Archive for International News

Peugeot has just announced the launch pricing for the new Peugeot RCZ 2+2 coupe. If you want a French take on a TT-like car, you’ll be expected to shell out about £19,900 for a ‘base’ model with the 156hp 1.6 turbo engine and a manual transmission.

Now this is actually quite interesting as the 308 GT THP 175 goes for £20995. So I think it’s quite possible to have a low spec RCZ here in Malaysia for well under RM200k.

But with the RCZ being a premium model it’s very likely for Nasim to position their RCZ offering higher up the model range instead. Upgrading to a “Level 2″ trim level car with the 200 horsepower manual brings the price up to £24,500, or a 156hp auto will go for £23,300. That would mean a potential price difference of perhaps RM20k when converted to Malaysian ringgit, BEFORE taxes!

The “Level 1″ base trim level includes 18” alloy wheels, sports front seats, dual zone air-conditioning, folding rear seats, rear parking sensors, four airbags, ESP, EBFD, EBA, ABS, an active rear spoiler, and twin rear sports exhaust.

Upgrading to “Level 2″ will add leather, heated front seats, carpet mats, front and rear parking sensors, tilting door mirrors (to aid reversing), auto headlamps, follow-me-home lighting, rain sensor wipers, and 19 inch wheels.

Further customisation is allowed, with an alternate design for the 19 inch wheels, a carbon roof panel, integral leather, xenon headlamps, directional lights, gloss black brake calipers, black roof arches, matt roof arches, Peugeot connect media navigation 3D, and a JBL Hi Fi system. Nasim could possibly add a few of these to upgrade the spec level of their Peugeot RCZ offering. If this baby handles well, it could be a great alternative to the TT, which has a really expensive Malaysian price tag.

Click here to read the rest of Peugeot RCZ UK prices announced!

I think for Malaysians at least, Lotus and endurance races seem to go together, thanks to the Lotus cars run by Proton and Empire Motorsports in the MME endurance race. Maybe Proton will be running this new baby next year – the new Lotus Evora Type 124 Endurance Racecar. In fact, Lotus has already said that the car is scheduled to race in a few races and the MME is listed as one of them.

Based on the standard Evora road car, the Evora Type 124 (pronounced One Twenty-four) will make its 24 hour racing debut at the ADAC Nurburgring 24 hours race. According to Lotus, the Evora was designed for racing from the start and this made it very easy for the team to convert the Evora into a racecar, thanks to the mid-engine layout, stiff bonded aluminium chassis and lightweight forced aluminium wishbones for the suspension.

The Evora gets a race-tuned version of the Toyota V6 mated to a 6-speed sequential paddle shift racing gearbox, and it now produces over 400 PS which is well over the 100 PS per liter ratio. I wish they’d listed out more specifications as to the specs of the engine – I dig this kind of stuff. In stock form, the Evora makes 280 horsepower from its 3.5 liter V6 engine, but even for the road car its said that a supercharged version could come later putting out over 400 horses.

Loads of goodies are added to the car – AP Racing 6 pot brakes on both front and back, a race-tuned Bosch ABS system, 4-way adjustable dampers, adjustable anti-roll bars, 18 inch wheels (nice and wide 9.5 from and 11 at the rear) with Pirelli slicks, a full FIA rollcage, an FIA 120 liter ATL fuel system, FIA fire extinguisher, yet weight is cut down from the production car to under 1200kg depending on race regulations. This is thanks to the use of carbon fiber extensively in the rear wing, diffuser, font splitter, and body panels.

Click here to read the rest of New Lotus Evora Type 124 Endurance Racecar will race at the MME in Sepang next year

Honda is rolling out the new Honda CR-V facelift across the globe. We’ve already had a glimpse of the US and Japan cars, but here comes the most detailed press unveil so far, the USDM Honda CR-V. The CR-V facelift gets a new grille, front and rear bumper, a reshaped engine hood, and a new 10-spoke alloy wheel design that replaces the 7-spoke version on the EX and EX-L models.

