The European Car of the Year jury have announced their 2010 Car of the Year: the Volkswagen Polo.
Tag Archives: Toyota
Ferrari is working on an Enzo successor
Well, about time we say because it’s been quite a large gap between the Enzo and this. Of course, that may be explained by the fact that they did the 458 as well, or that they haven’t been going bonkers in such a long time.
It will presumably be called the F70 (the Enzo was actually called the F60 but in order to celebrate Ferrari’s 60 years anniversary, it received the founder’s name). You might remember my last article about the rumours of Ferrari developing turbocharging and it seems I guessed right, the new limited edition model might just receive a twin-turbo V8, or a natural aspirated V10, or anything in fact. We don’t know, it’s all a guess at best.
As Ferrari usually do, they take their last edition limited edition model (Enzo here), and make a mad, ready for the track version of it (FXX here) and then they make better what they could make better, throw in a bit of F1 technology and there you are – the new model arrives. So normally the new F70 should get FXX bits and F1 technology and the new turbo system perhaps.
But what Ferrari are trying to do now is keep the weight down, they don’t want to have a million horsepower engine with 2 tons of car. The new engine is expected to produce as much power as the Enzo but with a new body weighing only 1000kg. That means a power to weight ratio of more than 600hp/tonne. That’s more than a Bugatti Veyron. Another reason for concentration on reducing weight is CO2, as the Italian car company wants to reduce the CO2 output on its vehicles.
Now that is great news, so climb out of your Priuses eco-mentalists and get the new limited edition rampaging stallion. Well, probably not, as they will only make 399 and you can’t just go to the factory and say “I want one”, you have to be invited by Ferrari.
Source: Autoblog
Lexus LFA will only be leased in the US
Lexus has announced an interesting sale strategy for their LFA: the car will only be leased.
Toyota MR2 may be revived
Tagged Toyota
Toyota recalls 2000-2003 Toyota Tundra for rust issues
Yet another recall for Toyota, as the 2000-2003 Toyota Tundra in the U.S. “Salt Belt” have been recalled due to rust issues.
Ferrari to recall the F355
Now, there have been plenty of recalls lately, Jeep recalling their Wranglers, Mistubishi recalling some Lancers, and Toyota soon to recall several of their models. Now there’s another one, but this one is quite peculiar: the Ferrari F355.
Details on possible fix for Toyota accelerator problem released
Some details have been revealed on what the fix for Toyota’s accelerator problem may be.
Subaru version of FT-86 to be very different from Toyota’s
The Toyota FT-86 is being joint developed by Toyota and Subaru, and so everyone has believed that the Toyota and Subaru variants would only have subtle styling differences. However, reports say that the differences will be much more substantial.
Hummer Planning H4 and H5
Hummer is being sold to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, and they are making plans for an H4 and H5.
The sale hasn’t yet been finalized though, but the deal is that they will pay $150 million (Which seems like very little for an automotive company to me, but Hummer does only have 2 models, so maybe that’s why) and get most of the intellectual property for Hummer. GM will provide contract manufacturing for current Hummer products until the contract ends, at which point it will be up to the Chinese to work out how to manufacturer the Hummers.
Hummer is working with Austrian consulting firm AVL to determine their future. The idea is to make the brand focus on smaller, lighter, more eco-friendly vehicles, so there will be an H4, which will be smaller than the H3, and an even tinier H5. The H4 will be based on the HX concept car (Pictured at the beginning of this article).
So they’re trying to pretty much reinvent Hummer. Their current image is associated with gas-guzzling monsters, and the Chinese want to focus on eco-friendly vehicles. They’ll be putting a lot of money into changing this image, but I’ll miss the old image, that’s what I like about Hummer. They had the guts to go out there and give an image of gas-guzzling monsters in a time when Greenpeace is telling us all to get into a Prius. I wonder if this new image will mean that they’ll have to axe the enormous H2. That would be even worse, possibly the final nail in the coffin.
Source: Jalopnik