So Long and Thanks for all the Fish: The Last of San Francisco’s U.S. Dealerships Closes its Doors for Good

Are you in the market for a new car in San Francisco and are considering a product built by America’s Big 2.5? If so, then I have some bad news: the last U.S. domestic automaker dealership has just shut up shop. San Francisco Ford Lincoln Mercury on Van Ness Avenue closed a few weeks ago, leaving some 50 employees out of a job.

Ford Lincoln Mercury presidente Mel Turner told the San Fransisco Chronicle: “We are proud to have served the San Francisco community and will be focusing over the coming weeks on helping employees through this transition and ensuring our current customer commitments are met.”

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Eurocopter’s C145 Helicopter gets a Mercedes-Flavored Interior

Automakers' design departments have started to explore new areas beyond automobile styling, with the first two examples that come to mind being Porsche and BMW. Following in the footsteps of its local rivals is Daimler and its “Mercedes-Benz Style” venture that has just released its first project after announcing the launch of the division a year ago.

We're talking about the Eurocopter EC145, a business helicopter with an interior crafted by Mercedes-Benz’s newly formed styling division. Designed at the company's studio in Como, Italy, the interior of the EC145 “Mercedes-Benz Style” helicopter is inspired by the Stuttgart-based automaker’s executive saloons.

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Viva Las Vegas: Google Lobbies to Legalize Self-Driving Cars in Nevada

Internet and software bigwig Google has begun lobbying the state of Nevada to legalize driverless cars. The move comes on the heels of some very promising results in California, where Google had mapped out the terrain and sent a couple of its autonomous Toyota Priuses (Prii? Priora?) on an epic jaunt from Mountain View to Santa Monica.

The California-based company is keen to point out the claimed benefits of self-driving cars over their human-driven counterparts including better safety, improved fuel efficient and greater environmental friendliness.

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Audi UK Puts a Price Tag on its New Q3 ‘baby’ SUV

The third crossover model of Audi’s Q-series, the new Q3, will carry a base price tag of £24,560 OTR (about US$39,800 / €28,200) when order books open in Britain this June, with first deliveries set to take place in November. Buyers will have a choice of four powerplants, all combining direct fuel injection with turbo charging and all backed up by start-stop and energy recuperation systems, while Audi will also offer a front wheel drive only version. Read more »

Top Gear vs. Electric Cars Part Two: Nissan Leaf Runs of out Electric Juice…

Lately, it seems that pushing an out-of-juice electric car is quickly becoming a trademark of Britain’s popular Top Gear TV series. After the Tesla Motors row, it seems another EV will be featured in the show while being pushed. This time it's the Nissan Leaf, whose batteries ran dry while being driven by Jeremy Clarkson.

Fortunately, one of the many witnesses of the event caught Clarkson and James May trying to find an outlet to plug for the Leaf on camera. The two TV hosts were filming a test drive with the Nissan Leaf and the Peugeot iOn for the next episode of the show. After looking for outlets in the park, the crew eventually plugged the Leaf in at the UK's University of Lincoln.

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Saab Eyes Another Chinese Savior, Signs MoU with Pang Da Automobile Trade Co.

For the second time this month, and shortly after the break up in talks with the Hawtai Motor Group, Saab’s parent company Spyker Cars N.V. today announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a new Chinese company to provide fresh funds for the deeply troubled Swedish automaker. This time Spyker signed a tentative finance and import deal with Pang Da Automobile Trade Co., Ltd (Pang Da), said to be China’s largest publicly traded automobile distributor with over 1100 dealerships in the country. Read more »

VW Reportedly Readying Polo R Model following WRC Announcement

Reports of a future production version of the Volkswagen Polo R WRC car have started to emerge after the carmaker announced it would enter the World Rally Championship in 2013. According to a VW board member quoted by Autocar, the company is working on a hardcore performance version of the Polo to back up its WRC entry.

Before the WRC announcement, Volkswagen had denied rumors of developing a Polo R, explaining that a very expensive small hot-hatch wouldn't be profitable. However, the rally car revealed in the beginning of May featured the R nameplate and had lots of R branding on the bodywork.

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All-New 2012 Audi A6 Avant to Debut on May 18

It’s only been five months since Audi pulled the wraps off the four-door saloon version of its fourth generation A6 executive model at the 2011 Detroit Motor Show, but the brand with the four rings has already prepared a more practical station wagon body style with the Avant moniker.

Today, Audi announced that it will reveal the spanking new 2012 A6 Avant next week on Wednesday, May 18, during a special event at the Humboldt Box in Berlin, which will also be broadcasted online. Don’t expect any surprises under the hood, with the Avant model gaining the same range of diesel and gasoline engines (depending on the market, of course) with the option of the firm’s Quattro all-wheel drive system.

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Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell’s World Tour Cut Short after Accident in Kazakhstan

On January 30th, 2011, three Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell models set out from Germany to travel around the globe covering 30,000 kilometers (about 18,700 miles) in 125 days to demonstrate the technical maturity and reliability of the world’s first series production fuel cell vehicle.
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Gerhard Plattner Does it again: Drives Skoda Fabia GreenLine 2,006 km / 1,246 Miles on a Single Tank of Fuel

We're not sure if you know this, but there's a world champion in economy driving out there and his name is Gerhard Plattner. He's the kind of guy you'd want as a driver on your gas-guzzling car now that oil prices have hit the roof.

However, the Austrian champ has better things to do, like driving a Skoda Fabia GreenLine from Austria to Denmark and back on a single 45-liter (11.9 gallons US or 9.9 gallons UK) tank of diesel fuel. He covered a distance of 2,006 kilometers in a Skoda Fabia GreenLine without ever having to refuel the eco-friendly diesel car.

