Car Bay

India’s Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover is making some significant upgrades for the upcoming 2011 Range Rover model, particularly its diesel variant. The market can expect at least two core improvements - a re-engineered diesel engine and a new 8-speed automatic gearbox mated to it. You can find cheaper Land Rover parts at McDonald Land Rover.

Enhancing the Diesel Engine

The luxury SUV markets have always known the Range Rover SUV to have petrol and diesel models. The revered 3.6 litre eight cylinder diesel engine that started the Range Rover line has undergone earlier enhancements. For more affordable Range Rover servicing you should take a look at McDonald Land Rover. It is to become a heavily improved and more powerful 3-litre V6 diesel adopted from the current Range Rover Sport and Land Rover Discovery models.

They have also powered the new Jaguar XJ and XF models with significantly better fuel efficiency and improved CO2 emissions. Now, the Tata Motors has tinkered with the V8 anew to maker it even more powerful than the V6. Read More »

The Renault DeZir concept is the first Renault Design project led by Laurens van den Acker. When it’s officially unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in October it will lay a marker down for the brand’s future design direction.

The 4225mm long two-seat sports coupe embodies Renault’s new vision of ’simple’, ’sensuous’ and ‘warm’ designs. Its form language develops the fluid themes seen in previous Renault concepts but with a greater emphasis on surface than line. “My early inspiration stemmed from the liquid sensation, wave-like movement and contrasts in light associated with certain rippled surfaces,” says Yann Jarsalle, lead exterior designer.

Perforated surfaces, rather than hard-edged boundaries, define the head lamp graphic and reappear on the rear deck and rear fender air intakes. Its Audi R8-esque metallic side blade is used to illustrate the aluminum-bodied DeZir’s low weight of 830kg. Read More »

Land Rover revealed the Evoque at an exclusive celebrity-studded event at Kensington Palace in London last week, ahead of the car’s official unveiling at the forthcoming Paris motor show. Billed as a Range Rover (and not a Land Rover), the small SUV marks the 40th Anniversary of the original Range Rover and symbolizes the company’s move towards developing more lightweight and frugal vehicles.

Virtually identical to the LRX concept revealed at the 2008 Detroit auto show, the Evoque is the first all-new Land Rover product designed under Gerry McGovern’s stewardship. “Things that are smaller can take on more of a jewel-like effect, and that’s very much been the mindset of this vehicle,” McGovern said at the unveiling. Read More »

The Honda CR-Z has been a long time coming. Although the concept debuted in 2007, as a project it’s been kicking around Honda for over 10 years. Since the first Insight was launched in 1999, there have been numerous stop-start projects to produce a hybrid successor to the much-loved CR-X coupe. So when Honda invited us to drive their latest hybrid offering, it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

I should admit to having two vested interests here: firstly as a former CR-X owner back in the 1980’s and secondly as a Honda designer for a decade in the 1990’s. We were forever proposing CR-X updates then and I must have worked on at least three replacement projects, so I’m not totally impartial on this one.

The CR-X reborn
When the first generation CR-X was launched in 1983, it was a unique proposition: a hi-tech baby coupe with twin roles as an entry car for college kids in the US and a sportier hot hatch for other markets. The second-generation CR-X offered much more powerful and advanced VTEC engines and full 2+2 seating, while the third-generation ‘Del Sol’ model took a different turn with its odd two-seat targa styling and complicated stow-in-the-trunk roof.

In many ways the CR-Z is a straightforward update of the original concept: a very advanced low-slung coupe with modest power, in this case supplemented by an electric motor. Read More »

Revealed at the Chicago Auto Show earlier this year, this is the first time we had a chance to see the Odyssey concept in the metal. A departure from the current model, the concept informs the next generation Odyssey due in Fall 2011.

While the current model was created by Honda’s design team in Japan, the concept was designed by Catalin Matey under the direction of Dave Marek at Honda’s California design studio in Los Angeles.

