Author: autoevolution

If you are a MINI fan, then you must be used by now with the somewhat unconventional way the British carmaker chooses to advertise its vehicles. We are, but, we must admit, this video took us a bit by surprise (in a good way, that is).

Needless to say, we stumbled upon this here video just when we needed it most. It was a dark, somewhat cold day here, at the autoevolution HQ, with lazy rain clouds cramming above our building and sending towards the group cold, rare droplets of water.

Wit… (read more)

There’s quite an interesting story behind the Veloster nameplate and it all started in 2007 when South Korean manufacturer Hyundai displayed a concept at the Seoul Auto Show. The concept was soon believed to be discontinued and people claimed that it had no chance to enter production, despite the fact that some people were still talking about such a scenario.

Last year however, Hyundai brought the Veloster back in discussion and hinted that building the car was still possible. Well, here’s th… (read more)

Yesterday, we reported that Tengzhong, the Chinese company that intends to acquire Hummer from General Motors could try to perform the deal through Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co, an offshore investment vehicle, if its own attempt of convincing the Chinese government to approve the transaction would fail.

Earlier today, Reuters wrote that the Chinese authorities had rejected the offshore company’s proposal, a move which could kill the whole deal. Subsequently, Wang Chao, an a… (read more)

Portuguese racer Alvaro Parente managed to somehow save his racing season for the 2010 competition year after inking a two-event deal with Coloni for the upcoming Bahrain outing in the GP2 Asia Series.

The Asian series has two more events scheduled for the 2009/10 season of the championship, and Parente will be there in each of them. Apart from the fact that he managed to find a drive for the upcoming 4 races of the GP2 Asia Series (2 for each event), the most important thing is that he mana… (read more)

Although no one really believes the R-Klasse will manage to fight its faith and turn the poor sales figures around (probably, no one within Mercedes believes that either) the German carmaker stands by the MPV (aka Sports Cruiser, aka Family Tourer) and decided to give it a minor nip’n’tuck, enough to bring it into the spotlight for a few minutes.

Although details are largely absent, the model caught testing somewhere in Scandinavia can be regarded as the one which will align the R-Klasse with… (read more)

Tata Motors plans to bring the Nano in Europe as soon as 2011 but it seems like the company’s local expansion includes several other models, such as the Aria that will be on display at Geneva next week. Autocar.co.uk writes that the Aria will go on sale in the United Kingdom in spring 2011 and is likely to reach several other European markets in the months to follow.

Apparently, the car is already meeting European safety regulations but the tests are yet to be conducted. However, Tata Motors … (read more)

The upcoming testing session at Barcelona will be the last one in which the current Formula One teams will get to test their 2010 challengers before the season opening Bahrain Grand Prix. The last test mileage on the off-season will see some teams bring some upgrades to their cars, as confirmed by Ferrari and Renault F1.

Ferrari have previously announced that they’ll debut a new aerodynamic package for the Barcelona test, aiming to make the necessary adjustments ahead of the Sakhir race 3 wee… (read more)

With Dutch banking group ING leaving the world of Formula One at the end of last season, not only the Renault F1 Team had to suffer from it and look for a replacement in terms of title sponsorship, but also some of the Grands Prix that are part of the 2010 championship.

One of those events was the formerly season opening Australian Grand Prix, held in Melbourne’s Albert Park. Counting for this year’s 2nd round of the F1 series, the Aussie race had terminated their deal with ING at the end of … (read more)

The engineers over at Citroen are quite busy these days as the French company is making the last adjustments to a grand display at next week’s Geneva Motor Show. Citroen will bring in Switzerland three major projects, the already-presented DS3 Racing, the eagerly-awaited DS High Rider concept – believed to be a preview of the DS4 – plus a brand new electric concept.

The last of them will carry the name Survolt, a designation that says quite a lot about the car. Employing an electric powertrai… (read more)

After earlier this week German manufacturer BMW confirmed the unveiling of the new generation 5 Series Touring will take place at the 2010 Auto Mobil International (AMI) show in Leipzig in April, we now come back on the story to bring you additional photos of the car, caught in its final testing stages.

As you can see, the Touring is as naked as it can be, without revealing the element that sets it apart from the regular 5 Series range: the back end. Boasting the same front and overall lines … (read more)

The German Irmscher tuner, best known for its Opel customization programs, has prepared a special gift for purist car enthusiasts: the Irmscher 7 Turbo, due to be presented at the upcoming Geneva Auto Show.

