Now that the fuel efficient Japanese automaker Toyota has officially announced that the FT-86 Concept will bring the highly anticipated AE-86 successor to life, we are eager to see what the other half of the Toyobaru alliance has planned for the new sport compact. We know that Subaru must have some iteration of the new two door sports coupe awaiting in the in the wings and the rumors are saying that their in house tuner Subaru Technica International is working on something special for 2011.
While the Toyota is powered by a gas sipping 2.0 Liter flat four that makes 150 HP, the STI version will be powered by Subaru’s 2.5 Liter EJ25 turbocharged boxer engine that will be tuned to around 250 HP. It is also expected that the new car’s design will be heavily inspired by the current Impreza WRX STI with wider front and rear fenders to house wider rubber and an increased track along with an STI tuned suspension as well as a unique front bumper and a bespoke rear wing.
As a short reminder, the Flash Red FT-86 Concept is inspired by the Toyota Corolla based AE-86 sports coupe from the 1980s. The car’s rear wheel drive layout, lightweight construction and economy car status made it the vehicle of choice for both grip and drift drivers alike and is one of the few cars today that is worth more currently than it did when it rolled out of the showroom.
Beetle fans, mark your calendars for 2012!
What’s so important about 2012, you ask? Well, according to Stefan Jacoby, CEO and president of Volkswagen Group of America, that’s the year when the latest incarnation of the transcendent car will be released.
In addition to his bold proclamation that the new Beetle is set to arrive in 2012, Jacoby also promises that it will be more spacious than any other Beetle Volkswagen’s ever released.
Whether that means that the venerable car will come in a bigger package is not far out of the question now, especially when you take into account that the Beetle has always been considered a classic compact car.
For a while now, Volkswagen has made it known of its goal to become the biggest car manufacturer in the world and the impending release of the new Beetle should validate VW’s intentions of global auto domination.
With the new Beetle set to lead the charge, VW is making an extra effort to cater to the comments of Beetle-holics regarding the rather cramped rear seats of the last generation Beetle.
As one of the most iconic cars in the history of the world, it’s hard to think of another vehicle that holds the same passionate following as that of the Beetle. So you can bet that if VW has any plans of overtaking the Toyotas and GMs of the world, they’re ambitions rest on how the public reacts to the new Beetle.
From the looks of things, it seems that VW understands all the concerns and are working tirelessly to create a new Beetle that will carry on the legacy of its predecessors.
The recent unveiling of the Mercedes Benz SLS AMG Gullwing has been met with universal acclaim, so much so that talks of future Mercedes models being modeled after the car has began to circulate in and around a number of auto circles.
While nothing has been confirmed, it hasn’t stopped people from speculating as to whether the rumors have any weight on them. One car that’s been the subject of this constant speculation has been the next-generation Mercedes-Benz SLK, the brand’s ultra-chic compact hardtop-roadster. According to some people, the new SLK will bear styling similarities to that of the SLS AMG Gullwing and some others have – think creative visual artists – even gone to greath lengths to create a rendering of what they expect the new SLK will look like.
One such artist that has created his own take on the new SLK is Theophilus Chin with his work already being touted as a ‘mini SLS AMG Roadster’. Check out the photos and see for yourself Chin’s take on what the new SLK would look like.
The Volkswagen Golf is another iconic shape from Germany. The original Rabbit started the hot hatch craze as well as giving the tuner car market a boost. Just like its high performance cousin the 911, the practical Volkswagen continues to become larger, heavier and more sophisticated. With the brand new MkVI Golf scheduled to arrive in the U.S. as a 2010 model, all while European drivers have been scooting around in one of the world’s best loved hatchbacks since this past January. However it looks as if the sleeker five door hatchback may be short lived. According to the automotive sleuths at Auto Express, because they have already found official images of what the soon to be seventh generation Golf and it might just surprise you as to exactly who they came from.
