Porsche 918

Just a few days ago Porsche confirmed that the 918 Spyder will go into production and it is going to be the most expensive model that the company has ever sold, with a price tag of $845,000. Rumors say that the automaker is working on another car to fill in a gap in its lineup. We are talking about a new mid-engined supercar that will rival the beautiful Ferrari 458 Italia and the McLaren MP4-12C. Of course, Porsche cannot take this decision on its own because they have to get approval from Volkswagen.

If there is going to be such a model, it will most likely be offered in both coupe and roadster versions and will have a price tag of approximately $275,000. The Porsche engineers might use carbon fiber-reinforced plastic for reducing the car's curb weight and increasing its performances.

The car will be powered by an engine that will develop somewhere between 550 and 600 hp in order to compete with the aforementioned 458 Italia and the MP-12C. The Ferrari packs a V8 4.5-liter engine that develops 570 hp and 398 lb.-ft of torque, while the McLaren delivers 592 hp and 443 lb.-ft of torque from its 3.8-liter twin-turbo V8 power plant. This power could be attained from the 911 GT2 RS that has a 3.6-liter engine, developing 620 hp.

Source: TopSpeed

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Rumors: Porsche Working On Ferrari 458 Rival

The 2011 Formula 1 seasons kicks off this weekend with the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park. Sebastian Vettel and his Redbull managed to grab the pole position with a time of 1:23.592 in Q3. Right behind him on the start line is going to be Lewis Hamiltion (McLaren Mercedes) with a lap of 1:24.307, followed by Mark Webber with a time of 1:24.394.

Jenson Button from McLaren Mercedes grabbed the 4^th place with a time of 1:24.779 while in 5^th came Ferrari's Fernando Alonso who managed to do a 1:24.974 lap.

Because of the 107% exclusion lap time at 1:31.266 based on Vettel's fastest time of 1:25.296, the Spanish cars from HRT failed to qualify, despite the fact that Vitantonio Liuzzi managed to do a great job in only a few laps with his brand new car and he succeeded a time of :1:32.978, while his college Karthikeyan managed a 1:34,295.

Here are the complete results:

Source: formula1.com

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Vettel Grabs Australian GP Pole Position

Ford Focus EV

Unlike other car manufacturers like Renault for example, Ford will include the battery pack as standard in the forthcoming Focus EV model. According to the company's UK managing director Nigel Sharp, "We are sure leasing batteries is not the way to go, even if it would bring the initial price down. The Focus must be sold as a conventional car".

The Focus EV is going to be the flagship of the company's five-strong fleet of alternatively fuelled vehicles and a very strong rival to the Nissan Leaf, another car that comes as standard with the battery pack included.

As a reminder, the Ford Focus EV will feature a 28 kWh lithium-ion battery, which will give the car a top speed of 84 mph. It will take about 3-4 hours to fill up the battery from a standard 240V household outlet, which is half the time needed for the Leaf's battery. The automaker is targeting a driving range of about 100 miles.

Source: Ford via autocar.co.uk

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Ford Focus EV Will Get The Battery Pack Included As Standard

Opel Meriva Color Edition

The second generation of the Opel Meriva was introduced last year and since then the German automaker managed to sell more than 120,000 cars in Europe. To boost up sales in its homeland, the company will introduce the Color Edition, which as you might have guessed already, it's all about contrasting colors.

Opel Meriva Color Edition

This stylish small MPV will be offered in a choice of five colors for the body: Henna, Silver Star, Carbon Grey, Magma Red and Casablanca White – all of them will feature a contrasting high gloss black-painted roof, dark tinted headlamps with curve and cornering light, as well as a new set of 18-inch two-tone alloy rims.

Opel Meriva Color Edition

The car will be fitted as standard with trip computer, air conditioning, radio-CD, electric front windows, leather steering wheel, cruise control, power mirrors, Opel's Flex Rail-center console and tinted rear windows.

If you live in Germany and you want to buy this car, prepare to pay at least 19,570 Euros.

Source: Opel

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Germany Gets Opel Meriva Color Edition

2012 Fiat 500

Last month at an industry conference, Fiat SpA and Chrysler LLC Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne said that the Italian car manufacturer could eventually merge with its Detroit partner and move its corporate HQ from Turin, Italy to the United States. A couple of days after that, John Elkann, who is Fiat's Chairman and the grandson of the Gianni Agnelli family who owns 30% of Fiat, affirmed that the Italian automaker has no plans to leave its homeland. Marchionne also backtracked, but not until a meeting with Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as well as other politicians, stating that no final decision has been made and nothing is going to be decided until 2014.

According to Reuters, Marchionne wants to move the company's headquarters to the United States because there, the automaker would pay fewer taxes: "If I pay 70% tax in Italy and only 30% in the United States, it's a no brainer where to go."

At the moment there is an ongoing debate in Italy regarding the company's factories. According to the same report, the production costs in Italy have grown by 25% more than in Germany in the last ten years. More than that, the Italian automaker affirmed that its 22,000 workers in Italy managed to built 650,000 cars in 2009, in comparison to the 600,000 units that were produced by the 6,100 employees at Fiat's plant in Tychy, Poland.

Sergio Marchionne said that if he can boost up the efficiency of Fiat's factories he will increase the salaries, which are significantly low by EU standard, as an average employee in Italy is paid approximately 1,300 Euros / month, while in Germany a worker gets about 2,000 Euros / month.

