What is an Autocross? Unlike conventional head-to-head racing, an autocross is a form of relatively low-speed grassroots motorsports competition done in a time attack fashion with a sole car vying to do it’s best time possible around a circuit. It’s a form of precision driving.

It is usually held in parking lots with the course marked with traffic cones. Autocrosses are typically divided into a few classes, ranging from K-cars to classes divided by engine capacity, and also an open class.

It’s a very good way to know your car better. How it reacts in different situations, it’s handling capabilities, traits and limits. Cars with short wheelbases generally do well in autocrosses as they’re easier to maneuvere around the tight corners of an autocross track.

If I’m not mistaken, Proton R3’s Street Shootout is a form of autocross here in Malaysia. There are also different variations of the same time attack precision driving race like autotesting, autokhana and gymkhana.

Some of the tracks even involve reversing. For this, hardcore racers will equip their cars with special automatic gearboxes that can shift from forward to reverse really quick.

While our Nissan Sentra has just been facelifted here, Nissan has unveiled the new 2007 Nissan Sentra at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Our Nissan Sentra and the USDM Nissan Sentra has always looked very different, so I’m not sure if Nissan intends this to be the Sentra across the world or have separate USDM and JDM Nissan Sentras.

Click here to read the rest of 2007 Nissan Sentra USDM

The Mazda MX5 Miata has been the world’s top-selling entry-level two-seat roadster for 16 years now since it’s debut in 1989. The MX5 was the brainchild of Bob Hall, who is now working at Proton in product development.

But the past two months have been different with the launch of GM’s new Pontiac Solstice roadster which had sales figures double of the newly redesigned 2006 Mazda MX5 Miata. Pontiac Solstice sales for December were 2746 units where the Miata’s was 1007. January’s sales figures were 1990 units compaed to the Miata’s 1067.

Is this just a short burst of sales or will the Miata’s throne finally be toppled?

Honda Malaysia is running a Product Up-Date Exercise on their Honda City cars. If you’re affected you should have received a letter informing you about the exercise. If you have a second hand Honda City perhaps you want to contact the previous owner to see if they received any letter on whether the car you bought from them is affected.

Anyway the exercise updates your ECU software and replaces the CVT gearbox fluid. Honda says the CVT fluid deteriorates under certain conditions and causes judders during acceleration. To avoid these symptoms, the fluid replacement and ECU upgrade is necessary.

The work is about 1.5 hours long and it is free of charge. Thanks to Wingz for the heads-up.

Let’s have a look at some very expensive cars which almost none of us will ever have the chance of owning or driving ever in our lives, except for working in some high-profile car review magazine. Heheh. Forget the old and boring Jaguar that you know, this is the Jaguar XK.

Click here to read the rest of 2007 Jaguar XK Coupe and Convertible

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m abit bored of small 2-door hatchbacks, but my current tastes of cars seem to be leaning towards medium to large executive saloons lately, even though people would probably think this guy is driving his father’s car if I roll in driving one. This is the Mitsubishi 380, the successor to the Magna line in Australia.

Click here to read the rest of Mitsubishi 380 3.8L V6

Six months after Nanjing Automobile bought MG Rover, Rover’s future is looking bleak as Nanjing doesn’t seem to be doing anything about restarting Rover’s production.

Nanjing rescued Rover from bankruptcy from USD2.44 billion worth of debts in July 2005 and stated it aimed to produce at least 80,000 sedans and sports cars a year within five years in Britain with 2000 British workers, on top of production in China.

But what’s happening now doesn’t really reflect that plan. The UK factory is being packed up slowly and send to China by boat.

Source: Reuters

The Edge Daily carries a story with the main points of the new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for cooperation signed between Proton and Mitsubishi.

1. Product development of new Proton vehicles
2. Supply of components between Proton and Mitsubishi
3. Technical support for production, engineering and quality control from Mitsubishi to Proton and Proton’s vendors

How will Proton benefit from this partnership?

1. Diversified product range with shorter time to market for development
2. Plug holes in production line-up, mainly for MPV and luxury car segments
3. Use of Mitsubishi parts
4. Technical support and QC help by Mitsubishi

What’s in it for Mitsubishi?

1. Manufacturing facilities at Proton Tanjung Malim, which is sort of good for Proton too as QC at the factory will have to be up to Mitsubishi’s standards.

A pick-up truck sporting a 5.4 liter supercharged V8 that makes 380bhp and does the 0-100kmh sprint in 5.8 seconds. You’d think Jeremy Clarkson would like it. Watch this video. He does make a bit of sense though. Let’s find out why the F150 is so popular in the US but didn’t really go anywhere in the UK.

Click here to read the rest of Top Gear Video: Ford F150 Lightning

A few interesting things have been happening in the Proton stables. Let’s have a look at them one by one shall we.

On the 26th of January, Proton’s new chief executive Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir issued a press statement that Proton’s woes on cost effectiveness, quality control and model line-up would be solved by the end of the year. A very optimistic announcement, and I suspect this might be to save Proton shares from dropping any further. Syed also said Proton would be phasing out the Wira and Iswara models, though no indication of when was given. Proton will also focus on exporting to China and India.

We then had Mitsubishi Motors announcing that they were open to alliances, but there would be no chance of taking up equity. Yesterday, Proton and Mitsubishi announced the revival of their old alliance since early Proton Saga days. The alliance would be more of a technology transfer alliance just like before. I’m sure many would be glad to hear this, as generally Japanese technology-based cars are cheaper to maintain and have higher residual value here in Malaysia.

However in the same report Syed Zainal was quoted to say Proton was unlikely to turn around within a year. “In the auto industry, a change is not going to happen in one week, even one year,” he said. A sudden change in attitude, barely a week apart.

In other news, Volkswagen and Proton officially ended the Memorandom of Understanding signed back in October 2004 and have agreed to collaborate on technical and training projects. A report by Business Week had the interesting title of “Proton to buy parts from Volkswagen”.

To me it doesn’t really make much sense to have partnerships with both Mitsubishi and Volkswagen, and even recently Petronas on technical issues. This muhibbah rojak wouldn’t help with Proton’s economies of scale at all. What we have now is a few different platforms, old and new, using engines from 3 different manufacturers (Mitsubishi, Renault and Campro). Are we about to throw Volkswagen and Petronas into that mixture? Proton needs to have only one or two platforms that can be adapted to numerous body styles, like Lotus Group’s Versatile Vehicle Architecture. With common parts.

Anyway one of the reports had something interesting that should give us a clue on when the Proton Satria Replacement Model would finally be launched. Syed said a new model is slated to be launched in April or May this year.

I think Super Syed (as he is called internally) definitely is taking Proton in the right direction in general, but all that matters now is the execution of things. As managing director he cannot be micro-managing everything, and it requires a total team effort to pull this off. PR stunts like “we can change within one year” might just be a morale boosting exercise, or might be an effort to save Proton share values from plunging but this sudden change of attitude could be damaging, especially since the rakyat is pretty wary of Proton right now. After all, these days in the era of super chief executives, the head honcho of a company has his own branding as well and what that branding is does affect things. Have a look at Tony Fernandes for example, going everywhere with his Air Asia cap. It would not do Proton good if Syed is labelled as someone who trash talks.

Sources:

Proton to turn around in one year.
Malaysia’s Proton renews Mitsubishi Ties.
Proton to buy parts from Volkswagen