AE is claiming that these are official images leaked onto the web by none other than Volkswagen themselves. This is not as far fetched a plan as you may think. After a few extra attentive hyper milers caught a few designers working one something interesting in the background of the “New Volkswagen L1 Concept Car Design Package” (after the jump) Internet video. At exactly 4:36, a trio of designers are working on a clay model of an even sleeker hatchback with sharper lines and bolder fenders. It just so happens that these new images reflect the cues of that model very closely. So perhaps knowing that the jig was up, VW simply decided to beat all the spy photographers and computer aided imagineers to the punch by releasing it themselves.
If this is the case and the Golf VII has already taken shape, you can expect that what we here in the U.S. are looking forward to might be short lived in order to make space in showrooms for what you are looking at. However if the German automotive conglomerate continues to do business as usual we will have to wait until the European market has had their fun with the new car before U.S. drivers can have a go behind the wheel. Even if the Golf VII is slated for a 2012 release, it may not arrive in the U.S. until as late as 2014, giving the new 2010 Golf VI a few years to shine in the spotlight on Volkswagen of America’s sales sheets.
New Volkswagen L1 Concept Car Design Package video after the jump.
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When top-flight auto executives say something, a lot of us generally stop and pay attention.
So when Jim O’Donnell, BMW North America’s CEO, said that the next generation 6-Series, which will be launched in 2011, will be “the best-looking BMW in year”, then we have to stand up and take notice.
O’Donnell’s comment came from an interview with Automobile Magazine where he boldly proclaimed that the next-in-line 6 series will veer away from past designs and will look nothing like any of its predecessors. Although he expects to see a radically different 6 series, O’Donnell mentioned that the car will pretty much carry the same dimensions as that of the current model. Apart from that, the design of the car is anyone’s guess.
O’Donnell did not divulge any more out of fear of giving away too much too soon. But before doing so, he did say that the next-gen 6 series will be “super sleek.”
If we take what he said for what it’s worth, it would be hard to bet against BMW coming up with something we’ve never seen before, especially after they pretty much floored a lot of us with what they showed at Frankfurt last month, including the jaw-dropping BMW Vision EfficientDynamics concept car.
The overwhelmingly positive response of the ‘Jetsons-esque’ Vision EfficientDynamics may have given BMW the shot in the arm it has long waited for.
Due to the glorious feedback generated by the concept car, BMW is not tinkering with the idea of bringing back the M1 by 2012 where it would be based on the 2+2 coupe concept of the Vision EfficientDynamics.
The rumoured M1 will also come with the same hybrid powertrain that comes with the Vision EfficientDynamics concept, a sign that BMW may be more serious than anyone ever thought about the its efforts in becoming more eco-friendly.
In the event that it does use the hybrid powertrain, the M1 will be expected to carry a 1.5-liter three-cylinder engine that comes with an electric motor. The power output expected to come out of this set-up is expected to reach as much as 350 horsepower and 600 Nm of torque.
As far as aesthetics are concerned, we’re not expecting the M1 to look remotely close to that of the Vision EfficientDynamics concept, although we are anticipating that BMW will take a few styling cues from the concept and adapt it to the M1. After all, what’s the point of basing the car to the concept if it won’t have any resemblance to it?
In any event, if this supposed reincarnation of the M1 is all BMW says it would be, then we can expect it to generate the same type of reaction the Vision EfficientDynamics concept got in Frankfurt. And that’s going to be great news for the boys of BMW.
Photos courtesy of Fox Syndication
There is an ever popular trend amongst future automotive designers of developing ideas based along an established automaker’s lines. Take this Honda RA-X concept for example, although it looks like the sporty offspring of an Acura NSX and a Honda Fit it didn’t come from a Japanese design studio but instead from the mind of Spanish car designer Xuacu Pérez. If you follow the link below you will see Xuacu’s previous concept, the Lotus Excite a compact English sports car with a 21st century appeal.
