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The 2009 Continental Flying Spur

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 07:09:17 GMT

Deliver a greater level of comfort, refinement, and opportunities for customer personalization, the new Continental Flying Spur Speed has a more powerful and engaging Bentley driving experience. Since its launch in 2005 the Continental Flying Spur has been an extraordinary success story for Bentley. The class leading 12-cylinder luxury saloon has played a pivotal role in the revitalization of Bentley. The Flying Spur Speed offers the pure driving experience and uncompromising performance synonymous with all Bentleys bearing the Speed legend. The Continental Flying Spur has most powerful 4-door car ever produced by the British manufacturer.

Bentley announced the new 2009 Continental Flying Spur which will be joined by a high-performance Continental Flying Spur Speed. The the new 2009 Bentley Continental Flying Spur looks wise and Spur gets a new front grille with a bright chrome matrix, larger and lower air intakes, chromed headlamp bezels, an optional bright chrome matrix lower grille. With bright tail lamp bezels the rear-end gets slightly refined bumper. The power for the Continental Flying Spur comes from the 6.0L W12 engine that produces 552-hp. 0-60 comes in at 4.9 seconds with a top speed of 195mph.

The Continental Flying Spur Speed goes from rest to 60 in 4.5 seconds with a top speed of 200mph, getting the same W12 600-hp from the GT Speed. Joining the speedy Continental GT Speed is the 2009 Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed. The Flying Spur Speed apart from the regular version with 20-inch multi-spoke wheels available in both bright silver and darkened tungsten carrying bespoke Pirelli PZero tires.

Safe and relaxing road life

Sat, 24 May 2008 04:21:39 GMT

Japanese company Shutoko have initiate a campaign to promote safe driving habits and lowered CO2 emissions in the Tokyo area called Tokyo Smart Driver. The plan is to use the TSD program logo, a pink and white checkered flag, to brand products and services that meet the goals of the initiative. It seems that the Japanese people are especially keen to products they feel have been officially “approved for use”, by either a governing body or consumer rankings.

Japanese consumers like to know that something is “approved for use”, whether by official decree or by consumer rankings, and a distinct qualifying logo can play a large role in promoting a product that might now otherwise get much attention. TSD has even been promoted in artistic “design” forums as well, and came out with a CD last December with relaxing music for driving, including a “Smart Driver Theme” from Ken Ishii and Sony Records.

One of the products that TSD believes will keep drivers in line is a line of in-car scent dispensers by a company called @Aroma. @Aroma may be an aroma company geared towards home lifestyle, but their new TSD Aroma is supposed to help you relax in your car life as well. The tiny car accessory plugs into your cigarette lighter and allows drivers to put in essential oils to create a safer atmosphere on the road. The small device can plug right into a car’s cigarette lighter and disperses the scent of selected essential oils that is supposed to be rather calming. This effect is believed to “create a safer atmosphere on the road.” We can’t help but wonder at how relaxed it’s safe to be while driving through the Tokyo highway system, though we’re tempted to sample for ourselves.

Kim Cattrall and the Mercedes-Benz GLK

Sat, 10 May 2008 01:47:14 GMT

The New Mercedes-Benz GLK has the opportunity to showcase the car in a scene for the upcoming Sex and the City movie.

Here’s the Press Release:

Excerpt from Kim Cattrall interview at the Laureus World Sports Award 2008I = InterviewerC = Kim Cattrall

I: Kim, I heard that in the new ‘Sex and the City’ movie there’s gonna be a Mercedes involved which nobody saw yet.
C: Yes, when we were filming with my co-star - it was the GLK Mercedes SUV - there were so many photographers in Beverly Hills and there have been very many photographers in New York. When we were filming.I thought, there’s all these photographers, I felt so proud and happy, but they weren’t interested in me, they were interested in the new Mercedes GLK. They were all trying to photograph the dashboard, which was completely new, so they would have the first photograph - so I was upstaged by the Mercedes car (laughing).
I: By the car! (laughs)
C: Exactly, a newer model, I guess (laughing).
I: Do you drive a Mercedes in your private life?
C: I just ordered an SL. I’ve had a romantic love affair with a Mercedes for a very long time, especially when I was a struggling actress - but now I am so happy that I am successful enough to own one myself.
I: And why is it the Mercedes - that you like so much, is it because of the style, or is it the technical details?
C: You know, I think that the Mercedes is made by very, very smart, passionate people. I’ve been playing this very passionate character for a very long time - I think it goes very well hand in hand, with me as a person and with me as an actor. I also very much like something that has that steel around me, I feel very, very safe in it and I live in New York where we have a lot of weather conditions. It’s not like sunny California. So it put a lot of demands on the car that you drive, I feel very happy and safe.

