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The 2015 Acura TLX will make its production debut at the 2014 New York auto show.

The

Sales of Datsun cars officially restarted Wednesday after the brand's 30-year dormancy, with the first cars being delivered in India.

Chrysler has made the decision to suspend production of the

-- Ayrton Senna positively dominated the 1990 Monaco Grand Prix: he came in with the fastest qualifying lap, started on pole, set the fastest lap, led every single one of them, won the thing, beating rival Alain Prost in the process, then went on to...

After the passing of William Clay Ford Sr., Ford has announced that they will honor his memory and his contribution to the automobile with the creation of scholarships for automotive design students. William Clay Ford Sr.

It's the annual event that quietly wakes Europe's auto industry into action after winter slumber. Now that it has come and gone, just-auto's future products editor, Glenn Brooks, reflects on the significant trends and vehicle world premieres at the 2014 Geneva Salon de l'Automobile.

Renault stands to benefit the most from deeper ties with alliance partner Nissan, industry watchers believe.

Porsche said a fastener that wasn't properly installed is to blame for engine fires in two of its 911 GT3s that led to a recall of all 785 cars from the current model year.

Porsche said a fastener that wasn't properly installed is to blame for engine fires in two of its 911 GT3s that led to a recall of all 785 cars from the current model year.

Japanese auto deliveries will drop 16 percent in the year starting April 1 as a sales-tax increase damps demand, an industry group estimates.

From wrc.com

Japanese car manufacturer Toyota has edged a step closer to a World Rally Championship return after a spokesman for the Japanese manufacturer's motorsport arm told wrc.com that it enjoyed a positive first gravel test of its new Yaris World Rally Car.

The car, known as the TMG Yaris WRC, is fitted with Toyota's 1.6-litre turbo Global Race Engine and was tested in Italy this week by experienced Finn Sebastien Lindholm and former Subaru driver Stephane Sarrazin.

The test was coordinated by Mini's former WRC partner, Motorsport Italia.

Toyota's motorsport division, TMG, is keeping details of the test private, but a spokesperson revealed that the team was happy with how it had gone. He also confirmed that it was the first of several tests planned for this year, as part of a long-term project.

Toyota was one of the most successful WRC manufacturers of the 1990s, achieving four drivers' and three constructors' titles before switching its focus to F1 in 1999.

Toyota Motor Corporation president Akio Toyoda said on a Japanese WRC TV programme in January that the firm would like to come back to the WRC, but he did not say when this might happen.

It is certain that any return will not be with the car currently on test, however, as the spokesman confirmed that the TMG Yaris WRC will not be homologated for competition.

It is more likely that Toyota will return with a different car, conforming to new WRC technical regulations that come into effect in 2017.

From GMM

Williams remains one of the top favourites in 2014, despite the events in Melbourne.

Piloted by Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, the new Mercedes-powered FW36 was a standout of the winter season, but it struggled in the wet qualifying session last weekend.

In the race, Massa was punted out at the first corner while Bottas finished sixth, fighting through the pack after hitting the wall and damaging his wheel.

Pat Symonds says the Finn should thank former team driver Pastor Maldonado for the robustness of the car's suspension.

"Our suspension is very strong," Williams' technical boss told Auto Motor und Sport. "Pastor pushed the limits very often in the past and that probably had an influence on the design."

Pat Symonds said that if Massa and Bottas had clean races, they would have set their sights on the podium.

Valtteri Bottas, Williams-Mercedes. (Photo: WRi2)

Former F1 driver Mika Salo told the Finnish broadcaster MTV3: "Williams' car is the second fastest after Mercedes."

According to Turun Sanomat newspaper, Mercedes chief Toto Wolff agrees: "If their weekend had gone normally, most likely they would have been driving for the podium."

Asked if Williams can now challenge every single team except Mercedes, Symonds insisted: "I want to beat Mercedes as well. Our view is that Mercedes is at the front, and then there is a group of cars and we feel that in optimal conditions, we are narrowly at the front of that group."

The soon-to-be-launched FIA Formula E Championship for electric single seaters attracts more and more former Formula 1 drivers.

The series will begin September 14 on the street course de Beijing, China. Ten teams will be entering 20 drivers each round.

Former test and race F1 drivers Sam Bird, Jarno Trulli, Nick Heidfeld and Jerome d'Ambrosio have added their names to the burgeoning Formula E Drivers' Club and in doing so showing their support for the new global electric racing series.

The Club includes several experienced drivers such as Tonio Liuzzi, Sebastien Buemi, Oriol Servia, Christian Klien, Marco Andretti, Giorgio Pantano, Adrien Tambay, Sebastien Bourdais, Franck Montagny, Nicolas Minassian and Marco Bonanomi.

