Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Chevrolet, GM

2010 Chevrolet Camaro Transformers Special Edition - Click above for a high-res image gallery

Last but not least among this year’s Comic-Con rides: GM’s Transformers Special Edition Chevy Camaro. You likely remember the details, but in case you don”t, here’s a refresher: for around a thousand bucks, you get a bunch of Autobot and Transformers logos on your otherwise stock-trim machine. The only requirement is that the car needs to be Rally Yellow, for maximum Bumblebee effect. In case you were wondering, you can get pretty much the exact same car, sans all the movie tie-in pieces of flair, for $470 over sticker; that’s what plain black stripes cost when you order them alone. But you know, this is more collectible. Probably. Hit the gallery below for the shots Drew snapped of the V6 RS with the factory Bumblebee package at Comic-Con this weekend.

Photos copyright (C)2009 Drew Phillips / Weblogs, Inc.

Comic-Con 2009: GM shows off Transformers Special Edition Camaro originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It seems that 1909 was a popular year for automakers to begin appearing on the world stage. To wit, Audi and Bugatti are both planning their centenary celebrations in ‘09 - not to mention the recent 100-year anniversaries for American automakers such as Ford and General Motors. Add Suzuki to this growing list, though the Japanese company followed a more roundabout path to its current position on the global automotive stage.

The history of Suzuki’s first 100 yearsreads like a storybook rags-to-riches story, as a young Michio Suzuki, a loom-maker from Hamamatsu, Japan, decided to tackle the problem of producing fabrics with both vertical and horizontal stripes. From these humble beginnings sprung the Suzuki Loom Company, which, in turn, began producing small engines to adapt bicycles into motorized vehicles in 1952.

A few years later, Suzuki’s first automobile, the Suzilight, hit the market with a 360cc two-stroke engine and innovations like front-wheel-drive and four-wheel independent suspension. By 1989, Suzuki was overseeing the production of over 10 million cars per year through its own factories and its many global partnerships.

Today, Suzuki is a recognized global leader in Japanese kei cars and motorcycles, while its SX4, Swift and Splash are fully competitive vehicles in their respective segments. According to the Japanese automaker, the future will bring environmentally beneficial advancements, including the debuts of stop/start and variable valve timing at the Geneva Motor Show. Gazing a bit further into the crystal ball, hydrogen fuel cell technology is also in the works.

Click past the break for a more detailed look back at Suzuki’s last 100 years and follow along in our image gallery below.

[Source: Suzuki]

Continue reading Suzuki approaching its centennial celebration

Suzuki approaching its centennial celebration originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Convertible, Technology

It’s amazing how something you can’t see, such as the air around you, can have so much of an effect on what goes on while you’re driving. Consider the impact of that invisible air when it wraps itself around the windshield when you’re driving top-down in a convertible (honestly, is there any other way?).

We’ve all been there: sun shining, cloudless skies, let’s drop the lid and go for a ride. Now, if your noggin has a bowling-ball smooth finish, this isn’t an issue; just smear on some sunscreen and go. But if you have, you know, hair, the air curling around behind you whips it around into a chaotic mess. Sure, you could wear a hat, but then you get hat head and need to sport that lid all day to keep it hidden and generally avoid ridicule.

Back in the 1980s, wind-blockers were developed, but these were often a pain in the neck to put in place. Plus, they look goofy. A team of Stanford engineering students has collaborated with their counterparts at the Technical University of Munich to develop a potential solution something they call OpenRoad. Essentially, it’s a hole in the windshield. The idea in play here is quite simple: the air flowing through the center of the windshield creates a stream that prevents the air at the sides of the cockpit from curling back around.

Obviously a production version could be better integrated and actually route air from the front of the car rather than through the windshield, but the concept is beautifully simple and seems to work in the video. Check it out after the jump. Hat tip to Sarah

[Source: Stanford University]

Continue reading Backdraft: Does drilling a hole in a convertible’s windshield alleviate buffeting? [w/VIDEO]

Backdraft: Does drilling a hole in a convertible’s windshield alleviate buffeting? [w/VIDEO] originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 14:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Etc., Motorcycle, Celebrities

At last year’s Comic-Con , one of the biggest throwbacks to ’80s geekery was the surprise announcement of an update to the classic film (in our minds, at least), Tron. Attendees got a sneak peek of the new film’s Light Cycle sequence, with a pair of the bikes dueling, leaving those signature, impossible-to-negotiate light trails in their wake. Mercifully, it the TR2N moniker used at the end of the clip in 2008 has given way to the much more palatable Tron Legacy. Further, while the teaser leaked onto the web briefly during last year’s con, Disney’s legal army shut it all down pretty quickly.

