The policy would require that when vehicles are running at speeds less than 20 kilometers per hour that they activate a beeping noise that is similar to the sound of the engine. The policy would not allow the sound to be musical or a chime and would permit the driver to temporarily disable the beeping sound.

Too bad, we were hoping for musical chimes, filling the streets of Tokyo with irritating car music. BTW, how can a beeping noise sound like an engine? Only in Japan.

A new BMW 1 Series hybrid (above) is now testing in Germany. The gas-engine version has been around for a while, and the hybrid (so far) looks the same: like a car out of the 1930s. Details here. The company is going whole hog, if you will, on hybrids, with the ActiveHybrid X6 and the 7 Series, both of which we looked at. BMW is not likely, we imagine, to produce the car in this form, and it won’t come to the U.S. until 2011 or 2012 in any case. So there is still hope.

Mercedes will show the F-cell hydrogen electric at the L.A. Auto Show on December 4. Built on the B-Class platform, this is an entirely new car for Benz, with zero emissions of course, and very little prospect of being widely available anytime soon. However, there will be 200 production F-Cell cars in the U.S. and Europe made available to lease customers for “real-life testing.”

Benz has had the S400 Hybrid for sale in the U.S. for a while now, and you know how we feel about overpriced, overweight cars like this. But this news just in from Autoweek has laid us out. They reported on an event in Manhattan called Eco-luxe whose purpose was to bring journalists to a fancy restaurant to consort with green marketers selling everything from “quintuple-filtered vodka made in low-landfill facilities to carcinogen-free water bottles…. Guests who wanted test drives held off on cocktails before sampling the rides,” thank God, which included the S400 Hybrid.

GM, it appears, has not given up on using the so-called two-mode hybrid system, which it developed with Mercedes and Chrysler in 2004. This technology combines “an electric continuously variable transmission (eCVT) with two electric motors, four fixed gears, various clutches and planetary gearsets, heavy-duty electronics, and originally, a nickel-metal-hydride battery pack.” The Volt, as you know, will use lithium-ion batteries, but this complex system was developed for trucks, buses, and heavy-duty applications in which it works well. One wonders what kind of vehicles GM envisions for it in the future.

Finally, AMP=D showed a marvelous ’33 Ford electrified hotrod coupe at SEMA 2009, demonstrating that the good ol’ hotrod spirit is alive and well. The crew took a high-torque (660-lb-ft) motor designed for a bus, dropped it into this well-executed fiberglass ’33, and they project 0-60 mph in 3 seconds. Its range is 100 miles. Have a nice day.

Should hybrids and electrics require noisemakers? Are pedestrians in danger? Why or why not?

—jgoods

2010 Volvo S60

What’s Volvo’s place in the world?

Ask consumers and they might say “Volvo makes safe, semi-luxurious family haulers.”

Ask Volvo and you’ll hear something about emotional appeal, sporty design and dynamic driving properties. It seems like all carmakers who call themselves luxury these days want to capitalize on the whole “dynamic driving properties” thing. The thing is, BMW pretty much owns that place. And if Volvo gets sold to a Chinese company as planned, well, let’s just say China isn’t a country known for developing world class driving dynamics.

Regardless, Volvo’s new S60 sedan is set for its big unveiling at the Geneva Motor Show next March, with production starting in summer 2010 in Belgium.

Volvo CEO Stephen Odell says,

The all-new Volvo S60 is sculpted to move you. It looks and drives like no other Volvo before and the car’s technology will help you to be safer and more confident behind the wheel.

Volvo’s marketing department would be proud, as phrases like “sculpted to move you” sound good in press releases but are otherwise meaningless. The car does look better than previous generation Volvos, but we’ll wait and see about those driving dynamics.

Speaking of questionable driving dynamics, GM is starting up Hummer production again in Louisiana.  Since the deal closed to sell Hummer to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co., General Motors can begin producing 2010 versions of the H3 and H3T. The only changes to the ‘10 models will be E85 capability across the line and some new color choices. No word on when production of the H2 will start again, but expect the new H3 to hit dealers in December.

In news from the auto spying field, Leftlane has spy photos of the 2011 Chevy Aveo (or possibly Viva), which could see production by the end of 2010, and the 2011 Toyota Sienna, which will debut at the LA Auto Show next month.

Finally, and this would fall under the category of  ”Cars Going Soon,” my much loved Pontiac G8 GXP is just about extinct. GM reports via Twitter that only 16 are left on dealer lots, so if you want one, better act fast before these are strictly sold at collector car auctions.

Lots to look forward to in the coming months and years! Will you be test driving anything listed here?

