UMW Toyota Motor has prices for the new second generation Toyota Vios up on its website. There has been a small drop in prices from the estimated values announced earlier at the media preview.

The top of the line Toyota Vios 1.5S is going for RM88,100 - down from the estimated RM88,600 announced earlier. The mid range Toyota Vios 1.5G goes for RM84,800, down from RM85,300 and finally the baseline Toyota Vios 1.5E now retails at RM78,700 - a RM200 drop to the previous RM78,900 price.

These prices are for Peninsular Malaysia and are on the road inclusive of insurance.

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Mazda is currently holding the MAZDA Design Challenge, which Mazda touts as a way for you to be able to “shape the future of Zoom-Zoom” - not sure how that is but the idea is interesting.

Basically the MAZDA Design Challenge is a competition where users submit their own design interpretation of how the Mazda 3 will look like in the 2018 model year. The contest has actually been going on for quite sometime now and 284 submissions were received. Now this isn’t really an art competition but more of an idea competition - the initial portion of the competition only required a 150 word idea of what the car should be.

Mazda has picked the top 10 and have decided to feature them on Facebook, where Facebook users will be able to vote for their favourite designs. These Facebook user votes will determine the top 5 winners. These 5 winners will then work with Mazda’s design team to further develop their idea concepts, then the updated concepts with sketches will be posted again for voting. The winner’s concept car will be shown live at the Los Angeles Auto Show! He or she will also get US$1K cash, airfare and accomodation for the show.

It’s quite interesting really, Mazda leveraging on the viral nature of a Facebook App to promote their contest, as well as building on the Facebook API for their voting platform.

If you’re on Facebook, check out the MAZDA Design Challenge Facebook Group. I’ve also set up my own paultan.org reader community group there, so if you read my blog and you’re on Facebook, join up!

Related Links:
MAZDA Design Challenge Facebook Group
paultan.org Reader Community Facebook Group

The hot gasses that are pumped into an airbag when it inflates can cause some serious injury in certain cases, as a poor 34 year old lady in Melbourne discovered.

She sustained deep dermal second degree burns from the gases when her airbag inflated on impact. These gases that escape from the airbag as it deflates after deployment can be as hot as 500 degrees Celcius. These burns take a long time to heal and risk scarring.

The lady is not alone - Dr Vivek Kumar Sinha and Dr Kirstie MacGill from Melbourne’s Box Hill Hospital says there have been a few reports of similiar airbag burns in Australia in the recent years.

“The driver remembers the airbag being deployed before noticing white powder and smoke emanating from it. It was only later that she realised she had received a burn injury to her right hand and was puzzled as to how that had happened. It was painful, became red and swollen, and later blistered,” said Dr MacGill.

“Airbags have also been linked to abrasions, lacerations, contusions, upper limb fractures and damage to the throat, eyes and ears (the sound of an airbag deploying is very loud - can be 165 to 175 dB) though these injuries were not the result of an airbag malfunction but its intrinsic design. Certainly injuries such as burns are a small price to pay for the greater safety provided by airbags during a collision. However, with the increasing use of airbags today, this case report points towards the need for more research into possibly modifying the design of airbags with the aim of decreasing these injuries,” added Dr Sinha and Dr MacGill in an Emergency Medicine Australasia report.

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Unlike many concept cars which most of the time pay 99% of attention to the exterior and settle for some futuristic-shaped dash for the interior, the Nissan Intima Concept puts focus on an attractive, hospitable and relaxing interior according to Nissan’s “Modern Living Concept”. The interior has been designed for people who love refined and elegant interiors - yours truly included - whether traveling alone or with a partner.

“We designed the Intima as a car that expresses the interior attractiveness Nissan proposes in the Modern Living Concept. The inspiration came from imagining a situation where a person who has accumulated many life experiences and successes now wants to spend his or her own time, or time together as a couple, in an elegant environment,” says Nissan’s Product Chief Designer Kinichi Saito.

The instrument panel padding is made to appear to float in between the wood grain panels, and the center console incorporates a wave-like pattern. Arm rests and assist grips are chunky to give the passengers a feeling of comfort, something Nissan has already done with the interior of the Nissan Latio.

Ambient lighting provided by the instrument panel, center console, door trim and ceiling, and door assist grips (these feature a blue-green acrylic material and gives off a soft light). The interior is cooled by a four-zone climate control system which provides comfortable cooling for all passengers through the use of infrared sensors. It also uses a natural grape seed polyphenol filter that neutralizes pollen and other allergens.

The front passenger seat can swivel 80 degrees to the outside to welcome the passenger into the car or provide a “first class” send off to whatever destination he or she is going to. The interior is large but feels even larger thanks to a large glass roof which flows continuously from the windscreen onwards.

All in all, apparently they paid so much attention on the interior that they ran out of design hours and decided to nick the exterior from a Mercedes Benz CLS.

More photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of TOKYO PREVIEW: Nissan Intima Concept

This is the Honda CR-Z, which stands for Compact Renaissance Zero - Honda’s third attempt at a modern interpretation of the Honda CR-X. The first was the Honda REMIX Concept shown late last year, and between that and now there was the Honda Small Hybrid Sports Concept but not many consider the latter as an interpretation of the CR-X. The Small Hybrid Sports Concept did however give us an indication that any future CR-X-like model from Honda would come with a hybrid system.

“The CR-Z comes with a new hybrid system developed by Honda whose breakthroughs allowed designers to get around such restrictions to achieve its lean cutting-edge look,” says Tetsuji Morikawa, a Honda Motor Co engineer.

You’ve got the customary LED headlamps that is a must on all concept cars in this age, and the front sports an oversized grille, also something that has been popular with concept car designs. Looks like Audi got it right from day one.

It will be displayed at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show next week.

More photos after the jump.

Source

Click here to read the rest of TOKYO PREVIEW: Honda CR-Z Concept

Shots of the Nissan GT-R are now being circulated around the net thanks to AutoWeek who decided to break the embargo following a previous leak of the production car’s exterior on Motortrend magazine’s December cover.

The Motortrend cover quotes some specs: 0 to 100km/h is achieved in 3.5 seconds, and a quarter mile drag in 11.7 seconds, with top speed maxing out at 310km/h. The car will cost under US$80,000. UPDATE: Edmunds Inside Line has more specs of the car - the twin turbocharged 3.8 liter V6 engine will be putting out 473 horsepower and 588Nm of torque, though there is no indication of what engine speeds these figures achieved. Still, looking at the tachometer you can tell this engine isn’t a screamer. This engine will be mated to a GR6 dual-clutch six-speed transmission with leather-wrapped aluminum paddle shifters - no manual is planned at the moment.

The interior kind of reminds me of an Audi but definitely looks the business, acres and acres of premium-looking black and aluminium trim. The bootspace looks rather decent and the gas shocks do not intrude into the space.

More shots after the jump.

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Click here to read the rest of Nissan GT-R Press Photos and Details Leaked!

The Suzuki Swift Sport has been officially priced - RM97,593.50 for a Suzuki Swift Sport 1.6 Manual and RM102,723.50 for a Suzuki Swift Sport 1.6 Automatic. These prices are on the road with insurance.

Specs include 6 SRS airbags, antilock brakes with EBD and brake assist, a 6 speaker system with a CD tuner that supports MP3 and WMA which you can control via integrated audio controls on the Swift Sport’s leather steering wheel.

Wheels are 16 inch alloy wheels, and the interior is done up in black and red. The suspension system uses MacPherson struts and coil springs at the front and a torsion beam with coil spring setup at the rear.

The spec sheet for the car indicates the 1.6 liter engine puts out 125 horsepower at 6,800rpm and 148Nm of torque at 4,800rpm - rather low for a modern 1.6 liter unit with variable valve timing actually - but requires RON98 fuel so be sure to only feed the best fuel you can get into it if you want maximum output - the closest to RON98 here is Shell V-Power Racing I suppose.

Kerb weight is 1,090kg for the manual and 1,100kg for the auto. The manual goes from 0 to 100km/h in 8.9 seconds, hardly enough to knock you back into your seats, while the auto is much slower at 11.4 seconds, probably because of the auto’s gearing.

Should be a car modification kaki’s dream though, just look at the long list of parts you can bling up your Swift Sport with!

More shots after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Official price and specifications for the Suzuki Swift Sport in Malaysia

Audi has slotted in a new model at the bottom of the Audi A5 range - one powered with a 1.8 liter TFSI engine mated to a 6-speed manual transmission. Note this is not the old but popular turbocharged 1.8 liter Audi engine that is in the B7 A4 1.8T currently sold in the Malaysian market, but a newly developed 1.8 TFSI.

The 1.8 liter TFSI turbocharged direct injection engine makes 170 PS at a rather low 4,800rpm and 250Nm of torque from 1,500rpm up to 4,800rpm, giving the baseline Audi A5 a 0 to 100km/h acceleration of 8.4 seconds.

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We will be able to see the final production version of the Nissan GT-R at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show next week, though many argue that we’ve already seen the production version with the GT-R PROTO shown previously.

While we have an idea what it will look like, specs have been not much but rumours so far, but AN reports that the new sports car will be powered by a 3.8 liter twin turbo V6 sending power through all four wheels with an all-wheel drive system, a GT-R trademark.

Given the modern performance turbocharged engine’s usual 100 to 150 horsepower to liter ratio, expect the new Nissan GT-R to be putting out over 400 horsepower.

It will come in a few colour options: three different shades of silver, white pearl, red and black. There will also be a GT-R Black Edition and a GT-R Premium Edition, other than the normal standard version which starts at US$66,500. The Premium Edition is expected to cost US$72,000.

Source

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BMW will be exhibiting a new concept vehicle at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show next week, but nothing else has been revealed about the new concept car other than the fact that it will be based on the BMW 1-Series platform.

A new small 3-door SUV called the BMW X1 perhaps? We will just have to wait for next week’s motorshow to see.

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