Alfa's MiTo already has us excited enough, and now along come images of the upcoming 149. Auto Express has put two shots of the pleasingly-styled hatch online. The 149, a replacement for the 147, shares some familial styling cues with the MiTo, which in turn shares some lines with the 8C Competizione. The 149 is an exceedingly handsome three- or five door that would woo us on looks alone. Performance will be there to back up the racy sheetmetal, with gasoline and diesel powerplants, variously turbocharged. At the low end, the 149 packs 120 horsepower, and it can reach as high as 250. The hotrod versions will also get a trick differential, dubbed Q2, which will aid in getting that power to the ground. The car will drop in mid 2009, and is rumored to adhere to US safety regulations, boding well for this sinewy Italian making it across the Atlantic to the North American market. Please. We're begging.
We're not sure why General Motors has released two new teaser shots of the production Volt as well as ten images of engineers and designers working hard on its development, but we'll gladly take and show them to you while we find out. Though GM certainly isn't going to let the whole cat out of the bag this early, we are given a much better view of what we were shown in that ABC News video. We can now see just how high-tech the lighting appears to be on the Volt, with the blue glow of its headlamps upstaged by what appear to be some sort of LED foglamps. We can't tell you what their function is, except to say they look cool and give the impression that the Volt is a car from the future on sale now, or rather sometime in 2010, which is technically the future, but you get our drift. The other pic is not as revealing as the first and shows only a small portion of the Volt's rear end including its bow-tie emblem and model badge. The rest of the images show designers and engineers working on a full-scale clay model of the Volt as well as the car's high-tech drivetrain.
Some cars look bad-ass, while others have a bad-ass image. The latest Mitsubishi Evo ticks both boxes, and ticks them off with a big X. Despite being based on the run-of-the-mill, work-a-day Lancer sedan, the Evo X has all the attitude you could ask from a performance icon, with the actual performance to back it up.
With the Evolution X now upon us, Mitsubishi has released no fewer than 35 new jumbo images of the beast, which we've added to our ever-growing high-resolution gallery for a total of 89 images to thrash your desktop into submission.
We hate to ruin your summer, but in the automotive world the sunny season is little more than a few months with no car shows. What kind of fun is that? Well, after the summer's over we'll be headed to Paris to bring you your fix of new car extravaganza. Among the new models being unveiled there will be the Ferrari California, which we've so far only been able to see in bits and pieces as Maranello sees fit to release it. So while the California's launch site (not to mention the Ferrari media site) continue to offer only the initial batch of computer-enhanced studio shots, major publications like Auto Bild and now Road & Track get exclusive new shots of the hardtop convertible from every angle. We'll continue to do our best to bring you what's available, but unfortunately the latest crop is decidedly low-res. Check 'em out in the constantly-updated gallery by clicking the new thumbnails below, or follow the jump to watch them in a YouTube video slideshow (though we'd recommend turning off the sound).
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The world was stunned when Maserati unveiled the GranTurismo at the 2007 Geneva show, but as beautiful as it is, critics said it wasn't tough enough to take down the competition. The folks from Modena were evidently listening, and one year later laid the beefed-up GranTurismo S on us, complete with 440-hp engine straight out of the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione.
We brought you a slew of images before and during the show, but now Maserati has been kind enough to grace us with a whole mess of new shots. You know, just in case you didn't want one enough already.
Volkswagen has long since emerged from its standing as a no-frills straightforward automaker with a handful of products to offer a full range of vehicles, including hatchbacks, sedans of all sizes, wagons, vans, convertibles, sport coupes, SUVs, a four-door coupe and even an upcoming pickup truck. The German automaker is banking on that diversity to reach an ambitious sales goal of 6.6 million units per annum within ten years from now.
The svelte new Passat CC unveiled in Detroit will form a big part of the company's push, targeted to sell some 300,000 units around the world over the next six years...pretty ambitious for a niche vehicle, to be sure. Although reports suggest that Volkswagen could be dropping the Passat name from this vehicle (at least in the U.S.) in favor of the "CC" moniker alone, the latest information from the automaker itself (it's a European press release) continues to employ the well-established name, which is the third most popular nameplate in Volkswagen's history behind the Golf and Beetle. (Not to mention that the term CC could be confused with the coupe-convertible lexicon used overseas, like Volkswagen's own Eos.) Whatever it will be called, the new four-door coupe will launch in the Fall in markets across Europe, the Far East and North America, and to soften the ground for its landing, VW has laid on us a whole mess of information and new pictures. We're particularly intrigued by the range-topping Passat CC V6 4Motion, packed with all-wheel-drive, DSG and adaptive chassis control. Phaeton who now?
Just yesterday we brought you news of the new SEAT Ibiza. Previewed by the black-mouthed Bocanegtra concept unveiled in Geneva, the new Ibiza itself previews the subtle change in direction to SEAT's design language, incorporating sharp intersecting lines with a more crowd-pleasing grille. European customers, however, will have to wait a little longer to see the 3-door versions, as well as for the high-performance Cupra model.
In the meantime, the Spanish Volkswagen subsidiary has now unleashed a whole corral of images of the new five-door hatch, plus a video of the car from every angle. Unveiling at the SEAT facility on the outskirts of Barcelona, the new Ibiza will have its motor show debut in Madrid late next month and will hit European markets shortly thereafter.
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When it comes to pure visual impact, there's not a thing on the road that has got anything on the Lamborghini Reventon. It's just so impossibly, relentlessly badass. It's got more sharp lines than a bag full of broken glass and more angles than a geometry set, yet manages to pull them all together in a package that makes Death itself run for cover. And with more than 640 demon horses on tap, it had better run fast.
In tribute to the ultimate Lamborghini's angrier-than-a-coked-up-teenager design, we're bringing you this gallery of images which recently escaped from lock-down at the Lamborghini factory in Sant'Agata Bolognese on the outskirts of Modena.
Following yesterday's reports, Maserati has released official details and images of the new GranTurismo S ahead of its unveiling in Geneva next week.
As reported, the S version benefits from the same 4.7-liter 440hp V8 engine which Maserati developed for the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione. The more powerful engine is mated to an electro-actuated MC-Shift gearbox mounted on the rear transaxle for optimized weight distribution and faster shifting times. The extra power is kept in check by the Brembo braking system first used on the Quattroporte Sport GT S, featuring front brakes with dual-cast iron/aluminum discs and six-pot aluminum calipers. As you can see from the official images we've added to the gallery below, the GranTurismo S also benefits from some subtle visual tweaks, including new wheels, and a leather & Alcantara-trimmed interior with sport buckets.
Given the impression the GranTurismo made at its debut at last year's show, we can't wait to get our lenses on the new GranTurismo S.
Hot on the heels of news concerning Lancia's product-led revival comes the announcement from the quirky Fiat division that the production version of the upcoming Delta will indeed be unveiled at the upcoming Geneva show. The images released show that the final version, based on a lengthened Fiat Bravo platform, has lost little from the sharp and angular Delta HPE concept that Lancia showed us in Paris in 2006. The interior also looks significantly spruced-up over its Fiat sibling.
Unfortunately, as of when this post was written, Lancia had only placed the press release in Italian, so if you're up on your romance languages, follow the jump. Otherwise, just gawk at the photos in the gallery below. We'll be on hand at the car's official unveiling next month, so Italian car fans stay tuned.
