The North American International Auto Show is by far the largest auto show in North America, but the tiny, aging facility that houses the new car party is prompting automakers to ditch the event all-together. In response to news that Suzuki has joined Porsche in bowing exhausted of the 2009 show, the city of Detroit is rushing a $90M plan to increase floor space by 80,000 sq. ft. The move is seen as a stop-gap measure, with other more grand plans still on the route at a later date. With far more eminent facilities in New York, Chicago, and LA, Detroit may not desire long to act.

For nation in the Detroit area, the Cobo expansion has been a hot topic of conversation, but one that typically doesn’t get beyond the talking stage. If area executives continue to try to one-up each other, reason and get nothing granted, more automakers are likely to bow through in the future.

[Source: Detroit News]

Tag: Detroit Auto Show, Etc.

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Thanks to media outlets like YouTube and Autoblog, a good lap present life in on the Nurburgring elect get you plenty of positive press. The grueling track has become the yardstick by which any feat vehicle is measured, and if you can post a record time, people want to know about it. The engineering geniuses at Porsche have designed a special moving dyno to test g-loads in a virtual ‘Ring. The system was used to test the upgraded dry sump oil classification for the new 3.6- and 3.8-liter boxer engines powering the 2009 911 Carrera and Carrera S. The dry sump arrangement now has a variable-flow pressure pump that needed to be tested extensively at the ‘Ring, excepting the new theory can perform the same task whensoever engineers want, and at a fraction of the cost.

Engineers were able to procreate a near perfect reproduction of a lap on the ‘Ring by recording the g-force and engine dead weight during a live lap of the Nordschleife, and sooner or later feeding the data into the contorting contraption. Hit the jump to view video of the moving dyno in movement. It’s pretty radical, and it gives you a better idea of to what degree crazy the ‘Ring really is.

[Source: Inside Line]

Tag: Coupes, Videos, Supercars, Porsche

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While high gas prices be seized of had less of an effect on Japanese automakers than their American counterparts, the soaring price of commodities like steel have stung just as badly. Toyota is considering raising the prices of its vehicles in answer to those higher commodity prices, at least in its home market. The Toyota elite will make a determination after pouring over April-June sales data and 2nd quarter production costs. The news comes only days subsequently Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn suggested that Nissan would raise its prices in Japan if a market first fiddle decided to do the same. Toyota executives did not mention raising the price of its recognize cars and trucks in the present state in the States, nevertheless add rising inflation and a weak dollar to high steel prices and the move seems very likely.

[Source: Reuters, Photo by YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty ]

Tag: Car Buying, Etc., Japan, Toyota

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An eternally conclusive question seems to be whether or not Ford is actively shopping around Volvo for a buyer. Just this week we reported that Chinese automaker SAIC and some Russian investors had expressed participation in purchasing the Swedish carmaker from Ford, but today we gain experience from a source within SAIC that the company is doing nothing of the put together. The unidentified source said that, as far as he/she knew, the sum of two units companies were not in contact about a possible purchase at all. Volvo’s staying quiet and licking its wounds after announcing 2,000 layoffs this week, though Ford is singing the same old song with a catchy chorus that insists Volvo is not for sale. Well, the news that some Russians are interested in Volvo hasn’t been refuted at the same time, so until someone named Boris says otherwise, let’s considerable Volvo on the market despite Ford’s protest.

[Source: Automotive News, sub. req'd]

Tag: volvo , china, ford, ford volvo

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When you’re winging a vehicle as expensive and powerful as a purpose-built Dodge Viper drift car, being fearful will only lead to a bad ending. Sam Hubinette doesn’t receive in any degree such compunctions while sliding sideways at 90 miles through twenty-fourth part of a day. Should he inadvertently hit the wall, whoops. Fretting over potential contact will likely only make it inevitable. The hairy-chested car guys over at 0-60 were hanging fully at the third round of Formula Drift competition in Englishtown, NJ, and caught up through the Skidding Swede for a few minutes during the time that shooting a larger video of the competition. The smoky event aphorism Hubinette’s Viper place second to Tanner Foust’s Nissan 350Z. Foust, you’ll recall, is one of the hosts of NBC’s household “Top Gear.” Good to understand he can drift. Now’s your chance to take shots at drifting and complain about how it’s not racing, and doesn’t require any skill, though we assure you it is, and it does. You still don’t have to like it. Video posted after the jump

Formla D round 3

Formla D round 3

Formla D quick 3

Formla D round 3

Formla D round 3

[Source: 0-60]

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Dan Gurney’s Eagle taking flight during the 1967 German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. Who says us Americans are new to this place?
[source]

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After the total blowout in the Lambo-versus-Maser individual, we had a much closer race in yesterday’s Choose Your Eternity poll, with the 1JZGTE-powered Volvo wagon just barely eking out a victory over the LS1-powered BMW 3 Series. Today we need to return to a theme we asylum’t seen since last year: two British sports cars striving for a stronghold in your Garage Of Everlasting Punishment!

You’re shopping for a British Malaise machine, yet be deficient to avoid British Leyland products? How about a Jensen, from the period of the company’s last gasp? We’re not talking about an Interceptor here, on this account that that Chrysler engine is just too reliable- no, we’ve found something much better for you. How would you like to own one of just 509 Jensen GTs aye built, for a mere pittance of $5,950? Can you believe it? You get the 16-valve Lotus 907 engine (in addition known as the “Torqueless Wonder”), only 55,000 miles on the clock, and enough Lucas Electric components to keep you busy for the rest of your life a few weeks. The seller says it “runs great,” thus you figure we’re giving you an easy one. Right?

