Renault and Caterham to develop affordable sports cars

Renault and Caterham are to join forces to create new, more affordable sports cars under the Alpine badge. The two groups will establish a jointly owned new group – Société des Automobiles Alpine Caterham – under the leadership of Bernard Ollivier and will develop models to be sold as both Renault Alpine and Caterham. Tony Fernandes, Caterham Group Chairman, said: "We know the markets we are going into and, particularly in my playground in Asia, there is a huge opportunity to replicate the AirAsia model and give consumers access to exciting, affordable products that marry our interests in F1 and technology and help make their dreams come true." At this year's Monaco Grand Prix Renault unveiled the Alpine A110-50 concept, which was seen as a relaunch of the brand despite it being essentially a reworked version of the Renault-branded DeZir concept from the 2010 Paris Motor Show.

Toyota and Lexus secret hybrid cars revealed

By Georg Kacher Motor Industry 03 September 2008 11:50 CAR Online has compiled a secret dossier of all the hybrid petrol-electric cars under development at Toyota and Lexus. Today we can reveal a new wave of eco-friendly plug-in hybrids – with confidential details of the next Prius and all the new models that will build on the success of Toyota and Lexus battery cars. There will be a new family of Prius hybrid models, as previously reported in CAR, as well as a new Lexus RX hybrid, sportier batter-powered cars and a top-secret petrol-electric Lexus hatchback.

2013 Lotus Evora gets $68,285 base price

Lotus is adding its Intelligent Precision Shift automatic transmission to the supercharged version of the Evora for the 2013 model year. The automatic was available on the naturally aspirated Evora for the 2012 model year, while the Evora S offered only a six-speed manual. The base 2013 Lotus Evora carries a sticker price of $68,285 including $1,485 in destination, while the S model with the rear seats will sticker at $80,085.