Patrol Vehicle of South Korean police

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Patrol Vehicle of South Korean police
South Korean police will make the Lamborghini Gallardo as his patrol vehicle. South Korean police will also be bringing some kind of super fast cars such as Ferrari 360, Porsche 911.

Porsche Cayman S PDK (Porsche)

2009 Porsche Cayman S PDK (Porsche)
Motor Trend says, “Probably more than any other car here, including the R8, this one feels like an extension of your neural synapses.”
Porsche Cayman S PDK (Porsche)

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Penske's Saturn: The Post-Modern Auto Company

Auto companies have traditionally been engineering and manufacturing businesses, rather than marketing and retail businesses. Henry Ford, for example, insisted dealers pay for his Model Ts as soon as they left the factory door. But what made sense in Henry’s time, and reached its apotheosis with the huge River Rouge plant, the most vertically integrated automobile factory in the world, has become a liability today. Auto plants cost staggering amounts of money to build and to run. And in an era where the manufacturing process no longer delivers major differentiators in terms of the finished product — all vehicles have to meet similar safety and fuel economy mandates, and the cost and quality differences between the best and the worst are getting smaller all the time — that’s money many auto industry insiders wished they no longer had to spend. Especially as what largely defines an auto company these days is not where its products are made, but how its brands are perceived by consumers.A Boxster is still a Porsche, even though it is built in Finland by Valmet. A Grand Cherokee is still a Jeep, even though it is built in Austria by Magna Steyr. Right hand drive Mercedes C-Class and BMW 3 Series models are still seen as German cars, even though they are made in South Africa.Which is why Roger Penske’s Saturn play is a stroke of genius. With Saturn, Penske has the opportunity to create the first truly post-modern auto company. Penske’s Saturn doesn’t own a single factory, design studio, or proving ground. What it does own — and all it needs to own — is the intellectual property of the Saturn brand. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect candidate to become a post-modern auto company than Saturn. Envisioned by GM chairman Roger B. Smith as an import fighter because of advanced manufacturing techniques that included a highly automated plant and plastic body panels, Saturn succeeded not because the original car was good — actually, it wasn’t even remotely competitive with anything from Toyota or Honda — but because it was cleverly sold and marketed. Saturn consumers bought into the defining promise of the brand — no haggle pricing and great customer service — rather than the physical attributes of the vehicle.Although GM has agreed to build Saturns for Penske for at least two years, future Saturn models may be sourced from a variety of automakers around the world (the latest rumor has Penske talking with Renault). Saturn could simply rebadge another manufacturer’s existing model, paying for U.S. market certification costs and minor cosmetic changes, or it could commission an automaker to design, engineer and manufacture a complete new vehicle. Either way, it could bring new models to market for way less capital cost than a traditional automaker. Finding someone with spare factory space to build Saturns won’t be hard: The world’s automakers currently have the capacity to build 92 million vehicles a year, but will be lucky to build 60 million in 2009, says respected industry forecaster CSM Worldwide. And with the global economy expected to recover slowly from recession, there’s going to be plenty of spare capacity around the world for a long time yet.All Penske’s Saturn has to do to succeed is sell cars and trucks that deliver on the promise of the Saturn brand. The actual vehicles can be made anywhere, by anyone, and as long as they are competitive with the mainstream players in their respective segments in terms of performance, economy, quality, and equipment levels, it almost doesn’t matter what they are, because the Saturn brand is mostly defined by a classy purchase experience. And if there’s one thing Roger Penske knows how to do with class, it’s selling cars and trucks.
Source : blogs.motortrend.com/6538063/editorial/penskes-saturn-the-post-modern-auto-company/index.html

On the Trail of the Orient Express: Day 1

Daybreak, and we’re parked outside the Gare de l’Est, one of six major railway stations that serve Paris. Nothing particularly unusual about that, perhaps, except for the cars we’re driving — a pair of California registered Hyundai Genesis sedans, both loaded 4.6-liter V-8s. We’re a long way from Orange County, Toto. And we’re about to go further.

The Gare de l’Est is where the famed Orient Express began its journey. We’ve all heard of the Orient Express — it was featured in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, and was the setting for Agatha Christie’s 1934 thriller Murder on the Orient Express. James Bond rode it in From Russia With Love. It has become a pop culture icon.

