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Official: Petersen Museum undergoing stunning design overhaul [w/video]

Filed under: Classics, Etc., Videos

Petersen Automotive Museum exterior renovation plans

If you were alarmed when the Petersen Automotive Museum starting selling off large and significant parts of its venerable collection, fret not: the museum isn’t in trouble. In fact it’s about to embark on what could be its most ambitious rebirth since the late Motor Trend publisher Robert E. Petersen and his wife Margie founded the museum nearly 20 years ago.

The plans announced at Pebble Beach this past weekend revolve principally around an architectural renovation of the former department store that houses the museum by the corner of Wilshire Boulevard at Fairfax in Los Angeles. The project is being undertaken by Kohn Pederson Fox Associates (no relation) and calls for flowing bands of stainless steel enveloping three sides of the red structure, giving the building a fresh look without requiring any structural changes. The steel ribbons will be backlit by LEDs day and night, and remind us of a blend between a hot rod flame job and cartographical topography. But the renovation isn’t just a facade: the project will also add another 15,000 square feet of display space inside, with new galleries and digital displays focusing on cars and car culture in South California and around the world.

The overhaul will also encompass a “refined and upgraded” collection as well as rotating displays, although few details were given at this point as to what exactly that will entail. Scope out the video clip and the press release below for more.

Continue reading Petersen Museum undergoing stunning design overhaul [w/video]

Petersen Museum undergoing stunning design overhaul [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 22 Aug 2013 17:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Official: Lexus to open stores with branded accessories [w/video]

Filed under: Car Buying, Japan, Marketing/Advertising, Lexus, Design/Style, Luxury

Lexus Intersect

Trying to build a boutique buying atmosphere with a large-volume premium brand isn’t easy, but Lexus is attempting to do just that by introducing its new Intersect By Lexus dealership experience. This aspect of Lexus retailing has nothing to do with cars and everything to do with luxury lifestyle accessories. Intersect By Lexus is effectively an all-in-one shopping destination for high-quality, hand-crafted designer products, many of them created specifically for the marque, right down to their “Crafted for Lexus” branding.

The first Intersect By Lexus store will open at the end of this month in Tokyo, with other stores planned for New York and Dubai. Going over the first store’s initial product list, it seems that each store will offer wares that reflect its location. Some of the products available at Intersect By Lexus Tokyo include a $400 minimalist LED desk light, hand-sewn $286 tablet cover and a $133 drip coffeemaker and cup set handmade from the ash of Japan’s Sakurajima volcano. Scroll down for a short video showing how some of these products were made.

Continue reading Lexus to open stores with branded accessories [w/video]

Lexus to open stores with branded accessories [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 22 Aug 2013 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Official: VŪHL says it has enough orders to put 05 roadster into production [w/video]

Filed under: Convertible, Performance, Plants/Manufacturing, MISC

Vuhl 05

If we had a nickel for every independent sportscar project started by people we’d never heard of and that never came to fruition, well… we might actually have enough money to put one of them into production. But every once in a while we end up pleasantly surprised. And we just might be by the VŪHL 05.

The project, as you may recall, is the brainchild of a pair of Mexican brothers based in Detroit, and calls for a lightweight track car along the lines of the Ariel Atom, KTM X-Bow or BAC Mono. VŪHL Automotive launched the 05 just last month at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where it was driven up Lord March’s lawn by F1 driver Esteban Gutierrez. Its featherlike 1,500-pound curb weight is motivated by a 2.0-liter turbo four sourced from Ford and mounted amidships, driving 285 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque through a six-speed manual to the rear wheels for a claimed 0-62 time of 3.7 seconds.

The numbers sound impressive enough, and have apparently impressed enough customers that VŪHL is putting it into production as planned. The initial run will consist of twenty Edition One models, which VŪHL will start building in November for delivery next spring. In the meantime, the Echeverria brothers will be taking their creation to London to rub shoulders with supercars at the Salon Privé. Scroll down to watch the video below, where you’ll also find a press release.

Continue reading VŪHL says it has enough orders to put 05 roadster into production [w/video]

VŪHL says it has enough orders to put 05 roadster into production [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 22 Aug 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Official: Porsche 911 Carrera 4S named Motor Trend Best Driver’s Car [w/video]

Filed under: Motorsports, Coupe, Performance, Videos, Porsche, Racing, Comparisons

Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Best Driver's Car video

Motor Trend has named the 2013 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S its best driver’s car for 2013. The annual
competition for the title included some of the best performance cars that have gone on sale in the past year. The new C4S follows the 2012 Best Driver’s Car award winner, a two-wheel-drive Carrera S.

Determining the winner of the coveted title isn’t easy. Each vehicle is pushed through Motor Trend‘s normal battery of instrumented tests. Editors then spend time with each car over a 500-mile tour of mixed conditions before a final batch of testing at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, with pro racer Randy Pobst at the wheel.

