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Given that GMC's entire product lineup is shared with Chevrolet, it begs the question: Will GMC get a version of the new Chevy Trax small crossover?

BMW has launched its car-sharing service in London, barely six months after Daimler said it was quitting the city with its service. A strong culture of private car ownership and parking problems make London difficult for car-sharing schemes.

The 2014 World Rally Championship (WRC) season is over, but Jari-Matti Latvala surely remembers his difficult week-end in Poland.

It was the end of June. After six rallies, Latvala was still very much in the fight for the title with teammate Sébastien Ogier.

During the longest special stage of the event, the Finn lost almost the whole suspension of his Volkswagen Polo R WRC.


Luckily for him, his crew was able to change the front damper, the complete front axle, including the steering, the front left wheel carrier, the front underbody protection, the wiper motor, the windscreen, the bonnet and the front left mudguard during service.

All in 28 minutes.

Latvala and his co-driver Miiki Anttila rejoined the action and still managed to score a top five result.

From press release

American motor sport superstar Robby Gordon will compete at the 2014 Race Of Champions, to be held at Bushy Park Barbados on December 13-14. But Gordon's not travelling to Barbados alone: he's bringing his stunning Stadium Super Trucks, which will also feature in the racing action.

One of the most versatile drivers in the world and experienced in everything from sports cars to trucks, Gordon has competed in a range of series including NASCAR, CART, IndyCar, Trans-Am, IMSA and the Dakar Rally.

The American raced for over 20 years in the NASCAR Sprint Cup, taking three wins and 39 top-tens. In addition he has had three top-five finishes in the Indianapolis 500.

Gordon has also taken four Baja 500 victories, three Baja 1000 victories and seven SCORE International off-road championships. He has now become a regular stage winner on the brutal Dakar Rally, where he will again be competing early in 2015.

Stadium Super Truck (Photo: ROC)

Gordon will pair up with 2014 World Touring Car Champion José-Maria ‘Pechito' López for Team Americas in the ROC Nations Cup, a duo that is sure to set pulses racing.

At Gordon's first Race Of Champions in 2001 he broke the lap record around the event's long-time home at Gran Canaria, setting a mark that still stands today. He also rolled his car within sight of victory against that year's eventual ROC Champion of Champions Harri Rovanperä.

Gordon said: “It's cool that we'll get to introduce the trucks to everybody as well. It will be a first for some drivers but we'll set up an adjustable ramp for the guys.

“I can change the pitch angle according to what the drivers and the officials like but these things have been known to jump 20 or 30 feet off the ground for the length of a football field so either way it will be exciting.”

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."

From press release

Bruno Spengler will be racing at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2015, as part of BMW Motorsport's program for the upcoming racing season.

The Canadian is still part of BMW's line-up in the DTM, in which he will race a BMW M4 DTM full-time, but together with teammate Augusto Farfus, he also will join BMW Team RLL on January 24-25 for the 24 Hours of Daytona.

He is part of an eighth-driver line-up set to share two Z4 GTLM at the famous race. The other drivers are Bill Auberlen, John Edwards, Dirk Werner, Lucas Luhr, Jens Klingmann and Graham Rahal.

Z4 GTLM, BMW Team RLL (Photo: BMW Motorsport)

In the DTM, only American Joey Hand will not return. BMW has not announced his replacement yet. Reigning champion Marco Wittmann, Martin Tomczyk, Maxime Martin, Timo Glock and Antonio Felix da Costa are all coming back, as well as Spengler and Farfus.

And in other series, triple WTCC champion Andy Priaulx will spearhead BMW's European GT program, and brand ambassador Alessandro Zanardi returns behind the wheel of a specially adapted Z4 GT3.

Lewis Hamilton reflected on his recent win in the 2014 F1 world championship at the FIA's prize-giving gala, Friday in Qatar.

The fact that both of his world titles where won in the very last race was brought up during the ceremony's press conference, and Hamilton revealed that he has no problem fighting for his wins.

"I don't think you ever want to have it easy," he declared.

"You always want to have a fight. Easy championships, I don't know, they're just not as... you want that climax."

Lewis Hamilton was officially crowned world champion, alongside runner-ups Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo (Phot: WRI2)

In fact, his season-long fight with Nico Rosberg kept him motivated.

"Throughout the whole year, just trying to keep your cool, stay focused and all those kinds of things. It was great."

And he vowed to fight just as hard in the future: "For the next one - if there is another one - at least in the championships I'm going into I want to fight as high as possible and try to work on and improve on the things that are not strong enough and could be better."

From press release

Around six men broke into the Red Bull Racing factory in Milton Keynes, very early Saturday morning, and drove away with over 60 trophies belonging to the race team.

The burglars gained access to the building by simply crashing through the front entrance with a silver 4x4. They then drove away with a second vehicle, a dark coloured, black or dark blue Mercedes estate car.

No Red Bull personnel was harmed during the theft.

"Beyond the aggressive nature of this break-in, we are perplexed why anyone would take these trophies," commented Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.

"The value to the team is of course extraordinarily high due to the sheer hard work and effort that went into winning each and every one. But their intrinsic value is low; they would be of little benefit to those outside of the team and, in addition to that, many of the trophies on display were replicas. 

"The actions of these men mean it's likely that we will have to make our site less accessible in the future, which will be unfair on the hundreds of fans that travel to visit our factory each year to see our trophies and our Formula One car."

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 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 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.

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.