Suzuki Malaysia launched it’s second model, the Suzuki APV (All Purpose Vehicle) here on Thursday. The Suzuki APV is a 8-seater small rear-wheel drive MPV that runs on a 1.6 aluminium block long stroke engine making 92hp.
Click here to read the rest of New people mover for Malaysia: Suzuki APV
Formula One will switch to 2.4 liter V8 engines in 2006. Cosworth has already begun dyno testing it’s V8 engine. The engine revs all the way up to 20,000rpm where the electronic rev limiter kicks in.
Click here for a video of the Cosworth V8 undergoing dyno testing.
Currently Formula One engines use 3.0 V10 naturally aspirated engines. Some of the teams will be allowed to continue using 3.0 V10 engines with rev limiters temporarily as cost-cutting measures while they develop new V8 engines. The V10 engines normally rev up to 19,000rpm currently, about 1000rpm lower than the Cosworth V8.
But I wonder who is going to use the engines though. Jordan (known as Midland next season) is now using Toyota engines. Red Bull Racing has decided to switch to Ferrari engines and even Minardi is expected to go for a rev-limited V10 engine instead of the Cosworth V8.
A potential candidate could be Williams.
A fusion of German engineering and Italian style, with a Ruf-tuned engine. You’re looking at the RK Spyder from StudioTorino. StudioTorino is a joint venture between Italian designer Alfredo Stola and German tuner Alois Ruf. Click here to read the rest of Italian and German Fusion: The RK Spyder
These are shots of the Satria Replacement Models being filled up at an ESSO petrol station. This could have been a good opportunity for anyone to grab as many spy shots are they could because the cars had to be stationary for their fuel tanks to be refilled.
There were two units of the Satria Replacement Model refilling their tanks. According to blog reader comments on my previous entries, it looks like road tests are becoming more and more frequent and easy to spot. The car should be ready to launch in a while but I’ve heard that Proton is pushing it to Chinese New Year intentionally to take advantage of a sales spike.
You can click the thumbnails for an enlarged version.
Nice side profile, although a little tall. There are discs brakes front and back. I think what we’ve feared most is going to come true. Those dodgy bling bling rims are going to come stock with the car. Honestly Proton, I’d recommend you to go for a design like the Advanti Racing rims that Race Rally Research are using on their R3 cars. The ride height looks pretty low.
If you look inside the car properly, you can see that the door panel for the left-hand door is in cream, as well as the top of the dashboard in front of the car. So I think it’s safe to assume the interior of the car will have light colours like cream as the dominant look.
Too bad there are no shots of the interior. I think we’ve seen almost every angle of the car already except the interior. A few people have commented on the previous spyshot posts that the interior is identical to the Gen2’s, like the way the Satria’s interior is the same as the Wira’s and Putra’s. That would make it a bit boring wouldn’t it?
There is no third brake light on the bumper, but those are reflectors. The rear bumper design accomodates a groove for the exhaust pipe to come out through. The spoiler is something like the Satria GTi design. Overall, very nice except for the rims which I think are totally off.
I wanted to go to DreamCarsAsia to get photos of the Gen2 R3 prototype but as I did not have a camera, couldn’t do anything. Autoworld has some photos here. Looks hot.
500 units of the Proton Gen2 R3 will be built, an increase over the 150 unit availability of the Proton Satria R3. Unlike the Satria R3 which carries over the bodykit from the Satria GTi, the Proton Gen2 R3 will have a redesigned bodykit. Looks pretty good, and it comes with the trademark RaceRallyResearch Advanti Racing rims. I just love that design. Thin, five spoke rims are my favourite.
More updates on the stats once I get hold of information, but for the meantime check out Autoworld’s article here.
Today I had a short feel of what driving a boxer engine felt like. Well, in terms of sound anyway, not power.
I was driving back from a mamak session. First gear, second gear, then when it came to third gear, the car started to feel really weak. REALLY WEAK.
Performance started to be really sluggish at speeds below 2500rpm. And it came with that pulsating sound that boxer engines have due to the unequal exhaust header length. Once the revs touched somewhat above 2500rpm the power kicked back in.
Could you imagine the struggle I had when I paid my toll? It took a good two to three minutes for me just to get from 1000rpm to 2500rpm on first gear. With the accelerator pedal fully depressed. I was moving slower than a turtle.
