Archive for Automotive Videos

BMW has released the first TV commercial for the new BMW X1 SUV and from the looks of it they are clearly positioned it as an active lifestyle vehicle for you to go on major road trips with your friends, and of course it will be a new cheaper way to enter this particular segment of SUV (or SAV as BMW would rather the whole world call them).

By the way, I’ve just found out what that oddly tilted square lense positioned in the inner ring of the bi-xenon headlamp is. Apparently it is just a lense designed to direct the light from the inner lamp to light up the corona rings (popularly called angel eyes) of the headlamp. In a bi-xenon headlamp, the outer xenon lamp serves both low beam and high beam functions so the inner lamps mostly serve to light up the corona rings only. The adaptive cornering lights are located in the fog lamps.

Anyway look after the jump to watch the commercial and see the new X1 in action. The X1 is likely to be launched in Malaysia within the first half of 2010.

Click here to read the rest of VIDEO: first TVC produced for the BMW X1

There’s a whole load of new videos on the new Porsche 911 Turbo released by the German sportscar company in conjunction with the new facelifted type 997 turbocharged sports car that was just unveiled a few days ago. If you check out the “Personality” video, Porsche even describes what exactly has changed with the car’s aesthetics. At first glance the two cars look the same and the changes are in the fine details. The videos are pretty long so take your time to enjoy them!

Click here to read the rest of 5 new videos for the new 911 Turbo facelift

Porsche’s mid-life facelift for the 997 Porsche 911 Turbo Coupe and Cabriolet will be exhibited to the public for the first time at the Frankfurt show this September. The 911’s rear-mounted boxer-6 engine is now 3.8 liters instead of the pre-facelift’s 3.6 liters in size. The engine also now adds direct injection and continues to use the variable geometry turbochargers found on the 3.6 liter unit. The engine now makes 500 horses, up from 480 on the previous edition of the 997.

Porsche seems to also have come to their senses with the way they implement their manual paddle shift system. Before this, the shifters were buttons on the steering wheel and both the left and right side set of buttons could do both upshifting and downshifting. I found it quite unnatural, but apparently that was the way Porsche did things when I asked why they had that weird setup.

Well, with this new “997.5″, a proper set paddle shifters can be fitted – a simple setup of a right paddle for upshifts and a left paddle for downshifts. This is for the 7-speed PDK twin clutch transmission.

There is also something called Porsche Torque Vectoring (PTV) which works together with the rest of the drive systems to route traction to the wheel with the most grip without losing some power via selective braking.

The new 911 Turbo will go for upwards of £101,823 (RM587.5k) for the Coupé and £109,048 (RM629k) for the Cabriolet. Of course, in Malaysia they go for much higher – RM1,373,000 for the 911 Turbo and RM1,409,000 for the 911 Turbo Cabriolet. The GT2 tops the pricelist at RM1,720,000.

Look after the jump for a hi-res photo gallery and videos of the updated Porsches.

Click here to read the rest of 997 Porsche 911 Turbo gets mid-life facelift

Could BMW’s new sub-brand for its electric cars be called the Isetta? There’s strong indication that it might be, considering that they’ve recently produced a promotional TV commercial that seems to seek to both introduce the old Isetta to the younger generation and to remind oldies of the small little BMW with the door that opened in front. The video’s main purpose is actually to promote the BMW Museum in Munich. Given that the Isetta was the original BMW compact city car, badging its new MegaCity/Project i car with the brand seems quite suitable. Word is that the new Isetta brand will be spelled “i-Setta”, though there’s no official release from BMW confirming this as far as I know, just hearsay from sources said to be close to BMW. Look after the jump to watch the new Isetta video!

Click here to read the rest of BMW says hello to an old friend, the Isetta

As it is about to take a leap into a new future of electric cars and M-badged SUVs, BMW revisits its past with this video that it produced about the BMW 1500 from the 1960s. The BMW 1500 was one of the BMW New Class line of compact sedans and it featured a 1,499cc single-cam engine producing 80 horsepower at 5,700rpm which was really not bad at that time. The 1500 in 1961 was also the first BMW with a Hofmeister kink. Look after the jump to watch the video.