Now, a year later, that footage has been officially released for all to see at this year’s convention. It seems that the Light Cycles have evolved in the intervening decades and are now much faster and more realistic in appearance. Follow the jump to see it all unfold in the the official Comic-Con 2009 teaser trailer for Tron Legacy, and do your best to hold back your inner fanboy. Oh, and one last thing - yes, that’s Jeff Bridges reprising his role as Flynn, though with a decidedly darker tone than before.

[Source: Asphalt and Rubber]

Continue reading Comic-Con 2009: Tron Legacy gives the classic Light Cycle a high-tech update

Comic-Con 2009: Tron Legacy gives the classic Light Cycle a high-tech update originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Technology, Nissan

For the last century, automotive engineers have worked diligently to send Charles Darwin’s concept of natural selection into obsolescence. It appears that we’re inching closer to the time when any fool with a pulse may be able to climb behind the wheel of car and traverse a series of curves looking much more like the white-helmeted mystery driver from Top Gear than Captain Slow. The new Nissan Fuga (known here as the Infiniti M), debuting this fall at the Tokyo Motor Show, will feature fresh technology including new driver assistance systems.

In this case, Infiniti has integrated the GPS navigation system (hope those satellites hang in there) with the M’s electronic stability control. As always, ESC uses inertial sensors to detect what the car is actually doing and compares that information to the actual driver inputs to see if they match. If not (i.e. understeer or oversteer) the brakes are individually applied at each wheel and engine torque may be reduced to help make the car go where the driver intended.

The GPS integration allows the system to detect where the road is going ahead and further manipulate the car, while alerting the driver to slow down by pushing the throttle back against his or her footn. Maybe it’s all just a part of Nissan’s master plan to save trees by preventing cars from being wrapped around them. Or perhaps we’re just seeing the evolution of the Idiocracy. You can read the official PR from Nissan after the jump.

[Source: Nissan]

Continue reading New Nissan driver-assist tech helps the James May in you find his inner Stig

New Nissan driver-assist tech helps the James May in you find his inner Stig originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 11:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Coupe, Ford, UK

Our time with the Euro-spec Ford Fiesta proved to us that the Oval has one heck of a B-segment hatch on its hands. Since Americans tend to prefer traditional sedans, we’re likely to have three-, four- and five-doors here in the US, but what about a coupe?

Auto Express wondered the same thing, and the UK publication commissioned an artist to craft a two-door rendering of the popular Fiesta. AE’s imaginary Fiesta coupe looks very much like the car presently in production, with a trapezoid grille, unique headlamps that stretch all the way to the front wheel wells, and the Kinetic-design surface treatments that make the Fiesta look wider than it really is. In the land of make-believe, the coupe gets rectangular fog lights that lend it a fancier look than the plain-Jane round lights on the existing Fiesta.

Out back, the theoretical Fiesta coupe adds some visual flair with a swoopy roofline that stretches all the way to the Fiesta’s rear hatch. Chrome trim arounf the side glass that stretches from the A pillar to the C pillar looks a bit like that of the good-looking Mondeo. We’d love to see a slick Fiesta coupe here in the States, and would be more than OK if it looked just like the Auto Express rendering. Throw an EcoBoost 1.6 under the hood, give us the keys and get out of our way, because this little whip’s a looker. Now, if only it were real….

[Source: Auto Express]

Rendered Speculation: Ford Fiesta to get racy coupe variant? originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Car Buying, Government/Legal, Earnings/Financials

According to Bloomberg, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration got wind that some cars being turned in under Germany’s Cash-For-Clunkers program were being certified as destroyed, but actually being resold. To prevent that scenario from repeating itself in the U.S., land of Honest Abe, dealers have apparently been instructed to fill the engines of trade-ins with sodium silicate and run them for seven minutes in order to permanently disable them.