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2012 VW Beetle to Participate in New Car Sharing Scheme in Hanover

To be completely frank, what caught our attention in Volkswagen’s latest press release (and probably yours in this post) on the new pilot car-sharing program called Quicar, wasn’t the news itself but the special livery of the 2012 Beetle shown in the promotional set of photos. Nevertheless, since we already told you the headline here’s the rest of the story on Volkswagen’s new car sharing concept that will take place in the German city of Hanover (or Hannover). Read more »

Toyota Overtakes BMW as World's Most Valuable Brand

The BrandZ Top 100 annual study revealed that Toyota is once again the world's most valuable auto brand, after losing the position last year to BMW due to the massive recall campaign. Toyota saw an 11 percent increase in its brand value, which is now rated at $24.2 billion (€16.85 billion). The research company Millward Brown, whose global brand director said Toyota’s recall had not affected consumers’ confidence in the carmaker, compiled the ranking. Read more »

Mercedes-Benz Rumored to be Readying Monstrous G65 AMG Limited Edition with 612HP V12

The Mercedes-Benz G-Class or G-Wagen, started its life towards the end of the 1970s as a rugged off-roader featuring a body-on-frame construction and three fully locking differentials, one. And even though the base models continue the same formula today, somewhere down the line, a crazy AMG engineer had a eureka moment and threw in a powerful engine under the hood transforming the boxy 4x4 into a 3.5-tonne weapon capable of humiliating sports car in a straight line duel.

Today, the most potent G-Class model is the G55 AMG fitted with a supercharged 5.5-liter V8 engine developing 507-horses and 700Nm (516 lb-ft) of peak torque for a 0-100km/h (62mph) in just 5.5 seconds and a limited top speed of 210 km/h. But that may soon change if we are to believe a report from Dutch website Autoblog.nl on a new range topping G-Class model with the G65 AMG moniker.

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Saab’s Deal with China’s Hawtai Motors Collapses, Future Once Again Uncertain

Another day, another deal gone sour for Saab and its parent company Spyker Cars N.V. Today, less than two weeks after Saab announced an agreement with China’s Hawtai Motor Group that would have invested €150 million (US$215 million) into the company in exchange for a 30% stake, Spyker said that the deal has fallen through raising new doubts about the Swedish brand’s future.

“Since it became clear that Hawtai was not able to obtain all the necessary consents, the parties were forced to terminate the agreement with Saab Automobile and Spyker with immediate effect,” Spyker said in a statement.

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Lexus LS 600h L Getting Prepped for the Wedding of Prince Albert II of Monaco

With monthly average sales of around 2,000 units this year, Lexus’ cars continue to be a scarce commodity on Europe roads and we somehow doubt that being crowned the official vehicle of His Serene Highness [very sic…] Prince Albert II of Monaco will help improve the Japanese automaker’s position in the market. Read more »

Mercedes USA Releases Full Details on its 2012 Model Year Changes

The past few months have been quite busy for Mercedes-Benz, with the German automaker having introduced a horde of new models such as the refreshed C-Class and the new SLK and C-Class Coupe, just to mention a few. In addition, the company has updated its engines and transmissions while also adding new features across the range like the new audio headunit with a 5.8-inch color display.

In the U.S., Mercedes-Benz is planning a full attack this year starting with the launch of the second-generation CLS sports saloon in June. Today, the Stuttgart-based premium carmaker released a list outlining the arrival dates and the changes for its 2012 model year cars and SUVs in the States. Follow the jump to check it out in detail.

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Britain’s Wonderland Syndrome: Motorists Deliberately Causing Accidents and Claiming Big Payouts

Godfather of Soul James Brown once sang, “Stock market going up, jobs going down,” and he’s never been more right. Only it’s not the stock market going up, its car insurance in the UK. And it’s going up a lot. Twelve months ago, drivers were paying (on average) £633.55 to insure their cars. Now they’re £892.08 or forty percent more, and there was a similar 40% increase the year before and the year before that. Yet with accidents declining and the competition increasing more than ever before, premiums – you’d think – would be lower than ever.

So what gives? Well, insurance companies are making bigger payouts thanks to litigation. Litigation! Roughly 200 claims a year to be exact, executed by those nefarious, “no win, no fee” lawyer-types. And this is in the UK; a country that I’d have thought would have more sense than that. Fortunately, it seems some people in the UK do have more sense than that as British Parliament has finally woken up to this litigation bully.

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VW Premieres Sharan and Passat Variant Emergency Vehicles at the 2011 RETTmobil

After Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Volkswagen also revealed its dedicated lineup at the annual RETTmobil exhibition, which is dedicated to emergency and rescue vehicles. The Wolfsburg-based manufacturer premiered the Sharan and Passat Variant as emergency vehicles together with new features for its range of specialty cars. Read more »

Defunct Brand Owners Shun GM and Ford

There are some three million former Saturn, Pontiac and Hummer customers in the United States, all of whom will unlikely ever have the pleasure of buying a newer model of their current make again. These are some of America’s defunct brands, all gone the same way as Plymouth, DeSoto, Packard and many others. These latest additions were culled following General Motors bankruptcy reorganisation in 2009. And Mercury owners are in the same boat.

Now, Ford and GM are desperately trying to hold onto these “brand-less” customers. Accoriding to a report from the Wall Street Journal, in this year alone, 70% Pontiac owners, 71% of Saturn owners and 65% of Mercury owners who traded in their vehicles left with something other than a Ford or GM product.

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Toyota to Boost Output of American Factories to 70% by June

The March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused severe problems to automakers all around the world, mainly due to the lack of parts, but at least Toyota seems to be recovering at a faster pace than expected. Today, the world’s largest automaker said production at its North American facilities will rise to approximately 70 percent of normal in June, up from around 30 percent in May when it was forced to idle factories for several days or reduce shifts.

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