RIVALS FORD AND GENERAL MOTORS COLLABORATE

Ford Focus interior

Chevrolet Cruze interior

Two of America’smost iconic car companies are teaming up and pushing things up a gear, so to speak. General Motors and Ford will be developing a new gearbox together, one that will work with front and rear-wheel-drive vehicles, as well as AWD.

So what makes this one special? Well, it will feature not 6, not 7, not 8 cogs, but 9 and 10! Yes, these will be 9-speed and 10-speed and will beat ZF’s current highest of 8-speed. The reason the two companies have given for developing these systems is better fuel economy.

More details will be released closer to the time of launch.

Post Title → RIVALS FORD AND GENERAL MOTORS COLLABORATE

MERCEDES-BENZ GLA CONCEPT IS OUT

Auto Shanghai in China is coming up this weekend, and some car makers are already releasing some pics and details of cars that will be shown there. Mercedes-Benz is one of them, with this GLA Conceptcrossover. The vehicle is the A-Classequivalent of Audi’s Q3, BMW’s X1 and Volvo’s V40 Cross Country.

The concept is based on a 4.38 metre long (just 0.02m short of the MINI Countryman), 1.97m wide and 1.57m tall structure. It will probably share most of its powertrains with existing A-Class models, including turbocharged 1.6-litre petrols and 2.2-litrediesels. If we are all lucky and meditate hard enough, there may even be a GLA 45 AMG in the works, pushing out 265kW from a 4-cylinder 2.0-litre turbo engine. Wouldn’t that be grand?

The GLA is expected to also get unveiled at the 2013 Johannesburg International Motor Show (JIMS) happening at NASREC near Soweto this October.

Post Title → MERCEDES-BENZ GLA CONCEPT IS OUT

VOLVO S60 POLESTAR OFFICIAL

Volvo’s new S60 Polestar is about to enter the Australian market. Feverish with performance desire and dressed up in war garments, the S60 Polestar is huffingand puffing, taking the small premium performancesedan fight to the Germans. Straight targets? Audi S4 and BMW 335i.

Pushed on by a 3.0-litre T6 engine, the motor has been wickedly tweaked via Polestar software to produce a lovely set of numbers that look very tantalising, at least on paper. The car galvanises 257kW of power at 5700rpm, and about 500Nm of torque set between 2800rpm and 4750rpm. Driving all four wheels through a Haldex AWD system is a 6-speed automatic gearbox. Volvo says the car will sprint from 0 – 100km/h in just 4.9 seconds before hitting its electronically limited top speed of 250km/h at some point later.

Running gear includes a set of 19-inch wheels with Michelin Pilot Super Sport 235/ 40 R19 tyres matching the sporty front splitter, Polestar side sills, a lovely rear spoiler and a diffuser that’s flanked by two 3.5-inch tailpipes.

Volvo South Africa is keeping mum about the car, but we remain hopeful, given that Australia is also a right-hand-drive (RHD) market, and the fact that we’ve been given Polestar Volvos previously.

Post Title → VOLVO S60 POLESTAR OFFICIAL

TOYOTA'S NEW RACING YARIS READY TO RUMBLE

The Sasol Rally, round two of the 2013 SA Rally Championship, is one that Castrol Team Toyota has won seven times since the first event 21 years ago in 1992, three times with the Conquest, twice with the RunX and twice with the Auris.

This year the factory team will tackle the longest and toughest rally of the year, in Mpumalanga on April 19 and 20, with the brand new Yaris.

The latest in a long line of successful Toyota rally machines has been designed and built by Toyota Motorsport at the team’s Kyalami workshop.  It made its national rally championship debut in the season-opening Total Rally in KwaZulu-Natal and despite a lack of testing Leeroy Poulter and Elvene Coetzee finished fourth after running third until the final special stage.  Johnny Gemmell and Carolyn Swan scored the Yaris’s maiden special stage victory and, between them, the two Castrol Team Toyota crews compiled an impressive 10 top-three stage finishes.

Both Gemmell and Poulter have tasted victory in the Sasol Rally, Gemmell in 2007 in a Castrol RunX and again in 2009 in a Castrol Auris and Poulter in 2011 in his first year in S2000 in a Castrol Auris.

A third Yaris, in the colours of Imperial Toyota, has been built since the Total Rally for Giniel de Villiers and new co-driver Greg Godrich, who finished sixth in the season-opener in an Auris.

“Building a brand new rally car from scratch is a major undertaking, but we had a good data base on which to create the rally version of the two-door Yaris, even if we were a bit pressed for time after the end of the 2012 season,” said team principal Glyn Hall, national rally champion in 1990. 

“We’ve incorporated everything we’ve learnt from its predecessors, who won their fair share of rallies; now it’s a case of getting the kilometres under the belt, testing and evaluating the options. 

“To be honest, our initial testing took place during the Total Rally and we were more than happy with the results.  We had some issues and we’ve addressed these.  We’ve also managed to fit in quite a bit of testing with the two Castrol cars in the six weeks between rallies, but I have to admit I wish we’d been able to do more.

“Giniel’s new car will only be ready the day before the Sasol Rally, so unfortunately he’ll be going into this event without any testing.  However, we’re confident we have a competitive package and that all three crews will give a good account of themselves.”

The Sasol Rally starts in the Sabie market square in Mpumalanga at 10.00 on Friday (April 19) and ends in Nelspruit on Saturday (April 20).  The route covers some 600 kilometres of which 210 are 15 timed special stages – three on tarmac (in the towns of Sabie, White River and Nelspruit), 11 on gravel in the York Timber forests near Sabie, Graskop, White River and Hendriksdal and a final, short stage on grass in the Lowveld Showgrounds.

STORY BY TOYOTA

Post Title → TOYOTA'S NEW RACING YARIS READY TO RUMBLE