The video below features one of the Carrera’s hot laps with Pobst at the wheel, providing commentary on just what the car is like at its limits. Also, there’s plenty of that sweet, distinctive, Porsche flat-six howl. Take a look below for the full video.

Continue reading Porsche 911 Carrera 4S named Motor Trend Best Driver’s Car [w/video]

Porsche 911 Carrera 4S named Motor Trend Best Driver’s Car [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 22 Aug 2013 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Followup: NHTSA rebuffs ‘best ever’ crash test claim by Tesla [w/video]

Filed under: Government/Legal, Safety, Videos, Tesla, Electric, Luxury

Tesla Model S after crash frontal crash testing by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administraion

In response to Tesla’s claim that the Model S is the safest car ever tested, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released a statement clearing up how it rates cars. While not denying that the Model S is a very safe car, the agency said that its rating system is only between one and five stars – nothing higher and nothing lower.

This means that, unlike honors classes in college and high school, there is no way to score above the highest rating, and Tesla says that it received a 5.4-star rating (although there is no indication where it got this information). Also, NHTSA made no mention of any broken equipment it suffered while testing the Model S; another claim made by Tesla. Scroll down for the Model S crash video courtesy of ABC News as well as NHTSA’s brief statement.

Continue reading NHTSA rebuffs ‘best ever’ crash test claim by Tesla [w/video]

NHTSA rebuffs ‘best ever’ crash test claim by Tesla [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 22 Aug 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Official: Ford looks to space robots to improve car-to-car communications [w/video]

Filed under: Technology, Videos, Ford, Russia

Ford has partnered with St. Petersburg Polytechnic University for three years to research various kinds of connected vehicle communications. The university tie-up is part of its study of space robots, NASA systems created to enable space-to-Earth communication, and the university’s own development of systems that enable communication between the International Space State and Earth.

The objective is for Ford to engineer layers of robust networks and redundancy systems that will allow your car to speak to other cars, to emergency vehicles, to infrastructure like traffic lights and buildings, and to the cloud. Benefits would come in just about every area of transit, from avoiding accidents, to getting medical workers to an accident more quickly, to improving the flow of traffic during rush hour.

Check out the press release below for details on what Ford wants to learn from the JUSTIN Humanoid and NASA Robonaut R2, and a video of technical leader Oleg Gusikhin discussing his interest in the project.

Continue reading Ford looks to space robots to improve car-to-car communications [w/video]

Ford looks to space robots to improve car-to-car communications [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 21 Aug 2013 18:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: Cache of vintage Chevys in Nebraska headed to auction [w/video]

Filed under: Classics, Auctions, Chevrolet

In this Aug. 12, 2013 photo, old Chevrolet automobiles fill the showroom of the former Lambrecht Chevrolet car dealership in Pierce, Neb. Next month, bidders from at least a dozen countries and all 50 U.S. states will converge on Pierce, a town of about 1,800 in northeast Nebraska, for a two-day auction that will feature about 500 old cars and trucks, mostly Chevrolets that went unsold during the dealership?s five decades in business. About 50 have fewer than 20 miles on the odometer, and some are so rare that no one has established a price. The most valuable could fetch six-figure bids. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

This isn’t the first car dealer turned time capsule, but it might be the biggest. Ray Lambrecht stashed about 500 new cars from 1958 to 1980 that didn’t sell at his Pierce, NE, Chevrolet dealership before he closed shop in 1996, Yahoo News reports. His reasoning? Instead of selling previous model-year inventory at discounted prices, he kept the cars thinking they’d appreciate over time. Soon we’ll find out how his unique business strategy worked, as all of the old/new cars – stored in the dealership and at a farm – will hit the auction block next month. We think old Lambrecht will be making some good money – perhaps as much as six figures on some cars – as many vehicles in the collection are über rare and word of the auction has spread worldwide.

It is reported that visitors from all over the US and at least a dozen countries will descend upon the 1,800-resident town for the auction to buy old Chevys with negligible miles. The cars with the fewest miles in the collection are a 1959 Bel Air and 1960 Corvair Monza with only one mile on their odometers. A 1958 Cameo pickup truck with just 1.3 miles sits in a corner with some damage to the roof and a thick layer of dust. About 50 vehicles have 20 miles or less, including the newest vehicle in the collection, a 1980 Monza with nine miles. While the cars in Lambrecht’s collection can be a bit rough on the outside, the ones that were stored in the dealership still have pristine interiors.

So what will happen to the vehicles once they’re sold? Jay Quail, executive director of the Classic Car Club of America, says many collectors who buy the low-mileage vehicles likely will put them on display as works of art. “It’s like having a Picasso in your garage,” he says. “Collectors will pay for a car that’s totally unmolested.”

UPDATE: Take a better look at this time-warp collection with the new Associated Press video added below.