-tgriffith

The show wrapped up yesterday, and here are the eight best cars that were there:

Delta Tech Engineering’s Suzuki Kizashi

While the stock Kizashi looks pretty darn good (for a Suzuki), this version makes it look downright hot. It was given a big open grille, a cold air intake, custom exhaust and all LED or HID lights. Sweet!

Carbon Fiber Mustang

Carbon fiber use was a bit of a theme this year, and no one used if better than Vaughn Gittin Jr. His carbon fiber RTR-C Mustang uses real carbon fiber panels, cutting about 500 pounds of weight. Only 10 cars were made, and each will cost you about $135K. But you also get a supercharger, if that helps make your decision easier.

Hennessey HP700 Camaro

Take a Corvette ZR1 LS9 engine, stuff it into a Camaro and tune it to deliver 725 hp, with 0-60 coming in 3.5 seconds. Flat-out coolest thing ever? Quite possibly.

Rhys Millen mid-engine Hyundai Genesis Coupe

We gave you a teaser of this thing a little while ago. Here’s the finished product! Car mods don’t get much more extreme than this: A 4.6-liter V8  producing 500 horses has been mounted where the back seats should be. Add a carbon fiber roof (why not, everyone else is), a body kit and before long you’ve got yourself a Ferrari-fighting Hyundai. Imagine that!

1959 Fiat 500 Funny Car

I don’t know whether to laugh or be in awe of this thing. Either way, it’s the epitome of why the SEMA Show exists. Legacy Innovations took a 1959 Fiat 500 and gave it a 725 hp (!) 427 small block. Go, little Fiat, go!

2010 Ford Raptor 6.2

Drool drool drool…

Of all the cars and trucks at SEMA, here’s one you could potentially buy from your corner Ford dealer. Even by Raptor standards, this is one extreme truck, boasting a 6.2-liter engine rated at 411 hp and equipped with more off-road capability than any one human ever needs. And it’s a bargain too… coming in at about $42K.

Pagani Zonda R

Any of the world’s most exclusive supercars get an automatic spot in my lists. Especially when outfitted in exotic carbon fiber. You kind of have to wonder though, now that carbon fiber has shown up on a Hyundai, how long before the material is remembered as sooooo 2009?

Local Motors Rally Fighter

Local Motors is showing us that a different way of building and selling cars is possible. The Rally Fighter was designed using an open-source model and will be sold by the company directly. Buyers even get to travel to a factory and help build the car with their own hands before driving it home. The Rally Fighter uses a BMW 335d drivetrain and is said to achieve 30 miles per gallon.

If you could have one of these, which one would you drive home from Vegas?

-tgriffith

The future of Honda minivans?

The Tokyo Motor Show is under way right now.

Normally when a major international car show is happening, I’m overwhelmed with news of what hot new cars might make it to the U.S. soon. This time, the news is a bit… underwhelming.

First, Honda is showing a concept called the Skydeck. While there are no production plans whatsoever on this design exercise, it could be a peek into what future Honda minivans will look like. This concept has scissor Lambo-style front doors and wooden seats inside. Exciting, huh?

Tokyo is at least bringing some sexy to the party, with the super hot Lexus LF-A (which we brought to you yesterday) and the FT-86 Concept, but other than that, we’re not getting a lot of drool-worthy material. There are lots of “green” cars and electric concepts, which my fellow blogger jgoods will cover soon, but not much that offers real driving excitement and horsepower.

For that we need to look elsewhere, and we’ll start in Italy.

MSN reports that the Alfa Romeo 159 Sedan, Brera Coupe, and Spider will make it to the U.S. for 2010. Frankly, I have my doubts that is true. I’d bet that any Alfa making it to these shores will be at least two years away and then come to us wearing Dodge clothes, courtesy of Chrysler’s new Italian overlords at Fiat. But maybe MSN’s Bill Gates and Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne had dinner and made some arrangements. Who knows?

Okay, now lets get to some serious business, in the form of 487 horsepower. Mercedes-Benz has revised its C63 AMG with a new package called the Performance Package Plus (PPP). The PPP increases pony output over a “standard” C63 AMG by 30 to the aforementioned 487 and reaches 62 miles per hour in 4.4 seconds. MB hasn’t said whether or not this animal will come to the States, but as long the company isn’t saying no, we’ll latch onto the possibility that there’s still a chance.

If you need to race across a desert anytime in the near future, or just impress the heck out of your friends and neighbors, take a look at the newly available Ford F-150 SVT Raptor. The word “beast” is often used to describe a truck, but this one earns the label. What other truck comes direct from the factory with racing shocks, massive 35-inch tires, and a 320-horsepower, 5.4-liter V8?  This ain’t your neighbor’s F-150. This is the truck he wants his F-150 to be. And at under $40,000, it’s actually a pretty good deal.

For $40,000, would you be more likely to buy a Ford F-150 Raptor or an Alfa Romeo 159?

