Aussie Motoring

A trip to our favorite mechanic is always a bit of an adventure … I mean how many mechanics actually run and hide when they see a customer drive their car into the yard?

It can also be interesting because you never quite know what you’re going to see Ian working next … about this time last year he had a very early model VW Cabriolet that he was fitting a brand-new genuine VW motor too. This time he had this in for some work.

Perhaps there’s some charity motoring event on around town soon.

It’s being reported that BMW will soon commence building 500 electric versions of it’s ever-popular Mini.

The Chairman of BMW AG is reported as saying that this small group of cars will allow BMW to gain knowledge and experience in the production of eletrically powered vehicles.

It’s believed that 490 of the electric Minis will be shipped to California where they will be leased to selected customers.

If the report is correct then BMW has joined other European manufacturers including Volkswagen, Daimler, Peugeot and Renault in taking the first tentative steps towards building a vehicle that produces zero emissions.

Earlier this month we reported on the latest car sale figures for the Australian market in May but not every country … nor every segment … was as bouyant as the Australian market was in May. In once instance the impact of falling sales has led to some serious re-thinking of future plans.

General Motors experienced a 37% drop in the sale of SUVs and vans in the United States during May and, when you consider that GM makes more money from the sale of SUVs than it does from conventional vehicles, it’s no wonder that GM is re-thinking its future strategy.

GM did have a team of engineers working on developing fuel-saving technologies for their SUVs with a view to introducing them by 2012 but no more. The team has been dispanded and re-assigned to other projects and General Motors may soon be making changing it’s focus from SUVs to more fuel efficient cars.

Volkswagen is also experiencing some problems in what it describes as “a difficult market environment”. While sales are surging in China they are falling when taken on a worldwide basis. VW reported a drop in of 0.8 percent in worldwide sales in May.

Kia on the other hand reported a 16.5% increase in worldwide sales during May with large increases in all markets. Most noteable were a 56.8 percent increase in sales to China, an 8.8 percent increase in sales to Europe and an 8.6 percent increase in sales to North America.

by Stuart Livesey

OK … to show interest in a car like this at my age is probably an indicator of mid-life crisis … or maybe I’m reverting to my second childhood. On the other hand I might have always been interested in cars like this and just hide that interest behind more staid examples of the car builder’s art.

Whatever the reason I do have to say that I like the Volkswagen America’s 2007 GTI concept car.

Some of these controls may be a little less than user friendly but …

And this is a backside with attitude

Volkswagen of America, Inc. has been awarded two “Motorist Choice Awards” from PRIMEDIA’s IntelliChoice.com and AutoPacific for the 2007 Volkswagen GTI and Jetta.

2007 GTI

The Volkswagen GTI was the top choice for the Image Compact Car category, while the Jetta was named the winner in the Mid-Size Car category. The award, which recognizes the most satisfying cars and trucks that are also the least expensive to own is based on a combination of IntelliChoice.com cost of ownership data and AutoPacific’s customer satisfaction survey data, creating a final score.

“Both of these vehicles are very deserving of this praise,” said Matthias Seidl, Volkswagen of America chief operating officer. “Our commitment to making the safest and best-engineered vehicles at an affordable operating cost has shown through with these great cars.”

AutoPacific surveys 38 product-focused attributes, generating a score between five and 25, allowing for a maximum possible score of 950, which is then normalized to 1000. This score, merged with IntelliChoice.com’s seven scored attributes including depreciation, financing, fuel, insurance, maintenance, repairs and state fees, develops the final score and ranking of the Motorist Choice Awards.

Road and Travel Magazine in the United States has voted the VW Eos as one of the top 10 sexiest cars for 2007.

Here in Australia if you want to become sexy and own one of these two litre sex machines you can expect to pay over $47,990 for the base model and if you’re thinking maybe second-hand means it will be cheaper then don’t bother looking online. As I write this Drive.com has two advertised starting at $64,990.

by Stuart Livesey

I guess it’s time to come out of the closet and admit to the world that I’m a big fan of the classic VW. There’s no car with more quirky character than the classic Volkswagen Beetle. No matter how much you tart up the latest version of the Beetle it still doesn’t have the same appeal as the old Beetle.

Photo courtesy of dantada and Morguefile.com

That’s probably why I just had to tell you about a new website out there - The Classic VW Beetle - a site that will take you through “the travails of an amateur Classic VW Beetle enthusiast.

If you want to see the Beetle in all of its quirky splendour then start with Thinking About Customizing Your VW Beetle. On that page you will find the VW flower pot, the VW helicopter, the VW Beetle crossed with a ‘57 Chevy, a stretched Beetle limo and other interesting variations on the theme.

by Stuart Livesey

VW unveiled the restyled Touareg at the New York Motor Show today and plans to have it in the showrooms by late in the northern spring.

The new Touareg has had a face lift that’s designed to blend it more into the VW family. Other changes to the body include a redesigned rear spoiler, 17 inch or 19 inch wheels (depending on the model), redesigned headlamps, darkened tail lights and four new exterior colour options.

Mechanically the Touareg comes with a new V6 and new V8 engines that significantly upgrade performance.

Other upgraded features include a new rollover sensor system, an enhanced tire pressure monitoring system standard on all models, rain brake support (that intermittently wipes the brake rotors when the windshiled wipers are in use) and an understeering control system.

The new Touareg will go on sale with a starting price of $US39,320. There’s no word yet on when the new Touareg will reach Australia.

Then you might wish you lived in the US

by Stuart Livesey

Volkswagen of America, Inc. are looking for the oldest and highest mileage diesel-powered Volkswagens in America. Interested owners have until May 31 to register their vehicles if they think that their VW diesel might be the record holder.

The oldest U.S. market diesel Volkswagen search is open to registered vehicles, still running on the road with their original engines. Volkswagen anticipates this will be a Rabbit, as 12,393 were sold in 1977.

The highest accumulated mileage diesel Volkswagen search is also open to registered vehicles, still running on the road with their original engines. The odometer reading must be substantiated with service records and/or logbook data.

“Since announcing this search, we’ve already heard from several diesel owners in the 300,000 to 400,000-mile range,” said Keith Price, public relations manager, Volkswagen of America, Inc.,

And for the two lucky winners there’s six months use of the V10 version of one of these:

2007 VW Touareg

There may be no hands on the wheel in the future

by Stuart Livesey

How many times have you come up behind a car on the highway and found that you couldn’t really see anyone in the driver’s seat? Thankfully that’s usually because the driver may be a little vertically challenged but if you were to come up behind this this 2006 VW Passat wagon you just might find that there’s no one behind the wheel.

Meet Junior Stanford University’s latest venture into robotically driven motor vehicles. Last year there was Stanley - Stanford’s winning entry in the annual Grand Challenge run by the Defense Andvanced Research Projects Agency.

The challenge was to build an autonomously controlled vehicle that could cross 211 km of rugged desert terrain and after several years of trying Stanford University was the first entrant to meet the challenge. For that they used a VW Toureg.

This year the challenge is to build an autonomously controlled vehicle that can navigate through city streets while other vehicles are moving around it. That’s something that we humans do every day; we absorb information from a myriad of information through our eyes, ears and other senses too.

We take all that information and process it in an incredibly short time and we go on doing that every second that we’re out there on the road. To us it’s really not much at all but try and build a computer and all the sensory equipment it needs to do that and you will see what the engineers at Stanford are up against.

It’s a fascinating story and you read all about it here