Click here to read the rest of VIDEO: Back to the 60s – the BMW 1500

The full details of the new E-Class Estate are here. The new E-Class Estate measures 4895mm long, 1854mm wide and 1471mm tall and can carry up to a maximum of 1950 liters. It looks like a pretty sweet wagon really, with a proper wagon-like roofline. Give me this anytime rather than a fancy elongated hatchback with a sloping roofline!

A total of 10 engines will be available with the new W212 Estate, with an initial 5 engines offered – the E220 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY, E250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY, E350 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY, E 350 CGI BlueEFFICIENCY and the V8-powered E500.

Like most estate vehicles that are anticipated to carry heavier loads than their sedan brethren, the W212 Estate features an automatic self-levellling suspension at the rear as standard equipment, which helps ensure the ride height remains at the same level no matter what the vehicle’s load is. The suspension setup has been modified over the sedan version for the wagon – this means its got stiffer shock absorbers and torsion bar stabilisers.

Look after the jump for a nice full hi-res photo gallery.

Click here to read the rest of New E-Class Estate: full details and photos unveiled!

A new Spring Tyre developed by NASA and Goodyear was installed on NASA’s Lunar Electric Rover test vehicle and put through its paces at the Johnson Space Center’s “Rock Yard” in Houston. The new Spring Tyre is meant to carry much heavier vehicles over much greater distances than the wire mesh tire previously used on the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV).

What exactly is a Spring Tyre? No, it’s not a seasonal tyre like winter tyres. It’s actually a tyre that uses 800 load bearing springs. The spring design contours to the surface on which it’s driven to provide traction. The energy used to deform the tyre is returned when the springs rebound. This design does not generate heat like a normal tyre. Lead innovator Jim Benzing from Goodyear said the tyre design is extremely durable and energy efficient.

Traditional rubber tyres have little utility on the moon, thus the use of wire mesh tires and soon, the Spring Tyre. Rubber properties vary significantly between the extreme cold and hot temperatures experienced in the shaded and directly sunlit areas of the moon. Unfiltered solar radiation (the moon has no atmosphere) also degrades rubber, and rubber tyres also run the risk of deflation as it needs to be filled with air. With the Spring Tyre, there is no single point of failure. A hard impact that may cause the rubber tyre to puncture and deflate will only affect one spring out of the 800 load-bearing springs on a Spring Tyre.

What this extended carrying distance and capacity means is that broader exploration of the moon will be enabled and hopefully it will eventually lead to the development and maintenance of a lunar outpost.

Perhaps one day all of this research will end up improving the way we design our vehicle’s contact patches. Michelin has also toyed with the idea of a new type of wheel called the Tweel and it recently announced a new lunar wheel based on the tweel.

Look after the jump for a NASA video on the new Spring Tyre.

Click here to read the rest of Goodyear and NASA develop lunar Spring Tyre

Felipe Massa is up and on his feet and can’t wait to get back behind the wheel of his Formula 1 car. He did an exclusive interview with the Ferrari.com official website where he talked about the crash, and Michael Schumacher driving his car, amongst other things. According to Massa, the crash was a strange sort of feeling. He knew that something had happened to him but he didn’t feel anything when it happened. He just lost consciousness and the next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital two days later. So no, he didn’t consciously brake the car before it hit the barriers. Watch the video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of VIDEO: Massa’s first interview after his crash

BMW F1 driver Nick Heidfeld and two-time motorbike world champion Troy Corser swap their race machines in this video produced sometime late last month. If you think about it… was this a subtle hint by BMW to Heidfeld that he will soon have to look to other forms of racing instead of his current BMW F1 car? Probably not… that’s got too much conspiracy theory kind of madness in it. Ah well. Watch the video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Heidfeld races against an F1 car… on a bike

In this video released by the boys at Munich, BMW’s Head of Project for the BMW X1 Peter Krist talks about BMW’s smallest X model to date, which is quite close to size to the current generation and soon to be replaced BMW X3. It’s also the first X1 to be available in rear wheel drive as well as all-wheel drive.

Nothing odd about the X1 to be, there are plenty who want an SUV but want it closer to a sedan’s driving feel and don’t want to handle something overly large – so the X3 has room to move up a size right between the X1 and the X5. There’s quite some room between the X1’s 2,760mm wheelbase and the X5’s 2,933mm wheelbase – somewhere around 2,850mm perhaps, which is a decent size up from the current X3’s 2,795mm wheelbase.

Watch the video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Peter Krist on the new BMW X1 SAV