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It looks like England is the destination for track schools. Last week Lotus opened its new driving academy in Hethel, and now Porsche has opened its new Driving Experience Center at the Silverstone raceway in Northamptonshire. Watch and dream as the could be you on your next trip to England.


© Source: topspeed
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Looks like a Liberty, drives like a Liberty, but once you cross the pond, it's called the Jeep Cherokee. European specs include the 2.8-liter common-rail turbo diesel (CRD) with a diesel particulate filter but the Cherokee's navigation system, with directions given with an English accent, and swanky interior distinguished the Jeep on a recent test drive.

On a route from Florence to Siena along a scenic highway getaway through Tuscany, the Cherokee accrued approximately 125 miles roundtrip, with bouts of city driving in between.As a first-time driver out of the country, the prospect of driving in Italy was not a little intimidating but considering that the cars are right-hand drive rather than left-hand, e.g. Great Britain, it seemed do-able.

The walled-in medieval city of Siena, with unique street lights hanging from said walls to distinguish each neighborhood, allowed for few distinctive frames of reference. I should have made a better note of the street lights, but I did spot of a Jeep Grand Cherokee parked on the street, apparently by a resident. Like an oversized bread crumb, that marker would come in handy on my way out of town.

The all-new Jeep Cherokee is available with both a 3.7-liter SOHC V6 gasoline engine. The V6 produces 205 horsepower and 232 lbs.-ft. of torque at 4,000 rpm while the CRD engine enables the Cherokee to claim a best-in-class torque of 339 lbs.-ft. at 2,100 rpm with the five-speed automatic transmission, and best-in-class towing capacity of up to 2,800. Maximum power is 177 horsepower. A six-speed manual transmission is also available.
With the CRD and automatic transmission, the Cherokee earns an estimated nineteen miles per gallon on the highway.

The MSRP on the Jeep Cherokee Limited.2.8 CRD is € 39.560 or approximately $59,340.

© Source: onwheelsinc
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You can point toward the high cost of gas, raising concerns about the environment, or just what goes around, comes around, but small is big. Small doesn’t have to mean an austere, plain, prole-mobile, though. With vehicles like the MINI, Scion Xb and Honda Fit, small is hip and fun.

And while Hyundai has been getting a lion’s share of attention with its new vehicles lately, especially the jaw-dropping Lexus-baiting Genesis V8 sedan, the Korean automaker’s cousin Kia has been making its own inroads with well-designed, high-value vehicles of its own, like the all-new 2009 Kia Borrego, available with Kia’s first V8. To take the brand even further up the automotive ladder, Kia is adding a real “personality” vehicle to define its youthful, carefree—dare we say it—Soul.

Enter the 2010 Kia Soul. Based on the subcompact Rio sedan’s running gear, and about the same overall length, this cheeky, squared-off, little 5-passenger, 4-door crossover slots in below the Kia Sportage SUV. And although it’s aimed at the Gen Y buyer (like the MINI Cooper and Scion Xb), its design, utility and value are sure to attract buyers across the board.

Which isn’t to say that those looking at the production model will be disappointed. We’ll know soon enough, as the Soul is planned to debut at the Los Angeles International Auto Show in late November 2008. Right now, though, our guess is it will be one of the most desired vehicles of the coming year.

Early specs say that the Soul may offer one of two engines: a fuel-thrifty 115-hp, 1.6L or a punchier 145-hp 2.0-liter four-cylinder, with your choice of stick or automatic transmission. Like the MINI and Scion, the Soul will be exclusively front-wheel drive, making it more of an urban fun-mobile than a regular off-roader.

© Source: automedia
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Yes, this is a wooden car. Forget the jokes. Anyone making more than mere decorative use of wood in an automobile has heard them all. And doesn't care. Wood is a magnificent structural material, "God's own composite," proclaimed the late Frank Costin, the brilliant technologist behind the glorious shapes of early Lotus cars, the Vanwall Formula 1 car, and-significantly-the plywood chassis of the Marcos in which a young Jim Clark won some of his first races.

