Volkswagen of Sweden has just created the ultimate weapon to tackle the worst conditions Mother Nature is serving up during the winter. Called ''Snowareg,'' this modified Touareg TDI rides on four-wheel tracks and boasts a 340-horsepower V8 engine that produces 590 lb-ft of torque.
The Snowareg looks perfectly geared for the rough Swedish winters, and given the current snowstorm in Eastern Canada, it would definitely be quite useful over here as well.
French engine manufacturer Renault powered four teams in 2012: Red Bull, Lotus, Williams and Caterham. Their year deserved a last hurrah.
Here is a compilation made by Renault Sport F1 of some of their best moments, which include Bruno Senna and Pastor Maldonado flipping a coin, Mark Webber playing in the sand, Romain Grosjean wearing goggles, and Sebastian Vettel spinning.
Former BMW Motorsport boss Dr. Mario Theissen revealed in an interview with France's AutoHebdo that he was confident the foundations he had laid down for the DTM program could bear fruits rapidly.
Theissen stopped working in 2011, when he stepped down to be replaced by Jens Marquardt.
In 2012, BMW came back to the German DTM touring car series, after 20 years of absence.
At the end of the season, Marquardt tasted the champaign when Bruno Spengler and Team Schnitzer took the driver and team titles.
Bruno Spengler proved Mario Theissen was right to bring BMW back to DTM (Photo: DTM.com)
But it was Theissen who, before retiring, pushed for BMW's comeback to the DTM and put everything together for the project to start on the right foot.
"2009 was very tough, as we were pulling out of F1. I had to restructure the whole of BMW Motorsport according to Peter Sauber's needs for his F1 team," Theissen is quoted saying by AutoHebdo.fr.
"I presented the DTM project to the board in 2010, and they agreed to the comeback under two conditions: making the DTM more international, and win right from year one," he added.
Theissen knew both conditions could be met. He did not fear the same kind of difficulties to win he faced during his F1 days.
"Everything was in place, including the drivers we had secretly hired. The result was almost beyond expectations, but we knew we had the tools to race at the front.
"We had five or six chassis engineers left from F1, and the whole engine department to ourselves."
Fisker Automotive has sued XL Group Plc after being denied insurance coverage over flooding from Superstorm Sandy that destroyed 338 of its Karma plug-in hybrids, worth about $33 million, at a Port Newark, N.J., shipping facility.
Toyota and lawyers suing the company won preliminary court approval of a $1.1. billion settlement of claims that recalls for unintended acceleration hurt the value of U.S. customers' vehicles. The terms of the settlement filed Dec.
Hanukkah's passed us by. Christmas Eve slipped into Christmas morning and the denouement of Boxing Day. The most pressing decision right now is when one might pull down the lights and dispense with the tree.
U.S. auto sales are expected to show a rise of 9 percent for December, capping off the best year for the industry since 2007, fueled by easier access to credit, rising home prices and pent-up demand.
Dockworkers and their employers reached a tentative agreement on royalty payments, averting a strike that would have shut down eastern U.S. ports, possibly disrupting auto parts shipments, for the first time in 35 years.
No one can make members of a certain sci-fi fandom geek out quite like Sir Patrick Stewart. But when Stewart himself wants to indulge in a bit of hero-worship, he turns to none other than renowned racer
Porsche shares surged on Friday after it won a dismissal of a U.S. lawsuit by 26 hedge funds but analysts warned the German company's triumph in court hinged on a legal formality rather than the substance of the case.
U.S. automobile parts maker Tower International Inc. sold its South Korean operations to Seco, a privately owned Korean auto parts supplier, for about $47 million in cash.
Toyota eliminated a huge obstacle with a U.S. settlement over unintended acceleration in its cars and trucks, leaving it to fight smaller cases that will be harder for plaintiffs to prove and less likely to damage the company's growing sales.
Kia promoted its chief designer Peter Schreyer to the role of president, the first foreigner to attain the position at the company, as the South Korean automaker seeks to elevate its global profile.
Nissan's new low-cost Datsun cars will be based on a Lada, executive vice president Colin Dodge said. "Datsuns will be built off the new Lada Kalina platform," Dodge, who is Nissan's top executive for Europe.
Industry sales continued to rebound, VW completed its acquisition of Porsche, and Honda and Toyota staged impressive comebacks. Names and faces came and went, as well, in 2012.
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