Source: Reuters via Carscoop

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Fiat Still Thinking Of Moving Its HQ In The USA

Toyota Avensis BTCC Racer

On Thursday this week at the Silverstone circuit, Toyota unveiled the two new "Next Generation Touring Cars" (NGTC), a week before their official racing debut in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC). The cars will wear a livery of privateer teams Hughes Motorsport/Speedworks and Dynojet Racing.

The cars will be driven by Tony Hughes and Frank Wrathall. Both vehicles have been built by GPR Motorsport on bodyshells from the production line of the automaker's Burnaston factory. Under the hood there is a Toyota 2.0-liter turbocharged engine that was developed by X Ctech R and outputs more than 300 hp.

The upcoming season of the BTCC will feature 27 cars, with 10 different automakers represented: Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Proton, SEAT, Toyota, Vauxhall and VW. There are going to be 13 different car models that will be fighting for the championship: Chevrolet Lacetti & Cruze, BMW 320si, Audi A4, Volkswagen Golf, Toyota Avensis, SEAT Leon, Proton Gen-2, Honda Integra & Civic, Ford Focus and "Global" Ford Focus, and the Vauxhall Vectra.

Source: Carscoop

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Toyota Avensis BTCC Racer Revealed

In this video you will be able to see the 2012 Nissan GT-R breaking its old record on the Nurburgring circuit. Although the clip is in Japanese, you can see all the 7 minutes and 24.22 seconds of the car's track run from inside the cockpit. The time Nissan managed to do is just a little bit behind Porsche's 911 GT2 RS that completed a lap in 7 minutes and 24 seconds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As a reminder, the 2012 Nissan GT-R packs a 3.8-liter V6 twin-turbo engine that produces 530 hp (537 PS / 395 kW) and 488 lb.-ft (661 Nm) of torque. The car can sprint to 60 mph (100 km/h) in 3 seconds, but in order to achieve that time, some may have to use the R-Mode Start Function.

The new model managed to beat the 2011's circuit time of 7 minutes and 26.7 seconds by almost 2.5 seconds, which is quite a lot.

Source: Nissan via Motor Authority via WCF

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2012 Nissan GT-R Breaks Its Own Nurburgring Record

2012 Audi S8 (Rendering)

It was only yesterday when we talked about the upcoming Audi RS6 and now there are rumors of a possible S8 model that will get a Bentley-sourced 4.0-liter V8 twin-turbo that will output 520 hp (527 PS / 388 kW). If this information turns out to be true, the new Audi S8 will be slotted below the Mercedes S63 AMG – 537 hp (544 PS / 400 kW) and above the BMW B7 Alpina – 500 hp (507 PS / 373 kW).

The car should be launched in the United States at the beginning of next year. Stay tuned for more information.

Source: Car & Driver via Motor Authority via WCF

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2012 Audi S8 Will Get 520 hp Engine

Relationship with a teenager is always difficult and complex, even more when you are the parent and the teenager is your birth child. This could be caused by your overprotecting attitude or by his generalized tendency to disobey you and whoever who tries to set rules. This is why the moment when your teen starts to drive the car needs to be treated with huge responsibility and with patience, because ignoring any way of getting involved into this or supervising the entire process isn't a proper solution.

This is why any advice about how to keep your teen driver safe is useful:
- a teen child should not be allowed to drive with other teenagers in the car until he doesn't have enough experience in driving: in the company of other teenagers, young children take unconsciously risks.
- a teenager shouldn't use any type of mobile phone while driving, because this may distract him too much from driving. Reasons: his distributive attention isn't fully developed and he doesn't have enough experience.
- try to reduce situations of night or in bad weather driving for your teenager child, because, as you already know, many experienced drivers have difficulties into such situations, not to mention your unskilled child.
- try to explain to your teenager child that driving is a privilege that could be easily suspended if not follow the rules, yours or traffic rules, it doesn't really matter.
- set yourself as an example of safe driving for your child, because this will give him an useful standard about what is good and what is bad about driving.

How do you choose to protect your teenager child on the wheel? Share some tips and help others to keep their children safe too.

[Source: Edmunds]

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How to Keep our Teen Drivers Safe

We talked about how the Japan earthquake and tsunami affected the car industry and it seems that the repercussions are not over. According to industry analysts, the prices for new cars will rise in the weeks to come due to parts shortage. The dealers will begin to run out of cars so we'll have to forget about getting a significant discount or other promotions. According to Ian Fletcher who is a senior analyst at IHS Global Insight, the price for nearly-new cars will hold its value as a consequence of the lack of availability of new models.

At the moment, Toyota has special offers for some of their models, offering discounts of between 750-3,000 pounds, but taking into consideration that during the downtime they've lost the production of about 140,000 cars, these discounts are short-lived.

Both Toyota and Honda have halted their production until Sunday (at the earliest), affecting Toyota's Prius, as well as Honda's Accord, CR-Z and Jazz Hybrid models. At the moment, Honda is having problems due to parts shortage which could lead to a decrease in production at their Swindon plant, where they make the Jazz, Civic and the CR-V.

Honda and Toyota said that they have enough cars until at least the end of next month, but they do admit that problems with stock levels might occur in the months to come.

As far as Nissan is concerned, they have just about the same inventory levels and they recognized that they might have ran into problems once they run out of stock, affecting mostly the Leaf and the GT-R models.

Source: autocar.co.uk

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Japan Earthquake Hits Car Prices