Auto News 5

The new WTCC champion José Maria López revealed how touched he was by Sébastien Loeb and Yvan Muller's warm welcomes when he arrived at Citroën.

Indeed, the prospect of entering his first full season in the WTCC, in a new team and with two illustrious teammates such as Loeb and Muller must have been daunting for López. But against all odds, he prevailed.

Actually, he didn't just prevail. He dominated the 2014 season, as everyone knows now.

Between them, Yvan Muller and Sébastien Loeb have 13 world championships. Yet, together, they only score a total of 6 wins, three less than what López managed on his own.

But Friday night, during the FIA's prize-giving gala in Qatar, the Argentinian revealed he was almost intimidated by Loeb and Muller.

Sébastien Loeb and Yvan Muller should look up to José Maria López in 2015 because he's the boss (Photo: WRI2)

"I arrived on the first day of the Valencia test and I saw Sébastien coming," López remembers. "I'm from Cordoba so I lived rally for many years, I used to go two days before the stages with a tent, with my friend, making a barbecue, waiting for the cars to come.

"To be honest in the beginning I wanted to make a picture with him all the time! But at the same time I was saying ‘no I have to keep cool, we are working'. Honestly, even with Yvan it was a little bit the same.

"The good thing is they received me in the team and they put me next to them like I'm one more. I felt like I was in the family already for a long time. That helped me, you know, for starting the season in strong shape.

"So the team was great, Sébastien, Yvan, everybody was very kind with me."

Chrysler Group's decision to limit an expansion of an earlier recall of vehicles with possibly defective passenger-side airbag inflators made by Takata has put drivers at risk, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's top official said...

A senior Autoliv executive said today the Swedish airbag supplier is preparing to expand annual inflator production capacity by millions of units to meet demand for replacements.

Strong used-vehicle demand and a sharp decline in retired rental vehicles offered at auction buoyed prices of used cars and trucks in November.

Former Ford and Honda designer Paul Snyder will become the Transportation Design Department chair at Detroit's College for Creative Studies, starting in January, the college said today.

It's not often that a vehicle is killed off just days after just-auto drives it. The lack of a diesel engine did for the Hyundai Veloster in Britain but the car is, however, still very much alive elsewhere.

VW Group bought a stake in battery startup QuantumScape with the aim of developing technology that can more than triple the range of its electric cars, sources said. VW could use the energy-storage technology for its VW, Audi and Porsche brands.

Volkswagen AG bought a stake in battery startup QuantumScape with the aim of developing technology that can more than triple the range of its electric cars, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

Volkswagen AG bought a stake in battery startup QuantumScape with the aim of developing technology that can more than triple the range of its electric cars, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

Volkswagen bought a stake in battery startup QuantumScape with the aim of developing technology that can more than triple the range of its electric cars, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

GM is replacing ignition keys on its newest trucks because of a design problem that can cause the shift lever to bump the key and shut off the engine.

Fast-growing Subaru of America plans to expand its US headquarters by moving to a campus double the size of the current site.

Peter Grady will retire as head of Chrysler Group's dealer network on March 31, and will step down as head of Maserati North America at the first of the year.

News 5 Dec, 2014

Ultra exclusive Ferrari Sergio revealed in production form, limited to just six examples

Ford today said it has sold more than 1 million vehicles in China for the first time in a calendar year. And it did so with a month left to go.

Ford insists "no viable" business plan has yet been submitted to it that could continue limited operations at its Genk plant in Belgium slated for closure in less than two weeks.

PSA and AllurGroup have signed an agreement to start complete knockdown production of the Peugeot 301 in Kazakhstan. The Kazakh auto market is expected to reach 200,000 units next year, more than tripling from 45,000 units in 2011.

PSA/Peugeot-Citroen and AllurGroup will build Peugeot 301 cars in Kazakhstan. Local production will help PSA to improve long-term profitability in Kazakhstan and the entire CIS region of former Soviet states, PSA, said.

There have been rumours that a new coupe would revive the SC name but now comes news that TMC has registered the LC 500 and LC 500h model names.

Back from two weeks' 'staycation', the words that stood out as I returned to the news desk last Monday were 'Takata' and 'Honda'. And, as the latest developments in this long-running saga occurred throughout the week, I started to think of two more words: 'Ford' and 'Firestone'. Remember all that back at the beginning of this decade? If not, this 2005 story from our archives neatly summarises it.