Three years ago, Joe Harmon, a twenty-eight-year-old industrial design graduate student at North Carolina State University, thought it would be instructive to make a wood supercar for his master's thesis, including some of the running gear and-unlike the Marcos-all of the bodywork. "I wanted to show that wood isn't an antiquated, low-technology material," Harmon says.

To achieve Harmon's goal of a fully fluid body surface, the team had to invent a wood veneer cloth to use in place of more usual glass-fiber or carbon-fiber weaves. That meant designing and developing specific looms, acquiring rolls of veneer five inches wide, slitting it into bands sixty feet long and an eighth- or a quarter-inch wide, weaving it into cloth to place in female molds, and then vacuum bagging it with epoxy resin. Those looms-wood, of course-are works of art, using wooden clothespins machined to feed veneer strips through their jaws. With too much tension, they slipped; if there wasn't enough tension, rubber bands attached to the clothespins compensated. It was wonderfully elegant, wonderfully simple. Once it was imagined.

Those wheels represent one of the biggest unknowns. Despite a fifteen-degree conical taper meant to spread loads over more wood fibers, Harmon thinks that the massive torque of his modified Cadillac Northstar engine may rip out the centers. To get heat away from the wooden structure, he has swapped the cylinder heads left to right so the exhaust ports are inboard, with the headers coming out the top of the engine below huge vents. The transaxle is a six-speed Corvette unit, which helps push the cockpit well forward, despite the 104.8-inch wheelbase. The hull weighs about 1100 pounds, and Harmon expects the final curb weight to be approximately 2500 pounds.

© Source: automobilemag
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We’re convinced the Bugatti Veyron has to have the highest ratio of variants per total production — Ford Mustang included. There’s the Sang Noir, a first and second version of the Hermes, Pur Sang, Grand Sport, and now the Vincero built by Mansory.

Not much is known about the car since no information is listed on the Swiss tuner’s web site, but United Arab Emirates exotic car dealer Prestige Cars has posted the car for sale, listing it as one of three built. Looking at the photos, the Vincero features a carbon fiber hood and engine cover, new black wheels, and an interior that has been reupholstered in black and white with carbon fiber trim. It’s not everyone’s taste, but we definitely wouldn’t kick it out of the garage.

© Source: autofans
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Chevy has released a number of Equinox videos. The new SUV’s interior includes a close-up look at the dials and buttons as well as a peek at the rear storage and the optional flat screens built into the seat rests.



© Source: blogs.cars
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(from StudioTorino Press Release) PRESS RELEASE: COUPETORINO

Studiotorino presents a cultural, non-profit project: the COUPETORINO, a single to-scale model inspired by the iconic Mercedes SL spider.

COUPETORINO will make its debut December 12, 2008 at the “BESPOKE COACHWORK” exhibit to be held at Turin Gallery as part of the greater event “Turin World Design Capital 2008”. In cooperation with L’Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design di Torino (IAAD).

As part of the event “Turin World Design Capital 2008”, Studiotorino presents a cultural, non-profit project. The COUPETORINO is a technical and stylistic study aimed at transforming series and off-set automobiles with reliable technical solutions while maintaining the car’s identity. With this objective in mind the iconic Mercedes SL spider was chosen as a lone specimen. Its original architectural structure was transformed into a true coupй.

Amongst the various design studies directed by STUDIOTORINO in cooperation with Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design (IAAD) and informally presented to the Mercedes Design Center in Como to Professor Peter Pfeiffer, a more typically Italian coupй style was chosen.

This project includes an accurate 1:4 scale maquette personally modeled by Alfredo Stola and a photographic exhibit presenting all of its developmental stages, from its conception to its realization. An in depth study presents all of the construction methodology and aerodynamics with the goal of creating a perfectly functional prototype with the reliability akin to that of series automobiles. COUPETORINO was presented on December 12, 2008 at the Premiиre held at Turin Gallery with an exhibit titled “Bespoke Coachwork”.

The Premiere of COUPETORINO to be held on December 12, 2008 in the exhibit “Bespoke Coachwork” at Turin Gallery will present in addition to a photographic exhibit of all the designs and developmental stages, a 1:4 scale model purposely without wheels, monochromatic in bronze on a transparent support as if a sculpture.

© Source: seriouswheels
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