The Honda RA-X looks like it is setting a speed record even when it is standing still. The forward leaning passenger compartment pushes the shape forward, while the wrap around windscreen and muscular kink in the C-Pillar make the RA-X look like a helmet poking out of a racecar cutting through the air, just like a GT-R. This could be a nod towards the Japanese sports car’s RA nameplate, the same two letters that were assigned to Honda’s Formula One cars in the 1960s. The F1 inspired name could also attest to the Spanish concept’s oversized wheels being pushed to the far corners of the body and quartet of trumpets that spit spent gasses out the back of the RA300 just like the horizontal exhaust pipes that poke out from the tail of the concept, just like the wingless wonder from 1967.
Being a road car the RA-X trades the open air experience of the vintage F1 car for a closed cockpit 21st century thrill. The body itself would act as a wing, producing enough down force with all its bold curves to reach over 250 MPH, following the same low drag design philosophy that made the NSX a serious super car competitor, the RA-X’s proposed 400 HP mid engine layout. However if Xuacu wants this futuristic Honda to come to fruition, we suggest figuring out a place to add some electric motors to the concept and win over a few more green fans.
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It hasn’t been a month yet since the Ferrari 458 Italia made its world debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show and now, there are talks that Ferrari is already hard-at-work in coming up with a Spider version for the Italia.
In an interview down with Quattrorute, an Italian car magazine, Ferrari top dog Luca di Montezemolo said that the 458 Spider is already in the works, although he also said that fans of Scuderia shouldn’t expect to see any vestiges of the soft-top 458 for at least a few more years.
Nevertheless, it’s always better to hear the news straight out of the mouth of the man who makes all the decisions in Ferrari so having Luca di Montezemolo say it should squash all those rumors about the 458 Italia Spider.
In the same interview, Montezomolo also announced that anybody who has made orders for the 458 Italia should expect their prized super car to show up on their driveways early next year.
Along with the rest of the automotive industry, the German luxury car builder BMW announced that they are planning to follow a recipe of downsizing and turbo charging their vehicle’s power plants in an attempt to meet the stringent Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations that have been set forth by the U.S. Government stating that every automaker’s lineup must have an average fuel economy of 35 MPG by 2015. It was at last week’s Frankfurt Motor show that BMW North America CEO, Jim O’Donnell spoke with Automotive News about the automaker’s plans to sell four cylinder equipped vehicles in the U.S. by 2012.
The innovative German automaker sees the use of BMW’s next generation turbocharger technology along with smaller displacement engines as a way of generating output levels on par with today’s engines but with much greater fuel mileage and much less emissions. The CAFE regulations state that automakers must improve the fuel economy of their fleets by 5 percent every year leading up to the national standard of 35.5 MPG for the 2016 model year.
Across the pond, BMW already sells a European 3 Series with a four cylinder power plant under the hood, the automaker’s hope is that America will be just as accepting because they are planning on downsizing the drive trains of the next generation 3 Series as well as the X1 and X3 compact sports activity vehicles. O’Donnell sounds hopeful, saying “we see potentially a significant market that could get to 100,000 four cylinder engines” in the U.S. of course. If everything goes according to the automaker’s plans, then the Germans should be good by the year 2012, three years before the deadline set by Congress. Hopefully that will leave them some time to come up with a true 2002 tii successor.
BMW statement after the jump.
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The crew from Car and Driver spotted the real live BMW Vision EfficientDynamics concept car in front of the BMW Welt Delivery Center in Munich just outside the German based car company’s headquarters a short while ago. Up until now we have only been privy to teasers, renderings and factory stills; but this photo gives the vehicle the sense of being a real car, and that is because it is.
The BMW Vision EfficientDynamics is a 2+2-seater plug-in hybrid model powered by a 1.5 Liter three cylinder turbo diesel engine that produces 163 HP and 214 lb-ft of torque that is combined with two electric motors mated to a DTC gearbox to produce a very efficient sports car. All three power generators work together to deliver a maximum output of 356 HP and a peak 590 lb-ft of torque while fuel consumption is reduced to a very impressive 75.1 MPG. That much economical power allows the BMW Vision EfficientDynamics to sprint from 0 to 60 MPH in just 4.8 seconds and reach top speed of 155 MPH.
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