Suddenly once the rev went above 2500, there was a strong jerk and power came back in. Sounds like some ultra laggy turbo huh?
My guess is one of my spark plugs gave away, leaving the engine running on three cylinders. I’m waiting for the mechanics to open shop so they can replace it for me.
So, if you want to make your Mitsubishi engine sound like a boxer, just unplug one of the spark plug cables.
Update: I was right, it was the plugs. Mechanic gave me a temporary set of plugs to use while my platinum plugs order arrives tomorrow.
Welcome to the next step in engine technology. Camless engines use solenoid valves instead of the conventional camshaft, cams, gears, rocker arms combination. Solenoid valves are driven electronically allowing completely freedom of valve control. A computer controls the opening and closing of the valves instead of cam lobes actuating rocker arms. The abscence of all that mechanical bulk allows for a lighter and more compact valvetrain package. It also means you don’t need a timing belt anymore.
Camless engines have been around for the past 5 years in testing phases and used in competitions but I do not know of any that have been put into production cars yet.
It’s the next logical step from the current variable valve timing and cam profile phasing technologies that try to go around the limitation of a camshaft’s fixed timing properties. With the flexibility of the valve being electronically controlled, you can have maximum torque at all engine revs and the best fuel mileage possible. A racing cam is shaped to optimize engine output at high speeds without regard for the way it roughens up an idle. With camless valvetrains, we don’t have to live with that. Click here to read the rest of Camless Solenoid Valve Engines
It’s pretty interesting what Photoshop can do in skillful idle hands. If Porsche can come up with an SUV, so can Ferrari!
Will it ever come true? Very possible! Ferrari has decided to build a prototype of a SUV, but however it must prove to the Fiat Group which owns it that it is viable to produce.
Ferrari is probably feeling a little jealous looking at what an SUV can do to a car company’s annual returns. Hint: Porsche Cayenne. Even Lamborghini is working on one, possibly based on the Volkswagen Touareg.
Everyone is mad about SUVs, even in this time when oil prices are sky high. SUV aficionados must know something I don’t.
Read on to find out what the prototype might end up looking like. Click here to read the rest of A Ferrari SUV?
The world’s fastest sedan record has been broken again with the introduction of the Brabus E V12 Biturbo sedan, based on the current Mercedes Benz W211 E-Class sedan.
Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, or Ku Li bashes Proton in this unmarked video interview on 9th July 2005.
He says that Malaysia has no capacity to make cars. This is one case where dreams cannot fuel reality. He mentions UK’s failure with Rover and Australia’s supposed failure with Holden. I disagree. Holden was always part of General Motors from the very beginning. Just that it once made its own cars, but now just mostly does badge reengineering to achieve economies of scale.
He mentions Fiat is also having trouble. Huh? Fiat just celebrated it’s 106th birthday on 11th June. They look fine to me.
Ku Li attributes Proton’s failure to the car market being determined by the giant cartels of the automotive industry. The huge Japanese, American and German car companies total control of the market makes it hard for anyone new to break in.
He gives some history on how Proton came about. I am not sure if its true. Apparently Mitsubishi approached Taiwan to propose to a company be setup there, doing Mitsubishi badge re-engineering. They rejected, so they came to Dr. Mahathir and he accepted the idea.
However, “Proton tak terdaya maju“, he says.
In Rawang, Kuantan, Klang, tens of thousands of unsold Protons are left to rot in stockyards. More and more finance companies are giving 100% loans to Protons. 9 year durations. By the end of 9 years, he comments, the financed Proton would be worth nothing.
He mentioned something which he himself admits is unconfirmed though. He says in foreign markets, Protons are hard or expensive to insure because of it’s crappy safety features. Really? I thought the Waja scored a 3 in European NCAP crash tests? Hmm…
Most of his bashing is to do with the Mitsubishi era of Proton. Nothing about the new batch of cars. Hmm…
Anyway, watch the video yourselves. I have posted it up here for viewing.
Video: Ku Li: “Proton Tak Terdaya Maju”
Edit: I found that the video was posted here before me, so I assume that’s the source of the video. If otherwise, please leave a comment to correct me and I will edit my post to credit the proper source.
For those who don’t know who Tengku Razaleigh is, Google or Wikipedia is your best friend.