The 2.4 liter version which is sadly not available here in Malaysia gets a 14hp performance boost to 180 horsepower, but that’s about all the changes in the engine bay as there is only one engine available in the US market. The increase in power is mostly thanks to an increase in compression ratio from the relatively low 9.7:1 to a more ‘modern’ number of 10.5:1. The injectors have been improved with a finer spray pattern, intake valves are larger, the spark plugs have extended electrodes, there are better friction-reducing piston rings, a higher-precision timing sensor and a freeer-flowing exhaust.

But despite all of that, the extra 14hp is only achieved higher up the rev range at 6,800rpm while the 166hp engine made its peak power at 5,800rpm, so the improvement is more of an extension of the powerband to be wider rather than the engine making more power at the lower RPMs. Torque remains the same at 218Nm.

Interior changes include some changes to the various controls to make it friendlier to the user. The radio and control layout has changed, and there are also new seat fabric textures and trim panel sections. The radio control displays as well as the MID display in the middle of the control panel gets blue backlighting now.

Front seat armrests (the kind which which fold down from the seat) have been made one inch wider. This is a welcome improvement as I found the pre-facelift CR-V’s armrests a little too narrow to be comfortable.

Look after the jump for a nice hi-res photo gallery of the new CR-V.

Click here to read the rest of Honda CR-V facelift unveiled for the US market

When Koenigsegg announced that it was interested in taking over Saab from GM, other than the usual questions on whether the Swedish supercar company would have the ability and experience to turn the brand around, there was also the question of how Koenigsegg was going to finance the deal.

Of course they’re going to get help – and the first ‘partner’ has been announced – Beijing Auto. Beijing Auto will be taking up a stake in Koenigsegg which will help them finance the Saab takeover bid. “This is an important step on the road toward a new Saab. We have a well prepared business plan, an important partnership and we are ready to proceed without government financing,” said Koenigsegg CEO Christian von Koenigsegg.

Beijing Auto was not successful in their bid to get a piece of the GM Europe pie with Opel and Vauxhall, but plan B seems to have worked – they now have another way in through Saab. There were also rumours earlier this year that Beijing Auto is seeking to buy Delphi’s non-core assets and Volvo, though now Geely is the only sole bidder for Volvo. Beijing’s JV partners in China include Daimler AG and Hyundai.

The C30 hatchback has been updated to feature Volvo’s new front-end look, as per the convertible C70 recently. Most of the changes are aesthetic and also include new colour choices for the exterior and interior – total configurations thanks to the various options results in 2,561,328 possible combinations.

Other than the looks, the other most significant change to me is the new ’sports chassis’ option which basically means stiffer bushes, a 10% lower steering ratio, and suspension parts (these include new monotube stiffer dampers, stiffer springs and stiffer roll stabilizers) that are stiffer by 30%.

The star engines of the range are the T5 and D5 models. The petrol T5 puts out 230 horses and 320Nm of torque from its 2.5 liter inline-5 while the D5’s 2.4 liter turbodiesel makes 180hp and 400Nm of torque, yet consumes only 6.2 liters per 100km.

Look after the jump for photos and videos of the C30.

Click here to read the rest of Volvo C30 hatchback receives facelift

Despite being based on the F01/F02 7-Series chassis, the Rolls-Royce Ghost brings alot more to the buyer’s table. Firstly, it looks completely different. Retro-futurism isn’t only confined to modern incarnations of old musclecars – its quite clear that classic Rolls-Royce design cues are executed well here.

The kind of switchgear employed inside look of a completely different standard compared to what you get in BMWs. They look more like they came out of a luxury yacht or helicopter, and you can also say the same about the look of the wood, it’s just a grade above. Frosted lamps, chrome door handles, traditional violin key switches, eyeball air vents, frosted white dials, the works! The interior uses deep-pile carpets and there are even optional lambswool floor mats.

Leather comes only from bulls raised in pastures free of barbed wire to help reduce leather imperfections. Marks are avoided by the laser cutters. At least 8 hides are used in each interior, and a set of hides are drum-dyed in batches at the same time to ensure colour consistency. Seats and interior panels are hand-stitched.

