The Honda FCX Concept is a very interesting car indeed, Honda’s second fuel cell vehicle concept after the original FCV Concept, and now it has been put into a limited run production and named the Honda FCX Clarity.

The limited run production is exclusively for southern California in the US. This is because there is already an existing hydrogen fueling station infrastructure there - 19 between Oxnard and San Diego with 3 more in the works. Even in northern California there are 6 hydrogen stations, with 6 more in the works.

Honda plans for the first delivery to take place in summer 2008, but details of the lease programme will only be known closer to launch. Tentatively, plans are for a three-year lease term with a price of US$600 per month (approx RM2050), including maintenance and insurance.

Honda decided to add the Clarity name behind the FCX concept name to express the idea that the company is offering a clear solution to the challenges of the future in terms of sustainable mobility. Mechanically, it is pretty much similiar to the FCX Concept. There has been a minor increase in power if I am reading the spec tables right - the motor used to put out 95kW but now it is putting out 100kW, or 136 PS. The V Flow fuel cell stack works similiarly and puts out the same 100kW as before - so I am not sure why the extra 5kW was missing from the FCX Concept before.

For full technical details on how the Honda FCX Clarity works, read my previous article on my experience driving the Honda FCX Concept in the linked article below.

More photos of the production Honda FCX Clarity can be found after the jump, including photos of the new updated interior which is more production-ready than the concept-like interior in the FCX Concept.

Related Posts:
The New Honda FCX Concept Driving Experience

Click here to read the rest of Honda FCX Clarity - second generation fuel cell car

Click to enlarge

The new Mitsubishi Concept-ZT was on display at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show. The Concept-ZT carries the same design language as the new Lancer (called the Galant Fortis in Japan), but looks like an enlarged version. It should point to how the next generation Mitsubishi Galant will look like.

Just a short recap as regular visitors would have already read about the car in a previous post - the Concept-ZT is powered by a 188 horsepower 400Nm 2.2 liter turbodiesel engine with a VGT turbocharger mated to a Twin Clutch SST gearbox. The car also has an electronic LSD differential for the front, and ASC based on Mitsubishi’s AWD system.

More information on the Concept-ZT is available in the previous post I wrote about the concept car, linked below.

Check out more live photos from the show after the jump.

Related Posts:
Mitsubishi Concept-ZT to be unveiled at Tokyo 2007

Click here to read the rest of TOKYO LIVE 2007: Mitsubishi Concept-ZT

Click to enlarge

The new Suzuki Kizashi 2 Concept (done up in white) shown at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show is an evolution of the Suzuki Kizashi Concept (this is the red-coloured car) shown at the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show.

While the Kizashi had a 2.0 liter turbodiesel under the hood, very apt for its European motor show unveiling, the new Kizashi 2 concept uses a more Japanese-oriented 3.6 liter V6, the largest Suzuki has ever put in a car, mated to a six-speed auto.

More photos after the jump.

Related Posts:
More about the Suzuki Concept Kizashi

Click here to read the rest of TOKYO LIVE 2007: Suzuki Kizashi 2 Concept

Here are more official details on the car Hyundai has decided to call the Hyundai Sonata Transform, basically the mid-life facelift of the latest fourth generation Hyundai Sonata. The new Sonata facelift will be launched first in the Korean market for the 2008 model year, and the rest of the world will get it soonest for the 2009 model year, this probably includes Malaysia as well, pending our local distributor’s plans of course.

I like the current Sonata’s design and I say Hyundai has taken the new Sonata facelift backward in terms of exterior design - for example, the headlamps are now bigger so they look less sleek. But the new interior is a total redesign and looks much more upmarket than the current interior - a huge improvement to me, but very obviously “inspired” by the second generation Lexus RX/Toyota Harrier interior.

In Korea, the 2.0 liter Sonata gets its power boosted up to 163 PS but internationally the new engine specs is announced as having 158 PS. This probably has to do with different tune-ups for different countries having different emissions laws. The new 2.4 liter puts out 171 PS (179 PS in Korea), up from 161 PS. This power gain is achieved through the addition of a new variable intake system to the Theta engine family, and variable valve timing is now on both intake and exhaust ports.

More images and videos of the facelifted Sonata Transform after the jump.

Source

Click here to read the rest of 2009 Hyundai Sonata Transform facelift

People who value a fun drive in Malaysia now have another option to choose from in the form of the Fiat Bravo GT 1.4 T-JET, boasting a 1.4 liter turbocharged engine putting out 150 horsepower mated to a 6-speed manual gearbox.

