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This set of photoshopped images confirm that our resident graphic artist Theophilus Chin is a crackhead I suppose if Nissan and Mitsubishi can create drop top versions of their tall-ish B-segment hatchbacks (the Micra C+C and the Colt CZC respectively), it’s probably not too insane for Theophilus to dream of a drop top Perodua Myvi… or not!

But seriously, Theo had nothing to do so he whipped up these photoshopped images just for fun. But what do you think? Would anyone buy something like this?

Two more images can be found after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Artist gone nuts: Perodua Myvi Cabriolet

The new Vauxhall Insignia (UK name, also called the Opel Insignia in Europe and Buick Regal in China) has been voted as the 2009 Car of the Year (Europe)!

The Insignia won by the tiniest 1 point margin - 321 points, beating the first runner up, the Ford Fiesta to the pole. Trailing behind in third place is the new Volkswagen Golf Mark 6 with 223 points. The last time a car won by 1 point was in the 2001 awards where the Alfa 147 beat the Mondeo by one point.

Other finalists included the Alfa Romeo MiTo with 148 points, the Citroen C5 with 198 points, the Skoda Superb with 144 points, and the Renault Megane with 121 points. To quality for the awards, a car must be launched within the past 12 months and must be available in at least five European countries.

There has been much fuss about the new Insignia from the European motoring press and this news should be a slight bit of music to GM’s ears during the difficult times they’re facing now. There is speculation that the Insignia will bring back the Lotus Carlton in spirit form. The old Carlton was also a Vauxhall/Opel, and the top of the line Insignia’s 260 PS 2.8 liter turbocharged V6 would be quite tuner-friendly, making the job easier.

The COTY awards jury is made up of 50 senior motoring journos from 23 countries, and the UK jury includes Steve Cropley of Autocar, Andrew English of the Daily Telegraph, Ray Hutton of the Sunday Times, Paul Horrell of Top Gear UK, John Simister of The Indepedent and Phil McNamara of Car Magazine.

Look after the jump for more photos and a video of the Insignia

Click here to read the rest of Vauxhall Insignia wins 2009 Car of the Year award!

Audi claims the new Audi A4L is the first long wheelbase version of a car in its segment, and they’re probably right. Long wheelbase versions are usually available for large cars such as the A8 and the 7-Series, but the Chinese market’s preferences favour more legroom, a larger interior and simply more metal for your money, so we get to see special extended cars for the Chinese market as their volume can justify the R&D.

There is even such as a long wheelbase E60 BMW 5-Series in China, and while the Audi A8 naturally has its A8L counterpart, Audi has also offered a long wheelbase Audi A6L in China since the year 2000. The addition of the A4L means there are now extended versions of all of Audi’s sedans, even though they aren’t offered in all markets.

The Audi A4L has a full 60mm longer wheelbase at 2868mm compared to the normal A4’s 2808mm wheelbase. This is even longer than the short wheelbase A6 which only has a 2843mm wheelbase! It’s naturally longer at 4760mm compared to the A4’s 4705mm length, but the SWB A6 is still longer than the A4L at 4927mm. This benefits the rear seat passengers, allowing easier ingress and egress into the rear bench and greater legroom.

Two engine choices are available - a 180 horsepower 2.0 TFSI engine or a 3.2 liter FSI V6 engine producing 265 horsepower.

I think this is still perfectly acceptable and it makes sense. Things will only start to get silly when we see car manufacturers attempt to stretch something that is generally meant to look a certain way to most people, like a long wheelbase Audi TT or something. Oh wait, that’s already been done. It’s called the MINI Clubman.

Click here to read the rest of New extended Audi A4L for the China market

Most of us was expecting a fuel price cut to happen either on Friday or Saturday last week but the weekend came and went and nothing happened. I know some of you are probably getting a little anxious.

But no worries, the good news is there will be a price cut after all, and its once again an amount of 15 sen that will be effective midnight tonight.

The following are the new prices of fuel in Malaysia slashed by 15 sen each effective tomorrow, the 18th of November 2008:

In other motoring-related news, the Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak revealed that the Cabinet had discussed recently on whether to declassify the country’s toll concession agreements, but he declined to reveal any result, instead prefering to leave it to the Works Mnister Datuk Mohd Zin Mohamed to make a statement.

This is probably arguably the most advanced C-segment car in Thailand, priced at just over the 1,000,000 Thai baht mark - the facelifted new Ford Focus TDCi with a 6-speed Powershift twin clutch transmission.

For a special launch price of 1,099,000 Thai bahts (approximately RM113,500), Thai customers will be able to enjoy a torquey and efficient 2.0 liter TDCi turbodiesel engine that produces 134 horsepower and 320Nm of torque at only 1,800rpm, with the ability to overboost to 340Nm briefly whenever the engine management decides its needed.

The 6-speed Powershift transmission out-cogs all of its competitiors, with the Civic having a 5-speed slush-box and the Altis having only a 4-speed auto.

It’s also more advanced, being a twin wet clutch transmission co-developed together with transmission company Getrag. It also has a slow creep function that helps with really slow traffic, parking maneuvers and those who just expect an auto to creep along slowly without you having to touch the accelerator pedal. Alot of twin clutch transmissions do not do this.

What else? It comes with 16 inch alloy wheels, a 6-way power adjustable driver’s seat, dual zone automatic air conditioning, and those who have driven the pre-facelift Focus will also know that its quite a fun drive, thanks to its sharp chassis and Control Blade multi-link rear suspension. Safety features include ABS, ESP stability control, and airbags.

