Blog on 2040Parts

Virtually sit in the new Corvette Stingray

We're not sure how this awesome 360-degree look at the new Corvette interior flew under our radar for so long, but we're loving the full driver's view of the 2014 Stingray taken at the Chicago Auto Show. The massive improvements in the Corvette's interior are on full display, with the red leather and carbon-fiber accents adding just the right amount of Bad MoFo to what's an otherwise luxurious cockpit. Stay tuned: We're expecting to get our hands on the new Corvette this summer, and we'll bring you a full drive report as soon as we wipe the grins off our faces.

State of Ferrari: Supercar maker evolves, strives for exclusivity in consumer age

Ferrari means a great deal to a great many, but there are some things it is not--and will never be, says chairman Luca di Montezemolo. That means no full electric cars, four-doors and even fewer Ferraris. All of this is meant to preserve equity in the famous Ferrari brand, believed to be one of the most valuable in the world in any segment of consumer products.

Creature comforts now top car-shoppers' 'must-haves'

New technologies come with a learning curve, but once we tackle the initial challenge it's amazing how quickly new features become “must-haves.” From cars that unlock as we approach to those that keep themselves between the lines and a safe distance from what's ahead, we have already become accustomed to high-tech driving. So which features would most drivers refuse to live without? Surprisingly, it's the simplest creature comforts most people hold dear—at least for now.

Kustom kar kings' Dean Jeffries dead at 80

UPDATED: Dean Jeffries, a contemporary of California's great kustom kar kings in the early 1950s, who would go on to fame making cars for TV and movies, died Sunday, May 5 at 80. Jeffries grew up in Lynwood, Calif., across the street from Indy racer Troy Ruttman and around the corner from Sam and George Barris' shop. He spent his days hanging around the greats: George Cerny, Von Dutch and Big Daddy Roth.

Last summer of speed?

If you want to enjoy driving on the unlimited-speed German autobahn, you might want to get in gear. If the opposition Social Democratic Party wins in this September's elections, party leader Sigmar Gabriel promises to form a coalition with the Green Party -- and both say they'll limit autobahn speeds to 120 kmh (about 75 mph), the German publication Bild is reporting. Not so fast, says the SDP's actual candidate for German chancellor, Peer Steinbrueck, who said he saw “no reason” to reignite the long-running debate over autobahn speeds, Bild reported.

2014 Porsche Cayman gets a performance-testing iPhone app

To promote the new 2014 Cayman, Porsche has cooked up an iPhone app called “Cayman Code of the Curve.” You're probably already rolling your eyes at the prospect of another automaker app that is little more than a downloadable advertisement, but this seems to be something different -- the app is designed to record your driving performance in real-time and then share results with friends. Porsche enthusiast site flatsixes.com has an exclusive first look at the app, which is still in development but is reported to be coming “soon.” Based on preliminary screenshots provided by Porsche, the app instructs users to set up a variety of courses -- cone slalom, autocross and reaction-time challenge courses are shown -- then uses the iPhone's internal accelerometer and GPS receiver to track and record your performance. You'll also be able to use the app's “record your curve” function to share favorite drives with friends on Facebook.

Pick up a twelver for the tired cat, wouldya?

The timeworn solution to quelling the finicky (read “expensive to repair”) Jaguar V12 has been to swap the British unit with that eight-pot testament to midcentury American ingenuity, the Chevrolet small block. We've seen an '80s-era L98 in a Lamborghini Espada. We've borne witness '90's-era LT1s in all manner of things.

Elio three-wheel prototype revealed

Elio Motors unveiled a prototype of its two-passenger, three-wheeled vehicle Wednesday, confirming the all-new vehicle will have a $6,800 base price when it goes on sale in June 2014. Paul Elio, company founder and CEO, said the vehicle is targeted at first-time or cash-strapped buyers, as well as for families who already have a family car and are seeking something inexpensive for daily commuting. Its sub $7,000-base price makes it almost half the price of the cheapest car in the U.S.

Start up mobility van maker VPG shuts down

Van maker Vehicle Production Group -- recipient of a $50 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy -- has suspended operations and is in the process of being sold, its former CEO said Wednesday. The Allen Park, Mich., company, which made MV-1 vans for the disabled, terminated about 100 workers and closed its offices in February.

New car sales in UK still growing – up 14.8% April 2013. Driven by PPI Claims?

It is quite hard to fathom just how UK new car sales (well, registrations) continue to rise inexorably against a backdrop of otherwise stagnant economic activity, but they do. April 2013 has seen a total of 163,357 new car registrations, up a huge 14.8 per cent on April 2012 and the best figure since 2008, and these sales figures are not being driven by fleet buyers but by private motorists – private sector registrations grew by 32.3 per cent in April and are up by 15.2 per cent year to date. Not surprisingly, it’s the Superminis that are performing strongly – although all sectors are showing a rise – and it’s the Ford Fiesta that continues to be the best seller in the UK with sales of over 8,000 in April and over 42,000 so far in 2013, and the rise of superminis has also seen an increase in sales of petrol-engined cars thanks to the wave of small capacity, frugal petrol options.

