Swiss automaker Rinspeed has released some pictures and details on their upcoming UC? electric car.
Tag Archives: Fiat
Car of the Year Nominees: Part 2
Continuing with Car of the Year nominees, here’s the second part. Family Car of the Year and Cheap Car of the Year are here.
Family Car of the Year
This is where we choose the ideal car for people with big families. Lots of space is an absolute must.
Fiat Doblo: Looks great, seats plenty of people, and it’s quite economical as well.
Toyota Sienna: The looks are a bit iffy in some places, but it promises sporty handling with a comfortable ride, great interior, and plenty of room.
Volvo XC60: A good looking car with a great, spacious interior. Very safe as well.
Vauxhall/Opel Insignia Sports Tourer: New Vauxhalls/Opels have said good bye to their old, conservative, ugly ancestors and buried them in the middle of nowhere. As a result they now make good cars and this good looking estate Insignia is one of them
Dacia Duster: A funky looking car with plenty of space, promising a low price tag.
Citroen C3 Picasso: Funky Citroen looks, with plenty of practicality and a reasonable price.
Cheap Car of the Year
These are cars for those of us who don’t want to, or simply can’t, spend too much money. Price range we set is $25,000 CAD and under.
Renault Twingo: A nice looking car with good handling and interior. Comes in a fantastic Renaultsport trim too.
Ford Fiesta: Ford has launched the new Fiesta hatch in 2008 in Europe but not in North America so we actually found an excuse to nominate it as it is a very, very good supermini.
Volkswagen Polo: This small, German hatchback has actually won the European Car of the Year Award, but that’s not important, as now it faces the most important test ever: Will it be our Cheap Car of the Year?
VW buys 19.9% of Suzuki, announces new partnership
Volkswagen, now the biggest car producer in the world, is set to start a new partnership with the guys from Suzuki.
Subaru to Make Rally Comeback
The Japanese manufacturer Subaru has entered next year’s IRC – International Rally Championship. However, they will not register any factory teams but instead will allow privateers running Subaru’s in the championship to score manufacturer points. Alongside Fiat, Honda, Mitsubishi, Peugeot, Proton, Skoda and Volkswagen from next year we will be finding Subaru there as well, making them the 8th team in the championship. After their WRC withdrawal, Subaru hasn’t had a factory team in any other rally championship but they now claim that the IRC is the way to go: “The IRC provides an ideal arena to develop our customer competition activities. With approximately 1000 Subaru cars rallying around the world, this is a great opportunity for our customers.” said Subaru’s motor sport director.
There isn’t much else to say really, maybe this “entry” in the IRC is the first step in preparing a factory team for the championship, maybe they want to acquire precious data to set up their street cars better, with the chaotic motor sport climate lately, anything is possible. Anyway, we wish them good luck and a speedy return to the WRC as Subaru is was one good rally team.
WRC Ride for Kimi Raikkonen
Former F1 racing driver and world champion Kimi Raikkonen has signed with Citroen for 12 races in the 2010 World Rally Championship. He will get to drive the Citroen C4, a car that dominated about everything since it was launched. Failing to find a seat in the 2010 F1 Championship, the Finn has focused on his other racing passion: Rallying. He got to drive a Fiat Punto S2000 earlier this year, but unfortunately he ended his rally with a DNF. For 2010 he will be joining Citroen’s junior squad and his co-driver will be fellow countryman Kaj Lindstrom. Raikkonen said: “I always wanted to compete in rally, especially in the World Rally Championship at some point in my career,” and he thanked Red Bull, his sponsor, which helped him get there.
Source: GP Update
Ferrari Builds Fiat 500 Endurace Racer
Just look at that back spoiler! It could easily go on a jumbo-jet.
Well since the Fiat 500 was launched we had the privilege to witness quite a few mad versions of it: first it was the 500 Abarth which was quite frisky with 135 horsepower but then someone decided that what they actually needed was more power, so they did a 160 bhp model. Now for a car this small 160 horses is quite insane. But no. We then got the Assetto Corse which was a stripped-out , rollcaged version for touring car racing. By this version we already had 3 hot 500’s. But then we got more: they’ve made a Ferrari tribute model, a rallying 500 and now we’ve got this: The Fiat 500 GT endurance racer. You might think it’s a cute, cheap, italian city car. With a 1.4 litre engine you might think it’s slow as well but mad people at work have managed to extract a whopping 360 horsepower out of it! That’s 250 bhp per litre of displacement! Not even a Ferrari can manage that! Tully bonkers! It’s built for endurance racing by a guy called Romeo Ferraris (that I think explains the article title) and it will debut at the 6 Hours of Vallelunga endurance race on November 22. Now I love small, Italian cars and this has to be the absolute ultimate really. I’m just curious what wil it do in the race. Even if it fails spectacularly, I don’t care because it’s just a brilliant piece of engineering.