The Odyssey concept embodies a cleaner aesthetic that is sleeker and more dynamic, thanks in part to slimmer headlamps and a rising featureline. But the most novel feature is its dramatic beltline that drops down aft of the C-pillar, accentuating the dynamic DLO. This element serves to distinguish the minivan’s profile while simultaneously improving rearward visibility for third row passengers, Honda says. Read More »

Toyota FT-CH concept

Toyota chose the Detroit auto show to unveil the FT-CH concept, a compact four-passenger vehicle that was created in response to customer and dealer demand for a greater variety of hybrid choices. Designed at Toyota’s ED2 design center in Nice, France, FT-CH concept - CH for ‘compact hybrid’ - aims to appeal to a younger target demographic than those in the market for the mid-size Prius.

Measuring 3886mm in length, 1740mm wide and 1397mm tall, the FT-CH is 559mm less in overall length and has a wheelbase that is 152mm shorter than that of the Prius, but it is only 13mm narrower. It is also lighter in weight and is claimed to be more fuel efficient than its larger sibling.

The FT-CH is full of clever design details, such as the recessed lighting in the front bumper, a headlamp graphic that outlines the hood of the vehicle, and a very pronounced shoulderline that accentuates the rear haunch - unusual for a vehicle with such obvious eco-intentions. Read More »

Ford’s brand portfolio is set to get smaller by the end of the year. Following the sale of Aston Martin, Land Rover, Jaguar and most recently Volvo (to Chinese automaker Geely), the Blue Oval has now announced the demise of its ‘middle of the range’ Mercury brand, with production of the last vehicles set to cease at the end of 2010.

In a statement released to media, Ford announced that the shuttering of the 71-year old Mercury brand was in the interest of focusing on Lincoln, the automaker’s only remaining premium brand. According to Ford, ‘more investment and attention on standout product design’ will now be made available to Lincoln, and the brand will see the addition of seven all-new or significantly refreshed vehicles in the next four years. Lincoln will also welcome its first-ever C-segment vehicle to the range, speculated to take the form of the C Concept revealed at the 2009 NAIAS in Detroit.

News of the forthcoming termination of Mercury has been a long time coming; the ill-fated brand has been creating rebadged Ford vehicles with little differentiation for a while now, so it’s really no surprise. Current offerings in the lineup range from the mid-size Milan (a mildly revised Ford Fusion) and full-size Grand Marquis (a clone of the soon to be defunct Crown Victoria) sedans to the Mariner (Escape) and Mountaineer (Explorer) SUVs. Read More »

Ferrari doesn’t make a new GTO very often. About every 21 years, on average.

So with the 599 GTO landing in a giant, drifty plume of tyre smoke just a couple of months back, it’s hyper-unlikely that we’ll see any other current Ferraris converted to GTO spec in the near future.

Which is why German designer Sasha Selipanov has taken it upon himself to imagine how a 612 Scaglietti GTO might look. An ultra-hardcore version of Ferrari’s four-seater grand tourer, you say? The results are spectacular, and more than a little reminiscent of the One-77 - reports BBC. Read More »

Lockheed Martin - for the uninitiated - is a company that makes big shouty fighter jets and lots of missiles and assorted weapons.

So when one of its designers penned a new Lamborghini concept, we got quite excited. We expected a Lambo with the propensity to transform into a flying merchant of SpeedyDeath using lasers and stuff.

But what we got instead was this - the Lamborghini ‘Navarra’ by designer Adam Denning.

It takes Lambo’s current styling language - a language inspired, don’t forget, by the Lockheed Martin-designed F-22 Raptor jet fighter, which influenced the Reventon - and adds curves. It’s also a styling language we think swears. Profusely. Read More »

General Motors Co. has ended a partnership with Indian firm Reva Electric Car Co. to produce electric cars and will now develop the vehicle in its hometown of Detroit, the head of its Indian operations said on Thursday.

The announcement follows Indian utility vehicles maker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.’s deal on Wednesday to acquire a 55 percent stake in Bangalore-based Reva.

GM India, which had originally planned to launch an electric version of the Chevrolet Spark, will now showcase the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid in the fourth quarter of 2010, after its global launch in November, Karl Slym said.

He did not give a time frame for the introduction of full-fledged electric vehicles in the Indian market.

Slym said the decision to end the agreement with Reva was made about two months ago as GM had a parallel program to develop electric vehicles globally. Read More »