Fiat has announced details on its 2010 Bravo hatch, which has received a few minor cosmetic revisions for the model year. On the outside, the Bravo's upper and lower front grilles have been re-trimmed and are now offered either in black or chrome finish while the headlamps on all models are smoked.
Furthermore, the mirrors and door handles are finished in the color as the body on all trim levels while Fiat added two new colors to the palette (a different shade of gray and a pear finish).
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Due to an article I wrote I recently had the experience of receiving almost fanatical persecution brought about by Volkswagen owners of the past, present and future; or shall I say the members of the VW cult. The response was great. It was basically,
Marussia is it's name and no matter how they've tried to make the car seem harmless and dainty in their promotional efforts, the name of the company and the design language the car speaks never stops reminding you that the car is born in mother Russia. And most likely would run you to the ground if you stopped by the showroom and didn't end up signing on those dotted lines for one.
Started by a popular singer, television new anchor and theater actor, Nikolay Fomenko also found time to become
Yes. Honda has officially launched the CRZ at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show. The specs are as per my earlier posting on the car but one surprising item is the fuel economy of this hybrid vehicle. 31mpg city/38mpg highway are pretty disappointing figures. So if you think you're helping the environment by running one of these babies you're not. A small city car like a Daihatsu Mira or the Perodua Viva would burn less fossil fuel than the admittedly more stylish CRZ. I don't think Honda is trying hard
The competition has gotten even tougher. Car manufacturers these days are becoming so obsessed with creating the greenest car in the world. It's almost like a trophy that they can hold out to the beaming eyes of the motoring public to show that they are environmentally friendly. This time, Renault's new Clio is the current green leader.
The new Clio's party-piece is its engine. The dCi 86 powered Clio emits a mere 98g/km and that is astonishing. I think Singaporeans should be a little
The German's these days are getting increasingly aggressive. It used to be just Hitler, but now its the Volkswagen group. They've become so dominant that mentioning a car under their name is inevitable. Volkswagen have led the way in build quality, their innovative and extremely efficient DSG gearbox which is currently unparalleled in the mass-car market and even in their advertising for crying out loud. Most notably however, the car that has stood the test of time is undoubtedly the Golf. And n
Ladies and gentlemen, focus your attention on the all new Ford Focus! Ford took the wraps off its brand-new 2011 Focus at the Detroit auto show, displaying the sedan and hatchback variants. The Fiesta's new big brother is quite possibly one of the most important Fords of the past few decades as it will be a truly global car. The new Focus has been re-designed from scratch to suit all international markets.
The new 2010 Focus sedan and five-door hatchback represent the third and fourth
We have witnessed a tremendous rise in applications of twin clutch transmission in recent years. Manufacturers may call such technology by different names such as DSG (VW), Powershift (Ford), S Tronic (Audi), PDK (Porsche). I won't be surprised if torque converter equipped transmission makes it to the museum in 10 years' time. Let's take a detailed look at the future of automatic transmission.
Twin-clutch gearbox was first put into production by BorgWarner, which calls it "DualTronic". It w
[extract]One good reason to drive up north and into Kuala Lumpur is the SMART tunnel. It is presumably the longest stormwater drainage system in South East Asia and has a 4km long tolled motorway tunnel built into it. The tunnel is limited to light vehicles and if you were to drive up and into it (at a cost of RM2.00), you
I attended the launch of the new 911 Turbo last week at Stuttgart Auto's Leng Kee Road showroom. Well...to be honest, I didn't even know there was a 'new' Turbo in the works. When they finally unveiled the Turbo, low and behold it looked exactly the same as the previous model. I seriously think the Porsche designers are getting lazier with every 'new' Porsche. I know Porsche calls it 'evolution' but it looks as if evolution has skipped over the latest Turbo.
Granted the new Turbo comes
Ever wondered why so many wealthy Singaporeans advocate paying full cash for car purchases? Ever wondered what makes your car loan so profitable that dealers add a 'loading fee' to 'push' buyers to take up loans of minimum tenures? The answer lies in the deceptively quoted interest rates.
Now for the non-Finance trained among you, let me go through some basics. The key difference that we are concerned with is that interest rates for car loans (or strictly speaking hire-purchase) are quoted
The Peugeot SR1 hybrid 2+1 seater roadster concept that will be displayed for the first time at the upcoming 2010 Geneva Salon in March marks the stylistic design trends for the brand's future models.
This concept car showcases the firm's new design language that abandons the chunky shapes and the much criticized gaping-mouth grille of the current Peugeots in favor of more elegant and sharper looks that hark back to the Pininfarina-era Pugs. On a closer look, it bears a passing resembl
Last week Sentosa announced that with the opening of their Resorts World Sentosa, they'll be increasing charges for private vehicles entering into Sentosa. Currently it costs $2 per car with additional $2 per passenger. From January 18 onwards though it'll cost $6 to drive into Sentosa on weekdays between 7am and just before noon, and $7 per car on weekends, regardless of the number of people in the car.
