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Lamborghini Plans SUV Lamborghini is mulling a return to the utilitarian off-road market after being absent from the field for nearly two decades, according to Reuters. The SUV would take stylistic influences from the Lamborghini LM002, shown above, which portends a more rugged, Hummer-like look for the new model rather than a high-performance one. Bentley is also planning an SUV model that'll likely compete with the Lamborghini version. Both Lamborghini and Bentley are owned by parent-company Volkswagen, and both models would likely share mechanical parts with Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche vehicles, says Reuters. A concept version of the SUV is...

GM, Ford feud over Super Bowl ad (Reuters) - A simmering feud between General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co heated up on Sunday as Ford objected to GM's Super Bowl advertisement for its Chevy Silverado pickup truck. The ad, which will run on NBC's television broadcast of the Super Bowl on Sunday, depicts an apocalyptic scene in which Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks and their owners escape death and make it to a pre-arranged meeting point. But, one of their friends, identified as "Dave," who drives a Ford, doesn't make it to the meeting site, in the video that plays...

San Francisco, California – Proposed U.S. fuel economy rules will mean that seven million Americans will not be able to afford to buy a new car or truck in 2025, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA). NADA director Forrest McConnell, a Honda and Acura dealer in Montgomery, Alabama, said that proposed fuel economy rules by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will create a US$3,200 increase in vehicle prices over those in 2010, and will limit the ability of many consumers to buy the vehicles they want or need. Testifying at an EPA hearing regarding the rules, McConnell said...

The most successful car in history may be the Ford Model T. While other models may have sold more vehicles, Ford managed to sell nearly 17 million cars from 1908 to 1927 — a period when car ownership was rare compared to today. The Model T was so successful that nearly every other best-selling car adopted its formula. The Model T was inexpensive to buy, inexpensive to operate, reliable and built by a large company that had hundreds of dealerships and trained mechanics. The other vehicles on this list, from the VW Passat to the Toyota Corolla, share all of...

The National Center for Public Policy Research is claiming a scalp today after Ford Motor Co. formally withdrew from the liberal U.S. Climate Action Partnership. The conservative non-profit announces today that Ford has withdrawn from the organization, which uses corporate support form management to work against shareholders' interests by promoting a cap-and-trade framework for carbon emissions.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, my Sweden and America has traded cars. Let's hope this trend continues. The yearly festival hosted by the city of Västerås honors this tradition. See clip below.

Link only - GM Breaks 9 Million Taking Global Sales Crown From Toyota: Cars

Americans are holding onto cars and trucks longer, pushing the average age of a vehicle to a record 10.8 years. The Polk research firm said Tuesday that the average age of a car last July was 11.1 years, while the truck average was 10.4. Unemployment and the sour economy have caused people to put off buying cars and trucks. Polk says the average vehicle age has been rising since 2008. But the firm says a sales rebound last year is likely to slow the aging rate. Car companies sold 12.8 million vehicles in the U.S. last year, up from 11.6...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The average vehicle on America's roads is almost 11 years old, according to the auto market analysts at Polk. The 10.8-year average is the highest figure recorded since Polk began tracking vehicle age in 1995. Back then, the average was just 8.4 years. Vehicle age has increased rapidly over the last five years as new vehicle sales have slowed. Polk's analysis is based on vehicle registration data. Older cars represent an opportunity for some businesses. "Dealer service departments and independent repair facilities, as well as aftermarket parts suppliers, will see increased business opportunity with customers in...

we are getting closer to the jetsons!!

A Top Gear special in India was "offensive" and full of "toilet humour", the High Commission of India (HCI) in London has complained. The 28 December special featured jokes about food and trains and a Jaguar car fitted with a toilet seat on its boot. The HCI has written to the BBC after it was contacted by "too many people" who were "very upset" by the programme. The BBC, which received 188 complaints about the show, said it would respond directly to the HCI in due course. In the letter, published in the Daily Telegraph, the HCI criticised a lack...