The car is a modern interpretation of the small, simple, lightweight open-top Lotus 7, a car which has conquered keen drivers ever since since 1957, by offering one of the purest driving experiences in the world.

The Irmscher 7 Turbo’s heart is its tubular steel chassis. This houses a t… (read more)

In today’s difficult market, developing an electric vehicle seems to be mandatory in case the company in discussion really wants to keep up with the competition. The best example comes straight from South Africa, as a local manufacturer, Optimal Energy, will bring an electric car at the Geneva Motor Show next month.

The so-called Joule is manufactured by Optimal Energy’s plant in Port Elizabeth and provides a range of 300 kilometers in pure electric mode. It is equipped with a 36 kWh lithium-… (read more)

The fact that Locstein A.G. decided to withdraw their financial support for the US Grand Prix Engineering team prior to the 2010 season has now been confirmed by the Swiss-based compnay, via a press release.

Just as we’ve mentioned to you in our earlier report yesterday, it seems the leading global financial services firm was in pole position for securing the major financing package for the Charlotte based team until a couple of weeks ago. However, the lack of performance showed by the US org… (read more)

What’s up with Italian cars? For the last four years, vehicles belonging to Italy’s Fiat Group have been selected by Ledorga, the organizers of a annual meeting for gay vintage car enthusiasts (yes, gay vintage car enthusiasts) as the European Gay Cars of the Year.

The four are the Alfa Romeo Spider (2007), Fiat 500 (2008) and Alfa Romeo MiTo (2009). For this year, as you already read in the title, the award goes to yet another Fiat, the 500C.

Of course, as we normally do, we wondered wh… (read more)

With a few more days remaining until the last test of the season, the guys at Lotus F1 Team decided to hold some daily tours of their newly-launched Norfolk factory in the UK. After the former Malaysian PM Tun Dr. Mahathir officially opened the factory earlier this week, another highly-ranked official – this time of the UK – decided to pay a visit to the Lotus F1 headquarters.

According to a press release from the Malaysian-backed team, the very HRH The Duke of York was invited to Norfolk and… (read more)

Fiat’s separate tuning brand Abarth will attend the 2010 Geneva Auto Show – which by the way opens its doors to visitors next week – to show its latest contraption, including the tuned Punto Evo we’re going to talk about.

Unfortunately, only a little is known about the car but according to autoblog.nl, the Abarth Punto Evo is going to be offered in two different configurations, as follows: a standard unit plus an Esseesse version, both of them equipped with a 1.4-liter Multiair engine. Obviou… (read more)

Hadn’t it been for the new points format in the World Rally Championship, Norwegian driver Petter Solberg would not have made the scoreboard after the season opening Rally Sweden. And that would have been quite disastrous for a former rally champion that aims to clinch his second title in the series this year.

Despite his enthusiasm over the new Citroen C4 WRC rally car in the off-season, Solberg admitted he was unpleasantly surprised with how his machine reacted on the snowy roads of Sweden…. (read more)

The G-Power BMW-only tuner’s specialists always have a malefic look when they target a new model to experiment on, simply because they know that they will tune it beyond recognition, first of all from the driver’s point of view. And their latest creation, the Storm, is no exception to this rule: the flagship 760i, together with long-wheelbase 760iL brother, has received an extreme treatment from G-Power.

The car’s twin turbocharged 6.0 V12 now produces a staggering 725 HP at 5,500 rpm and an … (read more)

Remember the street racer named Quant, first presented by NLV Solar at the 2009 Geneva Auto Show? Well, it was there all right, but we can’t really remember it either. Anyway, this year Geneva event will also witness the concept, but this time showing a different guise and without any Koenigsegg particle in its name (you will see in the lines below what we mean).

Back to the new NLV Quant, the concept is meant to be a an innovative four-seater electric car, ready to enter production in the ye… (read more)

Chevrolet unveiled the Aveo RS at the Detroit Auto Show in January and everybody expected a major upgrade from the current Aveo lineup. Only that the first pictures with the car reveal less-exciting improvements, although we must admit that the new model looks better as compared to the existing one.

The photos published by KickingTires present a refreshed front fascia, with a more aggressive appearance thanks to new headlights and a larger grille. Overall, the car seems to be a bit sharper, a… (read more)