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More shots of Chevy Cruze from Lordstown

Yesterday's announcement by General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner that his company would invest $500 million in the U.S. to build the 2011 Chevy Cruze was perhaps most welcomed by the workers at GM's assembly plant in Lordstown, OH where the car will be built. That plant is getting a $350 million shot in the arm to gear up for the Cruze, which appeared on stage with Wagoner for the announcement. The car on hand was only a foam model, but it looks ready to drive away in (just don't lean on the doors), and these new images give us a few more views of the Cruze not afforded by the official images of a red car released by GM yesterday. Cruze news will probably be hard to come by until October when the car makes its official world debut at the Paris Motor Show, so until then we're left wondering how well it will match up against the likes of the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, next-gen Focus and the rest of the compact sedan segment.
posted : 9/2/2008 @6:10:04 PM
2011 Chevy Cruze

They're here! The first official pics of the 2011 Chevy Cruze have been released by General Motors, and we're not ashamed to say it – we like it. Of course, we're comparing it to the current small car in GM's lineup, the Cobalt, so the bar is pretty low. That said, GM's new small car takes the split-grille motif made famous by the Malibu and makes it more interesting with sharp creases rather than rounded corners. The front end features headlights that extend up and "point" to the A-pillars, and a strong character line running the length of the vehicle sits below a concave bend that sweeps up to meet the windows. GM claims that fit and finish of the Cruze will be world class for a small car, and that its interior will use "grained surfaces, soft-touch materials and low gloss trim panels" to improve its perceived quality. Unfortunately, no shots of the interior were provided, but you can catch a glimpse in this rear 3/4 shot. The Cruze will be a global car, and as such it's going on sale in Europe first. It will makes its global debut at the Paris Motor Show in October, where European customers will be the first to check it out in person before it goes on sale in March 2009 overseas. It will be available at launch with a 112-hp 1.6L engine, a 140-hp 1.8L and a 150-hp 2.0L turbodiesel. The North American version will likely get GM's upcoming direct injected 1.4L four-cylinder. The Cruze will also offer a five-speed manual and GM's first application of a six-speed automatic in a small car. The kicker? The 2011 Chevy Cruze will be built at GM's plant in Lordstown, OH where the current Cobalt and Pontiac G5 are built. Though it'll be built right in our own backyard, the Cruze reportedly won't be available in the U.S. for at least a year or two.
posted : 9/2/2008 @1:44:11 PM
Let there be victory: Hyundai Genesis trumps Lexus GS 350 in comparo

InsideLine, no strangers to luxury, recently put the Hyundai Genesis up against the kind of competition the Korean automaker wants to be associated with: the Lexus GS 350. The GS 300 first came out in 1993 and had the luxury re-defining LS and ES for siblings; at the time, Hyundai was still making do with Excel, Sonata, and Scoupe, and parking any of them next to a Lexus would have laid bare the gulf. Now the marques are going head-to-head. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call progress. Still, issues of cost -- and perception -- skew the comparison slightly. The V8 Hyundai goes up against a V6 Lexus, because adding two more cylinders to the Lexus would have meant a $12,000 difference. As it is, there's still almost $8,000 between them. And there's the fact that the Lexus and the Hyundai don't exactly compete with each other (we'd have thought an ES comparo would make more sense) in brief, either. Nevertheless, it's not a bad bout, and it turns out to be one of the closest fights InsideLine has ever judged. The Lexus gets a win-by-a-nose for things like fit and finish and speed, while the Hyundai returns the favor in the highway performance and space issues. The flying H takes home the silverware by a mere two points, aided in part by the price advantage -- which, as far as Hyundai's concerned, is the point. Follow the link for the full story.
posted : 9/2/2008 @1:33:04 PM
Paris '08 Preview: Peugeot teases with RC... hybrid concept

With the semi-annual auto salon returning to Paris this fall, you can expect France's major automakers to make a big splash this year. Peugeot is preparing to unveil a new concept car, and has given us a bit of a heads-up in the form of a few images and some teasingly cryptic details. With the name of the actual car not yet released, Peugeot is referring to the show car as the RC, adopting the same thematic nomenclature as the RC Spade and RC Diamond concepts from 2002 and the 908RC concept sedan from the last Paris Motor Show in 2006. Like those concepts, this one is not meant to directly preview a production car in the pipeline. However, it does foreshadow Peugeot's new design direction. The four-door concept's styling melds smooth flowing lines and sharp creases to make for a stunning shape, and moves the huge lion emblem farther south, not unlike the Audi R8's grille. The echoes of Ingolstadt aren't new for Peugeot, with many asserting that the 308 RC Z borrowed too heavily from the Audi TT. As for propulsion, Peugeot insists that "respect for the environment and driving pleasure can be compatible", and so have fitted the RC with an unspecified hybrid powertrain producing a maximum of 313 hp and emitting only 109 g/km of CO2 in gasoline mode and, of course, zero in electric.
posted : 9/2/2008 @12:39:45 PM
Spy Shots: Maserati Gran Turismo Spyder

