The model was tipped to be built in a tie-up between US giant Chrysler and Chery, the Chin­ese brand, and they even signed a letter of intent late in 2006.

However, the model to come out of that agreement will not be the buzzy little machine seen at last year’s Geneva Motor Show – as an insider has told us another small car should be expected.

And the US firm’s sales chief, Thomas Hausch, fuelled speculation that the newcomer could be the first Chinese-built Chrysler by saying its plant in Graz, Austria, was not set up for small cars. The site’s flex­ible line currently makes the Voyager MPV and 300C sal­oon, plus the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Source [Auto Express]

It’s the most luxuriously equipped Volvo ever and prices start at £38,4151. The first customer deliveries start at the end of January.

There are three engines available. The five-cylinder 2.4-litre D5, six-cylinder 3.2-litre (front wheel drive or All Wheel Drive) and a V8 AWD, all with six-speed Geartronic transmission as standard.

Meanwhile Volvo’s V70 estate is getting in trim. The new Special Edition Sport replaces the existing Sport model, and offers more kit for less money.

It gets leather trim, 17-inch alloys, a rear spoiler and colour-coded bodykit. Prices range from £24,310 for the 168bhp 2.4-litre petrol to £26,815 for the 183bhp D5 diesel.

SOURCE [Auto Express]

While the Japanese company has released these first official pictures and details of the facelifted 350Z, Auto Express can also exclusively reveal plans to produce a smaller version.

Nissan product strategy and planning boss, Pierre Loing, explained: “We all agree there is room below the 350Z for something. We are working on such a model at the moment.”

While the project has yet to be given the official green light and details are top-secret, Loing added: “It wouldn’t be a Lotus Elise-style model. The idea is to create something around half or two-thirds the cost of a 350Z.” That would pitch the new rear-wheel-drive machine bet­ween £13,500 and £20,500.

The news came as Nissan revealed its revised 350Z. Styling changes are minor, with the only significant modification being a bulging bonnet.

More noteworthy is the Coupé and Roadster’s V6 engine, which has had nearly 80 per cent of its major parts redesigned. With power up to 309bhp from the existing model’s 296bhp and torque increasing by 5Nm to 358Nm, the 350Z will be faster than ever.

Buyers can expect a slight price rise for the revised model when it goes on sale in the UK early in the summer.

Meanwhile, Loing also gave us an insight into the ongoing debate over whether his firm’s new GT-R supercar will be sold in the UK. It seems the sums are adding up for British fans, as the Nis­san chief told Auto Express: “There’s a 95 per cent chance it will come.”

Source [Auto Express]

Unveiled at recnt Tokyo Auto Salon – a motor show that gives Jap­anese makers the chance to let their hair down – the Turbo Modellista is set to go on sale in its home market in the next few months, and previews a European version. Based on the Japan-only Yaris RS, it uses a 1.5-litre engine turbocharged by Toyota’s in-house tuner, Modellista, and Toyota Racing Development (TRD).

Power is increased by 40bhp to 150bhp at 6,000rpm, and with 196Nm of torque, the newcomer should cover 0-60mph in less than eight seconds on its way to a 135mph top speed.

To ensure all the power reaches the road, TRD has equipped the car with a limited slip differential, and further improved the handling by lowering the ride height 20mm and fitting spe­cially tuned sports suspension.

The looks are enhanced by a muscular bodykit, with large intakes at the front to feed air into the intercooler, plus 17-inch OZ Racing alloys. Inside, the Turbo Concept gets specially des­igned instrumentation, which includes a turbo boost gauge, plus a leatherbound steering wheel and gearknob.

SOURCE [Auto Express]

Recently the Honda showed its New Civic in the Auto Tokyo Salon, and together with the production models, we appreciate this “Road you the Racing Concept”.

The car is good-looking with the Mugen Civic Dominator Concept that was shown in place the same alone that one year before. Exactly style, same color, same mission, etc. That Dominator had a version supercharged of Honda K20A, arriving about 300 horses.

It will be that this model would have the same motor? Nothing it was explained by the Honda….

AUGUST JOSE AMORIM
publisher-assistant of vehicles of the Leaf of S.Paulo

He had a time where consuming none remembered them: all only wanted minivans. But, still in slow camera, the turkey hens are in the Brazilian market. The Renault started to make the Mégane Grand Tour in the Paraná, and the Peugeot imports of the 307 France sw.

Mecanicamente, them well is seemed. Beyond having automatic exchange of four speeds with manual exchanges, they use engine 2,0 16V. The power and the torque (force) have next values, with advantage of five horses and 0,8 kgfm for the 307 – that it beat to the countrywoman naturalized in all the tests of performance.

In the taking of acceleration time, the difference arrives 1,69s: to reach 140 km/h, the 307 takes 25,52s, and the Mégane, 27,21s. It enters the tests of retaken, the biggest interval is of 1,77s. Km/h is transferred 16,88s it Peugeot to go of 80 the 140 km/h, and the chronometer indicates 18,65s for the Renault.

As they are come back toward the family, is presumed that the consumer is worried about the security. E the two turkey hens, equipped with the same system of brakes, almost estake the speed in the same distance. If km/h will be the 40, the driver of the Mégane will need 30 cm to less stopping the car that of the 307. If km/h will be the 100, the advantage will be of 1,4 m.

Expenses

It follows in the consumption the balance between the Mégane Grand Tour and the 307 sw, that the Toyota sovereignty of Fielder and its fight against 8,881 units emplacadas in 2006 (the Toyota did not yield the vehicle for the Leaf test). The two register the mark of 8,4 km/l in the city. In the road, the Renault is capable to twirl 100 more m with one liter of gasoline.

The decisive factor for a father of family will be the price divided between the two models. The 307, that she is taxed with Tax of Importation of 35%, are R$ 9,460 more expensive than the Mégane, but benefit inherits of hatchback one high relation cost/.

Cost R$ 79,950 and offers itens serial as airbags of the type curtain and lateral, retrovisores that if they strike automatically when the turkey hen is locked, sensory of rain and luminosity, air-conditional with independent regulation for passenger and driver.

The Mégane, of R$ 70,490, brings “basic” the electric trio, brakes with antitravamento and electronic distribution of the lockwire, wheels of light league, and its direction is electric – lighter in maneuvers. Perhaps most sensible they are vain for the “charms”: the glass ceiling of the Peugeot and the key in card form and the brake of hand in the format of stick of the Renault.

The cars had been yielded for test for the assembly plants

TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE MAUÁ
www.maua.br
0/xx/11/4239-3092

A mount of owners of Mazda3 if has become victims of a known method already of the Brazilians. When they come back toward its cars the door is opened and all itens of had been inside taken. Nothing of blown up locks or broken glasses.

In accordance with Mazda concessionaires whom they had preferred to be anonymous, the person has that to give to a collision in the place certinho of the door, kneading it a little. Then the passed kneaded one of the frame of the door, and arrives at the mechanism of the constraint, that active the computer, and it thinks that the door was unlocked correctly by the key or the remote control.

This problem reaches all the Mazda3. The Mazda says that it knows of the subject already for 4 months, and that it is working in a way to decide it. Victims had said that the Mazda fixes the constraint mechanism, but do not unknead the door, because he was one third that she caused the problem.