The original Orient Express, inaugurated in October 1883, ran from Paris via Strasbourg, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, and then into Romania and Bulgaria before finishing in Istanbul, the ancient Turkish city where Europe literally meets Asia. Look at the route on a map and it screams road trip. Which is why we’re parked at the Gare de l’Est as sleepy-eyed Parisians hustle through the terminal on their way to work: We’re planning to drive our two Hyundais more than 2000 miles east to Istanbul.

Our Genesis sedans — one silver, one blue — are drawing curious looks from the Parisians in the early morning traffic. The driver of a Stuttgart registered Porsche Panamera Turbo– a journalist, presumably, as I recognize the car as being one of those used for the press launch in Bavaria a few weeks back — leans out to stare at the cars as he cruises past us near the Arc de Triomphe.

The Genesis is not sold in Europe, and while Hyundai may be a latecomer to the luxury segment, it’s obvious the big, well finished, well proportioned sedan is sending all the right signals to an audience otherwise unfamiliar with the Korean automaker’s upmarket aspirations in the United States: The reactions are overwhelmingly positive.

Our early morning photoshoot over, we work our way through the city to the A4 autoroute, heading into the sun as the commuter traffic jams the inbound lanes. This is the same route we took out of Paris almost exactly a year ago in the Dodge Challenger SRT8 — we top up both Hyundais at the same gas station a few miles down the road. But this time, where not heading for Reims and its famous old grand prix track. Instead, we’re turning off the autoroute where it crosses the Marne River and heading into the heart of champagne country.

Our destination is the town of Epernay, and the headquarters of Moet & Chandon. Moet has been making champagne since 1743, and sent its first shipment of wine to the United States in 1787. Moet occupies pole position on Epernay’s Avenue de Champagne, where hundreds of thousands of bottles of liquid gold age quietly in the cool darkness of nearly 18 miles of tunnels carved into the soft chalk rock underneath.

We’re met by the charming Veronique, who takes on a tour of the historic site. We walk in the tunnel where Napoleon drank champagne with Jean-Remy Moet, grandson of company founder Claude, and under the tree where in March, 1814, the Duke of Wellington shared a glass of Moet champagne with Emperor Francis II of Austria, the Tsar of Russia, the King of Prussia, and the future king of Holland. It’s that sort of place.

We taste Moet’s most recent vintage champagne — the 2003 — in both white and rose over lunch at the Residence de Trianon, built as a private home for Jean-Remy Moet’s children Adelaide and Victor in 1833, and used as a residence by the family until 1958. It’s like angels dancing on your tongue. But it’s sadly only a taste, as we have a couple of hundred miles to cover before reaching our hotel in Strasbourg, and duty calls. As we’re about to depart, Veronique appears with a magnum of Moet’s Imperiale champagne. “It’s for you to celebrate your arrival in Istanbul,” she says. Bless her.

The Genesis whispers along the autoroute to Strasbourg at 80 mph, the 4.6-liter V-8 turning barely 2200 rpm and returning 25 mpg, according to the readout on the dash. It’s a comfortable and relaxed cruiser, its laid-back demeanor marred only by the slight busyness of the stiffly sprung rear end. It’s a minor niggle in a car that is otherwise astonishingly accomplished.

A few short years ago the idea of retracing one of the world’s great luxury journeys in a Korean car would have seemed laughable. But on Day 1 of our Orient Express roadtrip the smooth, silent, and refined Genesis sedan has felt pretty much at home in the heartland of olde worlde luxury.

-Photos by Brian Vance

Source : blogs.motortrend.com/6561705/miscellaneous/on-the-trail-of-the-orient-express-day-1/index.html

Piech Wins Again: Finally, Volkswagen Buys Porsche

This just in from Wolfsburg: Volkswagen’s supervisory board has met in an “extraordinary meeting to create an integrated automotive group with Porsche…” From Porsche’s first sports car, the 356 in 1948 through the original air-cooled 911, the VW-Porsche 914, the 924 meant for Audi, and right on up to the Cayenne-Touareg, the two companies have been closely intertwined.

Ferdinand Piech, the big winner in this deal, is a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche. He has been playing corporate games with his cousin, Porsche chairman Wolfgang Porsche, at least since the sports carmaker’s holding company started buying up shares of VW.