-tgriffith

If this car doesn’t help change Toyota’s reputation for building boring, sensible, and practical cars, the company is screwed. (As any Car Guru knows, Lexus is Toyota’s luxury brand, as Acura is for Honda and Infiniti is for Nissan.)

We’ve talked about the FT-86 concept, Toyota’s joint effort with Subaru to build a RWD sports coupe, but the real excitement lies in the Lexus LF-A. This super-Lexus has been in the rumor mill for about two years, but is set to debut at the Tokyo Motor Show in production form. “Production” is a very loose term, though, as only 500 will be made.

The car is exceptionally hot, with all the right curves, angles, and intakes. From the outside, it seems Toyota has created a Lexus worthy of our lust. I even like the triangular triple exhaust pipes. My only issue with the design is with the taillights – mere slits sitting on top of acres of empty space. The question with the LF-A has been: Will the performance numbers stack up? Until now we’ve only been able to guess.

Thanks to our friends at Autoblog for digging up some details. The LF-A features:

• 4.8-liter 72-degree V10 putting out 560 hp at 8,700 RPM (that’s 116.5 hp/liter) and 354 lb.-ft. of torque at 6,800 RPM
• Redline: 9,000 RPM
• Titanium valves, connecting rods, forged aluminum pistons, dry sump lubrication and a titanium exhaust manifold
• Six-speed sequential gearbox
• Torsen limited slip differential
• 3,263 pounds with a 48/52 front-to-rear weight distribution
• Power-to-weight ratio of 5.8 pounds/hp
• 65 percent of the body is carbon fiber
• 20-inch BBS wheels wrapped in 265/35 ZR20 Bridgestone tires in front and 305/30 ZR20 in the rear.
• 0-62 MPH (100 km/h) in 3.7 seconds
• Top speed of 201.94 MPH

For all this, you’re looking at a $400,000 Lexus. But check out the video below and watch (and listen to) the white LF-A scream out of the parking lot then tell me the price isn’t worth it. As the guy says at the end, Savage!

Is Toyota back on track to building exciting cars? Would you take an LF-A over something like a Ferrari?

-tgriffith

If you saw the freaky EV concept cars Renault-Nissan was showing at Frankfurt (go here and click on “Slide Show” at right), you will understand the direction the company is moving. It wants to show its dominance in electric tech with small futuristic cars that excite people.

The Land Glider, coming to the Tokyo Motor Show, is one of these, and it seems (like other recent offerings) to combine car and motorcycle design in a two-seat tandem layout. According to Motor Trend, vehicle and driver lean up to 17 degrees into turns; there are sensors and small motors on each wheel to set steering angle, yaw rate, and angle of lean. The Land Glider will do 40 mph and take you up to 60 miles on a “wireless” (no plug-in) charge.

And so, on to the Leaf, as Nissan prepares to show it—along with the Land Glider, Qazana and Roox (yes, I was thinking of commenting on those names but won’t)—at Tokyo to highlight its zero-emissions goal. The Leaf isn’t as overtly quirky as the other cars, but its straightforward design hides some interesting features, as we learn from Autoweek:

Bumpers and interior trim made from recycled plastic bottles and fabrics

Batteries that can be recharged remotely through the driver’s mobile phone

Special tires to reduce running noise usually masked by a noisy combustion engine

Rear tail fins to improve aerodynamics and deliver a slick 0.28 drag coefficient.

Recharging through a cell phone?? What if a call comes in? What if you lose the phone? Anyhow, Nissan says it expects to presell 20,000 Leafs (Leaves?) in the U.S. alone and will make “around 200,000 a year worldwide by 2012.” That is pretty ambitious, not to say over-the-top, goal-setting. But the car is apparently top-drawer as far as its technology goes. Good luck, Renault-Nissan, and I’ll try to reign in my skepticism.

Nissan is going to market the Leaf through social media such as Facebook and Twitter and of course the blog world. How likely is the car to go viral, do you think?

—jgoods

Way back in March we excitedly reported on the possibility of a new sports car co-developed by Toyota and Subaru.

Today we have some news that builds on that excitement, if Toyota’s FT-86 concept (shown above) is indeed the result of this “Toyobaru” partnership. The sports coupe, which will debut this month at the Tokyo Motor Show, was reportedly designed by Toyota but utilizes Subaru’s horizontally opposed boxer engine.

The resulting design is, well… HOT.

Toyota has been in need of something exciting for a long time, which CEO Akio Toyoda readily admits.  The FT-86 concept reportedly seats four and is a front-engine, rear-drive car with a dedicated chassis and Subaru’s 2.0-liter boxer four cylinder engine.