Early reports from around the country indicate that Cash-For-Clunkers is having the intended effect, and the authorities want to make sure no one takes undue advantage by making money on the turned-in vehicles. Normally sodium silicate, often referred to as “liquid glass,” is used to seal leaks in things like head gaskets, but in this case, it’s used to seize an engine that could be well worth reselling. Dealer records will be reviewed by federal agents, and if the dealer is found not to have complied, the dealer will have to pay $15,000 per infraction.

[Source: Bloomberg via Boston.com | Image - Dave7 under CC2.0]

REPORT: Cash-For-Clunkers dealers instructed to kill engines with sodium silicate originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Motorsports, Ferrari

Yesderday during Formula 1 qualifying in Hungary, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa suffered a life-threatening head injury when a spring from Reubens Barrichello’s car struck him in the helmet. As you’ll see in the ESPN video posted after the jump, the impact appears to knock the Brazilian unconscious; immediately after the incident, his car simply drives straight into the runoff area and tire wall.

Massa was reportedly conscious when he arrived at the hospital, where he received a CT scan and underwent successful surgery to treat two skull fractures suffered as a result of the accident. He was placed into an induced coma immediately following the procedure and remains in intensive care. Doctors talking to the BBC described his condition as stable and said there were no complications following the operation. Another brain scan will be performed on Massa later today, after which the medical team will update his condition. Massa’s injury comes on the heels of Henry Surtees’ death last weekend, the result of the young driver being struck in the head by a flying tire. Massa’s on-track incident left some F1 personnel openly wondering whether it’s time to make changes that improve cockpit safety for drivers. Fortunately, things appear to be progressing well for Massa, and we wish him a speedy and full recovery. Follow the jump for ESPN’s video report on the incident, which includes the on-car-camera view of what happened.

[Sources: Sky News, Formula1.com, The New York Times | Video: ESPN | Image: Clive Mason/Getty]

Continue reading Felipe Massa’s skull fractured by track debris during Hungarian GP qualifying

Felipe Massa’s skull fractured by track debris during Hungarian GP qualifying originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 08:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look at the first official images of the all-new Acura’s four-door sports coupe. The 2010 Acura ZDX has been officially revealed as a pre-production concept at the New York Auto Show this April.

As we see, the production ZDX is identical to the NY Show concept. Fresh design include the panoramic glass roof, the hidden rear door handles and the bulgy fender flares.

The five-seater Acura ZDX will be offered with a 3.7-liter V6 gasoline engine producing 300 HP with an all-new 6-speed automatic transmission.

The 2010 Acura ZDX goes on sale in the U.S. this winter it will be offered with three trim levels: ZDX, ZDX with Technology Package and the premium, ZDX with Advance Package. The 2010 Acura ZDX will be priced and positioned between the MDX SUV and the RL sedan, as a similar proposal to BMW’s X6 model.

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Filed under: Sedan, Etc., Celebrities

The Green Hornet’s Black Beauty - Click above for a high-res image gallery

Frankly, we’re a little concerned about whether funnyman Seth Rogen will be able to pull off the action-star thing when he takes the lead role in next year’s big-screen adaptation of The Green Hornet . Then again, we remember thinking Michael Keaton would utterly tank as Batman in 1989, but that experiment in casting against type wound up working extremely well, so we’ll sit back and hope for the best. As with Tim Burton’s Batman, a car will feature prominently in The Green Hornet, and in this regard, things are looking very good indeed.

As reported earlier this week, Comic-Con served as the backdrop for the unveiling of the film’s Black Beauty — the Hornet’s signature ride — and now we have a new set of photos from our resident camera Jedi, Drew Phillips. As with the original TV car, the silver screen variant appears to be based on a 1966 Imperial Crown 4-door hardtop (there’s a distinct ‘65 flavor to those headlamp surrounds, however, so we might be wrong on that).

In addition to the grille- and bumper-mounted weapons and gadgets of the original, Rogen’s Green Hornet will also have a pair of hood-mounted gatling guns at his disposal. Neat detail alert: check out the hornet center caps on the Beauty’s Torq-Thrust-style wheels. Regardless of how the movie winds up being, one thing’s indisputable: The Black Beauty is way badass. That Rogen and co. went with another Imperial in the 21st-century update is a testament to just how great-looking those old cars were… and still are.

Photos copyright (C)2009 Drew Phillips / Weblogs, Inc.

Comic-Con 2009: The Green Hornet’s Black Beauty looks ready to roll originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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