New Dacia Logan: Subtle Redesign

Four years after the release of the Dacia Logan, the Renault Group released a facelift version of its successful low-cost sedan. Inspired from the 5door Dacia Sandero, the New Logan features a new front grille paired with a redesigned front bumper and larger headlights. Likewise, the sedan’s rear-end features a new bumper, revised tail-lights and a more streamline design for the boot lid. Renault/Dacia’s designers also updated the Logan’s interior that features new door panels and a revised centre console with new controls. -Continued

In terms of chassis upgrades, the front and rear tracks of New Dacia Logan have been widened 7mm either side, which reinforces the roadholding capabilities of the vehicle. On the passive safety front, the 2009 Logan features a new honeycomb structure for the dashboard which reduces the severity of impact to the knees. There are no changes under the hood with the New Logan being offered with the same petrol engines (1.4 75hp, 1.6 90hp and 1.6 16V 105hp) and diesel engines (1.5 dCi 70hp and 1.5 dCi 85hp) as before.

Tesla to Build Mass Market Electric Sedan in California

Tesla’s forthcoming battery-powered 4-door sedan model that is scheduled to enter the market in 2010 will be manufactured at a facility in the state of California (just like the Roadster) and not in Albuquerque, New Mexico as it was previously announced. Tesla Motors and Californian Governor Schwarzenegger made the announcement at a joint press conference at the company’s San Carlos headquarters.

“Today’s announcement is incredible news for California’s economy and its environment,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “If California was a baseball team this would be like winning the first round draft pick and recruiting a player who is a perfect fit on our roster because Tesla Motors and its all-electric cars belong in California,” the Governor added. -Continued

Ze’ev Drori, President and CEO of Tesla Motors, remarked, “Tesla has achieved an extraordinary accomplishment. We are the only automobile company today delivering full performance battery-electric vehicles to our customers. Make no mistake - we are not a niche player with a car only for the rich and famous. As our agreement with the state so clearly demonstrates, we are building a high volume ZERO EMISSION VEHICLE, manufactured in California for mid-range family use. And we aren’t going to stop there. We will continue on and build even more affordable cars.

You are witnessing the debut of a new car company, a company unlike all others, a company with a disruptive technology, a company dedicated for the exclusive production of Zero Emission Vehicles.”

Volvo Truck’s New Merchandise Collection

Coinciding with the launch of its new truck range, Volvo Trucks has presented an in-house designed merchandise collection. The range, which consists of two collections, the “FH16” and the “Volvo Trucks”, comprises more than one hundred items, including leather wear, UV-safe baby clothing, bags, watches and lifestyle products.

Without wanting to sound stereotypical, we can’t help thinking that the collection and especially the “feline” models promoting them in the pictures seem to share more in common with C30 customers than with your typical truck drivers… -Continued

2011 Toyota Rear-Wheel-Drive Coupe Rendering

Earlier this year, Subaru and Toyota officially announced that they will co-develop an all-new rear-wheel drive coupe. While a first batch of scoop images featuring Subaru’s version of the compact sport coupe have already hit the web, we’ve yet to see any spy pictures of Toyota’s variant.

However, one of our readers sent us a scanned image from a Japanese car magazine with an artist’s impression of the forthcoming Toyota RWD coupe. Despite the Lexus-esque styling, we find the rendering quite promising. Hopefully, earlier reports stating that Toyota’s version will only be sold in Japan won’t be confirmed. But even if they prove to be true, here’s a grand idea; how about if Toyota sells its version of the coupe as a Scion in the States?

2009 Dodge Challenger Brochure

While not as snazzy as the Challenger SRT8’s media kit (see here), the full brochure for the 2009 Dodge Challenger has its strong points. The first thing that caught our attention were the scrumptious 20-inch Polished Heritage Alloys that are standard on the R/T Classic. They look absolutely stunning and if we set to buy Dodge’s bad-boy muscle car, the retro-themed alloys would be our first choice. Check out the brochure after the jump.




























Via: Autoblog.com , Source: Flickr

Roush Presents Bespoke... One-Horse Power Training Vehicle!

We won’t lie and tell you that we didn’t double check this story. Though it would have been cool if someone (re)invented a one-horse powered car that would solve our energy problems, this bespoke vehicle was created by the Roush Technologies for Turkish-based, Kurt Systems that specializes in racehorse and camel training equipment.

In a nutshell, the ground-up, turnkey project will be used as a high-tech machinery for the continuous monitoring of animals at speeds of up to 60km/h or 37mph. The yet unnamed vehicle effectively provides a moving enclosure similar to a starting stall, in which the animal can walk, trot or full gallop freely in a controlled environment, whilst being monitored and trained to optimise race performance. -Continued

Weighing in at around 4 tonnes, the training vehicle uses a cross-braced frame, with suspension derived from a Ford F150 series truck. Power is provided by a Volvo 2.4litre, 5-cylinder turbodiesel matted to an automatic gearbox.

The training vehcile’s cabin, which is mounted rearward of the horse, includes a centrally mounted driver’s seat, plus additional seats for a trainer and a veterinary specialist. Onboard systems include 12-volt and 240-volt electrical supplies, to power systems such as computerised heart, blood, oxygen and fitness monitoring.

As for the open fronted stall section of the vehicle, it features an independent hydraulic steering, combined with electronically controlled reins, to steer the horse in the same direction as the vehicle. The reins are enclosed within two forward curving booms on the body structure, controlled by the driver.