Updated at 7:31 p.m. ET: Ernesto Suarez, who organized the online petition calling for Mercedes Benz to withdraw the altered image of Che Guevara, says he welcomes the apology from Daimler AG, Mercedes' parent company. "I'm very satisfied with the reaction from Mercedes Benz," Suarez, a Cuban-American who lives in Kansas City, Mo., told msnbc.com Thursday evening. "I believe that they have done the right thing. "The victory, if there is one, is not mine, but belongs to the descendants of (Guevara's) victims (and) the survivors, to common sense and to civility," he said. Updated at 6:15 p.m. ET: In...

In one word; marketing skills. No one actually needs French perfumes. Fancy a rum and cola? - Why bother about coke? This Christmas, I and my brother, a programmer (silly job, good pay), discussed the issue of how to define a 'smart phone'. I'm a simple cook, but my Sony Ericsson Vivaz can do everything his iPhone could do, however, at the end of the row, we both agreed Apple and their products are among the best marketed brands on Earth. IKEA is another example of companies that are more than companies. Everyone has experienced sad misfortunes with IKEA furniture....

California to Ban Police From Towing Cars of Unlicensed Drivers December 25, 2011 | ESCONDIDO, Calif. – Delfino Aldama was fixing a customer's brakes this month when his smartphone chimed with a text message that tipped him to a police checkpoint more than an hour before officers began stopping motorists. The self-employed auto mechanic frantically called friends with the location and drove an alternate route home. The Mexico native had reason to be alarmed: He does not have a driver's license because he is in the United States illegally, and it would cost about $1,400 to get his Nissan Frontier...

Drug Enforcement Administration agents have raided an Oklahoma car dealership that the government suspects may be one of about 30 such businesses in the U.S. involved in funding the terrorist group Hezbollah. DEA agents say the car lot of Ace Auto Leasing in Tulsa is part of a huge network that is selling cars and drugs -- and then using the money to support terrorism against the U.S., myfoxphoenix.com reports. During Friday's raid, agents could be seen carryout out filing cabinets and other items. They also questioned employees and took inventory. "They're making big time money and it's going right...

Car maker Saab ran out of time Monday when its Dutch owner filed for bankruptcy, calling time on a nine-month battle to rescue the struggling Swedish marque.....

Charging stations not getting much use NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Charging stations in Tennessee outnumber electric cars and many aren't used for hours or even days at a time, according to a newspaper investigation. State data analyzed by The Tennessean show that about 270 all-electric cars were registered in Tennessee in 2011 while there are about 500 charging stations set up in public areas to serve them (http://tnne.ws/s2Mldg). The Tennessean said it visited more than 12 charging units over a 2-day period this month and found multiple cars refueling at only one site - Nissan's automobile plant in Smyrna. Nissan...

The Rolls-Royce has always had a history of elegance and class - until now. That prestigious reputation has been smashed by the world's most vulgar makeover of the company's iconic Ghost model. An Italian fashion design house has created a gold-covered monstrosity costing more than £1 million The Fenice Milano 'Diva' has been spray painted in 24-carat gold and the company is so proud of it they have described the model as a 'true.masterpiece.' It is fitted with the same 6-litre twin-turbocharged engine of the Ghost, giving the saloon more than 560bhp and a top speed of 155mph. Fenice Milano...

New York - Three Lebanese financial institutions linked to Hezbollah laundered over $240 million through the United States used car market, federal prosecutors accused on Thursday. The civil forfeiture claim by US prosecutors in New York accused the Lebanese Canadian Bank and two money exchange companies of buying and shipping used cars from the United States to West Africa. There, the cars were sold and the cash smuggled into Lebanon by people acting as money couriers, often working for Hezbollah, court documents said.

An outing of luxury sportscar enthusiasts in Japan ended in an expensive freeway pileup -- smashing a stunning eight Ferraris, a Lamborghini and two Mercedes likely worth more than $1 million together.

1 dead, 16 injured in Tennessee crashes involving 176 carsFrom Dave Alsup, CNN updated 4:52 PM EST, Thu December 1, 2011 (CNN) -- One person was killed and 16 others injured Thursday in three separate chain-reaction crashes involving 176 cars north of Nashville, authorities said. Heavy fog and black ice were thought to have contributed to the crashes on State Highway 386 in Sumner County, said county emergency medical services Capt. Vincent Riley. The incidents began just before 8 a.m. ET, when a car ran off the highway and caused a chain reaction accident in "heavy, heavy fog," he said....