(End of interview excerpt)

In Tune To Rock

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:53:20 GMT

A supergroup consisting of two British rock titans, an amateur songwriter and bits from two dismantled Ford Focuses has made musical history, writes Nicholas Rufford.

What makes a truly great driving song? A killer hook; a thumping, hot-hatch-shaking bassline; Bruce Springsteen? Last week The Sunday Times set out to record a new type of motoring anthem, with a little help from Mike Rutherford, the guitarist in Genesis, and Kenney Jones, a former drummer for the Who. And to capture the essence of the driving experience fully, these rock heavyweights would be playing instruments made entirely out of car components.

You can see the fruits of our labours above. Hopefully, you’ll agree that it’s not bad, for music played on the remains of a dismantled hatchback.

“It’s a great driving tune,” said Rutherford, who played the guitar parts on a weird-looking instrument made from a clutch plate. “It’s a cracking number and dead catchy. You’ll find yourself humming it in the car, even if it’s not playing,” said Jones, who laid down the beat on wheels fashioned into drums.”

Before going any further we should add, in the best Smashie and Nicey tradition, the exercise was all for charidee. The Teenage Cancer Trust will get all the proceeds, so if you listen to the song and like it enough to download it, please make a 79p donation (the price of one track on iTunes).

Rutherford, the mainstay of our improvised band, called Carparts, has sold more than 150m records as part of Genesis, as well as fronting Mike and the Mechanics. Jones was a founding member of Small Faces and Faces. When the Who’s original drummer, Keith Moon, was found dead, Jones took over. He also recently topped the American charts with a single from his new band, the Jones Gang.

We also recruited some of the country’s leading classical musicians, members of the National Symphony Orchestra, to play other carparts instruments including the rear-suspension spike fiddle, the fender bass and a flute made from part of a strut and some air-conditioning tubing.

All the instruments have appeared in a recent television advertisement for Ford, which features an entire orchestra playing instruments assembled from the components and body panels of a Ford Focus. They were designed by Bill Milbrodt, an American musician who began making music from bits of cars in the 1990s. He formed a New Jersey band called the Car Music Project in 2005, who were spotted by Ford’s UK advertising agency.

With his colleague Ray Faunce III, a luthier (a maker and repairer of stringed instruments), Milbrodt had just over a month to transform two brand-new Focuses into a 20-piece orchestra for the ad. “These are so much more advanced than my first attempt at carparts instruments,” he said. “And they look much better too. They’re painted with proper car paint, which costs $400-$550 a gallon.”

The vocalist for the Sunday Times’s recording was Richard Watson, who co-wrote the song. In the best tradition of talented hopefuls, he’s never had a hit or a record deal and composes in snatched moments between office meetings at a busy London recruitment agency.

The first step was to get to grips with the instruments. Rutherford, a pioneer of the double-neck guitar and various Moog synthesisers, was wrestling with all four stone of the clutch-plate guitar. “This is without doubt the weirdest thing I have ever played,” he said, inspecting the welds holding the thing together. “But I guess after playing the double-neck for most of my career this is the next step. And there has always been that link between music and cars.

There is no prog-rocking-out with this instrument strapped over your shoulder, however. Rutherford had to spend most of the recording session sitting on a stool with the guitar resting on a piece of sponge in his lap to stop the metal edge digging into his legs.

Jones rolled up shortly after 11am in his Jaguar XK, wearing a modish black donkey jacket and with the same fuzz of suspiciously brown hair he’s had since the 1960s. Rutherford made him a mug of instant coffee (“We’re out of the proper stuff – sorry. This is rock’n’roll”) and he began experimenting with the 16in wheel-rim drums while creating strange sounds with the assorted carparts percussion, including cogs, springs and a mixture of gears for tapping, jangling and scraping. He looked slightly bemused (although that could just be an unavoidable side effect of four decades of rock stardom).

“I saw these instruments in the ad but to be honest I presumed they were miming. I didn’t think they would actually play in tune,” he said. “I remember drumming on a guitar case for a track with Andy Fairweather Low, but that’s nothing compared with this. This is fantastic.”

Additional reporting: Emma Smith

Kenney Jones, drummer with Small Faces, Faces and the Who: “I think the best driving song would have to be No Particular Place to Go by Chuck Berry. It’s a fantastic song and it starts with the line ‘Riding along in my automobile’, which is pretty ideal. It’s all about him trying to pull this bird and not being able to undo her safety belt, so to speak. I also like listening to the Eagles while I’m driving.”

Mike Rutherford, guitarist with Genesis and founder of Mike and the Mechanics: “I think it would have to be a Steely Dan track called Reelin’ in the Years. I associate it with one of the long tours we did with Genesis in the 1970s and this song was just always in the air. We used to tour in two cars, a Merc and a four-door sedan, which was quite cool at the time. I hated tour buses. I think a good driving song has to give you a bit of a lift, a bit of energy.”

