Americans have long dreamed of the day when Aston Martin would begin to send over their beautiful super cars over to local shores. But for so long, the closest most Americans have come to seeing an Aston Martin is on those flimsy James Bond movies.
Well, according to our friends at Car and Driver, that may not hold true for very long.
Dr. Ulrich Bez, Aston Martin’s CEO, announced that Aston Martin will be coming to the US with no less than the Aston Martin V12 Vantage spearheading the excursion across the Atlantic.
If you recall, Aston Martin initially scoffed at plans of bringing the DB9, mainly because it feared that the ultra-fast – and ultra-expensive – super car would not be able to make enough sales to make it worth the trouble. But now that the auto industry has began to pick up again, Aston Martin decided to do an about-face, which is fantastic news for us super-car-loving Americans.
While there’s still no timetable as to when the Vantage would make its way to America, hearing it from the horse’s mouth that it’s is coming should be enough reason for us to thank the high heavens for answering our prayers.
Have you ever seen a basketball game on High-Definition? If you have, then you must have noticed the sweat dripping from the foreheads of all those basketball players, not to mention those over-sized zits and acnes some players still have.
For better or for worse, that’s the novelty that is HD. If you’re looking for unheard of levels of realism from your TV, then HD is for you.
Now, imagine watching a rally car race on High Definition. Imagine all the dust and dirt being thrown around by those rally cars jumping over dirt mounds and spiralling out of control in the process. We’ll tell you now: its must-see TV.
If you haven’t seen a rally car race on HD yet, here’s your chance.
Beginning on the 4th of October the Discovery Channel’s HD Theater will become the new home of the World Rally Championship for the next two and a half months.
What this means is that you can now have a ‘front-couch’ seat at the
pulse-pounding, gravel-throwing, car-flying action that is the WRC. To give you an appetizer of one you’re in for, HD theater will be showing six non-stop hours of rally racing from 3 pm to 9 pm ET this Saturday. The schedule continues with a race every Sunday from 8 pm to 9 pm ET until December 20.
If you’re a fan of rally car racing – or any form of racing, for that matter – we don’t have to tell you twice to subscribe to the HD Theater. If you’re thinking of doing so, but you don’t have an HDTV, then we suggest you buy one first.
Click after the jump for the official press release, including the TV schedule.
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The California based Fisker Automotive corporation has just been granted a sizable loan from the U.S. Government that will rapidly facilitate the automaker’s full scale production of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The U.S. Department of Energy has signed off on and agreed to the terms of a conditional totaling over half a billion dollars so that Henrik Fisker’s car company can create affordable, fuel efficient hybrid electric vehicles that are made right here in the U.S.A. The $528,000,000 loan will also allow Fisker Automotive CEO, Henrik Fisker to create at least 5,000 jobs for autoworkers right here in the U.S.
If only General Motors and Chrysler had lineups as desirable as Henrik Fisker’s then perhaps the U.S. Government would have been a bit more eager to step in and help out with their financial needs. It is no doubt that fuel efficient gas electric hybrids are going to be the next generation of personal transportation and it is confidence inspiring that there is an automaker who not only believes in the future, but also believes that we don’t have to sacrifice fun in order to save fuel.
Most car manufacturers who go to the Frankfurt Motor Show probably have one thing on their minds: make an impression with your new cars. While that is, of course, what the purpose of auto shows are, sometimes, a car brand is fortunate enough to leave Frankfurt with something more than they expected. Take the case of Tesla, for example.
The California-based electric sports car brand came to Frankfurt without the faintest idea that they would find a company willing to spend $82.5 million to become an equity investor in Tesla. But that’s exactly what happened after a group led by Fjord Capital Partners approached Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk with regards to purchasing equities in the brand.
Not one to turn a good deal down, Musk accepted the offer, saying that “It was an opportunistic investment. We were not looking for money.”
Now armed with a sweet sum of $82.5 million, Musk plans to use the ‘added finances’ to expand the brand’s global retail stores.
We don’t know about you, but we believe that things happen for a reason – whether it’s pre-determined or just by sheer luck – and Tesla’s appearance at the Frankfurt Motor Show ended up with the company becoming $82.5 million dollars richer.
After the recent unveilings of the XJ and XF saloons, Jaguar is now looking at releasing a car that would cater to a more affordable-friendly market.
This comes as great news for Jaguar enthusiasts who may not be able to afford the more expensive new releases. According to Jaguar engineering boss Mick Mohan, the company is tinkering with the possibility of producing a coupe version that could go wheel-to-wheel with the Audi A5 and the BMW 3-series.
In a conversation with Autocar, Mohan let it be known that the company plans on entering a market that would compete with the BMW’s and Audi’s of the world and that it is confident that whatever car they create would be competitive against its more established competitors.
"Personally, I’d love to make a compact coupe - an Audi a5 or BMW 3-series coupe rival,” he said. > More
If you have a Maybach parked in your garage, you may want to take extra care of it, especially now that Mercedes bigwig Deiter Zetsche recently admitted that the luxury brand of Mercedes may not be seeing too many sunrises in the foreseeable future.