While its just fairly rapid at 9.6 seconds to 100km/h (the Civic 2.0 does it in 9.2 seconds), Ford claims a potential fuel economy of just 5.8 liters of diesel (B5 biodiesel capable) every 100km, which could definitely be achievable thanks to a large amount of torque kicking in so early and the 6-speed twin clutch shifting quick and having plenty of ratios to keep the engine in its most economical operating range.

Both the 4-door sedan and 5-door hatch have the same introductory pricing but the hatch has a few extra equipment over the sedan such as wider alloys (16×7 instead of 16×6.5), a sports suspension and blackened headlamp surrounds.

Them Thai folks are lucky to be getting this car. The Powershift transmission might make its way onto our local shores but It’s unlikely that Sime Darby Auto Connexxion will launch the diesel version here thanks to our low Malaysian diesel quality.

Watch a video promo of the facelifted new Ford Focus after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of New Ford Focus TDCi with 6-speed twin clutch Powershift launched in Thailand

As it doesn’t look like GM is going to receive any federal bailout anytime soon, it’s raising some cash to stay afloat by selling all of its stake in Suzuki - 3% or 16.413 million shares to be exact - back to the Japanese company, who will buy back its own shares at 1,363 yen (RM50.40) a share.

GM originally owned 20% of Suzuki but sold 17% back in 2006 in a transaction worth USD$1.96 billion. With this recent sale, it ceases to have any stake in the Japanese automaker. It also sold its 20% stake in Subaru in 2005, and part of that ex-GM stake is now owned by Toyota.

What’s next to go? Saab? Perhaps Buick will go to a Chinese company, since the brand is rather popular in China, doing even better there than in the US. There was also a story about it trying to flog off Hummer to Tata or Mahindra.

Perhaps at the end of the day Proton can buy GM for US$1

Chinese automaker Chery Automobile Co Ltd signed an agreement with Thai company Thai Chery Yarnyon last Friday to assemble SKD (semi-knocked down) packs of Chery vehicles in Thailand. An initial planned capacity is 5000 vehicles annually and will include vehicles such as the Chery QQ compact car and the Chery Tiggo SUV. The output is aimed at both domestic and South East Asian regional markets.

It looks like Chery is taking a multiple-base approach for its ASEAN production centers. It also partnered up with Malaysian company Chery Alado Holdings Sdn Bhd to set up an assembly line at the Oriental Assembler Sdn Bhd’s assembly plant in Johor.

The Malaysian assembly line will also have a capacity of 5,000 units a year and will also produce the Chery Tiggo SUV together with the Chery V5 MPV (known as the Chery Eastar in Malaysia).

Chery is currently the number 1 exporter of passenger vehicles in China, with vehicles from the company making up nearly 50% of China’s vehicle exports in the first 9 months of 2008. It has exported 115,500 vehicles this year so far, and exported 119,800 units during the whole of 2007.

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Current second generation facelifted Mercedes-Benz SLK

According to Automotive News Europe quoting an unnamed source inside Mercedes-Benz, the next generation Mercedes-Benz SLK-Class roadster set to debut in Spring 2010 will come with a diesel variant, likely to be powered by the new 2.2 liter inline-4 twin-turbodiesel engine from the W204 Mercedes-Benz C 250 CDI.

The engine is from the new OM651 family and uses a a combination of small high-pressure turbo for a strong and lag-free low end start-off and a large low-pressure turbo for a higher power output to produce 204 horsepower at 4,200rpm and 500Nm of torque between 1,600 and 1,800rpm. These figures outperform the baseline SLK 200K’s 1.8 liter Kompressor engine with its 184 PS and 250Nm output - double the torque!

With Audi recently putting a 2.0 TDI engine into the Audi TT and this new announcement that the new Mercedes roadster will have a diesel variant, can we expect the a 2.0d version of the next generation BMW Z4 powered by the 204hp, 400Nm 2.0 liter inline-4 turbodiesel found in the BMW 123d? This could be a possibility, considering BMW diesels have even found their way into the BMW 6-Series.

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Mercedes-Benz USA CEO Ernst Lieb says the German luxury automaker will axe the CLK in its current form (based on the C-Class chassis) and replace it with a 2-door coupe (wow, a new coupe announcement that’s not a 4-door one) based on the E-Class chassis.

Lieb said this was to move the smallest Mercedes-Benz coupe up a segment in order for it to be more competitive against cars such as the hot-selling Audi A5. It would also mean the new E Coupe will be more expensive than the CLK it replaces.

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The Opel Zafira people mover is now available with a 1.6 liter turbocharged CNG engine that produces 150 horsepower and 210Nm of torque, the rough equivalent of a very torquey normally aspirated 2.0 liter engine. Relying on the on-board CNG tanks alone, it can travel up to 370km thanks to its 4 separate CNG tanks and a 14 liter backup regular gasoline tank (obviously downsized from the gasoline-only model) provides up to 150km of additional mileage for you to get to a CNG station and fill her up.

Now this is the kind of powertrain that we need in the new Proton MPV, forget the CNG, even a nice small displacement turbocharged would be nice to provide a relaxed and torquey drive without having to rev the engine much.

Click here to read the rest of Opel Zafira powered by 1.6 liter CNG turbo engine