Apparently management on the island are amending the costs of driving to the island to
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All this talk about cyclists and their rights to use the road has got me feeling slightly worried. It was not so long ago that legislators and lawmakers managed to convince car manufacturers to rethink and redesign cars to include energy absorbing bumpers, bonnets, windshields and A-pillars. According to various sources, up to 1 million people pedestrians worldwide are killed every year due to collisions with vehicles and this very bit of information had made legislators rise up to pr
It seems the Subaru Impreza WRX or the WRX STI Top Mount Intercooler scoop from the version 8 (applied model C to E in Subaru talk) is making headways in every vehicle out there. Check out the Toyota pickup above and you'd see the famous scoop looking its best. Modders are willing to put this scoop on any car they see fit. In Malaysia, I've seen the scoop on a Proton Wira, Proton Waja, the new Proton Saga, a couple of Perodua Kancils, a Perodua Myvi, Hyundai Accents and aside from the two pictur
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I recently met up with a few friends right after the Goodyear Formula Drift Malaysia. Some Malaysian bloke named Tengku Djan won the event in an 180sx with a S15 front end. It was during this conversation that one of us actually asked
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I was sitting in a chair at the reception area of a dance academy waiting for my daughter to finish her dance lesson when I realized why Volkswagen never rocked my boat, the GTI included. As I wrote elsewhere a few years ago, the reason I thought the GTI was not a fulfilling car to own was that the Mark5 Volkswagen looked too much like a mini MPV instead of a stonking hot hatch. When you parked it beside to its cousins the Audi A3 or the Skoda Octavia or even the larger sized A4, you
Ford Fiesta, VW Polo, Honda Jazz - Take a close look at the Chevrolet Aveo RS concept. It has caught my attention and you had better pay attention too!
Starting with the 2010 Detroit Auto Show, Chevy is out to change the Aveo's cheap and boring image into a product that we might actually desire. The process begins with the Aveo RS concept, which provides a preview of what to expect from the next-generation production Aveo when it arrives in showrooms sometime next year.
The Aveo R
Are you the kind who pokes fun at the male/female voice that comes with a GPS system, spewing mechanically accented directions at you on the way to a destination?
Well complain no more!! Garmin has now introduced a record-your-own-voice feature for their navigational instructions on their latest GPS systems!
Garmin says the PC-based application will take about 20 minutes to complete, but when you're done you can tell yourself when to turn instead of that computer generated voice that dom
Warning: This article is intentionally biased and opinionated. If you are too uptight to see the lighter side of things, please click the back button on your browser and select another post to read.
I am sure that there are many things that irritate, frustrate and tick us off when we drive on Singapore roads. Here is the top 5 list of motoring related things that get me just that little bit hot under the collar.
5. Leeches
Largely harmless but very irritating, leeches are non
The new Ghost is finally in town. Rolls Royce has unveiled the new "Baby Roller" as its affectionately known to the Singaporean public. It may be smaller than the Phantoms in Roll Royce's line, but the figures are not something to be laughed at. This is a Rolls Royce that you would actually want to drive rather than to be chauffeured in.
Its wheelbase measures 3,295mm which is 300mm shorter than the Phantom's, but when you look at it, it still is undeniably huge. The Ghost will haunt o
The Volkswagen Passat EcoFuel has recently edged out the Toyota Prius for the title of "greenest car in Europe." The International Automobile Federation (FIA) sanctioned the Eco Test that evaluated a number of cars. The winning Passat is powered by a 1.4-liter TSI inline-four fueled by natural gas. VW's TSI engines are turbocharged and direct injected.
Both the Passat and Prius scored 92 out of 100 on the test, but the less expensive natural gas fuel system gave the VW the edge. The test ev
It was a Thursday evening and I was on my way home, sitting on a bus along Eunos Link. I was looking out at the traffic with a tired mind after a long day at work and suddenly, this uncle cyclist caught my attention.
Initially, he was at the front of a traffic junction with the rest of the drivers and motorcyclists. When the traffic lights turned green, he cycled as fast as he could to keep up with the petrol powerplants beside him. The traffic is always quite busy on a weekday evening alon
The fairer sex won't be too happy about this, but a German study has shown that men are better at parking than women. The results of this study may potentially cause some outrage, but its really not as bad as it seems for women.
The results of the study show that female drivers take 20 seconds longer than their male counterparts to park a car, and even if they do get their cars parked, they are more likely to be crooked than a car parked by males, Telegraph reported. The experiment was con
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The "F" in F1 could stand for "First Aid" now.
In a surprise turn of events, Formula One tycoon Bernie Ecclestone and partner Genii Capital emerged as a rival to Dutch super-car maker Spyker Cars NV in making last-ditch efforts to buy General Motors Co.
