Chevrolet WTCC Ultra

By Phil McNamara Motor Shows 28 September 2006 09:48 Chevrolet Ultra: the lowdown Hidden beneath the WTCC Ultra's wild touring car looks is Chevrolet's 2008 Ford Focus rival. GM's headline concept car at today’s Paris motor show (Thursday 28), the Ultra previews Chevrolet's future design direction, as well as the Lacetti replacement. Although the muscular bodykit, ultra-wide track, funky graphics and slitty rear window will all be toned down for production, 'you won’t miss the connection when the production car arrives,' a GM insider told CAR Online.

smart fortwo gets a facelift for 2012

The smart fortwo gets a nip and tuck for 2012 The smart fortwo has been given a small cosmetic facelift for 2012, and will debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March. The perpetual loss-maker for Mercedes that is the smart car (the other being Maybach, which is now being left to wither on the vine) still continues, and Mercedes are planning a replacement, previewed by the recent smart forvision concept which heralds the new smart fortwo which will share its platform with the next Renault Twingo. But to freshen the current smart fortwo until the all new smart fortwo arrives, Mercedes has rolled out a few cosmetic tweaks for the current smart fortwo for 2012, but haven’t bothered to tweak either the chassis or engines.

Aston Martin won’t be proclaiming ‘Powered by AMG’ on its Mercedes-engined cars

Aston Martin won’t be using ‘Powered by AMG’ badges It was a long time coming, but Aston Martin finally found a way to replace their ageing engines by doing a deal with Mercedes AMG to use their very impressive powerplants. And it seems that, depite AMG’s willingness to provide Aston Martin with modern engines, AML aren’t going to be required to put AMG badges on the bodywork or engines of their very beautiful cars. Speaking to Autocar, Mercedes boss Dieter Zetsche said that Mercedes were very happy to have done a deal with AML and equally as happy to be subtle about the arrangement.