Blog on 2040Parts

Hyundai Veloster Midship concept shows what the Veloster could be

The Hyundai Veloster Midship at the Busan Motor Show The Hyundai Veloster is actually a perfectly capable – if slightly quirky - sports car, which promises much but doesn’t actually deliver in terms of performance. In fact, when we  reviewed the Hyundai Veloster a couple of years ago with its 1.6 litre petrol engine, we wondered if Hyundai would have been better giving the Veloster a diesel lump instead, which would at least have made its paucity of power less of a problem with more torque to play with. And the Veloster Turbo isn’t a huge amount better, only offering 184 bhp and taking 8.4 seconds to get to 62mph; figures we would have expected from the base Veloster if it were to be a properly credible competitor in the sector.

Is Stefan Sielaff about to jump ship from Audi to head BMW interior design?

Here at CDN we hear plenty of gossip, much of which ends up as hot air and hardly any of which we publish. But when the source of a potential story is as reliable as Georg Kacher – a giant (physically and metaphorically) of a journalist with uncannily strong connections to those within the Germany industry – there's good cause to pay attention. His 'predictions' rarely fail to materialize.

EVs are Dead, Long Live Tesla says Morgan Stanley analyst

The Tesla Model S is the only successful electric car The experiment of getting the car buying public to believe an electric car is a sensible alternative to an ICE car isn’t an unmitigated failure – but it’s close. And now Investment Bank Morgan Stanley has come out and stated the obvious: Apart from the success of Tesla, electric cars are a failure, falling far short of sales predictions and likely to see no real growth in the coming years. Morgan Stanley declare that we will still all be driving ICE cars for the foreseeable future, and despite predictions that as many as one in ten cars will be BEVs by 2020 the reality is likely to be less than one in a hundred.

Button Confirmed For Festival Of Speed

IT’S BEEN announced that 2009 Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button will return to the Goodwood Festival of Speed on June 26-29, where he is expected to provide one of the event’s star attractions. Button is no stranger to the Festival of Speed and has attended 14 times previously, driving machinery as diverse as a 1970 Can-Am McLaren M8D, a P1 supercar and Alain Prost’s 1986 title-winning grand prix car. This year, McLarens attending the event include M23, MP4/2 and MP4-26 Formula 1 machines.

Inside Bob Pond's car collection

Robert Pond was an industrialist, an aviator, a Navy pilot, an aircraft designer, a genuine car enthusiast, a philanthropist, a Minnesotan at heart and a man who turned a family business from eight employees to a global $100-million concern. Pond was born in 1924 in Edina, Minn., 10 miles southwest of Minneapolis. He signed up for the Navy Air Corps in 1942, and survived three years of training on J-3 Piper Cubs and PBY Catalinas to graduate in July of 1945 -- just three months before Japan surrendered to the US.

London Congestion Charge jumps 15% to £11.50 a day

London Congestion Charge jumps 15% to £11.50 a day – and even a normal Prius must pay We all moaned when the London Congestion Charge zone was put in place in 2003 and we had to pay £5 a day to drive in London during the day on weekdays. But it’s gone up a bit since then. By 2011, it was costing twice as much – £10 a day – for the dubious privilege of driving in London, but having resisted the temptation of putting the price up for the last three years, Transport for London has announced it will be charging 15 per cent more from 7am on 16 June 2014 for your daily commute – that’s a whopping £11.50.

Adaptive steering for big Fords arrives on new Edge

By Tim Pollard Motoring Issues 30 May 2014 17:43 Ford today announced all its future large cars will have adaptive steering as standard - letting reps flick their wrists on the way in to the Welcome Break on the M4, yet tip their fingers when changing lanes on the London orbital. It's a further sign that what was once the high-tech preserve of the German brands is now firmly in the mainstream. BMW was one of the brands which pioneered variable-ratio power steering; in essence, it changes the ratio between the driver's inputs at the wheel and the rate at which turns are made at the rack.

Volkswagen Makes Virtual Roadster Real

GERMAN car maker Volkswagen has turned the virtual world into reality, as it unveiled its GTI Roadster concept at the famous Woerthersee GTI meeting in Austria recently. The GTI Roadster was originally created as a purely electronic car, to feature in the Sony PlayStation 3 classic, Gran Turismo 6. The result of cooperation between Volkswagen and Sony, the GTI Roadster is the work of three young Volkswagen designers, winners of an in-house competition to design a vehicle to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Gran Turismo game.