Best driving songs as decided by Rolling Stone 1. Immigrant Song, Led Zeppelin (1970) 2. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen (1975) 3. Highway to Hell, AC/DC (1979) 4. Runnin’ Down a Dream, Tom Petty (1989) 5. Truckin’, Grateful Dead (1970) 6. Ol’ 55, Tom Waits (1973) 7. Radar Love, Golden Earring (1973) 8. Tush, ZZ Top (1975) 9. The Passenger, Iggy Pop (1977) 10. Wanted Dead or Alive, Bon Jovi (1986)

And the ones they missed 1. The Boys of Summer, Don Henley (1984) 2. Ace of Spades, Motörhead (1980) 3. Route 66, the Rolling Stones (1964) 4. Silver Machine, Hawkwind (1972) 5. Drift Away, Dobie Gray (1973)

[credit: Times Online]

Wrong Way To Save

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 03:56:47 GMT

I am sure that in one way or another, you have tried to save money on your car. It might have started when you were haggling for the price of the car at the dealership. It could have been that time when you bought that cheaper engine oil. You are not the only who practice such actions.

In the United Kingdom, a recent study found out that a lot of motorists in the region chose to ignore the defects on their cars instead of just paying for repairs according to The Auto Channel.

The survey conducted by an insurance company found out that 33 percent of the respondents would rather ignore that their cars are wheezing and rumbling just to save on repairs. Five percent of them even went as far as ignoring the warning lights lighting up on their dashboard.

Now, it does not take an auto genius to tell you that that is a big no-no. You see, when you push your car like that, the original problem will just get worse. And then, it will affect other parts around it. For example, a loose brake dust shield might damage other brake parts. In the end, you would have to pay a lot more than what you would have paid if you had your car repaired at the first sign of trouble.

Mike Pickard, Head of Risk and Underwriting at esure, the insurance company which undertook the study said: "Driving a car with a fault - no matter how small it may be, could potentially increase the likelihood of having an accident or breakdown. Motorists should always think about the internal feel of the car whilst driving as well as any unusual noise they may hear."

Very First Ferrari At Inaugural Desert Classic Concours d'Elegance

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:38:18 GMT

The Father of all Ferraris is still alive and kicking - in case you didn’t know that. Oh yeah, its heater core can still rise to the hottest temperature! The very first Ferrari ever built tagged with Chassis Number 01C will make a very rare appearance in the West. According to the Auto Channel, this vehicle will make its first-ever United States visit and will debut at the historic O'Donnell Golf Club in Palm Springs, California.

"This is the first time in 20 years this pristine automobile has made a public appearance. Ferrari has a unique history in Palm Springs, by recording its first western U.S. win here in 1951, and we're bringing that excitement back with another historic Ferrari," says Paul Merrigan, the event organizer.

Furthermore, the show will open this coming Friday, February 29, 2008, with the Tour Classique. Auto fans and spectators are encouraged to take a peek at this vehicle and other spectacular automobiles as they speed past the streets of Palm Springs and other Coachella Valley cities starting at the O'Donnell Golf Club at 11 a.m.

"One of just a limited few built, the 1941 Packard is a perfect match for our event, because of its association with Darrin, who crafted many of his cars for the same celebrities that brought worldwide attention to Palm Springs in the early 1940s," says Merrigan, who notched first prize in the Post-war GT Italian Coachwork class at the world-renowned Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in 1998.

The Fantastic Five

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:40:56 GMT

If Marvel has the Fantastic Four, Ford Motor Company boasts of their fantastic five! These are not superhero figures like The Thing and Invisible Girl. It’s the Ford Mondeo and other Ford vehicles that have just been recognized with five awards in their belt by another trusted business publication.

According to Ford’s press release, the Ford Mondeo shoveled no less than three great honors while Ford’s admired and vibrant MPV one-two punch was recognized as well.

The five fantastic categories were:

Business Car of the Year - Ford Mondeo (The main award and a category containing all 2007's new models)
Upper Medium Car of the Year - Ford Mondeo
Estate Car of the Year - Ford Mondeo
Mini-MPV of the Year - Ford S-MAX
MPV of the Year - Ford Galaxy

“Ford's huge success in the 2008 BusinessCar Awards illustrates the brand's progress in producing attractive and desirable cars that still make good business sense. Crowning the Mondeo as Business Car of the Year shows how the new model's quality and desirability has struck a chord with the business community. It's a very deserving winner of this prestigious award, which is decided by the people using the products for business on a daily basis," says Tristan Young, BusinessCar's Editor-in-Chief.