Ferrari plans to sell fewer cars in 2013

Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo has announced an unusual plan for the Prancing Horse: to sell fewer cars in 2013 than the 7000 it delivered in 2012. Speaking in Maranello, di Montezemolo stated that 'this is a far-sighted decision to strengthen our brand equity, from what I learned from Enzo Ferrari… We must resist people who say the competition will benefit from us making fewer cars… When others penetrate our markets, we are happy to meet this challenge.' Is Ferrari mad to chase fewer sales? It is not the first time that Ferrari has decided to limit supply: 'In 2003 we did the same,' explains Montezemolo.

VW Design Vision Golf GTI (2013) 493bhp Golf revealed

As CAR reported in our scoop last week, VW will unveil a higher-performance Golf GTI hot hatch at the 2013 Wörthersee show, and here we have the first sketches of the super-Golf. Called the VW Design Vision Golf GTI, the concept packs close to 500bhp and can outrun a Porsche 911. It's by far the most extreme Golf hot hatch since the Bentley-engined GTI W12 concept of 2007.

Skoda Rapid Sport concept (2013) first official pictures

Skoda is taking this Rapid Sport concept to the 2013 Wörthersee show. The cosmetically hotted-up Rapid is the latest VW Group car to get a modified version for the Wörthersee enthusiast’s show, though CAR hears the Rapid won’t get a production performance version. What puts the ‘Sport’ into the Skoda Rapid Sport concept?

VW Design Vision GTI gets 500bhp: Worthersee

The Design Vision GTI is built to show what a Golf built for racing would look like – and perhaps point to future evolutions of VW’s most successful car – and is built on the same MQB platform as the regular GTI. It’s a bit shorter (15mm) than a regular Golf, a chunk wider (71mm) and a lot lower (57mm) which conspires to make the Design Vision GTI much more aggressive looking than its mainstream sibling. Power comes from a 3.0 litre V6 with two turbos – good for 500bhp and 413lb/ft of torque – which is driven to all four wheels through a DSG ‘box and can scoot to 62mph in a supercar-like 3.9 seconds on its way to 186mph.

Audi digs at Mercedes with the help of a pair of Spocks (video)

Audi likes nothing more than a bit of ‘celebrity’ kudos, which is why you’ll find endless celebs (and royalty) running round in Audis thanks to ‘enhanced’ lease deals and freebie cars. But it’s not just individual celebs that Audi loves, they also love a blockbuster film or two, which is why you’ll also see Tony Stark running around in a car with four rings in Iron Man 3 and, although there aren’t many Audis in space (or on the Enterprise), you’ll find Audi pitching in for a bit of PR on the back of the new Star Trek film – Star Trek Into Darkness. Audi has enlisted the services of Mr Spock in the guise of the original (Leonard Nimoy) and the new (Zachary Quinto) to highlight the benefits of driving an Audi, and getting a dig in at Mercedes in the process.

Opel and Auto Design and Styling magazine launch new sketch contest

Opel and Auto Design and Styling magazine have joined forces to launch the ‘Adam Seeks Eve' sketch competition. The competition, which is open to amateur and professional designers of all ages, asks participants to "sketch the ideal car partner for the Opel Adam." Designs can be a personalized Adam, a model inspired by it, or its next iteration. The winner will be awarded a free ticket to the AutoDesign Prague Automotive Design Conference and the AutoDesign Prague Workshop as well as being lent an Adam for a week.

Porsche 918 Spyder caught high-altitude testing

The Porsche 918 Spyder first broke cover as a concept at the 2010 Geneva motor show. Since then, we've seen it again and again at various auto shows and track events. Now it's testing at high altitudes in Keystone, Colo.

To sell the Stingray, Chevy plans to target Porsche

Corvette says there is a substitute for Porsche. And it's the all-new 2014 Corvette Stingray hitting showrooms this fall. General Motors' Chevrolet and ad agency Commonwealth, Detroit, are plotting an ambitious marketing strategy for one of the automaker's biggest launches of the year.

Into the Breach: The future of in-car infotainment

In-car infotainment is broken. The best that can be said of the finest systems on the market is that they generally do what one asks of them and don't induce fits of rage. At their worst, they're actively dangerous, spiking the driver's blood pressure, forcing tentative or aggressive behavior at intersections and interchanges—and generally taking the driver outside the flow of traffic.

BMW X5 trio spied testing near Spartanburg

Autoweek reader J. Monroe spotted a camouflaged BMW X5 convoy somewhere on Interstate 26, which just so happens to run near the German automaker's Spartanburg, S.C., plant (one of the X5's production sites). Despite a strategic application of BMW's dazzling, swirly vinyl wrap, the lines of these X5s were identical to those on the models available now.

One Lap of the Web: Porsche flat-fours, hot rod artists and German car shows

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- You've heard of watching paint dry, but NHTSA has a new hobby: watching Fords rust.

Bench Racing: New crop of supercars

It's been a while since we've hypothetically raced a handful of cars around the office; long enough that an entirely new crop of supercars has arrived for us to chart, graph and dissect. Today we're zeroing in on the $1-$3 million price tag range, which fits the Ferrari LaFerrari, McLaren P1, Pagani Huayra and the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. The first three fit neatly, pricewise, at about $1.3 million.

Video: BMW on its haptic technology design

BMW has released a video revealing the intense work that goes into developing its haptic technology. Haptics – the way something feels – provide important feedback to drivers, making it essential to develop high-quality technology. To ensure this happens the Haptics team is involved from the start of the design process to maintain the high standards BMW is known for.

VW's wild new 496-hp Golf GTI

UPDATED: Volkswagen has revealed a 496-hp version of the seventh-generation Golf GTI as part of activities at this year's Worthersee fan meet in Austria – and with it, projected the hot hatchback into the same league as some of the world's most celebrated supercars. Dubbed the Design Vision GTI, the radical new concept showcases a twin-turbocharged 3-liter V6 engine developed for use in upcoming models that, like the new Golf GTI, are based around Volkswagen's highly flexible MQB (modular transverse architecture) platform structure. Set to find its way into selected new Volkswagen models in future years, the direct injection engine replaces the Golf GTI's turbocharged 2.0-liter inline four, and is mounted transversely in the engine bay of the Design Vision GTI.

Jaguar CUV, entry-level sedan on the horizon

UPDATED: Jaguar Land Rover has submitted two trademark applications to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a potential clue to the luxury brand's 2015 product plans. Reports from Edmunds.com and others state that the "XQ" and "Q-Type" names could be used on an all-wheel-drive crossover and new sub-$40,000 sedan for 2015.

New software for cloud-based 3D model file sharing and reviewing

Sunglass is a new platform for sharing and syncing 3D models files over the Cloud has been developed, allowing designers to collaborate on a single model, regardless of their location. Created by MIT graduates Kaustuv DeBiswas and Nitin Rao, Sunglass allows designers, clients and co-workers to share, review and chat with others linked to the project in real time and virtually annotate onto the models directly in their browser without having to download any software. One of the main attractions of Sunglass is that it works with most 3D modeling software such as Autodesk, Solidworks, Rhino and sketch-up.

Hyundai ix35 Facelift goes further in Korea – and looks better for it

Last year we had spy shots of the Hyundai ix35 facelift floating round Korea – Hyundai’s home market – which showed a much more convincing nose than the, then, ix35 in Europe, but they eventually turned out to be photos of the ix35 FCEV which Hyundai had given a nose much more like the new Santa Fe and which we thought pointed at the 2013 facelift for the ix35. But when the Hyundai ix35 did turn up at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show with a bit of a titivate, it was exactly that – some very minor tweaking which kept the 2013 ix35 looking very similar to the 2012 model. But that’s not happening in Korea.

Jaguar to build more R-S and R-S GT models

Not only that, but Jaguar has also replaced the XJ Supersport with a more focused XJR that offers proper dynamics and a more clearly defined appeal than the Supercpsort. All opf which points to Jaguar’s plans to offer cars in their range that have true performance credentials to take on the might of BMW’s M Division and Mercedes AMG. That has been made even clearer by Jaguar’s Wayne Burgess who has told Edmunds that Jaguar will be pushing the envelope further and deeper across the Jaguar range with more R-S models in the planning as well as More R-S GT models too.

There will NOT be a ‘Super’ LaFerrari after all

Ferrari has been on the phone this morning to explain that the man from Autocar who spoke to LaFerrari’s chief designer, Flavio Manzoni, got hold of entirely the wrong end of the stick when discussing the design elements Ferrari didn’t use on LaFerrari. It seems Manzoni was explaining that during the design process for LaFerrari there were many design elements that couldn’t be included on LaFerrari, but were so good they wanted to keep them for use on future Ferraris. That was seized upon as confirmation that Ferrari were planning a ‘Super’ LaFerrari to sit above the new supercar at an even more extreme price.

Seat Leon Cup Racer and Ibiza Trophy racers set for 2013 Wörthersee show

Seat will show off two new racing cars at the 2013 Wörthersee tuning show, the annual event celebrating hot hatches from the VW Group. The Leon Cup Racer is our first look at Seat’s plans for a touring car version of the new Leon, while the Ibiza Trophy is the latest version of the track-ready supermini, boasting more power than the road car, and the facelifted styling. Tell me about the Seat Leon Cup Racer Visually, it’s a Leon turned up to 11.