The story goes something like this: Porsche SE has been buying up VW AG shares for the past couple of years. Porsche needed to expand its corporate lineup in order to meet future European CO2 regulations, which are figured similar to the United States’ Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. Buying a company that sells diesel Polos and Golfs means Porsche wouldn’t have to build its own small, fuel-efficient cars. What’s more, Porsche Chairman Wendelin Wiedeking thought he could do a better job of running a Porsche-VW than VW Chairman Martin Winterkorn.

By this year, Porsche had accumulated 51 percent of VW AG’s shares. Problem is the state of Lower Saxony’s unusual shareholder interest in VW. It’s not unlike the Ford family’s special stock ownership in Ford Motor Company, which gives that family shareholder control without owning a majority of common stock. For VW, it prevented Porsche from taking control. Meanwhile, Porsche has run up 10 billion euro in debt ($12.8 billion) as it has been buying up shares.

A large portion of that debt came due this summer, allowing VW to turn the tables on Porsche. Thursday morning, Porsche’s supervisory board announced what had been expected for weeks; it dismissed Wiedeking and his finance chief, Holger P. Haerter. VW will take care of some of the Porsche debt in the merger, and Porsche is charging ahead with an injection of Qatari capital.

Considering how Piech has run VW, expanding the Porsche lineup might seem likely. The first two would be a small, midengine four-cylinder Porsche sports car based on the coming VW BlueSport and the so-called Roxster, a smaller-than-Cayenne crossover based on the Audi Q5.

On the other hand, Wiedeking’s successor, named Thursday morning, is Michael Macht, an engineer whom Wiedeking often credited for driving the project to get the 996 and original Boxster to share platforms and production lines, to cut costs and to improve quality. Macht, 48, recently told Motor Trend’s Paul Horrell that Porsche would fight for its independence and would remain a low-volume, high-priced brand. “Never a car cheaper than the Boxster,” he said, and no fifth model line like the “Roxster.”

“He laughed at the prospect of Porsche doing a version of the VW BlueSport.”

The big question now is, what does Ferdinand Piech think?

Source : blogs.motortrend.com/6534574/corporate/piech-wins-again-finally-volkswagen-buys-porsche/index.html

The V-6 Corvette and Other Heresies

I’m still tingling from this morning’s 300 mile cross country-blast in the Corvette ZR1. I didn’t go over 140 mph, but Lordy, what a car! Punch the gas and the LS9 bellows like a lion kicked in the balls, delivering a surge of pure, weapons-grade thrust. The short-throw Tremec TR6060 six-speed is slicker than any gearbox handling such massive torque loads has a right to be. The massive Michelin Pilot Sport tires grip like leeches, the steering is accurate and nicely weighted, and the huge carbon brakes are simply bulletproof, hauling the ZR1 down from unfeasibly fast velocities time and again without a hint of fuss and fade.

This ZR1 is without doubt the most accomplished Corvette ever; the first that could be considered a true Ferrari rival. I adore it, so much so I can forgive its cheap-looking, made-by-Mattel interior and the faint whiff of Dogtown surf shop when I open the rear hatch. So why on earth did I suggest GM build a V-6 Corvette in my story on how we’d remake GM’s product range earlier this week?

Fair question.

Back in 2007 we pulled together a number of scenarios for the C7 Corvette, which at the time was scheduled for a 2012 debut. In it we outlined three different scenarios for the C7’s development. Our preferred option was a careful evolution of the C6, with a three model line up — base, Z06, and ZR1 (though at the time we didn’t know what the super-Vette was going to be called) — all powered by V-8 engines.

A couple of things have changed since then, though. First, timing: The C7 program has been on hold indefinitely since last year, and the sudden retirement last November of Tom Wallace, only the fourth Corvette chief engineer in the car’s history — he was barely three years into the ultimate gig for any GM engineer with an ounce of gasoline in his veins — suggests it’s not likely to be started again in a hurry. That pushes the potential launch of a next generation Corvette to 2014 or 2015 at the earliest.

The other big change since our 2007 story, of course, is that we now know exactly what the new CAFE regulations look like. We based our preferred scenario on a CAFE mandate of 35 mpg by 2020. As we now know, it’s 35.5 mpg by 2016, and because SUVs still get a break, that translates to a 39 mpg target for cars. Bottom line: If Chevy green lights the C7, it now has to meet a tougher fuel economy target from the get-go.