I noticed this ad list night on a show I didn't DVR and decided to do some research on where the fine people of Normal, IL will get the power to charge the electric cars. According to DOE Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy website, IL gets 48% of it's power from Coal, 49& from Nuclear and three percent for Natural Gas. So much for saving the polar bears.

The recession and high gas prices have been major deciding factors in car purchases in the past several years. This can be seen on the list of the ten cars and light trucks models with the greatest unit sales growth in the last five years, as per data from Edmunds. Interestingly enough, the list does not have a single major Japanese car company model on it. Instead, it is dominated by cars from U.S. companies, second tier Japanese manufacturer Subaru, and upstarts from South Korea, all of which grew sales by at least 60 percent. Decades ago, Honda, Toyota, and...

President Raul Castro has agreed to allow people to buy and sell cars in Cuba, ending a ban on Cubans selling cars bought after the 1959 revolution that ushered in communism. However, the changes could spell the beginning of the end for many of the island's classic American cars, which are a key feature of Cuban roads.

Video Linky Here

The multitude of mysteries revealed following the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' death now includes one that puzzled car enthusiasts for years: How did Jobs get away with driving without a license plate? It was common knowledge that Jobs would park his Mercedes SL55 AMG in a handicapped spot at Apple's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, with nothing to identify his vehicle other than the tiny barcode that usually rests behind the rear license plate. According to Walter Isaacson's new biography, Jobs wanted to avoid having a plate for privacy reasons; and yet when having a license-less silver Mercedes became a...

WASHINGTON -- A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000. The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla is a California startup focusing on all-electric vehicles, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that have contributed to Democratic campaigns The awards to Fisker and Tesla have prompted concern from...

The Fisker Karma electric car, developed mainly with your tax money so that a bunch of rich VC’s wouldn’t have to risk any real money, has rolled out with an nominal EPA MPGe of 52. Not bad? Unfortunately, it’s a sham. This figure is calculated using the grossly flawed EPA process that substantially underestimates the amount of fossil fuels required to power the electric car, as I showed in great depth in an earlier Forbes.com article. In short, the EPA methodology leaves out, among other things, the conversion efficiency in generating the electricity from fossil fuels in the first place....

The article says the average selling price for a new imported car climbed to a record high of $31,536 in August, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. That was $7,614 more than the average domestic-made car, the biggest gap since December 1999. With Toyota Corollas and Honda Civics in short supply, more Americans have turned to Chevrolet Cruze and Ford Fiesta cars.

Imagine that you couldn't drive on major highways without agreeing to put a camera in your car -- one that could film either the occupants or the vehicle’s surroundings and transmit the images back to a central office for inspection... It's hard to imagine Americans would tolerate such a direct, Big-Brotherish intrusion. But they might not notice if the all-seeing cameras were tucked inside another kind of government tracking technology that millions of Americans have already invited into their cars. Kapsch TrafficCom AG, an Austrian company that just signed a 10-year contract to provide in-car transponders such as the E-Z...

Chrysler is getting rid of the soccer mom staple Dodge Grand Caravan minivan, the company announced on Monday. 2013 will be the last year the Caravan is sold, despite the fact it is currently the best selling Dodge vehicle on the market. The more upscale Chrysler Town and Country minivan will continue on as the only van the company offers. Chrysler created the modern minivan in when they introduced the 1984 model year Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager models. Chrysler will replace the Dodge Grand Caravan minivan and the Dodge Avenger mid-sized sedan with a single crossover in 2013, Chrysler...

The city is promoting two new plug-in hybrid electric cars available for use by members of the Hourcar vehicle-sharing organization in St. Paul and Minneapolis. This fall and next spring, St. Paul will install 20 public stations where drivers can charge the vehicles. The two new hybrid cars were bought with a $30,000 contribution from Xcel Energy. Hourcar is run by the Neighborhood Energy Connection, a St. Paul nonprofit. The vehicles are in the Lawson and Lowertown parking ramps in downtown St. Paul. There are 13 Hourcars at nine locations throughout the city. Charging station locations, rates and details can...

