Auto News 5

A dismal December when new car sales plunged 23% from year-ago levels led to an annual decline of 13.2% in 2012 with little expectation of improvement in 2013, according to Spanish car makers' association Anfac.

Avis Budget Group agreed to buy U.S. car-sharing company Zipcar for $491 million, targeting consumers looking for an alternative to owning their own auto.

News 2 Jan, 2013

Chief Design Officer becomes the first non-Korean President of Kia Motors

Hidehito Takahashi has been appointed president and representative director of GKN Driveline in Japan.

ZF has said that it welcomes the acquisition of the GM plant in Strasbourg by Punch Metals. ZF was also in the running for the purchase of the facility.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR JAKE LINGEMAN:. This 2013 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 convertible has a really cool-looking silver-and-red paint job.

The ethanol market in Brazil remains under pressure after five years of nearly frozen petrol prices. Since biofuel production costs kept rising, its pump prices have been far from competitive for two years.

News 2 Jan, 2013

The Skoda Octavia-rivalling Qoros GQ3 has been revealed ahead of its Geneva show debut

Eyeing a luxury car market expected to expand from 50,000 units in 2012 to up to 130,000 a year by 2016, Audi may set the pace to produce them locally.

A little before the milestone of 60 years of operations in Brazil, due later in this first quarter of 2013, Volkswagen announced it had exported 3m cars and light commercials since 1970.

Peter Schreyer, Chief Design Officer at Kia Motors, has been appointed as the brand's president - the first non-Korean to hold that title in the company's history.

Indonesian state-owned steel company PT Krakatau Steel announced an agreement late last year to build a new steel plant in partnership with Japan's Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corporation.

Hyundai Motor and smaller affiliate Kia Motors forecast their slowest sales growth in seven years as a slowing global economy and strengthening won saps demand. The two companies plan combined sales to rise 4.1 percent to 7.

Sales of new autos, a bright spot for the U.S. in 2012, will grow further this year as an improving economy and demand for pickups and for mid-sized cars boosts registrations 6.6 percent, according to R.L. Polk and Co. About 15.

Once considered a risky bet, Romanian automaker Dacia has become Renault's global profit machine. Europeans think of Renault's Dacia lineup as cheap, entry-level models that compete with used cars for sales.

Until last year, I had not driven a modern Dacia model nor felt any compelling reason to do so. However, the huge sales success of the Duster SUV encouraged me to try one of the models made by Renault's low-cost subsidiary.

From GMM

A list of the best formula one drivers of all time has overlooked Ayrton Senna for a top-three spot, and left out Fernando Alonso completely.

Italy's Autosprint said Juan Manuel Fangio, the five-time world champion of the 50s, deserves the number one spot.

He is listed ahead of runner-up Michael Schumacher, with triple world champion Sir Jackie Stewart also finishing ahead of the late and revered Senna.

Ayrton Senna leading Alain Prost at Monaco, in 1988. (Photo: WRi2)

Jim Clark, Alain Prost, Sir Stirling Moss, Alberto Ascari and Niki Lauda are ranked fifth to ninth respectively, with reigning triple world champion Sebastian Vettel completing the top ten.

Spaniard Alonso, Ferrari's double world champion who was recently voted the top driver of 2012 by team principals, was not mentioned.

Fernando Alonso, 2012 runner-up. (Photo: FIA)

"We have analysed not only the results on the track, but also the importance and impact a single driver had on his era," the Autosprint report read.

From GMM

Giedo Van der Garde's hopes of finally breaking into formula one in 2013 have "shrunk", according to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.

The now 27-year-old flirted with a move to F1 several years ago with brief test roles at Super Aguri and Spyker, and while racing for Caterham's GP2 team in 2012 he finished the F1 season as reserve driver for the green-coloured outfit.

With sponsor backing, the Dutchman was a leading candidate to be Charles Pic's 2012 teammate.