Speaking to a group of reporters at the Frankfurt Motor Show, Zetsche pointed out that the Maybach may soon end up in the chopping blocks because of a shift in consumer preference in luxury cars resulting from the global financial crisis.
While he stopped short of officially saying that the Maybach was indeed going to be axed, he did say that as a consumer, a Maybach would be far off the list in terms of preferred luxury cars, given that the market has slowly shifted into preferring more modest and discreet luxury vehicles, which is a category we all know the Maybach doesn’t fall in.
In any event, this is still pretty much a rumor, but we do have to admit that it doesn’t bode well for Maybach, especially after all of this was started by one of the company’s bosses.
We’re hoping that we’ve seen the worst out of this global economic crisis. After all, the entire auto industry seems to have suffered enough, don’t you think?
But you can’t say that the economic woes have put a leash on people’s interest in the Rolls Royce Ghost.
According to Tom Purves, Rolls Royce’s CEO, the 2010 Ghost has generated over 1,200 interested customers – a surprising number even for the standards of Rolls Royce’s ‘mini-Phantom’ sedan.
It’s easy to see why Rolls Royce is ecstatic over the interest the Ghost is generating considering the recession is far from finished. But then again, in a time like this, good news becomes great news and great news becomes ecstatic celebrations.
While Purves acknowledges that the general level of interest for the Ghost is more than what they expected, the company nevertheless remains cautiously optimistic, that they can build on car’s strong reception.
"We’re not convinced we’re out of this recession yet," he says. "We know what we’re going to build in the next three months, then we’ll take it quarter by quarter from there."
In any event, Rolls Royce is expected to make around 2000 Ghost models per year and if the interest for the car is any indication, we’re thinking that we’ll be seeing a lot of Ghosts our on the road soon.
We’re taking a break from all the hoopla surrounding the Frankfurt Motor Show to give some bit of good news to all Audi enthusiasts in America.
Boys and girls, the Audi A1 is headed to the US.
That news comes according to Peter Schwarzenbauer, head of Audi’s sales division. The decision to bring the A1 to the US came as a result of the company’s intent to give the MINI some stiff competition in the American market. Incidentally, MINI is owned by BMW – Audi’s local rival in Germany – so it was pretty much easy to put two and two together.
If you don’t know, Audi has set its sights on global auto domination by 2015 so its staking all efforts in ensuring that it surpasses heated rivals BMW and Mercedes in all the important global auto markets, the biggest of which, is, of course, the US.
Truth be told, Audi has a tall order in front of it if it wants to overcome Mercedes and BMW in America, especially when you consider the strong market hold BMW has in the US.
But then again, you don’t get to the top without having to work for it; so you can expect that the Audi A1 won’t be the last Audi to be released in the US in the coming future.
BMW’s exit from Formula One has paved the road for the return of one of its old racing teams, Lotus.
In announcement made by the FIA, the sanctioning body of Formula One said that the famous brand’s return to the F1 stage resulted in the empty slot vacated by BMW Sauber, despite the fact that Sauber is still interested in procuring a team of its own for the 2010 season.
While Sauber’s official application generating good reviews from the Paris-based federation, the team is optimistic that it can return to F1 as the 14th and final team in the grid.
For the record, the rulebooks only allow for a maximum of 13 teams and Sauber’s stature as ‘team no. 14’ is still subject to change, depending on how the other teams are open to having 28 cars for next year.
As far as Lotus is concerned, the team has tied-up with a Malaysian F1 outfit – 1 Malaysia F1 Team – and will be powered by a Cosworth engine. The team’s principal is expected to be Tony Fernandes and joining him as technical director would be Mike Gascoyne.
For those who don’t know, Fernandes is the incumbent CEO of AirAsia, which, coincidentally, is a current sponsor of the Williams team.
Sometimes, patience does pay off in the end. After years of waiting, all of us can now giddy-up in excitement after hearing news that Mazda is now set to bring the Mazda 2 in North America.
The news was revealed by no less than Jim O’Sullivan, president and CEO of Mazda’s North American operations. In a statement he said to a number of Mazda dealerships across the continent, O’Sullivan said that after years of evaluating the shifting markets in the region, now looked like the best time to introduce the compact vehicle to a market that has long starved to see it out on the roads.
"As consumers’ tastes and attitudes toward small vehicles have changed, we now believe strongly there is a place in our lineup for a car below our current least-expensive car, the Mazda 3,” he said.
“The Mazda 2 will be true to everything that makes our cars stand apart from the competition: it will be stylish, fun-to-drive and a heck of a value. In short, it will be Zoom-Zoom."
Zoom-Zoom, indeed.
Off the bat, we’re already excited about the Mazda 2’s impending arrival on North American soil and we certainly can’t wait for the 2009 LA Motor Show later this year. Why, you ask?
Well, a certain car from Japan will be zoom-zooming its way to the show. Care to venture a guess what it is?
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