The U.S. government yesterday slapped a $1.2 billion fine on Toyota ― the largest ever against any automaker ―for misleading customers about unintended acceleration complaints in its cars and failing to recall some 12 million vehicles in a timely fashion.

A four-year investigation has shown that several deadly crashes were the direct result of a stuck gas pedal leaving drivers unable to slow their cars down. The poorly designed floor mats have been identified as the most likely culprit.

“We have made fundamental changes across our global operations to become a more responsive company, listening better to our customers' needs and proactively taking action to serve them,” said Christopher P. Reynolds, chief legal officer at Toyota Motor North America.

Toyota also faces numerous civil lawsuits from victims or their families in various U.S. states.

Source : auto.lapresse.ca

Almost 20 years after he lost his life in a terrifying head-on collision during the 1994 Grand Prix of San Marino, Google's latest Doodle will honor what would have been Ayrton Senna's 54th birthday.


Born into a wealthy family in Sao Paolo, Brazil on March 21 1960, Senna captured title in karting, Formula Fords, Formula 3 before he graduated to F1 with the small Toleman team in 1984.

The Brazilian, a three-time Formula 1 World Champion with McLaren, was just 34 when he died on 1 May 1994, when his Renault-powered Williams crashed into the concrete wall at Tamburello while leading the race from Michael Schumacher.

Outside of the sport, Ayrton Senna often said he despaired over the situation faced by the world's poorest people.

By the time of his death, it was estimated his foundation had given around $400 million to charities supporting underprivileged children in Brazil.

Nestled amongst the hills just north of Toronto, the snow-covered Hockley Valley was the ideal setting for a recent, and rather surprising comparison test of winter rubber. However, before we get down to the results, let's take a stroll through the tire world.

Tire brands
Tire manufacturers can be sorted into 3 basic groups. Tier 1 are the household brands we've all heard of, such as Bridgestone, Michelin and Goodyear etc. Tier 2 are perhaps the slightly lesser known manufacturers (BF Goodrich, Hankook, Yokohama tec.), with Tier 3 being typically more associated with value priced products.

Certain brands specialize in one or two areas of the market, while others offer a full line of products.

Quality control plays a major role in the production of tires. Most top tier manufacturers test each and every tire as they roll off the line, while others use a form of batch testing, whereby tires are randomly selected for testing from each batch of tires produced.

Obviously, price plays a role in all this, but do those higher tier premium brand products necessarily perform better? After all, your safety is riding on just 4 small patches of rubber so surely it's wise to purchase the best tires available. I guess what I'm saying is, can quality/capability be had for a lesser price?

Well, one company believes this to be so and to prove it, Sailun invited a group of automotive journalists to blind test its new IceBlazer WSL2 against a higher priced/higher tier competitor.

Photo: Kevin Corrigan

Sailun - A brief history on the company
Sailun is a Chinese company which has been around for 12 years now. Its products are sold in over 120 countries across 6 continents and yet, many have never heard of the name Sailun. Some may even question rubber products manufactured in China. However, the simple truth is, just about every tire manufacturer has production facilities in China today. In fact, China is rapidly becoming the world hub of the tire industry.

Sailun markets itself as a “value tire” brand, yet is proud of the fact that it tests each & every tire, just like the premium brands do.

According to Sailun, over 45% of all replacement tires purchased today are “value tires”. Hardly surprising with the current economic climate. Yet with so many manufacturers in this market, no single company boasts more than a 5% share. Sailun aims to change this and position itself at the very top of the value tier. With brand awareness marketing and product comparisons against higher-priced products, the company aims to prove it can rival anything in Tier 2 and possibly a few in Tier 1 categories.

Photo: Kevin Corrigan

Sailun puts its IceBlazer WSL2 to the test
This was to be a blind evaluation, whereby both brand names/logos had been carefully removed from the sidewalls of each tire. These were then mounted on identical Ford Fusion vehicles, two white AWD models and two black. Obviously, there was some guessing done as to whether the white cars featured the Sailun tires (come on now, the good guys always dress in white), but in truth, none of us could readily identify which vehicles carried which tires.

The event was staged in three segments. The first being a snow-covered slalom run, followed by an emergency-style lane change maneuver on snow packed ice, and ended with a road course through the surrounding area. The timing couldn't have been better, as Hockley Valley had recently received a good dose of fresh snow which provided us with true real-world wintery road conditions. We even managed to find a few snow ploughs to dodge!

