CAR INFO

Showing posts with label Automotive News. Show all posts

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Subaru Kicks Off Series Production of BRZ

Subaru held a special ceremony today at its Gunma factory in Ota-city, Japan, to mark the series production start of the Subaru BRZ and Toyota 86 (named GT 86 in Europe) rear-wheel drive coupes. The presidents of both companies attended the event. The factory, which will produce both models as well as the Impreza by March 2013, underwent several changes to cope with the extra capacity.
The two Japanese automakers first agreed on business collaboration in October 2005, and after expanding their ties with new agreements related to development and production in April 2008, they began designing the coupe models, the production versions of which were presented at the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show last December.
At the ceremony, Toyota's President Akio Toyoda said: “I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the ceaseless efforts of all FHI people and staff who were involved in the development, production and preparations for both models. The Subaru BRZ and Toyota 86 would not have been successfully developed without collaboration between FHI and TMC."
Yasuyuki Yoshinaga, the president of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd, which is Subaru's parent company, said: "The car symbolizes our corporate strategy in two significant aspects: good progress of our alliances; and advancement of our “select and focus” approach."

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Mazda CX-5 Orders in Japan Surpass Mazda’s Original Estimates

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Mazda revealed today that it has received close to 8,000 orders for its brand new CX-5 crossover in Japan since February 16. Now, either the Hiroshima-based carmaker was extermely conservative in its projection or the locals have really taken to the new crossover because that figure is eight times the original monthly estimate of 1,000 sales.
Mind you, that’s before customers have the chance to test-drive the CX-5, something they will be able to do by visiting Mazda dealerships from March 31 onwards.
"Mazda is extremely grateful for the approval from many customers for the all-new CX-5”, said the company’s President and CEO Takashi Yamanouchi.
“I am convinced that we will surpass our global sales target of 160,000 units per year and that the CX-5 will become one of our core models alongside the Axela (known overseas as the Mazda3), Atenza (Mazda6) and Demio (Mazda2)," he added.
Despite the fact that diesels are far from popular in the land of the rising sun, the 2.2-liter Skyactiv-D diesel versions of the CX-5 account for 73 percent of total orders while gasoline-engined cars are ordered by 27 percent of customers.

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Geneva 2012: Vote on the Best

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The Geneva Palexpo convention center may have opened its doors to car fans from the general public on Thursday, but for the rest of us, the 82nd edition of the Swiss motor show has already taken its place in the history books. But what a spectacular car show it was with dozens of world premieres ranging from economical mainstream city cars such as the five-door Skoda Citigo to one-of-a-kind supercar exotics like the €2.1 million Lamborghini Aventador J.
Looking at our stats, we found that the five most read stories from the 2012 Geneva Motor Show this week (March 5 to 9) on Carscoop.

We should note that if you include the previous week, during which we had several presentations, the Ferrari F12berlinetta comes out first followed closely after by the Mercedes A-Class, Infiniti Emerg-E, Bentley EXP 9 F SUV and the Volvo V40.
But enough with that. What we would like you to tell us is from all the new cars/tuned models and concept studies that were presented in Geneva, which ones did you find the most and least appealing as well the most boring.
To keep it simple, just copy-paste the box that follows and list your choices in the comments section.

NEW PRODUCTION CARS / TUNED MODELS