You’ve decided you’re ready to buy a new car. You’ve even gone so far as to decide you want to spend your hard earned cabbage on an environmentally conscious hybrid. And because you plan to keep the thing until the wheels fall off you should be able to recoup the premium of the hybrid hardware sometime just short of the Second Coming. That decided, you’re ready to hit the dealerships. But which one do you buy? You aren’t sure you can handle the stigma of Toyota’s Prius. The Honda Insight is way out in left field and has no-features (or soul for that matter). How about the Lexus HS250h Hybrid? That might be alright as it has all the standard luxury car trimmings, but it’s a bit small and was designed by people who think Camrys and washing machines are cutting edge design. Not to mention all those tongue-tying h’s. How about the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid? Read more…
As I was zoom-zooming down US-23 this morning I spotted a convoy of Ford Expeditions and a Lincoln Navigator heading north. Seeing convoys out of Dearborn is not an uncommon sight in this neck of the woods, but it has been some time since this pair of vehicles has had any street time. Which got me thinking that Ford might just be readying these family haulers with new engines for the 2012 model year. Ford has four new engine possibilities, two V8s and two V6s, with one carrying the EcoBoost moniker, which could easily be shoe horned into the engine bay of the Expedition / Navigator twins. I submit the following for consideration: Read more…
This Is How You Make A Sports Sedan Better!
Wagons are not the most popular body style in these United States of America. But there was a time when station wagons as large as barges and covered in an acre of faux wood ruled the highways. They were powered by V8s and used a body-on-frame, which meant that you could haul the family, their stuff, and tow a trailer to grandmother’s house simultaneously. That all changed when Chrysler introduced the world to the minivan in 1984. Ever since, car designers’ pens rarely draw the formidable 2-box shape of the station wagon. Stare as one might at the ink blots that are the tall-roofed SUVs and jellybean-shaped crossovers, these are not true wagons. But just as all hope was seemingly gone, Cadillac of all marquees has come to the rescue and delivered us a long roofed version of the popular CTS. Is it all we could hope for and more?
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The news out of Dearborn today is the 2011 Lincoln MKX has officially received its EPA ratings. With its sole engine option, the 3.7L V6, the MKX is rated at 19-mpg city and 26-mpg highway. The 3.7L is the same V6 featured in the base 2011 Mustang–rated at 31-mpg highway in that application. Featuring TiVCT, the V6 produces a healthy 305-hp and 280 lb-ft of torque. Like its stablemate, the Ford Edge, the MKX will channel its power to the tarmac via a 6-speed SelectShift (read: equipped with paddle shifters) automatic transmission through either front-wheel drive (wrong-wheel drive) or all-wheel drive. Read more…
Happy Independence Day from the Editors of Automotive Trends!!
The Chevrolet Volt is probably one of the most hotly anticipated vehicle launches of this decade, and GM is set to deliver on its promise of having the Volt on the road by 2010. That plan is to roll out 10,000 Volts by the end of calendar year 2011, with another 30,000 Volts to follow in 2012. The first units will be available to California, Washington D.C, Austin, Texas and the New York metropolitan areas yet this year. Michigan, New Jersey, Connecticut, and the balance of Texas and New York will start receiving units in the first quarter of 2011. The rest of the USA will have to wait about a year for production to ramp up. To make sure that GM’s dealer network is ready for the Volt, GM is requiring special sales and service training, as well as the installation of a 240-volt charging station before a dealership can receive a Volt for retail sale. As with any good thing in life, I guess some things are just worth waiting for. We’ll let you know when we get our first go with a production spec Volt! Read more…
The Audi Le Mans Concept car, on display at the 2004 NAIAS, was very appropriately named for that little endurance race that Audi tends to win now and then. The Le Mans plainly signaled what the production R8 sports car would look like, sans show car specific LED headlamps. The structure was composed of an aluminum space frame wrapped in carbon fiber and alumiunm body panels. Powering the concept was a 40-valve twin-turbocharged 5.0L FSI V10 cranking out 602-hp and 533 lb-ft of torque. Channelling the power to all four wheels (quattro) was the six-speed sequential manual gearbox from the Lamborghini Gallardo.
2006 Ford GT
Happy Father’s Day from the Editors of Automotive Trends!!!
Don’t be looking to do any serious rock crawling with this SUV. Land Rover’s new parent company Tata sees that there is money to be made by offering a soft-roading lower-riding and generally more fuel-efficient crossover. The LRX Concept, shown here at the 2008 NAIAS, may carry a few styling cues from its big brother Range Rover but the similarities stop there. The base offering will be front-wheel drive with all-wheel drive available. Engine offerings haven’t been announced yet, but we know that Land Rover is working on a diesel hybrid system, though no telling as to whether or not this setup will make the trip across the big pond to the US given our hesitancy to accept diesels.
While Chevrolet decided to go electric in a practical manner with the compact Volt sedan, Dodge went for broke and based their EV (shown here at the 2009 NAIAS) on a Lotus Europa S. Sadly, we won’t see this vehicle come to fruition as the Fiat partnership has dissolved the Chrysler ENVI electric initiative altogether. With a claimed 150 to 200 mile range the Circuit EV was within spitting distance of another Lotus based EV sports car, the Tesla roadster, when its batteries finally decided to take a rest. The Circuit’s lithium-ion battery pack combined with the 200-kW motor could output 268-hp and an instant 480 lb-ft of torque. None too shabby for a green bean!