Test 1 - The Slalom
The first thing I picked up on, was the little noticeable difference between each set of tires. The Sailun rubber, which we later learned were mounted on the black vehicles, performed well against its competitor, the Hankook i*Pike (W409). Trying to pin down an outright winner was rather frustrating as although the Sailun tires felt better in directional grip though the cones, I slightly preferred the start-off traction of the Hankook rubber.

Test 2 - The lane change/emergency stop
Again, the Sailun tires performed noticeably better in directional grip. However, upon hard braking, although the Sailun rubber stopped marginally quicker than the Hankook, I found the Sailun tires to be slightly less predictable.

Test 3 - The road test
Out on the snow-covered hilly roads of Hockley, the Sailun IceBlazer WSL2 tires came to life. In everyday winter conditions, the Sailun-equipped cars by far outperformed its competitor. They were much quieter, stopped better and their directional prowess truly showed when rounding in the corners on deeper snow.

Photo: Kevin Corrigan

Conclusion
Having driven to the event in a Range Rover shod in all-seasons, both tires clearly demonstrated why drivers need to switch to dedicated winter tires when the weather turns bad. As far as comparisons go, I personally placed the Sailun marginally ahead of its competition. However, at the close of day, attendants were each asked to rate both tires on a scale of zero to five in several key areas.

The final result: Remarkably, both tires achieved an equal rating of 4 points, so no outright winner.

On the other hand, the Hankook i*Pike (W409) rubber cost on average 69% more than the Sailun IceBlazer WSL2 tires. So perhaps there's a winner after all... the consumer!

From GMM

It is "absurd" to suggest formula one should urgently turn up the volume of the new turbo V6 engines.

That is the view of Mercedes team chairman Niki Lauda, who days ago in Melbourne admitted the sound of the 22 cars charging to the first corner left him underwhelmed.

Williams technical boss Pat Symonds agrees: "For me the start is the most exciting part of the race, and I loved it when the 22 drivers revved up their engines.

"I don't generally complain about the sound, but at the start (in Melbourne) it did seem a bit quiet," he told Auto Motor und Sport.

Start of the 2014 Australian Grand Prix. (Photo: WRi2)

Niki Lauda, however, said: "The debate about the engine noise is absurd -- you can't change that now. It was decided by all parties five years ago that they wanted turbo engines, and so we put in a turbocharger before the exhaust. It has a different sound, any child knows that. If you take the turbo away, you don't have hybrid engines anymore."

As for the duller sound, "We have to get used to it," Niki Lauda insisted in the Osterreich newspaper.

With a slightly more open attitude, however, is Lauda's Mercedes colleague Toto Wolff.

"I'm not much of an engineer," he told Finland's Turun Sanomat newspaper. "These things will be looked at. If it is decided that something must be done, then we would have to think about it carefully. I would think that it is possible, but whether it is right, I don't know.

"The V8 engines sounded fantastic, but I saw this race (Melbourne) up close and I can assure you that F1 is still the top of motor sports, it's not GP2.

"This (move to V6) was the right step," Toto Wolff insisted.

From GMM

After Daniel Ricciardo was disqualified in Melbourne, Red Bull argued that it went its own way with the new fuel consumption rules because FIA's mandatory sensors were not accurate enough.

However, engine supplier Renault's rivals Mercedes and Ferrari backed the FIA in the wake of the ruling, while the sensor supplier Gill insisted it has the full support of F1's governing body.

Now, Mercedes-powered McLaren says it was aware of some problems with the sensors for some weeks.

Former F1 driver Mika Salo thinks the Ricciardo controversy will not be the only fuel-related rule drama in 2014.

"I believe we will see it quite a lot," he told the Finnish broadcaster MTV3.

Mika Salo said Red Bull will appeal the disqualification, so "let's see what the FIA does. The teams have complained about it a lot."

Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull-Renault. (Photo: WRi2)

However, McLaren team boss Eric Boullier insists: "The FIA made clear in Bahrain that their sensors were the only reference for the calculation of the flow.

"We knew we had to be extremely careful. It is true that there were some problems, but it is also true that in the end we were consistent (with fuel flow) during the race and, like almost all the teams, even during the whole weekend," he is quoted by Italiaracing.

From GMM

Pedro de la Rosa wants to step down as president of the F1 drivers' association, the GPDA.

Speed Week said the Ferrari reserve driver's decision became clear last weekend in Australia, with a vote on his successor likely to take place next week ahead of the Malaysian grand prix.

"Wanted: a driver with experience," said correspondent Mathias Brunner.

Alongside 43-year-old Spaniard de la Rosa, the other GPDA directors at present are Jenson Button and reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel.