One of the coolest concept cars here at the Tokyo Motor Show isn't even new. In fact, it's almost forty years old. Originally displayed at the Tokyo show in 1970, this Mazda RX-500 Concept features styling similar to the legendary Ferrari 250 GTO Breadvan, gullwing doors that swing forward, and a 491cc rotary engine just behind the seats. Weighing in at just 1873 pounds, the 247-horsepower concept was said to have reached nearly 150 mph on Mazda's test track.
The car was recently restored in partnership with the Hiroshima City Transportation Museum where it has apparently been on display for the last year. Lucky for us, they decided to bring it to the show for us to enjoy as well.
Buyers overseas have plenty of good reasons to opt for a Skoda. Compared with the Volkswagens on which they're based, the Czech versions tend to be both more spacious and more affordable. But one thing they're not – or historically haven't been, at least – is stylish, the ho-hum designs generally appealing to more conservative buyers than their German or Spanish counterparts. But that's all about to change. At least it will if the company's design chief Karl Neuhold has his way.
The designer behind the new Superb – an innovative and elegant take on the Volkswagen Passat – says that future Skodas will be "more avant-garde [that] will make you feel well-dressed," while still incorporating the spaciousness and value that the brand has come to embody underneath the VW Group umbrella. Next up the Skoda pipeline is a replacement for the aging Octavia – essentially a bigger version of the Volkswagen Jetta – so we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for you.
Like Great Britain, Sweden never switched over to the Euro – they still deal in kroners. Therefor, In order to keep Saab afloat after being jettisoned by General Motors, new owner Koenigsegg Group has determined that it needs a loan of about 415 billion kroners to keep the flood waters back. That's about €400 million Euros, or $599 million good old US Ameripesos. A little while back we reported that the country of Sweden had agreed to guarantee any such loan to sinking Saab, should a bank offer to do so. Well guess what?
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to lend the €400 million to Koenigsegg Group vis-a-vis Saab. The money is supposedly earmarked for "research and development activities for the improvement of fuel efficiency and safety including new tooling for the production of cleaner and safer cars." At least that's according to EIB. However, there's a very good chance that the loan will be used to finish closing Koenigsegg's deal with GM. Either way, looks like Saab might now have a fighting chance at not sinking into the North Atlantic.
If you were enamored of the new Peugeot RCZ when it finally debuted in production guise at the Frankfurt show last month, the latest product of the French rumor mill has got more in store for you. According to emerging reports from across the pond, Peugeot is planning to compliment the svelte coupe with a convertible counterpart.
Because the existing 308 on which the RCZ is based already offers a four-seat hard-top cabriolet in its range, sources anticipate that the drop-top RCZ will feature a lighter and more compact conventional cloth roof that will take the place of the rear seats, giving Peugeot its first proper roadster in years. Alternative reports, however, suggest that the French automaker could go a different route with a removable carbon-fiber roof panel to give the RCZ a targa-esque option. In any event, Peugeot isn't expected to return to the North American market any time soon, so we'll just have to suffice with the superior engineering of the Audi TT whose styling the RCZ apes.
VW's Fun Theory project, with its European ad agency DDB, takes on a third task to show that you can get more people to do the right thing if you make it fun. This time it's bottle recycling, and the tool used is a bin fitted with an arcade scoreboard. After a "player" presses start, lights flash above any of the six holes in the bin and the recycler collects points for putting a bottle in the correct opening. It's the same theory as whack-a-mole but with glass bottles.
Just as the other Fun Theory demonstrations with the bottomless garbage can and the piano steps, people flocked to the Bottle Bank Arcade: it was used 50 times more than the plain green bin sitting nearby. Put a scoreboard on something and all of a sudden people will celebrate doing anything – when's the last time you saw a grown man shaking his fist over throwing away a bottle?
As much as we like our drive-in movies and drive-through restaurants, could there be anything more appropriate than a drive-in car museum? We think not. Unfortunately, such an obvious and awesome thing isn't on its way to America.
Instead, China, a relatively new player on the world transportation scene, is the country planning to erect a drive-in car museum, meaning most of us will probably never get the chance to visit. Ah well, at least the design is thoughtful and innovative. Francesco Gatti, chief architect at design firm 3GATTI in Italy, is responsible for the unique shape of the museum, which allows drivers to climb to the top in their cars and then walk back down via an inner spiral ramp. It seems the structure can be replicated in origami... and now we have a project for the rest of the day.
The 2nd Annual Caruso Concours was held this past weekend at The Americana at Brand shopping center in Glendale, California. Put off a bit by threatening skies, we didn't make it out there ourselves, but luckily, Autoblog friend and shutterbug Greg Grudt was there to capture all of the excitement for us. This sophomore outing was once again put on by The Petersen Automotive Museum, and as was the case last year, a brace of incredible vehicles showed up to this fitting but unorthodox locale. Showgoers could peruse the cars for a bit and then pick up a Tiffany necklace on their way out.
This year's gathering focused on supercars – in particular, supercars capable of 200 mph. Not meant to be an exhaustive showing of double-century barrier breakers, it nonetheless attracted an impressive array of cars capable of close to, if not over, the magic mark. The fun part was just seeing them all together in one place. Judging by Grudt's images, it looks like the Americana also happens to be hosting a few of those Toyota solar sunflowers, which made for an interesting juxtaposition.
Supercars right off the showroom floor mingled with old-timers from as far back as the Eighties. For instance, the display included not just the Bugatti Veyron, but also its forebearer, the EB110. The list of cars in attendance read like a roster of World's Fastest Cars contenders. Ferrari was represented by an Enzo, F50, F40, 288GTO, 16M, and a SuperAmerica. The Lamborghini cluster was comprised of an LP670-SV, LP640-4, LP560-4 and even a Countach. There was also a Mercedes-McLaren SLR, CLK DTM, Ford GT, Dodge Viper, Cizeta V16t, Maserati MC12, Nissan GT-R, Audi R8, and even a Jaguar XJ220, which complemented the long flowing bodywork of the adjacent Maser quite nicely. They even dragged out the AREX Concept which was supposed to be good for 214 mph.
There are few people in this world for whom we hold more contempt than European bureaucrats. They're the pencil-pushers that, if they had their way, would put an end to some of our favorite exotic sportscars and have us all driving Smart ForTwos. But every gray cloud has its silver lining, and in the case of Belgium's bureaucracy, is the sneak peak we get from time to time when a carmaker files its designs to register them as trademarks.
What we're looking at this time is the upcoming Mercedes-Benz E-Class cabrio. Although there were rumors that the model could be delayed, by and large we knew this was coming, and have even seen plenty spy shots of test mules preparing for their market launch.
Replacing the outgoing CLK convertible, this new model is based on the slick new E-Class coupe but, you know...with a convertible roof. It's a fabric job, unlike its rivals from BMW, Lexus, Infiniti and Volvo, which have all gone with folding hard-tops by now. The mechanicals are otherwise expected to carry over from its fixed-roof counterpart, although the jury's still out on whether an AMG version will be on offer as well. For now, we'll just have to peruse these grainy black-and-white images until the new drop-top Benz drops in the first half of next year.
After two separate concept vehicles and years of waiting, the Lexus LF-A finally appears to be ready for prime time. The first-ever Lexus supercar has reached critical mass on the Interwebs, with Nurburgring sightings and videos of the V10-powered wunderkind on public roads. And while we're all about getting as much LF-A as possible, we can always use more, and if we had our preference, we'd like to see Toyota's new $250,000 show pony doing tricks.
Last week at Motorsport Japan 2009, the LF-A was in attendance and the 550-horsepower flagship didn't disappoint the fans on hand. Hit the jump to watch the LF-A in its racing dress, as the big-winged, heavily stickered Ferrari hunter wastes some perfectly good rubber on an unsuspecting blacktop. Beyond a few burnouts and selective driftingdonuts, the LF-A spends most of its time going Ricky Bobby, as the crowd is treated to several oval laps of the left turn variety. We definitely dig the pissed off-sounding sound track emanating from the LF-A's bowels, too, but this pre-production model would appear to exhibit some serious understeer that will hopefully be cured once production starts.
New products, improved quality and a surge in public perception have helped Ford buttress its sales numbers here in the U.S., but the Dearborn-based automaker also has a good story to tell across the Pond. According to The Detroit News, Ford managed to grab 10.1% of Europe's overall market share in September – the first time since September of 2001 that the Blue Oval has touched double digits. Ford sold 155,000 vehicles in September in Europe's 19 biggest markets, up 12.3% versus September 2008. Ford has now beaten year-over-year sales totals for four straight months.
One vehicle that has gone a long way towards getting the Blue Oval over the 10% milestone is the new Fiesta, as the popular B-Segment vehicle achieved its highest September sales in 15 years. While Ford's overall market share benefited from the quality of its product lineup, the increased volume during the month of September also came in part courtesy of Cash for Clunkers-like scrap programs in several European nations. Many of those programs have recently ended or are being phased out, though, which worries Ford for the short term. Ford of Europe VP Ingvar Sviggum told the DetNews that the health of the market still pretty shaky, adding "It is clear that there is still a need for government intervention in Europe to help bolster the market until demand reaches a more sustainable level."