Imagine that baby paired with a 6-speed manual and you’d be crazy not to dream of tearing off the line at stop lights and testing the car’s limits on mountain roads while enjoying primo fuel economy.

Plus, just look at it! Anyone else see a little Aston Martin in the hood? The FT-86 looks sharp, especially in the custom “shoujyouhi” red paint.

And about that paint… check out what Autoweek was told:

Sports cars have to be red, but we wanted a new red,” chief engineer Tetsuya Tada said. “So we came up with shoujyouhi red, the traditional red color of a Japanese monkey’s” backside.

Probably could’ve done without that unfortunate comparison, but I’m still gaga over this new Toyobaru’s looks; even if it’s the color of a monkey’s butt.

If all goes according to plan, the car could be available in 2011 (there’s no guarantee this version will arrive in the U.S., but we hope). Pricing should come in somewhere north of $20K but south of $30K.  I’m predicting a huge sales success as the price, design and performance are sure to provide a heavy dose Toyota excitement.

Would Toyota’s FT-86 concept meet your expectations for a joint Toyota/Subaru sports car?

-tgriffith

The new 4Runner: snubbed by the Truck of the Year Awards?

Nothing breeds controversy like a Car of the Year award.

Perhaps the most prestigious of car awards are the North American Car and Truck of the Year Awards, set to coincide with Detroit’s North American International Auto Show held in January.

The nominees for the 2010 iteration were announced yesterday, and there are some real stinkers on the list. Not surprisingly, there are absolutely no Chrysler products nominated but lots of Japanese cars. There’s also a nice representation of Korean and American vehicles too. Finally, we learn that the word ‘truck’ doesn’t mean what it used to.

For your reading pleasure, the nominees are:

2010 North American Car of the Year candidates

• Volkswagen Golf
• Toyota Prius
• Subaru Legacy
• Porsche Panamera
• Mercedes-Benz E-Class
• Mazda3
• Honda Insight
• Kia Soul
• Ford Taurus
• Ford Fusion
• Chevrolet Camaro
• Buick Lacrosse
• BMW 335d
• Suzuki Kizashi
• Cadillac CTS Sportwagon

2010 North American Truck of the Year candidates

• Subaru Outback
• Lincoln MKT
• Land Rover LR4
• Honda Accord Crosstour
• Ford Transit Connect
• Chevrolet Equinox
• Cadillac SRX
• Audi Q5
• Acura ZDX
• Volvo XC60

Last year, the Hyundai Genesis and Ford F-150 won top honors. Which two are due to win this year? Anyone else find it odd that the Honda Crosstour shows up as a truck nominee while the all-new 2010 Toyota 4Runner does not?

-tgriffith

But sometimes we just need to stop for a moment and appreciate the other kind of model often draped around the cars we love so much. Auto Show Girls are as much staples of a good auto show as the cars themselves.

Here’s a taste of the women who have graced the floor of Frankfurt so far:

You’re welcome. Happy Friday and have a great weekend! Who’s your favorite?

-tgriffith

Phaeton set for a comeback?

In my never-ending quest to keep apprised of new cars expected to hit the shores of the USA, I’m usually not surprised by what I find.

But when the ghost of a long-dead failure makes another appearance, it gets my attention.

In this case, it’s the news that Volkswagen is considering bringing the failed ultra-luxury Phaeton back to the States. The car launched here in 2003 and never sold more than 2,000 copies in a year. By 2007, the $70,000+ Phaeton was gone, leaving nothing but the memory of how not to launch a luxury car.

The Phaeton lived on, though, in other markets, and now VW just might resurrect it, this time with an efficient diesel engine. We’ll follow the story and let you know if this ghost of V-dub’s past will indeed make another appearance.

Speaking of ghosts, the Rolls-Royce Ghost was shown off at the Frankfurt Auto Show. Think of this Rolls as the poor rich man’s Rolls-Royce, as the Ghost is the company’s “entry level” offering. But it still costs around $270K. For that dough you get a 6.6-liter V12 and 570 horses and can scoot to 60 mph in 4.7 seconds. Oh, and a free umbrella. Score!

Also unveiled at the Frankfurt show was the U.S.-bound 2011 Ford C-Max. Essentially this a European-market small minivan that many folks are thrilled is making the journey across the Atlantic. The C-Max is based on the Focus and will offer three rows of seats, 7-passenger seating, and sliding rear doors… all with the efficiency of a 4-cylinder Ecoboost engine that makes about 180 horsepower. Yes, it’s similar to the current MAZDA5, but we’ll see if a little European flair helps boost C-Max sales.

In other exciting news, Volvo’s C30 received a sweet makeover, and it was just reported that Audi could sell its small A1 in the U.S.

Bring on the small-car invasion!

Any new cars you’re excited to see hit the U.S. market?

-tgriffith