A gallery of electric and hybrid vehicles on display at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany. Prototype and production hybrids and electric cars debuted this week at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany. Car manufacturers showed off sportier designs—and some outlandish models. The i8, shown here, is BMW's first plug-in hybrid sports car. It can reach 62 miles per hour in 4.6 seconds, has a top speed of 155 mph, and can achieve 87 miles per gallon. It weighs 3,200 pounds. A version of the car will probably be on sale by the end of 2013. Credit: Internationale...

NWI communities get keys to electric cars By Carrie Napoleon Post-Tribune correspondent Last Modified: Sep 22, 2011 02:01AM Kathy Kazmierczak is looking forward to retiring the city-issued older model Ford Crown Victoria she drives when performing her duties as Hammond’s recycling director. “It gets 11 miles per gallon,” she said. The THINK City all-electric vehicle Hammond and eight other Northwest Indiana municipalities took possession of Wednesday, facilitated through South Shore Clean Cities, will mean an end to the recycling director’s gas-guzzling ways and a chance to enlighten residents about alternative fuel vehicles as she tools around the city in the...

On Thursday, September 22, environmentalists want you to feel guilty about driving cars. In other words, it’s annual “World Car-Free Day.” Instead of celebrating the many ways that the automobile has liberated and improved the lives of ordinary people, environmentalists want to suggest that rejecting the car for a day is somehow virtuous. The governor of Massachusetts is going even further by advocating a car-free week – notwithstanding the governor’s real-world choice to drive around in an SUV this week.

Betty Skelton Erde, an aviator and auto racing pioneer who became the fastest woman on Earth in 1965, has died. She was 85. Erde set female speed records at Daytona Beach and Utah's Bonneville salt flats more than half a century ago. In 2008, she was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in suburban Detroit. Dozens of firsts are attached to her name: the auto industry's first female test driver in 1954; the first to set a female world land speed record in 1956 (145 mph at Daytona Beach); and the world land speed record for women...

A Saudi man and his family suffered from medium injuries when their car overturned in the Gulf Kingdom and police believe the accident could have been caused by magic, press reports said on Friday. Police checking the damaged car found pieces of human nails and hair tied to each other and wrapped in a handkerchief, which was concealed under one seat, Ajel daily said in a report from the northwestern town of Hail. “Security officials believe the accident was caused by magic after finding those items in the car…the maid was with the family when the accident occurred but it...

Nazar Quiryaqous, a 46-year-old from the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights, guided a gleaming, new Toyota Avalon, the car maker’s flagship sedan, out of the Detroit-Windsor tunnel onto Windsor’s Goyeau Street at 1:20 a.m. on Oct. 27, 2009. The car had been rented three days earlier in Cincinnati. Seven hours after he arrived, Mr. Quiryaqous left through the same tunnel, returning not in the Avalon, however, but as a passenger in a car driven by Jason Hana, a 27-year-old from the same suburb, authorities say. Mr. Quiryaqous then filed a police report claiming the Avalon was stolen off a Detroit...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC managed to shrug off an ornery Mother Nature, some wild stock-market fluctuations and a stubborn economy to report Thursday double-digit percentage gains in U.S. sales for August. That wasn’t the case for the leading Japanese manufacturers. Toyota Motor Corp. /quotes/zigman/199376/quotes/nls/tm TM -0.95% fell behind Chrysler by just a few hundred cars and Honda Motor Co. /quotes/zigman/193599/quotes/nls/hmc HMC +0.96% saw its sales slip by more than 20% for the fourth consecutive month. GM /quotes/zigman/1466682/quotes/nls/gm GM -4.22% said it sold 218,479 cars and trucks in August, an 18%...

Recently, Toyota have been claiming to build the safest cars on Earth. Just like (Chinese owned) Volvo Cars have been doing for decades. I happen to live in Gothenburg, Sweden, home of Volvo. I also happen to admire and respect Japanese culture. But I fail to see how average Toyota cars actually could compete with vehicles like the Volvo V70/XC70/XC60/XC90. The Avensis can, to a certain degree, but is not representative of their product line. Toyota: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk9yGUu6dtA Volvo Cars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtSOYEr-rYQ

Criminals seem to have a thing for big vehicles. The Cadillac Escalade remains the car most likely to be stolen, according to new data from the Highway Loss Data Institute. This is the fourth year in a row the Escalade has topped this list. The rankings for most stolen cars are based on auto insurance claims data from 2008 and 2009.