“New Mondeo gathered a lot of attention when it was launched last year and we’re delighted with the sales figures. Fleet customers often put huge demands on their vehicles and, as this recognition prove, Mondeo is more than up to the job,” says Kevin Griffin, Fleet Director of Ford of Britain, who collected the awards.

“As well as being spacious, refined, affordable to buy, lease and run, the Mondeo is also desirable. This is a car people can choose with their heart and head and in today’s market that’s very important. Of course our two MPVs also deserve recognition. Both S-MAX and Galaxy are flexible seven seaters that are great to drive. Factor in their five-star Euro NCAP safety ratings and it's not difficult to identify the reasons behind their popularity,” he concluded.

The A-BAT At 2008 NAIAS

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:54:37 GMT

Just when you thought that the 2008 Detroit Auto Show fever has come to an end, think again! We still have a massive hangover about the show and we just can’t deny it. One of the several things that brought our minds to the next phase of the auto industry is Toyota’s A-BAT concept. This ride doesn’t only embody a great premium vehicle with the best radiator but it also is the reflection of the future.

“Driving from beyond the suburbs to the city is a way of life for many people. We've taken Toyota's truck heritage to a different level by envisioning a vehicle capable of maneuvering the suburbs as well as dirt roads. This compact truck is as comfortable for long commutes as it is for road trips. It can accommodate outdoor toys and home improvement supplies. Plus, customers benefit from the hybrid powertrain's low emissions and fuel economy," said Kevin Hunter, president of Calty Design Research, Inc.

According to the Auto Channel, the A-BAT concept was assembled and enhanced by Toyota's North American-based TMS Advanced Product Strategy group and Calty research and design center situated in Newport Beach, Calif. The team generated a fresh type of compact vehicle with superior fuel economy, sophisticated functionality, exceptional styling in its segment, maneuverability and a long-lasting package that fits for a vigorous lifestyle.

"We studied the 'trapezoid' silhouette from the side profile of the Toyota Prius and applied it to create an entirely new truck image. He further enhanced the trapezoidal profile by placing the cab forward, and using fast angle A- and C-pillars, shortened overhangs, and a sleek front window," said Matt Sperling, Calty Project Creative Designer.

"The image of a NATO all-terrain military truck inspired us to keep the occupants as far forward as possible to maximize rear bed capacity in this compact package," stated Sperling.

North American Verve At NAIAS

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:27:00 GMT

Dearborn automaker Ford is in the middle of its restructuring plan. Its shrinking share in the auto market has made it realize that they need to compete more seriously in the small car market in the United States.

The automaker is known for its large vehicles such as the Expedition and the F-150. The latter is the best selling vehicle in the country for as long as we can remember. That shows that the automaker is a leader in the large vehicle market in the United States. But that has become a liability as more and more consumers are preferring smaller and more fuel efficient vehicles.

And since Ford is a leader in the European small car segment, it has decided that it should have a small car which can compete equally with Japanese cars. Thus, the Ford Verve concept was born.. said concept vehicle is being displayed at the ongoing NAIAS.

According to The Auto Channel, Derrick Kuzak, Ford’s group vice president, Global Product Development had this to say: "We're looking at every aspect of what’s defined Ford as a small-car leader in Europe and working to build on this expertise in driving dynamics and design across a global family of Ford cars that are as exciting to drive as they are to look at. The Verve concept family provides a vision for a new world standard for quality, design and comfort in the small car segment. These concepts demonstrate how leveraging our global strengths can yield attractive benefits for our customers in markets around the world."

The automaker is yet to announce when the Ford Verve will reach the production stage. But I am sure that the automaker will be working on it as soon as possible as they do not want to have further problems in terms of shrinking market share. I also expect the Ford Verve to have high quality auto parts from the hood to the rear bumper.

Loremo Cabriolet to Debut at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:14:43 GMT

Loremo AG a German automaker corporation based in Munich will venture in one of the most ambitious project ever ---to create a sport car that can consumer two times less than that of a Toyota Prius. It plans to present its new concept model at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show and it will be in form of a cabriolet.

Loremo short for Low Resistance Mobile has presented last 2006 at Geneva the LS concept car which was dubbed as the cleverest car in the year. It has a 2-cylinder turbodiesel engine with 20 hp and fuel consumption of .51/100km while its sport version GT had a 3-cylinder turbodiesel with 50 hp with fuel consumption of 2.71/100km. And although it is designed as a budget car, the GT has a top speed of 220km/h courtesy Loremo’s recipe of manufacturing cars with very low weight and air resistance. The LS model obtains Drag Cw=0.20 while the body is relatively small measuring only 384cmx136cmx110cm.

Production model is expected to arrive sometime in 2010 and due to the diminishing fossil energy resources; Loremo also plans of equipping electric motor for subsequent models.

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