Giedo Van der Garde, Caterham. (Photo: Caterham F1 Team)

Van der Garde's new year has kicked off on a happy note with his engagement to his girlfriend, but De Telegraaf is reporting that Caterham incumbent Vitaly Petrov is now the hot favourite to complete the team's 2013 race lineup.

Van der Garde's manager Jan Paul ten Hoopen, however, said nothing has been decided.

JR Motorsports announced a primary sponsorship deal which puts Kasey Kahne and Brad Sweet in the driver's seat for 27 races sponsored by Great Clips. Dale Earnhardt Jr. a co-owner of the team will race in one additional race for this sponsor.

Kahne's relationship with Great Clips, going to back to 2003, was likely the driving in force in JRM obtaining the new sponsor. The company also recently announced a sponsorship of Kahne's No. 5 Chevrolet at Hendrick Motorsports for three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races in 2013.

This is a financial boost in the arm which guarantees the company will field at least two entries in 28 of 33 Nationwide Series events. Smith is already committed to driving a full schedule, and Earnhardt Jr. will compete in select races in a third car.

Kasey Kahne and Brad Sweet. (Photo: JR Motorsports)

The breakdown includes: Kahne and Sweet will split time in the No. 5 Chevrolet for 27 races. Regan Smith will compete for a championship in the No. 7, and Earnhardt Jr. will carry his familiar No. 88 in a limited schedule that presently stands at four races.  One of Earnhardt's races will be with Great Clips branding to fill out the 28-race sponsorship package.

JRM is still seeking a primary sponsor for the remaining races in the Nationwide Series.

General Manager Kelley Earnhardt Miller said “the last three months have been critical for the direction of JR Motorsports and the commitment we've made, and this partnership with Great Clips is a major step in the right direction,” Earnhardt Miller said. “To sign a 28-race sponsor while adding Kasey Kahne and Brad Sweet to our line-up is quite extraordinary. Our goal is still to run two full-time teams, and this helps us greatly to achieve that.”

“Great Clips has been a long-time sponsor of mine for 10 years,” Kahne said.  “They support everything that I do from the Kasey Kahne Foundation to my sprint car team and they continue to grow their program in NASCAR. We all look forward to joining JR Motorsports and continuing to build on the success that they have had.”

A race schedule for Kahne and Sweet in the No. 5 Great Clips Chevrolet is still to be determined. So, too, is Earnhardt Jr.'s complete Nationwide Series slate. To date his only announced races are Feb. 23 at Daytona International Speedway and March 9 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, both in the No. 88 TaxSlayer.com Chevrolet.

Turner Motor Sports, where Kahne had raced in the Nationwide Series previously said the decision to end its' deal was not acrimonious. Steve Turner, owner of Turner Motorsports.  "They have been a big supporter of this race team since the beginning and we just can't Though we have mutually decided to end our business partnership, the friendships we have made over the years will endure well into the future."   


There is no word on where Cole Whitt, who drove the #88 for JRM in 2012 to seventh place in the series standings, will go.

From GMM

This year Toro Rosso car is "very different" to the 2012 model, Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo has revealed.

Ricciardo and his teammate Jean-Eric Vergne finished last season eighteenth and seventeenth consecutively, with the Faenza based squad ahead only of the sport's three newest teams in the constructors' standings.

23-year-old Ricciardo has acknowledged the pressure to improve in 2013.

"I'm aware of that, and I know that my targets in 2013 will have to be more ambitious," he told Italy's Autosprint magazine. "My Achilles heel is that this year, in the first part of the season, I wasn't aggressive enough in the races. In some aspects I was the opposite of Grosjean."

Daniel Ricciardo, Toro Rosso STR7. (Photo: WRi2)

Another crucial element, Ricciardo admitted, is a better Toro Rosso single seater.

"I have already seen the new car. When you examine it more closely, it is very different to the old one. I believe that it is better. In any case, it's not one of those cars that looks a total copy of the last one, as though nothing has changed," he added.