Never underestimate a car guy on holiday. That's the lesson to be learned by Maserati, which apparently left a Gran Turismo Spyder mule in a lot somewhere in Modena. An eagle-eyed tourist snapped off a handful of pics showing the two-piece roof and articulating trunk in its earliest stages of development. Expect the Gran Turismo Spyder to make its debut in Paris later this year, with sales beginning in early 2009.
posted : 9/2/2008 @3:15:10 AM
Citroën C6 Office -- like KITT for French businessmen

Citroën and Intersection magazine have integrated KITT-like visual style with a number of in-car distractions to create the C6 Office, a rolling style project aimed at European business overlords. It'll make its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, a favorite the yacht-and-helo set it's meant to appeal to. From there, it'll head to Paris Fashion Week for another go-round before the bourgeoisie, ultimately trickling down to the rabble at the Paris Motor Show in October. The variety of partners involved in the creation include Blackberry and Kenwood on the technical side, while Krug champagne and swanky food store Fauchon ensure that backseat wheeler-dealers stay drunk and well-fed. Alcantara appears to adorn everything above the beltline inside and a "Black Shadow" finish covers the exterior surfaces, from the grillework down to the Parotech wheels. We'll bring you live shots of the C6 Office in October when we see it along with the rest of the filthy peasants in Paris.
posted : 9/2/2008 @2:02:32 AM
Ford Ka gets role in new Bond movie

Ford's new Ka mini-car will be making its official debut at the Paris Motor Show in early October, but it already has a bit part in the next James Bond movie. Since the success of Casino Royale and the walk on part played by the then-new Mondeo, Ford has taken up the automotive product placement mantle in all Bond movies for the foreseeable future. Unlike the Mondeo, which Bond picked up from a Caribbean rental car counter, the Ka, which shares a platform with the Fiat 500, will apparently be tossed around by the super spy's feminine counterpart. Ford hasn't given any indication that it will bring the Ka to the US market, but given recent announcements about globalizing its products, a Stateside Ka certainly can't be counted out. In the meantime, we can see if the Ka can fly like an Aston Martin DBS when Quantum of Solace hits theaters in November.
posted : 8/31/2008 @6:02:13 PM
Insignia Sports Tourer wagon revealed before Paris Motor Show

The all-new Insignia is about to go on sale as a Vauxhall in Britain and an Opel throughout the rest of Europe, thereby replacing the Vectra sedan. It's a marked improvement over its predecessor in style, and we're eager for it to arrive in the States as the next-gen Saturn Aura. Vauxhall had the honor today of announcing the next version of the Insignia that will makes its debut at the Paris Motor Show in October: the Insignia Sports Tourer. That's a fancy way of calling it a wagon, or estate as they like to say in the old country. Being that the sedan and hatch are quite handsome, it's fair to say the Sports Tourer is as well, though its rear end looks like a lowered Audi Q7. GM Europe says that all the bodywork aft of the B-pillar is unique to the Sports Tourer, and that while the length of the wheelbase hasn't changed, a little over three inches was added to the overall length. Vauxhall also announced a more power turbodiesel engine and smaller turbocharged four-cylinder will be joining the Insignia's engine lineup, but are saving any details, including the wagon's capacities, until the Paris Motor Show.
posted : 8/31/2008 @5:03:50 PM
Honda's Prius-killing hybrid gets a date: April 2009

Hybrids are hot and Honda is anxious to get in on the action that Toyota's been unable to fully quench with its Prius hybrid sedan. We expect to see the production version of Honda's new hybrid, which will apparently not be called the Insight, to debut in October at the Paris Motor Show. Fortunately, Honda won't make us wait too long to buy its new hybrid, as the five-door hatchback is rumored to show up in dealer lots by April of 2009. Toyota also plans on showing off its new third-gen Prius at the Detroit Auto Show in January, so it will be very interesting to watch these to tangle in the marketplace. Honda plans to undercut its rival in the pricing wars with its hybrid coming in at a base price of less than $19,000, a few thousand less than the larger Prius. Both models will use nickel metal hydride batteries (for now) as opposed to the latest lithium ion units in an effort to keep their costs down. Both should also score fuel mileage numbers somewhere in the 50-60 mpg range. For its part, Honda is planning to build 200,000 units of its new hybrid annually, with 100,000 earmarked for the U.S. Let the (fuel-saving) games begin!
posted : 8/31/2008 @4:37:02 PM
Suzuki Maruti Alto to debut in Paris

Suzuki will bring its seventh-generation Alto to the Paris Motor Show this October, featuring stylistic and powertrain upgrades to compete with the best and brightest from the budget-oriented, compact class. Based on the A-Star concept introduced at last year's New Delhi Motor Show, the new model will be built in India by Maruti Suzuki's Manesar plant, and will likely packing a 1.0-liter engine which should make Euro V emissions regulations a breeze to exceed. Expect the new Alto to find its largest market in India, along with limited sales throughout Europe. For an economy car, it's a pretty decent looker from what we can tell from the two shots Suzuki's released ahead of the show, and we expect it will find plenty of buyers looking for a relatively cheap way to get around.
posted : 8/9/2008 @4:58:31 PM
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