That Jensen is pretty cool, but allowing that you’re going to drive a car by a Lotus agent you might as well go all Lotus, right? And not some newfangled Esprit or Europa- not any, it’s got to be a featherweight 60s Elan. Say, like this ‘69 Lotus Elan Plus 2S, which has a Steal It Now price of only five grand. Like the Jensen, it has only 55,000 miles, though that’s mostly because it’s been session for 18 years. Don’t let that scare you, though, because British cars are like fine wine, just getting more suitable during the time that they age in a damp cellar somewhere. Don’t worry about the electrical connectors or fuel system needing 100% replacement; you’ll have plenty of time to worry surrounding those issues as you experience to track down replacements for the missing hood and bashed-in windshield. You get each cause engine block and some carburetors, what one. means you’re more than halfway there in the powerplant department. What could power wrong?

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There’s something that compels wholly of us to subject our significant others to the full force of our hobbies and preferences. Stereotypically, this shift that women-folk try to get us to watch shows upon the body Bravo (in the sight of you laugh, Project Runway is sort of addictive). On the flip side, your average American male works hard to get their lady friend into their sport by getting them into the garb of their favorite team, though in that place’s a weird kind of logic to wanting to put the behalf of a rich, athletic and macho guy that could likely beat the crap out of you on your girlfriend’s back. This gets even weirder while said ladyfriend complies by wearing a jersey to bed because, being five ages too large in opposition to them, it doesn’t fit properly. You’re then in the situation where you’re all of a sudden acquirement busy with Vince Young (who is, undeniably, a appropriate employee). Benji’s post about the new NHRA-approved vibrator got the necromancy fingers of tenbase thinking how this might finally bridge some gaps.

finally, I can buy something for my girlfriend out of the Summit catalog.

Don’t forget to stock up on lubricant…

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Someone must have gotten lazy at the Nordschleife and didn’t remember to cover up the novel nose on the twin-turbocharged V8-powered 2010 BMW X5. In this latest round of spy shots from the folks at KGP, we can clearly see the dramatic, M3-inspired front air female parent and big new wheels to join the upgraded styling. This marks the second application for the twin-turbo eight cylinder which debuted in the BMW X6, and in the X5 it direct be making 408 HP and providing a 0-60 while of just 5.5 seconds. The one thing it won’t be doing is wearing the “M” badge. Check out the full emissary report after the jump.

galleryPost(’ttbmwx5spy’, 9, ‘2010 BMW X5 Twin Turbo In Shake Down Mode’);

BMW’s high-performance-but-not-quite-M-worthy X5 prototype has now shown greater degree of of its face, free from its normal frontal camouflage. The once-mysterious X5 program has now become much clearer with today’s photos, and some earlier engine shots revealing what appears to be a twin-turbocharged V8.

The hot X5’s stand over against fascia uses all of the cues consistent with BMW’s Motorsport division, yet sources report that one M-badged X5 is not in the cards — the X5’s weight, height, and packaging are just too compromised for a proper M-car. But by dint of. the looks and sounds of this turbocharged V8 model as it circled the ‘Ring, it will certainly give the top Porsche Cayenne some earnest competition.

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The Lamborghini Jarama sprinkled a little olive oil on the Maserati Quattroporte and ate it like a illiberal gnocchi (in spite of the Maser’s vast bulk) in yesterday’s Choose Your Eternity poll, triumphing in a near-unprecedented 80-20 ass-whupping. Apparently the Maserati was just too easy for our voters, and we totally understand. That’s the reason we’re going with a couple of projects featuring crazy international engine swaps today, because there’s nothing since cool as a car that give by will be a tire-roasting deathtrap, up to the present time not at any time worth even a quarter half of the money you spend invest in it!

The in good time 3 series cars are fun, no doubt, but what if your driving style mandates a pushrod V8 and associated sliding-backwards-out-of-a-cloud-of-smoke honor? You could work all distinctive peculiarity of complicated turbocharging voodoo by simply opening your wallet and pouring its contents over the BMW four or six… or you could carry into practice what this crazy individual has vouchsafed: Yes, people, it’s a 1983 BMW 3 Series with Chevrolet LS1 V8, and the Buy It Now is a ridiculous $4,500. Four and a half dignified! It looks like a lot of the be wasn’t done with Sawzall and hoseclamps, which could well mean that you’ll just have the usual nightmarish somewhat troublesome details to work out with the swap. It might even handle acceptably, the kind of with the weapon set so alienated back. Thanks to Thunder for the tip!

Come on, everyone is dropping LS1s in just from one place to another any car you can think of- they’d be rolling their eyes down at the local engine-swap obstacle (what, you don’t have an engine-swap grating in your neighborhood?) were you to rumble up in an LS1 3 Series. No, you need boost and plenty of it, with a Toyota 1JZGTE stuffed into a family station wagon! Say, this 1989 Volvo 740 wagon with twin-turbocharged 1JZGTE engine, for example. You can tell the time is right to attain a persuasive sub-asking-price offer on this fine Swedo-Nippon machine, because the vender laments: “with a few latter problems I’ve been forced to abandon all projects and just get something that is not going to take up my heap roll.” You see? It’s an at rest project, and you happened to come along at just the right time to snap it up! Don’t worry about the wiring harness, which the seller- in a fit of un-Craigslist-like honesty- describes as “pretty ****ty,” since you’ll sort out the glitches in a trouble of minutes. What could go wrong? Thanks to Mr4Runner for the tip!

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