Let’s revisit the year 1993 – or the year when Greenpeace hysterics launched their evil dinosaur car adverts. Not they were trying to scare the s**t out of kids. But Rod Frey reported: The picture opens on a fog, with a disembodied voice whispering, “It’s coming... Prepare yourself for the most significant event in automotive history.” Then, to the grating sound of twisting metal and coughing engines, a giant dinosaur constructed entirely of wrecked cars roars to its feet. Soon it begins to hack and cough, and eventually crashes to the ground and dies. “It’s coming,” concludes the voice, “The...

When President Barack Obama announced an agreement to double fuel-economy requirements Friday, standing with him were industry executives and environmental, public health and labor leaders, all of whom, remarkably, had signed off on the deal. But the real credit for this historic achievement, which is expected to cut oil consumption by 1.5 million barrels per day and eliminate half of all carbon pollution nationwide, doesn't go to the White House. Instead, thank California. For decades the state has set the nation's clean-energy agenda; it's been the tip of the spear in the fight for higher fuel standards. Its huge automobile...

IT'S the one place in the world you don't want to have a prang but one blonde driver's antics outside the Place du Casino, in Monte Carlo, made every tourists' day. A parade of some of the world's most expensive cars turned into a demolition derby after a driver scraped her $370, 000 Bentley against a $111,000 Mercedes S class. The woman's 2.7 tonne beast then went on to plough into a $207,000 black Ferrari F430 before crashing head-on into a Porsche 911 worth $118,000 and a $207,000 Aston Martin. The total value of the cars involved in the bingle...

What Are the Top American-Made Cars? Cars.com's American-Made Index rates vehicles built and bought in the U.S. Factors include sales, where the car's parts come from and whether the car is assembled in the U.S. We disqualify models with a domestic parts content rating below 75 percent, models built exclusively outside the U.S. or models soon to be discontinued without a U.S.-built successor. Rank Make/Model U.S. Assembly Location Last Rank 1. Toyota Camry Georgetown, Ky.; Lafayette, Ind. 1 2. Honda Accord Marysville, Ohio; Lincoln, Ala. 2 3. Chevrolet Malibu Kansas City, Kan. 5 4. Ford Explorer Chicago — 5. Honda...

Sorry, Prius owners. Starting Friday, your yellow sticker no longer works in California's car pool lanes while driving solo. The car pool privileges, originally allowed as an incentive for people to buy low-emission vehicles, have expired. The change affects 85,000 hybrid car owners -- about a third of them in Los Angeles. Bruce Yonemoto, 60, a professor of studio art at UC Irvine who commutes from downtown Los Angeles several times a week, said he often saves more than an hour during choked traffic because the yellow sticker on the rear bumper of his Prius gave him the right to...

The Cars were a trailblazing pop band who's beat-and-guitar driven rock n roll added synthesizers in a way that created a foundation for the 80s New Wave scene that was to come. The first album -1978's The Cars- was a smash hit for the Boston-based group that promptly went platinum. That debut has been lauded as a "genuine rock masterpiece" by allmusic, with songs such as "Just What I Needed" "Best Friend's Girl""Let the Good Times Roll", and "Bye Bye Love". After six albums and four Top Ten hits in the US, the band broke up in 1988. Sadly, singer/bassist Benjamin Orr -a close...

Honda and Subaru still make the best vehicles overall, but Ford posted the largest gain in the past year, improving in its road-test and reliability scores. General Motors and Volvo also improved in both areas. On the other hand, Mercedes-Benz is the only manufacturer whose scores dropped in both measures. Our automaker report cards reflect the performance, comfort, utility, and reliability of more than 270 vehicles that we’ve recently tested. Here are other highlights from this year’s analysis: •Honda, Subaru, and Toyota are the top three automakers for the third year in a row. Most of their vehicles do well...

Does anyone have a used car they'd like to sell that's in good condition? I'm mainly looking at a two door that is small and has more than enough more miles to go before it goes bust.

EW YORK, June 26 (Reuters) - The Obama administration is considering requiring all new cars and trucks sold in the United States to get an average of 56.2 miles per gallon by 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.