Articles From May 2012

We'd imagine the Alfa Romeo 4C's curves look good even before they're covered in paint, but the concept's paint schemes have been spot on. The original icy red simply refused to be ignored, and the follow-up fluid metal silver was nearly as luxurious. For the Concorso d'Eleganza Ville d'Este this past weekend, Alfa presented a new color of 4C. And it's every bit as mesmerizing as its predecessors.

We haven't seen the proper name for the new paint, but what we do see is a deep, robust red that hugs the 4C's curves as naturally as lipstick on a supermodel's lips.

Last year around this time, we saw the Aston Martin V12 Zagato for the first time at the Concorso d‘Eleganza Villa d’Este in Lake Como, Italy. This year brings a new Ville d'Este and a new Zagato. BMW introduced the Zagato Coupe at the festivities this past weekend.

BMW and Zagato collaborated closely to build the one-off handcrafted masterpiece. The goal was to craft a "BMW seen through the eyes of Zagato," an aero-optimized, steet-legal car that could hit speeds like a track car but still meet all the legal obligations of an everyday driver.

Years ago, minivans were gradually phased out as the ride of choice for families and soccer teams, first by the SUV, and then by the more efficient crossover. Only problem is, someone forgot to tell a few of the remaining minivan stalwarts from the 80s. Fiat/Chrysler is just now getting around to doing the job on the Town & Country.

Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said that it will phase out the Town & Country in 2014 to make room for a new small crossover. At the same time, it will axe the Compass from Jeep's lineup, essentially shifting the small crossover over to the Chrysler brand. The crossover should be more upscale and expensive than the entry level Compass, in line with Chrysler's identity of (or attempt at) luxury.

The Beetle may be a timeless design, but it's a car that evokes a certain amount of nostalgia for decades gone by. Stare at it long enough and you may find yourself transported to Woodstock or the 1970s gas crisis. If new rumors hold truth, Volkswagen will play upon the Beetle's nostalgia when it launches the new Beetle convertible. Instead of just launching the production convertible, it will launch at least three special edition models.

According to Car & Driver, the special edition convertibles will play up the Beetle's illustrious 74-year history. Based on some trademark filings, the magazine expects each one to be dedicated to a given decade - 50s, 60s and 70s. Volkswagen filed European trademark applications for the numeric and written designations for those decades, so it looks likely that it will show convertibles styled specific to each decade.

"Fire" must be the most feared word in Maranello these days. After a very public fire problem with the 458 Italia, another new Ferrari model is having a bout of fire problems of its own. An FF burned to the ground near Krakow, Poland recently, making three publicized FF fire incidents. Even if it has nothing to do with Ferrari's manufacturing, it's another fire headline that the Prancing Horse really doesn't need.

According to a report from Polish site Kontakt 24, the Ferrari burned to the ground on the A4 outside of Krakow. Firefighters tried to douse the flames but, as you can see, were unable to save the grand tourer. The site reports this as the third FF fire, and the Polish incident joins a February FF fire in Shanghai and a test drive incident in Germany last year.

Honda has issued a recall of 52,615 Acura TL models thanks to some questionable hoses. It seems that after dealing with high under-hood temperatures for extended periods of time, that heat along with high power steering fluid temperatures can cause the power steering hoses to deteriorate. That deterioration can lead to leaking fluid which can find its way to the catalytic converters and ultimately cause a fire.  

Honda/Acura is planning on contacting all owners of the affected cars staring next month, but if you'd like to get the jump on the crowd, contact Honda's customer service at 1-888-327-4236 to schedule a free-of-charge appointment for the installation of high-temp resistant hoses.  

Read on for the full report ...

On Sunday, Volkswagen of America revealed a new sportiest version of the CC four-door coupe to debut physically at the Auto Mobil International car show in Leipzig on June 1st, the CC R-Line. In addition to all those perky German technologies associated with the CC Sport Plus, the R-Line will be mated to an optional six-speed manual transmission, beefier lower air intake, upgraded lights, and aggressive aesthetics.

If there’s one thing we’ve always appreciated about the Volkswagen CC, it’s the vehicle’s sophisticated style – often fitting in with equally distinctive, but significantly more expensive makes. The R-Line model appears to take style to a whole new level, aimed to find the perfect nexus of sport and luxury.

Nissan will debut a simple new technology it calls Easy Fill Tire Alert on the 2013 Altima. The new tire fill system automatically lets you know when you've reached proper pressure without the need for those annoying gauges.

We've already seen the 2013 Altima and its 38 mpg at the New York Auto Show. This week, Nissan details one more feature of the car. The Easy Fill Tire Alert system is an intuitive feature that lets you know when your tires are below pressure and when they're back to normal.

The Nissan Juke R is one of those vehicles that when it acts, we watch - partly because it's just such a cool little car and partly because it's usually doing cool things. Like racing supercars. And tearing up ice in Norway.

After his stint racing around the streets of Dubai, Nissan driver Lucas Ordonez got sent to the other end of the world. Instead of hot asphalt and hot supercar engines, he's battling cold ice on the Losna Isbane Ice Track in Norway. As you might expect, the suped-up small crossover looks all kinds of comfortable shaving ice and fishtailing across the great north.

For those of us plugged into the internet meme craze, the above picture features the square-jawed splendor of Good Guy Greg – a meme backdrop which went viral late last spring. But instead of doing your chores or spreading random acts of kindness, this picture shows Good Guy Greg offering a warning to would-be moving traffic violators.

As it would turn out, though, highway patrolmen and blue jackets all over have been issuing citations for speed trap warnings. Last August, a Seminole County, Florida deputy did just that, ticketing Ryan Kinter (25) for flashing his headlights to warn neighbors of a nearby speed trap.

Except Circuit Judge Alan Dickey ruled on Tuesday that (1) a law banning motorists from flashing after-market emergency lights does not apply to headlight-speed trap communication AND (2) headlight communication is a form of First Amendment Speech, protected by the First Amendment.

So polish off the high beams, head light warnings are a-ok in Florida.