what we presume is a Mercedes R-Class competitor.
One of the biggest mysteries that still remain is what will BMW call it? PAS? P6? 5-Series GT?
Following up Bentley’s recent 50-year celebration of the legendary 6.75-liter V-8, the company is readying a all-new model powered by biofuel. Currently, the car is known simply as the Extreme Bentley and it will debut in March at the Geneva Motor Show. While Bentley’s current top-performance car, Bentley Continental GT, puts out 600 horsepower and 553 lb-ft of torque, Bentley says its new car will be the company’s “fastest, most powerful car ever” – those are some pretty big words if you ask us. More importantly though, the new biofuel-powered car is just the first phase in an initiative Bentley plans to spread across its lineup by 2012 with a goal to reduce carbon emissions of its overall fleet by 15 percent and, with an advanced new powertrain, help cut fuel consumption by up to 40 percent.
The Extreme Bentley sports a unique, but instantly recognizable Bentley design – briefly revealed in a teaser video Bentley showed on its Web site. Up front, the quad lamps and large mesh grille reflect the look of the Arnage, Azure, Brooklands and Continental, while the long hood and swept roofline should give the car an aggressive stance. The Extreme Bentley will mark the first flex fuel Bentley vehicle to which Bentley believes that bioethanol fuels, such as E85 in the United States, will become a sustainable and ethical alternative fossil fuels in the future. Short of the electric-powered Tesla Roadster, the Extreme Bentley, being such a powerful car that also takes the environment into consideration, should revolutionize luxury sport cars.
We’ve been suspecting that Opel would get its own version of the Chevrolet Volt ever since we first knew General Motors was adapting the car for production. It only makes sense that GM would spread the large development expenses to a continent where fuel costs more and is more eco-conscious than the U.S. Now we have official word that the first glimpse of Opel’s Volt, now called the Ampera, will be shown at the Geneva Motor Show in March.
From the supplied teaser image, the front has some obvious linage to the Flextreme concept as well as a little bit of the Insignia. The slice of the side profile that’s exposed also shows the car’s Volt roots. GM spent a lot of time in the wind tunnel with the Volt’s body, so it doesn’t need to start from scratch with the Opel version.
Just like the Volt, the Ampera will be a four-seat, five-door hatchback. It uses the same electric propulsion system, now called Voltec. The Ampera will be an electric-only car for journeys up to 60 km (about 40 miles), after that a an internal combustion engine will supplement the car to extend the range.
What still remains a little bit of a mystery until Geneva will be what kind of internal combustion engine will the Opel use. Although the Volt will use a gasoline engine, GM Europe has a wide range of diesels that may be attractive to eco-minded buyers. Also there has not been any recharge times given for the Ampera’s lithium-ion battery pack. Because most of Europe uses 230v outlets (compared to standard 110v units in the U.S.,) we suspect the charge time should be close to three hours.
We first saw computer images of the Savage Rivale Roadyacht GTS this summer, and like many cars that have been announced but not yet seen, we were a little skeptical it would see the light of day. But there may be real progress on this sports car from the Netherlands. The company announced that fully operational prototype will be revealed at Top Marques Monaco in April.
The Savage Rivale Roadyacht GTS is a four-door, four-person, sports car designed to be placed between a roomy GT and a fast supercar. The body is said to be made of carbon fiber, but the suspension and drivetrain may be a little more conventional. It is powered by a front mounted GM-sourced LS7 supercharged V8 which develops 601 bhp and over 550 lb. ft. of torque. This is mated to an automatic transmission mounted toward the rear of the car driving the rear wheels. This sounds a lot like the Chevrolet Corvette Z06’s running gear with a supercharger added.
While we don’t have any more information about production possibilities (we can still dream, right?), we do have a better view of what it will play in the movie. So all the Transformers fans click the picture in this post and take a good look at Sideswipe. It’s time to start some speculation.