This test drive was rather short and spontaneous - a friend and I just happened to see a Fiat showroom on our way back from lunch today, so I had to snap the photos with my camera phone. Also, this writeup is based on a rather short drive for just a few kilometers as it was a typical showroom test drive.

Read my impressions of my short but fun experience with the turbo Bravo after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Fiat Bravo GT 1.4 T-JET 150hp Short Test Drive

Right after the report by The Malaysian Reserve a week ago comes another report by The Edge Daily on the Proton and Volkswagen negotiations. According to the report, a Memorandum of Intent will be signed soon and after further due diligence, things should speed up. The collaboration would most likely involve marketing, manufacturing, and distribution.

One thing I found interesting in The Edge’s report - apparently unnamed sources said the negotiations were taking so long to complete because the government wanted to “make sure the ecosystem of vendors and other companies providing services to Proton would not be eliminated.”

Proton shares peaked at 5.10 ringgit (a 18 sen, or 3.7 percent jump) but later settled down to a 1.2 percent increase to 4.98 ringgit as of 3:24 p.m. today.

Read the source to find out more.

Source

[ UPDATE: Hicom-Chevrolet has launched the Chevrolet Captiva in Malaysia. ]

We previously saw the Chevrolet Captiva parked near the JPJ building in Putrajaya, so it should be launched pretty soon. HICOM-Chevrolet managing director-designate Yukontorn Wisadkosin (probably from GM Thailand) says it will be launched by the end of 2007 and it will be offered with a 7 seat configuration.

HICOM-Chevrolet is the the new 51:49 joint venture between General Motors and DRB-HICOM formed when GM signed an MoU with DRB-HICOM last year regarding taking up a stake in the Chevrolet business here in Malaysia.

Related Posts:
Chevrolet Captiva sighted in Malaysia
GM and DRB-HICOM sign stake transfer MoU

Source

I’m sure alot of you have watched this video pitting an F1 car driven by David Coulthard against a Mercedes Benz E50 and a Mercedes Benz A160 on a race track, it’s one of the more popular car-related videos on the internet.

Now before you say it is not a fair race, the A160 and the E50 actually got a big head start, but the Formula 1 car still managed to catch up in the end.

The A160 isn’t exactly the fastest thing on the road, and the E50 while having a large displacement isn’t meant to be a track weapon. This video brings the stakes closer together, pitting Coulthard in an F1 car once again against Mercedes-Benz cars.

This time the cars are the Mercedes Benz C200K Coupe, the Mercedes Benz SL55 AMG, and the Mercedes Benz CLK DTM.

Check out the video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of McLaren F1 Car vs Mercedes Road Cars, Part 2

There are alot of Volkswagen Golf GTIs on the roads these days, probably Volkswagen Malaysia’s best selling car. It’s at that magical under RM200K mark too, although just barely at RM198,888.

While the 2.0 liter TFSI engine is sweet, and 200 PS combined with that excellent chassis is more than enough for most people, there will be those who desire more.

Enter the Volkswagen Golf R32, set to give the BMW 130i M Sport a run for its money. This is the car that Jeremy Clarkson picked in a shootout between the two, and it could be in Volkswagen Malaysia showrooms pretty soon thanks to this sighting at JPJ Putrajaya (photos thanks to jD), which is usually where alot of new CBU cars will be parked at for type approval and other procedures before they enter the market.

A launch sometime soon in time for the Christmas season perhaps?

More photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Golf R32 in Malaysian showrooms soon?

This is the Audi Cross Cabriolet Quattro concept, which previews the upcoming Audi Q5 mid-sized SUV. While the idea of an open top SUV echoes the classic post-WW2 Willys Jeepster model, there is not likely to be an open top production Audi Q5.

Instead, the production Audi Q5 will likely be a proper roofed SUV like the Audi Cross Coupe Quattro Concept which made its public debut at the Shanghai Motor Show earlier this year and share styling cues of both the Cross Coupe and the Cross Cabriolet.

While Volkswagen’s new Tiguan is based off a Golf platform, the new Audi Q5 will be based off a new MLP platform which underpins the new A4 and the A5. The Golf platform itself will be replaced by the Audi MQB platform in the future, which uses a transverse engine layout instead of the MLP’s longtitudinal layout.

Related Posts:
Audi Cross Coupe Quattro Concept hints at future Audi Q5
Some details on Audi’s MQB platform
Volkswagen to adopt Audi’s MLP platform strategy
Audi A5 to feature new flexible MLP platform

Click here to read the rest of Audi Cross Cabriolet Quattro Concept