Auto News 5

Renault said it will build the next Nissan Micra at its plant in Flins, near Paris. Production will begin in 2016 at an estimated annual volume of 82,000 vehicles.

News 26 Apr, 2013

The first picture of the production-ready, seven-seat Fiat 500XL has appeared on a Spanish forum

Following successful negotiations with the once radical Greater São Paulo's São Bernardo do Campo metalworkers union, Ford is back spending money on its oldest plant in Brazil. This town saw the birth of the Brazilian auto industry back in November 1956.

News 26 Apr, 2013

Prices and specs have been announced for the all-new Range Rover Sport, and it starts at £51,500

Malaysia's DRB-Hicom and Volkswagen plan to jointly invest up to MYR1bn (US$330m) in a new car manufacturing facility in the Malaysian company's automotive hub in Pekan, according to prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Videos 26 Apr, 2013

Shanghai Motor Show: the not-so-good, the bad and the plain ugly star cars on video

Videos 26 Apr, 2013

Shanghai Motor Show 2013: our video highlights from the show

Honda posted a 6.6 percent rise in quarterly net profit, helped by strong sales of its Accord and CR-V models the United States.

Honda posted a 6.6 percent rise in quarterly net profit, helped by strong U.S. sales of its Accord and CR-V models.

PSA named veteran industry executive manager Yves Bonnefont as Citroen's deputy CEO. Bonnefont will lead the expansion of the upscale DS subbrand as well as the new positioning of Citroen's C-line of vehicles.

Juergen Stackmann, new boss of VW's Seat brand, must discover what the ailing brand really stands for.

Mitsubishi forecast its operating profits will jump 48 percent in the fiscal year that began April 1, lifted by a favorable yen exchange rate as well as an anticipated sales surge in the United States.

Hyundai apologized for an ad that sought to promote the zero carbon emissions of a fuel-cell powered ix35 by featuring a man failing to commit suicide using a hose attached to the exhaust.

The Mercedes Citan van has been given three out of five stars in a EuroNCAP crash test. It is the worst safety score for one of the automaker's vehicles in more than 15 years.

GM CEO Dan Akerson's compensation mix was changed in 2012 to accommodate the possibility he may retire before his long-term restricted stock vests in three years, the company said.

Johnson Controls, citing weaker automotive production in Europe, posted lower profits during its most recent quarter, but reaffirmed its financial outlook for the year.

Toyota affiliate Denso, the world's second-largest auto parts supplier, booked operating profit of 74 billion yen ($748 million) for the January-March quarter, down 5 percent from a year earlier when it was still recovering from an earthquake that...

From GMM

Although still referred to as the famous British team's 'supremo', the 65-year-old - succeeded by Martin Whitmarsh - stepped down as McLaren team principal some years ago.

He also sold half of his 30 per cent stake in the Woking based company to the Bahrain investment vehicle Mumtalakat Holding, and most recently has been focused on McLaren's road car production subsidiary.

McLaren MP4-12c GT3. (Photo: McLaren Automotive)

And according to Auto Motor und Sport, it is the road car business, and the extent of Bahrain's new influence at McLaren, that has resulted in Dennis' latest demotion.

The German magazine reports that Dennis has lost his voting rights on the McLaren Group board, leaving him only a non-executive member due to his status as co-owner.

Auto Motor und Sport said Bahrain is angry because Dennis' pet project, McLaren Automotive, is losing rather than making money.

"Instead of the planned 3,500 units, only half of that are sold," wrote correspondents Michael Schmidt and Bianca Leppert.

"The Bahrainis are seeing their money disappear, never to return," they added, estimating Bahrain's losses in the hundreds of millions.

UPDATE
McLaren played down reports Ron Dennis has been demoted by team co-owner Bahrain.

A McLaren spokesperson on Friday told the BBC that Dennis' change of role was decided by himself.

The spokesman did, however, admit that group chairman Dennis is now a non-executive board member.

Dennis is quoted as saying: "The difference in the job is I don't have accountability for the actions of the management."

He denied rumours of significant disagreements with the Bahrainis and also shareholder Mansour Ojjeh, or that he had attempted to wrest back control of the F1 team from Martin Whitmarsh.

"There has absolutely been no suggestion of my role in the company changing beyond the change of roles that took place as per my contract in January," said Dennis.

When Matt Kenseth won the STP 400 he was elated. The second win of the year for the 2003 Sprint Cup Champ virtually locked him into NASCAR's playoff's called the Chase.

Then on Wednesday NASCAR lowered the boom on his team when it found one connecting rod (out of eight) was less than three grams underweight.

NASCAR fined the crew chief, Jason Ratliff $200,000 and suspended him for six races. Worse the Joe Gibbs Racing team would be denied owner's points for six races.

On Thursday in Richmond, Virginia, the two-time Daytona 500 winner was not happy.

"I think the penalties are grossly unfair. I think it's borderline shameful,” said Kenseth.

Matt Kenseth and Crew chief Jason Radcliff. (Photo: NASCAR)

“There's no argument the part was wrong. They weighed it and it was wrong. However, there is an argument that there certainly was no performance advantage,” he continued. “Certainly to crush Joe Gibbs like that -- to say they can't win an owner's championship with the 20 this year is just, I can't wrap my arms around that, it just blows me away.”

On Wednesday Lee White, president of Toyota Racing Development which supplied the engines, said that TRD “screwed up.”  A third party vendor had delivered one connecting rod which was underweight, and despite the fact that all the parts were over the minimum weight NASCAR imposed one of the most severe penalties in history.

Brad Keselowski, the defending Cup champion - coincidentally whose team was hit with heavy penalties last week reacted “yeah, I think there's no doubt that there's been a pretty significant ratcheting effect to the penalties in the sport.  It takes a lot to really surprise me nowadays, whether it was the penalty we received the past week or the one that happened to the Gibbs group.  I understand both sides, in a sense, but then again I don't.  I think it's really tough.

"What the sport really lacks right now is a way for us to curb fair play - balance the fair play that the sport needs so that our fans can really relate to it without presenting this - I don't want to call it an illusion - but presenting this almost like a façade as though there's cheating in the sport.  I think it's pretty obvious that when you look at Matt's issue the pieces and the parts were not that influential to the performance, and probably didn't win him the race,” he said.

As result of the penalties Kenseth said "my excitement for tonight is at an all-time low. It just is right now. By tomorrow, I'll be ready to get on the track and I'll race and try to have fun tonight and give it my all. I have a lot of work to do tonight and tomorrow morning and get ready to get in the Cup car and go out and win a pole and try to win the race."

The hipster movement is not new. Car fanatics have been liking the un-cool, the ugly and the nasty for decades. More than that, cruising the streets with an ugly forgettable disaster of a car takes cohones and chutzpah. Although some of these cars require less of either to be seen in, they remain awful to look at but very chill to have.

Lincoln Versailles

Photo: That Hartford Guy / Flickr

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