Volkswagen is showing a factory-apprentice-tuned GTI at the annual Wörthersee festival in Austria, an annual celebration of the GTI and all things VW. The GTI Black Dynamic is mostly SEMA-esque fare, so don’t expect to see any of its mods on a factory-built production car.
Perhaps you’ve seen the TV ad showing a CX-5 zoom-zooming across a dry lake and then whistling past an array of scientific apparatus, staffed by a bevy of guys in lab coats who seem to be deliriously happy with what they’re witnessing. The spot suggests a dynamic trait—speed—that isn’t readily apparent in the CX-5’s real-world persona. Or, more accurately, acceleration, since speed can be summoned. Eventually. (more…)
For most of its history, the Volkswagen Jetta was the three-box version of the two-box Golf hatchback, which also meant that the performance-oriented Jetta GLI was simply the sedan version of the coveted 10Best-winning GTI. The Jetta’s sixth-generation makeover, however, included plopping the four-door onto new underpinnings. The idea was to give it a bigger back seat, a larger trunk, and reduced complexity to better compete with the likes of the Honda Civic, the Ford Focus, and the Toyota Corolla. (The Golf will move to VW’s new MQB architecture.) (more…)
According to Lexus, the last examples of the maker’s HS250h luxury hybrid sedan rolled off the assembly line in January 2012. Based on the Euro-market Toyota Avensis, the HS250h debuted in 2009 as the luxury maker’s entry-level hybrid offering. Read full story »
BMW proved a point in the Chinese market, they successfully demonstrated that Chinese will buy premium small cars. For the longest time small cars equaled cheap cars in the Chinese pysche, BMW’s introduction of the MINI range, and later the 1-series range through the market on its head. Small cars selling for the same price as mid size sedans were suddenly in vogue and the market only improved as incomes became higher and a new mindset emerged.
BMW introduced the second generation 1-series in late 2011, with a 1.6T engine and also a naturally aspirated version, earlier today BMW also introduced the six cylinder 125i model which is priced in at 370,000RMB.BMW is hoping to play catch up with Audi in 2012, Audi has managed to hold onto a long headway in the Chinese market, largely thanks to its early market entry in comparison to its rivals.
What’s 10RMB? Its $1.50USD, but to this man it was obviously worth fighting over.
In August 2011 Wu Hua Xian Tong Yuan’s Toll booth had a case of violence against a toll booth worker, one driver, in a bid to avoid paying a 10rmb highway fee bit the ear of a worker and escaped from the scene. A 3:45am a car with the Guangdong A plate left Wu Hua County on its way to Guangzhou City, at the toll booth the driver told the worker that he was a local resident and therefore didn’t have to pay the 10RMB fee, the worker advised otherwise, suddenly the driver made a jumpfor the worker and got his teeth into his ear, he lost a 4cm strip of ear in the process.
The driver fled the scene and remained on the run until recently, obviously toll booth security cameras are not that clear on picking up license plate numbers. The police caught up with the perp as he was sitting in a restaurant in Guangzhou. The 33 year old male is now in detention pending an investigation. Journalists were able to talk with him while in prison, where he admitted to being drunk at the time of the incident
Landwind’s SUV offerings have been weak to say the least, their first product became the poster boy for poor Chinese quality cars in Europe and derailed any plans for a Chinese automotive invasion of the EU in the short term. Landwind went back to the drawing board, their X8 SUV came out but obviously it still wasn’t good enough for Europe, or the Chinese market, sales were relatively low in a SUV loving market, the next step is yet another SUV.
Landwind are potentially borrowing the 1.5T engine from the Chang’an Eado sedan and are preparing to mate it to an 8 speed gearbox, the final product should hit the market later this year. The new SUV is expected to be using an 8 speed gearbox developed by Shengrui in Shandong province, the unit hasn’t yet hit the market but is expected to be hitting Chinese cars soon.
Attention, dreamers: BMW has powered up its online configurators for the 2013 M5 and M6 coupe. Regardless of whether you have the scratch to afford the $90,795 M5 or the $106,995 M6 coupe, it’s always fun building out a fantasy ride.
Our diminutive long-term Mazda 2, the least-powerful, least-expensive car in our fleet for quite some time, has completed its 40,000-mile stay. Few tears were choked back as, after 16 months in our care, it pulled away from our office for the last time. Sure, the minimalist Mazda was fun to toss around, but it illustrated the difficulty some manufacturers have faced in coercing Americans out of large cars and crossovers and into pint-sized hatchbacks. (more…)
There used to be a British company that had multiple models that competed with each other throughout their product range, that company was called British Leyland. VW seems to be entering BL territory in China with its multitude of products that overlap and outright compete with each other, the Lavida is up against the Bora, the Passat against the Magotan. Now its going to be Lavida hatch v’s the Golf, and then we can almost guarantee that there will be a Bora hatchback coming from FAW-VW before long.
The Lavida has already been a big seller for SH-VW since its introduction in 2009, the model uses the same 1.4TSI engine as the China market Golf and also the same naturally aspirated 1.6L engine as well as dual clutch gearbox. The Lavida was developed in house by Shanghai-Volkswagen, the Bora was also redeveloped by FAW-VW as a reaction to both demands from VW’s Chinese partners for new compact cars to engage the lower end of the Chinese market. The Chinese automotive media also seem to like the Lavida, although many reviews have noted that the interior and some of the work is not as high as other VW models. The VW hatch is supposedly readying to launch in 2013, VW’s own production schedule indicates that the Lavida hatch will take up a small percentage of production volume with the sedan continuing to be the big daddy for the SH-VW production lines.