Producing a Ghost requires it to pass through 60 pairs of hands, 2,000 individual operations, and 20 days. 7 days consist of painting and polishing. The Ghost body is first applied with a phosphate electro-coat to protect against corrosion. Then on comes a layer of primer, a colour coat, and two coats of clear lacquer. Between each layer, the body is hand-sanded and once the final cost is on, it is hand-polished for 5 hours.

The Ghost rides on air suspension at all four points. The electronically adjustable air suspension is so sensitive that it can sense the movement of a single rear passenger from one side of the seat to the other and compensate accordingly. Dampers can self-adjust every 2.5 milliseconds. The car can also raise and lower itself by 25mm.

Power comes from a new 6.6 liter twin turbo V12 engine mated to an 8-speed ZF transmission. 0 to 100km/h takes just 4.7 seconds thanks to 563 hgorsepower and 780Nm of torque from as low as 1,500rpm. The dash does not feature a rev counter but a “power reserve” gauge.

I like how they’ve added umbrella storage compartments integrated into the two front doors. The umbrellas are provided too and are Teflon-coated.

Click here to read the rest of All-new Rolls-Royce Ghost – full details unveiled!

Lotus will be showcasing its very own “range extender” powertrain at the Frankfurt motorshow this month. If you know how the Chevrolet Volt works you’ll basically have a gist about what range extenders are all about. A range extender engine does not power the car’s wheels. It either provides power to an electric motor or charges the vehicle’s battery, depending on needs as per what the management system tells it to do.

The Lotus Range Extender Engine is a 1.2 liter 3 cylinder engine. Its power/torque curve is optimised for 2 power generation points – 15kW (20hp) at 1,500rpm and 35kW (47hp) at 3,500rpm, which by the way is also its redline. The engine is most fuel efficient at these points in the RPM range so it can just run at these speeds without having to go into the other inefficient ranges because it does not drive the wheels directly. Peak torque is 107Nm at 2,500rpm.

The engine is a single cam engine with 2 valves per cylinder on a 10.0:1 compression ratio. It uses a monoblock construction with an integrated exhaust manifold, which means the head and block are integrated, removing the need for a head gasket. 17 parts are eliminated thanks to this and the water jacket can be optimised – the result is a dry weight of only 56kg. No fancy direct injection here – fuel is delivered via port injection and the minimum octane requirement is RON95. It can also run on ethanol or methanol.

Peugeot’s rebadged Mitsubishi i-MiEV didn’t turn out looking quite like what Theophilus Chin imagined it to be – the actual product doesn’t really stray far from its Mitsubishi looks. As for the name, the Peugeot branded car is going to be called the Peugoet iOn while the Citroen one has yet to be named.

Looking back at history, this is not Peugeot’s first electric car. In the mid-90s, there was actually an electric version of the Peugeot 106 for sale. It had a regular speedometer but the RPM meter was replaced by a dial showing the percentage of maximum power output being used. It had a top speed of 90km/h and went up to between 70km to 100km on a single charge.

The new iOn can go further – 130km on the European driving cycle on its lithium ion batteries. The iOn’s batteries can be charged in 6 hours using a regular 220V socket or up to 80% in 30 minutes via a fast charging system. It’s powered by a 64hp motor with 180Nm of torque.

Theophilus Chin’s rendering of a Peugeot-ized i-MiEV

Mitsubishi and Peugeot have finalised its EV agreement where Mitsubishi will be supplying PSA Peugeot Citroen with an electric car for the European market based on the Mitsubishi i-MiEV. Both Citroen and Peugeot-badged vehicles will be available, and production will start in October 2010, with a launch happening shortly after.

Honda have released four new photos of the 2010 Honda Accord Crosstour in red, making it a total of 6 official pix from them so far. Does the Crosstour look better in these angles and shade of colour? Honda isn’t getting too flattering a response to how the car looks on their Facebook page. It’s an absolute slugfest there. Whatever it is, it’s nothing something that we’ll be getting here in Malaysia.

Look at all six photos released so far after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of New photos of Accord Crosstour in red