Filed under: Coupe , Performance , Geneva Motor Show , Europe , Audi , Rumormill Audi RS5 – Click above for a high-res image gallery It’s been a long time since anything with an RS badge came our way from Ingolstadt, but it if you believe the whispers floating around the Web these days, there may be hope for a US-spec Audi RS5 just yet. Automobile is reporting that the company is seriously mulling bringing the S5’s meaner brother to our neck of the woods. The Kingdom of Quattro pulled the sheets off of the sinister coupe at this year’s Geneva Motor Show , and our jaws have been on the floor ever since. Under the hood sits a tweaked 4.2-liter V8 with 450 horsepower at the crank.
Filed under: Aftermarket , Performance , SUV , Geneva Motor Show , Land Rover , Luxury Hamann Conqueror II – Click above for high-res image gallery There were so many debuts at the Geneva Motor Show this year that a few new cars were bound to slip through the cracks. We happened to miss this custom Range Rover Sport from Hamann, probably because the 670 horsepower Tycoon Evo M was sharing the same stand. Named the Conqueror II, it follows up on Hamann’s first take of the Range Rover Sport that debuted a few years ago. Benefiting from the RR Sport Supercharged’s new 5.0-liter V8, the Conqueror II packs 560 horsepower and 506 lb-ft torque thanks to a revised engine management system and a sport exhaust.
Filed under: Convertible , Performance , Geneva Motor Show , Fiat Abarth 500C – Click above for high-res image gallery For every car, there’s a prospective customer. And for a car like the Fiat 500C, a cutesy retro mini with a pseudo-cabrio sliding canvas roof, we hardly need to point out who that target demographic is. But as if to highlight what a difference the little things can make, the Abarth version is another beast entirely. By “little things”, here we mean stuff like a 140-horsepower, 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine, a five-speed sequential paddle-shift transmission and a badass two-tone paint job. All that may not sound like much, but when applied to a little thing like the 500C, it represents the difference between the stock Fiat’s potential customer and the car nut who takes her out for an evening on the town.
Filed under: Concept Cars , Sedan , Geneva Motor Show , Europe , Peugeot 5 by Peugeot – Click above for high-res image gallery Ze Germans may be known for their efficiency, but try this on for size: French automaker Peugeot is gearing up to replace two sedans with – wait for it – just one! Feigned enthusiasm aside, this is the one that stands to take the job, and it’s a pretty sharp looking sedan. More telling, however, though dubbed a concept car, the 5 by Peugeot looks fairly close to production-ready status, especially compared to design studies like the RC HyMotion4 concept , another four-door concept from Peugeot unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in 2008. Oh, and we’re disregarding the lack of any interior on this show car. We expect a production version of the 5 by Peugeot to replace both the 407 and 607 within the next couple of years. In the meantime – particularly since Peugeot doesn’t market in North America – you can take a closer look in the gallery below.
Filed under: Concept Cars , Coupe , Performance , Geneva Motor Show , Europe Sbarro Autobau Concept – Click above for high-res image gallery Some of us were just barely mastering our Big Wheels back in the 1970s, but we imagine most of the concepts at those Salon de Geneves all looked hairy and wild. You know what we’re talking about. Star Trek meets George Barris design language, lower than your waist, nonsensical ingress/egress mechanisms, $5 afterthought interiors and colors pulled from the center of only the finest quaalude trips. Kinda like SEMA cars actually, but with European sensibility and sophistication. Meet the Sbarro Autobau , a concept car we know almost nothing about but really enjoy looking at.
Filed under: Budget , Wagon , Geneva Motor Show , Europe , Ford , UK 2012 Ford Focus Wagon – Click above for high-res image gallery We’ll be honest – we’re all pretty excited about the 2012 Ford Focus as it’s set to add new levels of refinement and technology to the booming C-segment in the United States. And while we’re pleased to see the return of the five-door hatchback, we’d be lying if we said we weren’t a bit jealous that other markets will be getting this haul-ready wagon variant. Plans for bringing the wagon to the States haven’t been completely ruled out, and executives have said that if market demand is there, Ford will answer (we’ve heard this one before). Still, Europe should be relatively impressed with the 2012 Focus Wagon , what with its new Kinetic design, optional MyFord Touch system, and a range of both petrol and diesel engines. Click through our attached gallery to see live shots of the not-for-U.S.