Continue reading Cache of vintage Chevys in Nebraska headed to auction [w/video]

Cache of vintage Chevys in Nebraska headed to auction [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 21 Aug 2013 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Official: TMG still developing Lexus LS Sports 650 [w/video]

Filed under: Sedan, Performance, Europe, Lexus, Toyota

TMG Sports 650

If you’re going to make a super sedan, you’d better do it in Germany. That’s where Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz do it, along with third parties like Alpina, Brabus and G-Power, among others. Deutschland is the epicenter of the movement, regularly churning out the most powerful four-door rockets in the world. It’s also where one of the racing divisions for Toyota has been hard at work on the TMG Sports 650.

Toyota Motorsport GmbH started with a Lexus LS and turned it into a 641-horsepower, twin-turbocharged super sedan it revealed late last year at the Essen Motor Show. But though we haven’t heard much about it since then, the team behind Toyota’s F1 and Le Mans efforts are apparently still hard at work on the project.

Speaking with Lexus’ own UK blog, TMG chief Alastair Moffitt revealed that the project started way back in 2010, shortly after Toyota shut down its F1 program and left the racing team with nothing to do. The 5.0-liter twin-turbo V8 was initially producing as much as 800 horsepower, but has since been refined to 650 so that it could theoretically be put into production and onto the road.

That’s something TMG hasn’t done before, but is keen to start, positioning itself alongside Toyota Racing Development in the US and Gazoo Racing in Japan as an in-house tuning division which Toyota and Lexus could rely on for this kind of project. To that end, TMG has been testing its prototype at the Nürburgring – less than an hour’s drive from its headquarters in Cologne – and has already found it’ll run to 60 in the same 3.9 seconds as the new Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG and top out at 200 mph.

The next step will be to set a hot lap on the Nordschleife, and we’ll be keeping an eye out to see how it does. In the meantime, check out the video below.

Continue reading TMG still developing Lexus LS Sports 650 [w/video]

TMG still developing Lexus LS Sports 650 [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 21 Aug 2013 14:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: Akerson looking for 20 percent more range from next-gen Chevy Volt [w/video]

Filed under: Hybrid, Sedan, Plants/Manufacturing, Technology, Videos, Chevrolet

Dan Akerson wants to see 20 percent improvement in electric-drive range.

The Chevrolet Volt’s 38-mile electric range leaves something to be desired, despite being able to run nonstop for hundreds more miles when the range-extending gasoline generator kicks in. General Motors CEO Dan Akerson has recognized this and let slip that he wants to see the next-generation Volt get a significant electric-range increase, Bloomberg reports in a recorded interview with Akerson. The CEO says significant to him means 20 percent – “50 to 60 miles, or more,” he adds – and remarks that the range improvement could be a reality in three or four years. It’s a much bigger deal than the mid-cycle increase that the 2013 Volt got: three electric miles thanks to a half-kWH battery capacity increase.

In a less explicit statement about the next-gen Volt’s electric range, but still in context of the expected 20 percent increase, Akerson also tells Bloomberg that he hopes to see breakthroughs in battery technology that could further reduce cost and increase performance over the next couple of years. Already, the Volt’s 16.5-kilowatt-hour battery’s initial $800 per kWh price has dropped significantly due to volume and improvements in battery technology, according to Akerson. That’s without mentioning the current cost to produce a battery, of course.

Last spring Akerson said that GM hopes to trim $10,000 from the Volt’s price, currently at $39,145, through cost reductions. The goal is halfway met with the recent announcement of a $5,000 price drop for the 2014 Volt, which Akerson confirms in the interview was possible through “some cost savings by virtue of the evolution of the [battery] technology.” Feel free to watch listen to the video below for more details.

Continue reading Akerson looking for 20 percent more range from next-gen Chevy Volt [w/video]

Akerson looking for 20 percent more range from next-gen Chevy Volt [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 09 Aug 2013 16:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tesla Model S scores five stars in NHTSA crash tests [w/video]

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors, Videos

Tesla Model S NHTSA crash

Tesla Motors is having a good week. Right after the California-based maker of the Model S electric vehicle reported better than expected earnings and vehicle-production numbers, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) let it be known that the Model S received five-star crash-test ratings, according to Automotive News. That means the sedan received the best possible marks for frontal and side-impact crashes, as well as for rollover. The bad news: some Teslas were destroyed in the process. It’s part of a trend. Earlier versions of the Model S also received top crash test scores last year. Before that, the all-electric Roadster also passed crash tests back in 2008.

A refresher on the other good news of the week: Tesla announced Wednesday that it increased sales to 5,150 vehicles for the second quarter, and said it may double production next year. After reporting its first profit in the first quarter, Tesla’s second-quarter gross margin was 22 percent and may reach 25 percent by year-end. Tesla’s second-quarter revenue was $405.1 million and the company narrowed its second-quarter loss to $30.2 million from a $105.5 million loss a year earlier.

You can check out several Model S crash-test videos below, though you might want to cover your eyes.

Continue reading Tesla Model S scores five stars in NHTSA crash tests [w/video]

Tesla Model S scores five stars in NHTSA crash tests [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Fri, 09 Aug 2013 10:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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