It’s been another busy week in the world of motoring with a whole host of interesting news filtering out from various manufacturers.
It seems like the first week for a while we won’t be talking about a recent motorshow with last week’s Shanghai Motor Show – or rather the vehicles shown there – stealing much of the headlines in the motoring press and New York the same before that. With no major vehicle releases this week we managed to capture a glimpse of the weird and wonderful and a couple of great reasons why we love this industry so much...
Vintage Ferrari hopes to fetch £9m
A limited edition Ferrari could fetch £9m at auction if it’s original pricing is met. If there was a vehicle worth 9 million – and there probably isn’t – then this comes pretty close. The 250 GT SWB California is one of only sixteen that were ever produced – a fact that pushes it’s worth up by atleast £3m and has been fully restored. A 3.0-litre V12 engine produces 225bhp and the icing on the cake is that it’s fully convertible so summer crusing in this hotrod is likely to be pretty fun.
New Engines for Land Rovers Discovery Sport
The Land Rover Discovery Sport might have been a little upstaged by it's cousin the Evoque but it’s still a vehicle capable of packing quite a punch. This is set to only improve with a set of Ingenium engines which will be added to the range. These will come in the form of two 2.0-litre four-cylinder available each offering either 178bhp or 148bhp with the engines getting a nine-speed and six-speed gearbox respectively. One hallmark of these engines will be the improved running costs with the vehicle serving up a healthy 56.7mpg and 129g/km of CO2’s. This is considerably better than the unfortunate 2.2-litre cylinder it replaces.
Volvo to get even more efficient
Volvo’s reputation for economy is fast-becoming one of the most revered of any manufacturer – the Swedish brand announced plans to roll out new E-Drive engines and also a better economy rate for the existing XC90 model.
The new engines will spread across the V40, S60, V60 with the XC60 and XC70 also getting a slice of the action and are all available to order NOW. MPG is improved in almost all of these models with the V40 D3 diesel engine obtaining an 8.6mpg improvement. The missing piece from the Volvo jigsaw is the XC90 and news this week has revealed it’ll get it’s own engine boost just to make sure it doesn't feel left out. CO2 emissions for the plug-in hybrid version of this model will fall to 49g/km of CO2 and mpg hits 167.
It's a Skoda Fabia Pickup!
This ladies and gentleman, is a Skoda Fabia pick-up. Yes, you heard that right the Fabia's adorable design has been adpated into pick-up form and it actually looks pretty swish. The vehicle is called Funstar which turns up the cool factor quite significantly, to be fair. It’s also packing a 1.2 TSI that provides 121bhp and 18-inch wheels. If you want to get your tunes going then you’ll be delighted with the 1400W sound system and 200W subwoofer which is likely to make quite a racket.
Unfortunately, this one right here is the only vehicle we currently know of and there are no plans for the Czech manufacturer to put it into production as yet. That said, Skoda have enjoyed a strong reaction from this and we can’t be the only ones hoping this spurs them on to put this onto the build line.
Infiniti's crazy Vision GT Concept
What you see above is indeed a vehicle, or atleast it’s hoped that it will be. The Vision GT Concept from Infiniti is certainly one ambitious product and those familiar with the Gran Turismo racing games will have particular interest in the progress on this one. This is because the GT Concept was originally limited purely to the videogame world until an exclusive reveal at the Shanghai Motor Show. It’s rumoured to be packing a ferocious 4.5-litre V8 Petrol-Electric Hybrid System and is actually one of the scariest cars we’ve ever seen. Here's hoping Infiniti roll this one into production.
And the rest:
Good news for BMW drivers, well those from September onwards, as all of the vehicles will come with sat-nav fitted as standard. There’s also new kit revealed for the Audi A8 ahead of it’s face-lift later this year and Nissan’s GT-R will employ all-new V6 engines – the same as those used in Le Mans. Work is also underway for a 395bhp Golf R capable of hitting 0-62mph in just 3.9 seconds. Sadly, no launch date has been confirmed.