Filed under: Concept Cars , Hybrid , Sedan , Geneva Motor Show , Hyundai , Diesel Hyundai i-Flow Concept – Click above for high-res image gallery This guy, the Hyundai i-Flow Concept , is said to be a preview of a “future D-segment contender” from the Korean automaker. Showcasing an edgier take on the corporate design language that is currently beginning to infiltrate Hyundai’s very brisk dealership lots, the i-Flow goes for a smaller exterior footprint but more interior space with a severely pared-down cockpit. The frugality continues under the hood with a 1.7-liter turbodiesel hybrid powertrain making it all happen through a six-speed, dual-clutch transmission, and recycling – energy harvesting, that is – is taken almost all the way with flexible solar panels on the roof and additional power produced via exhaust heat. You can take a closer look at Hyundai’s future in our gallery of high-res photos below. Gallery: Geneva 2010: Hyundai i-Flow Concept Photos by Drew Phillips / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.
Concept cars are like unicorns — they’re so prevalent and vaporous, they’re hardly worth remarking upon. Every so often, though, one pops out into the ether that’s really worth a second look. Lotus’ Evora 414E Hybrid concept certainly fits into that category.This plug-in car boasts (or would boast, should it come into existence), 1.2 liter, three-cylinder engine, independent electric motors for the rear wheels, with a range of about 300 miles. The glass engine cover pictured above, however, is just one of the features we find ourselves double-taking here. The Evora 414E would also pack some ‘vroom vroom’ noises by way of its audio system to take care of the ever-pressing danger of silent auto engines .
Filed under: Concept Cars , Hybrid , Geneva Motor Show , Hatchback , Audi , Electric Audi A1 e-tron concept – Click above for high-res image gallery After teasing us with a few goodies yesterday, Audi has just released technical details on its new A1 e-tron concept that debuts later today at the Geneva Motor Show . As we already knew, the A1 uses an extended range electric architecture like the Chevrolet Volt , but with a compact and power-dense Wankel rotary engine/generator to keep the battery alive after power from the grid is depleted. The diagrams released by Audi show that the Wankel is mounted in the car’s rear behind the T-shaped battery pack that sits mostly under the rear seat. The lithium ion battery pack has a capacity of 12 kilowatt-hours, which is claimed to provide about 30 miles of range on a charge. Unlike the 1,000+ pound pack in the original e-tron concept, this unit weighs in at just 330 pounds.
Filed under: Concept Cars , Hybrid , Sedan , Geneva Motor Show , Audi , Luxury Audi A8 Hybrid design study – Click above for high-res image gallery In addition to the interesting electrified A1 e-tron concept , Audi is also showing off a hybridized version of its range-topping A8 sedan at this year’s Geneva Motor Show , which it claims offers V6-levels of power with four-cylinder fuel efficiency and emissions. Backing up that claim are reported power figures of 245 horsepower (45 of which can be supplied from the electric motor) and 354 pound-feet of torque. The run to 62 miles per hour is said to take about 7.5 seconds and fuel mileage comes in at 38 miles per gallon on the EU cycle. That’s about a 20-percent improvement over the standard car. As a full hybrid, the A8 design study can run on electricity only for up to 1.2 miles at speeds of 40 miles per hour or less.