Here's what we missed at the 2014 Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d'Este

This year's Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este took place over the weekend of 23-35 May. Bathed in spring sunshine, the lawns of the Grand Hotel Villa d'Este played host to the annual gathering of 50 of the world's finest classic and concept cars, and 35 motorbikes. Sadly, clashing commitments meant that CDN couldn't jet down to Lake Como this year.

Concept Car of the Week: Ford Ghia Focus (1992)

As far back as the 1960s, Luigi Colani was preaching about organic design, and the 'biodynamic' forms that eventually became his signature. However, organic design didn't gain widespread popularity among car designers until the late 1980s and early '90s, and no car paid a greater tribute to nature and its forms than the Ghia Focus. Designed entirely by Taru Lahti only two years after graduating, the concept was a real breakthrough for the usually conservative American brand.

One Lap of the Web: The ABCs of Indy

-- Indy is full of tradition, and ABC is full of Indy. Having covered the Indy 500 for the past half-century, ABC is as "back home again" as Jim Nabors and milk and the forthright assumption that the Indianapolis 500 is the Greatest Spectacle in Racing -- a tagline announcer Charlie Brockman introduced to the world -- which it is. -- How do you design brakes that can stop a 1,000-mph car?

Subaru introduces BRZ edition that's not an STI

News of a limited-edition Subaru BRZ might draw a logical conclusion that it's the oft-rumored, long-awaited STI version, with more power and a turbocharger and all the raucous driving potential the Impreza WRX STI carries. Sorry, folks. It's not an STI.

Vote: Guess this car review, episode 2

Last week we brought you a few mystery car reviews and asked you to guess which vehicle was being reviewed. The response was great and we want to say congrats to @GoldGunsCars, @kokiousis, @buckar00 and @aol_wshutton, who all guessed correctly. The three reviews were of the Porsche Cayenne, Mercedes S55 AMG and Ford Focus SVT, all from 2004.

Mazda recalls 6 for fuel-tank problem

Mazda is recalling the 2014 Mazda 6 sedans built between Oct. 25, 2012 and May 9, 2013 for a problem with the fuel tank. The recall involves 18,592 vehicles.

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution not dead, yet

Perhaps as a reward to the public for buying its Mirage,* Mitsubishi has disclosed that it will not, in fact, kill off the gravel road-loving Lancer Evolution as soon as we thought. According to Mitsubishi, the Lancer Evolution will -- at the very least -- live out the 2015 model year, with North American-spec cars going into production this July. We're fairly sure it's not going to be a hybrid, either.

One Lap of the Web: Cumberbatch on Hamilton and Blue Ovals that never were

-- The Internet's greatest man-crush of the moment, next to boyish rogue Tom Hiddleston, is the aristocratically named and occasionally cross-dressing Benedict Cumberbatch. But the "Sherlock" star (not "Doctor Who," as the un-nerdy announcers mistakenly trumpet) has a dark secret: he's actually a Formula One fan who interviewed Lewis Hamilton at the podium at Malaysia. Bonus points for Nico Rosberg chucking a mike around like it's a hacky sack.

Volkswagen Tops Satisfaction Table

ONE of the most respected customer satisfaction surveys is out, and cars made by German-owned manufacturers are the most satisfying – that’s according to a poll of more than 15,000 motorists. German vehicles took seven of the top 10 places in a customer satisfaction table compiled by What Car? and marketing information services company JD Power.

10 things you might not know about Google’s driverless car

By Tim Pollard First Official Pictures 29 May 2014 09:27 Google made a major announcement this week when it confirmed its plans to build its own autonomous car. Co-founder Sergey Brin revealed the project at a conference in California on Wednesday. It might look like an extra from the set of Cars the movie, but you’d better believe it: Google wants to launch a driverless car very much like what you see here.

Map-reading driver gets ban and hefty fine

AN ELDERLY driver has been fined more than £1,000 and banned for a year after he was caught reading a map at the wheel. Peter John Rigby, 73, of Beamsley in Skipton, North Yorkshire, was captured by police cameras flicking through an atlas for at least 10 seconds while driving his Honda Jazz on March 4. The car caught the attention of a camera operator when it began to wander across the white line of the overtaking lane.

Experiment Proves A Testing Time For Experienced Drivers

WOULD you pass your driving test second time around? Insurance company Direct Line wanted to answer that age-old question, and gathered 50 experienced drivers and put them through the standard driving test to find out. The result was that more than three quarters of them failed, with those that did recording an average of three serious or dangerous faults, with one participant committing 10 major faults.