Source: Autoblog
Ferrari Developing Turbocharging
More Ferrari news on the blog today, apparently the Maranello manufacturer is planning to turbocharge some of its future models. With the 458 now launched we can only guess that this could appear in their road cars as soon as the next model. Or maybe even in the next limited edition one. Ferrari engine developer Jean-Jacques stated: “Turbocharging will come eventually, but we need to solve the issue of turbo lag.” I have a question for Mr. Jean-Jacques: do you remember the F40? That had 2 turbos and far from no lag. It’s been 22 years since the last turbocharged road-legal Ferrari (I may not be right) and I would like to say a turbocharged one is more than welcome. Just imagine the power. Their engines turn out already more than 100bhp/litre of displacement, just imagine what turbos will do. The Frenchman also said that they won’t be using the Fiat turbo technology anytime soon but they did bolt some turbos to a F430. It’s also said that they won’t use turbos anytime soon.
Source: Autocar
The New Fiat Doblo
The latest edition of Fiat’s family bus was launched. And can I first say, although quite embarrassed, that it’s quite a handsome looking thing although not as good as the new Citroen C3 Picasso. But let’s get back to the facts.
When on sale it will be offered with four engines: a 94bhp petrol, and three diesels with 89bhp, 104bhp and 133bhp. It sounds ok for a car like this but 89bhp does sound a bit depressing. But these types of 7-seater cars never seem to be anything other than depressing. Well, I don’t think this is the case here, you see this is made by Italians. I’m not suggesting in any way that it’s passionate or any other thing that some Italian cars are but it’s not as bad as a Renault Espace for example.
The interesting thing is that it will be offered with a dual fuel engine which will work on petrol or methane. There will also be a new diesel later with a paddle shift gearbox. No comment on the dual fuel engine, that sounds ok but a paddle shifter? On a 7-seat family car? Who is going to buy that? Another good thing for the family oriented motorist is the start-stop system which will come as standard. And it’s ecological too with only 129g/km of CO2.
Unfortunately, Fiat hasn’t announced the prices yet.
Source: Autocar
Yet Another Special Edition Fiat 500
There have been plenty of special edition 500s, the Barbie editon (What the hell were they thinking), the 695 Tributo Ferrari. My personal favourite is actually the Hamann tuned 500. Now though, there’s another special 500.
It’s called the 500 Abarth SpeedGrey by Neubauer. As the name suggests, it’s grey, and it’s been made by a company called Neubauer. This company is the official distributor of the 500 Abarth in France. It’s based on the Abarth EsseEsse. Now while it looks like an EsseEsse in a grey suit, the changes go beyond the new paintjob, which, by the way, is Maserati grey. To give it a bit more punch, it’s gotten a new Monza exhaust system. Sadly though, this hasn’t given it much more power, only 5 extra horses to be exact. They’ve also given it some Sabelt bucket seats (Though I believe these exact seats are an option on the normal car), though they only weigh 10 kilos less than the standard seats, window tint, and a Blue&Me navigation system. Doesn’t sound very promising to be honest, they’ve lost less than 10 kilos (Less than 10 because of the navigation and tint, though those probably shouldn’t weigh more than a kilo) and gained a measly 5 horsepower.
Nonetheless, I quite like it. Simply because of the paintjob to be honest, as the car looks brilliant in Maserati grey, but I still like it. And even if the performance difference is small, it exists. Problem is, only 10 will be made, and all of them will be sold in the French market.
So then, perhaps Fiat wouldn’t mind painting a Hamann tuned 500 in Maserati grey for me? Pretty please?
Source: Autoblog
Spy Shots: Fiat 500 Abarth cabriolet?
Someone has captured spy shots of what looks like an Abarth version of the Fiat 500C. The car was spotted at Abarth’s headquarters.