Filed under: Hybrid , Geneva Motor Show , Hatchback , Lexus , Luxury Lexus CT 200h – Click above for high-res image gallery It was just last week that Lexus dropped all the details on its upcoming new CT 200h ( click here to refresh your memory), and now, as promised, the Japanese automaker has officially unveiled the hybrid hatchback at the Geneva Motor Show . Naturally, we snapped off a series of live photos for your viewing enjoyment. Interestingly, though Lexus has yet to confirm what markets the CT will enter, our men on the scene report back, “Lexus executives were adamant about a near-simultaneous global launch a year from now. In their own words, the United States and Japan will receive the CT 200h, even if it was developed as an euro-centric model. First deliveries should begin in Q1 2011.” Until we get official confirmation on that point from Lexus, take that information and file it firmly in the rumormill folder, but it could mean good things to come for those interested in a fuel efficient premium hatchback to go up against Audi’s diesel-powered A3 .
Filed under: Coupe , Performance , Geneva Motor Show , Lamborghini Lamborghini Gallardo L 570-4 Superleggera – Click above for high-res image gallery In case you hadn’t noticed, the 2010 Geneva Motor Show is about to start and one of the big debuts on day one will be this, the 2011 Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera . It’s the first successor to the original Gallardo Superleggera (“superlight” in Italian) that debuted in 2007 and will sit atop the Gallardo range as the little Lambo to beat. Just like the first car, the new 570-4 Superleggera is 70 kilograms, or 154 lbs, lighter than the Gallardo below it, in this case the LP 560-4. Its dry weight is just 2,954 lbs, which itself is far below the last superlight Gallardo at 3,153 lbs. Whereas that car was powered by 5.0 liters of V10 fury producing 530 horsepower, the new 570-4 model is propelled by a direct-injected 5.2-liter V10 of the same origin making its namesake 570 hp.
Filed under: Coupe , Performance , Geneva Motor Show , Audi 2011 Audi RS5 – Click above for high-res image gallery The next über-model from Audi’s Quattro GmbH division won’t officially debut in Geneva for another week, but images from its brochure have already made their way onto the web. The Audi RS5 coupe will no doubt take the performance of Audi’s B8 platform to levels beyond the much-loved and departed RS4 . What we don’t know at this point is how high that level will go, and what the motive power will be. It’s probably safe to assume it’ll fall somewhere between the 420 horsepower of the Audi RS4 and the 571 hp of the current Audi RS6 . Since the V10 used the R8 and RS6 isn’t really in keeping with Audi’s current engine-downsizing philosophy (not to mention that the 10-cylinder probably wouldn’t fir into the smaller A5’s engine bay), perhaps we’ll a turbo or supercharged version of the 4.2-liter V8 in the current S5, or a maybe even a more severely amplified version of the 3.0-liter TFSI V6 from the S4.
Filed under: Concept Cars , Coupe , Geneva Motor Show , Alfa Romeo Stile Bertone Alfa Romeo Pandion Concept leaked images – Click above for image gallery The raging torrent of pre- Geneva Motor Show leaks is officially in full effect today as a series of images showing off Bertone’s new Alfa Romeo Pandion Concept have hit the Interwebs (thanks Unica-Strada !) First of all, what the heck is a Pandion? Simple: a type genus of the Pandionidae. Mmm hmm. That’d be an osprey, sometimes known as a fish hawk. Moving on, then.
Filed under: Convertible , Coupe , Performance , Geneva Motor Show , Europe , Lotus , UK 2011 Lotus Elise – Click above for high-res image gallery For the first time in over seven years, the venerable Lotus Elise benefits from a substantial facelift. And if you’re noticing a few cues cribbed from the Evora , your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you. However, the new front fascia isn’t just there to lend some familial ties to its 2+2 sibling – since this is Lotus, it’s all about efficiency. Thanks to the smoother, lower nose, restyled headlamps (now with daytime running lights), larger grille and side ducting, new engine cover and reworked rump, the 2011 Elise’s coefficient of drag has been reduced by four percent. The Toyota-sourced 1.8-liter remains amidships, putting out 192 hp in naturally aspirated guise and 217 hp when equipped with a supercharger, and for the first time Lotus is offering a new 1.6-liter engine (again, from Toyota) with 134 hp (at 6,800 rpm) and 118 pound-feet of torque (at 4,400 rpm), which should result in a 0-60 time of around six seconds.