Good news for British car factories

NEW FIGURES have revealed that UK-based car production raced ahead in April, resulting in the biggest monthly rise since July 2012. A total of 133,437 cars were made in the UK last month – a 21.3% increase on the April 2013 figure, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said. The excellent April figures took the year-so-far total to 538,240 – a 6.9% rise on the figure for January-April 2013.

VW GTI Roadster Concept Gran Turismo (2014) first official pictures

By Damion Smy First Official Pictures 29 May 2014 17:07 VW has revealed this wild-looking 190mph GTI Roadster Vision Concept. After showing sketches last week, it has unveiled an in-the-metal version of the 496bhp machine to VW devotees at the annual GTI-fest at Worthersee, Austria. It hasn’t – this is VW’s virtual competitor in Sony’s Gran Turismo 6, joining the likes of the Toyota FT-1, shown at the Detroit motor show, and the BMW Vision Gran Turismo.

Project Car Hell, Homely but Lovable Edition: Triumph Mayflower or Frazer Vagabond?

Welcome back to Project Car Hell, where those little carburetor screws always disappear down the intake and all the parts you need are hoarded by bitter curmudgeons in Alaskan survivalist shacks. The Hell Garage Demons have come to the realization that the ugly cars of the early postwar era just don't get enough restoration love these days, and so they've taken a break from their day jobs (boiler-room managers for a major telemarketing firm) in order to scour the List of Craig for a pair of suitably homely machines from the 1946-1954 period. There were many to choose from, but they've found a couple of appropriate cars made on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

The midengined Hyundai Veloster Midship has landed

It's hard not to respect the Hyundai Veloster. It's polarizing, sure, but it's different -- in an era of indistinguishable profiles and middle-of-the road styling, the radical hatch really stands out. It's fun.

Jaguar & Lexus share top honours in 2014 J. D. Power Survey

Jaguar topped the 2014 J.D. Power Survey alongside Lexus It’s time for the 2014 J.D. Power Survey results, and this year the honours for top car maker have been shared between Jaguar – which has won in the last two years – and Lexus, which won for the previous 11 years.

MG exploring sports car concepts, eyeing US return

MG Motor, now part of China's SAIC along with Rover Group successor Roewe, is considering a sports car in addition to long-term plans for a return to the U.S. market, according to Edmunds. The company is in the early stages of exploratory work on a sports car following the opening of a new design studio in Shanghai, a sports car that is expected to mirror the classic MGB mold, if it is determined that today's MG could in fact field a worthy competitor to the Miata.

Volkswagen GTI Roadster for Gran Turismo uncovered – gets 496 bhp

The Volkswagen GTI Roadster (pictured) is uncovered We revealed last week that VW were making their GTI Roadster from the Gran Turismo game in to a real car for the Worthersee show, and they have. Blurring the lines between the real and the virtual (which is the way all our lives are going) Volkswagen has taken the opportunity to build a real life GTI Roadster – without the constraints of a concept heading for production – and has come up with a tw-seater open roadster that has some design cues from the Golf but is shorter and a lot lower. Those deign cues extend to a a front end that looks like a squashed GTI with its headlights and grill on show with big air intakes, all of which conspires to make the GTI Roadster look even lower, emaner and wider than it is.

Daimler’s Car2Go Smart car sharing dropped in the UK

I sight you won’t see from tomorrow – a Car2Go Smart on a UK road Need a car for a quick trip across town and don’t want to use public transport of a taxi? Then a car-sharing club is a good way to go. There are several choices on offer for those wanting a car for a quick trip but only one – Car2Go, run by Daimler and Europcar using Smart ForFours – will allow you to pick up in one place and drop of at your destination.

Volkswagen GTI Roadster bows at Woerthersee

As we expected, Volkswagen introduced the real version of the GTI Roadster “Vision Gran Turismo” at the Woerthersee festival in Austria on Thursday. The show car was originally created for the PS3 game's “Vision” series of cars. It debuted in-game on Monday.

Mini Superleggera Vision (2014): why BMW is likely to build its retro rocket

By Georg Kacher First Official Pictures 29 May 2014 12:52 BMW surprised the Villa d’Este glitz-fest at the weekend with the Mini Superleggera Vision concept car. Produced in association with la famosa carrozzeria Touring, it’s like Mini’s found Doc Brown’s time machine and headed back to the Swinging Sixties. But fast forward a year or two and CAR can reveal that BMW is seriously considering launching a cute little roadster in line with what you see here.