The 6.2-liter LS3 V-8 that currently powers the base C6 Corvette is an impressive engine. It’s relatively light and compact and quite fuel efficient for its capacity. A base C6 manual returns an impressive 16 mpg city and 26 mpg highway, though GM is a master at gaming the EPA numbers: you get 26 mpg courtesy of a mountain of torque and a moonshot sixth gear, and 16 mpg only if you’re prepared to live with the klutzy first-to-fourth skip-shift and drive like a granny.

Could the LS3 be made fuel efficient enough to survive beyond 2016 in a Corvette that’s going to have to be smaller and lighter than the C6?  Cylinder deactivation is difficult, because the system sets up all sorts of weird harmonics through the Corvette’s torque tube and rear-mounted transmission layout. Direct injection is a more promising alternative, as you could reduce the LS3’s capacity to further improve fuel economy while still delivering good power. Variable valve timing offers potential for further efficiency gains. Both add cost and complexity, however.

So it would be foolish not look at the direct injection 3.6-liter V-6 as option. The hardware’s shared with a large number of GM products, helping keep a lid on costs. Would performance suffer compared with and LS3 powered C6? Sure, but not by as much as you might think. And if the alternative is no Corvette at all, why not consider it?

My other point is this: A V-8 under the hood is nice, but it doesn’t automatically make a Corvette a great sports car. Exhibit A: The 1975 C3, which boasted a pathetic 165 hp, and could barely get out of its own way. And unless we want to turn Corvette into a kind of four wheeled Harley-Davidson — an amusingly pointless anachronism — we should be prepared to accept the fact that sports cars must change and evolve with the times.

Porsche’s 911 started out as a flat-four before it became a flat-six, and the company is looking to going back to a four again for an entry-level Cayman. Ferrari’s first road car was a four-banger, then came a long line of V-12s before it built its first V-6 road car in the 60s and first V-8 road car in the 70s. Lotus sports cars have been powered by fours, sixes and eights; Jaguars by sixes, eights and twelves. Cylinder count does not define a great sports car.

Besides, if you re-read my story carefully, you’ll see I didn’t say all C7 Corvettes should be V-6. If I ran the New GM I’d make sure I’d keep that mighty LS9 alive, powering a C7 ZR1. It’s a 2000-3000 unit a year car at most, low enough volume to keep it flying under the CAFE radar. America should continue to build at least one true, no-holds-barred Ferrari fighter.

Source : blogs.motortrend.com/6520948/editorial/the-v-6-corvette-and-other-heresies/index.html

This week in brief

Posted on 12.5.2008 17:19
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Simona AlinaFiled under:
Here are the most important news of the week: 2009 Audi R8 LMS 2009 Mini Cooper Cabrio Nissan GT-R LM – new rendering Porsche Carrera GT by 9ff 2010 Audi A5/S5 Convertible 2009 Volkswagen Scirocco Study R 2009 Maserati MC Sport Line Porsche Panamera by 9ff
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Porsche Panamera by 9ff

Posted on 12.4.2008 12:00
by
Panait,
Myles KornblattFiled under:
9ff Porsche | Porsche Panamera | car tuning9ff decided a while a go that it didn't need to have its hands on a Porsche Panamera to start customizing it. Even without an official debut of the car, plans seem to be moving forward to tune the Porsche's sedan. According to a Russian website called Cardesign, tuner 9ff is teaming up with Top Car and Cardi to modify the Porsche Panamera. The chain seems to start with Top Car designing two kits: one that replaces all the body panels except for the roof and a tamer package that just adds (…)
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Porsche readying new electric 911?

Firm buys Tesla Roadster to evaluate future eco model.
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Porsche Carrera GT by 9ff

Posted on 12.2.2008 19:30
by
Panait,
Myles KornblattFiled under:
9ff Porsche | car tuning | Porsche Carrera GT | Essen Motor ShowThe Porsche Carrera GT may be out of production for over two years now, but that still doesn't make it any less desirable. It also doesn't meant the tuners don't need to stop upgrading the car. 9ff, the tuning house that has made some earth-shattering cars from Poreches like the GT9, has gotten its hands on a Carrera GT. It's called the GTT 900 pack, and it was showcased at the Essen Motor Show in Germany this weekend. The standard V10 unit was upgraded by about 50 percent to give the (…)
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