Autos

The “green movement” has fully taken hold of the automotive industry with most car makers producing some sort of a hybrid vehicle nowadays and lately we’ve seen quite a few sports cars that are all-electric (Infiniti Emerg-E) or use hybrid technology.

Not to be left behind, BMW joined the green car movement with the i8 Coupe which was showcased last year and now they’ve introduced the BMW i8 Spyder concept.  Unlike the Infiniti, the i8 Spyder is a plug-in hybrid, based on the i8 Coupe, with an electric and a gasoline engine.

When the Toyota GT86, Scion FR-S, and the Subaru BRZ sports cars were first introduced as production-ready concept cars, we had hoped the 2.0 liter Subaru boxer engine would produce around 280 – 300 horsepower but we found out that the production models will only produce 200 ponies, we were pretty disappointed and as were a lot of other people.  I’m sure later on there will be more powerful versions of these lightweight sports cars but Gazoo Racing didn’t want to wait and came up with their own version.

The much awaited Volvo S60 Polestar made its official debut on the weekend at the Gothenburg City Race in Sweden. At the moment, the S60 Polestar is a one-off model developed by Volvo and its racing/tuning partner, Polestar. The car is apparently developed for a very persistent and unnamed client (Jay Leno??). But the vehicle has generated so much interest that there are rumors of the car actually being produced in the near future.

The stock Volvo S60 produced 300hp thanks to the 3.0 liter turbocharged inline six cylinder and completes the 0-100km/h in 6.1 seconds while achieving a top speed of 250km/h (155mph). But in order to keep up with the big boys like BMW and Mercedes, Volvo had to make some drastic changes to the stock S60. Engineers re-tuned the car and made changes to the cylinder head, intake manifold, and installed a larger Garret 3170 turbo.

At the 2012 Detroit Motor Show, Nissan showed off the latest Pathfinder as a “concept” but based on the design and how “production ready” it was – people suspected it was the final package that would be hitting the showroom floors. Well, those suspicions can be put to rest because Nissan just revealed what the 2013 Nissan Pathfinder will look like.

Sure enough, the concept and the images Nissan released look identical.  The Pathfinder concept had more chrome accents than the images released by Nissan yesterday, but those could very easily be an option on the premium models.

The Audi A5 coupe is one of my favorite cars currently being produced, I love its elegant design and I think what attracts me most is the roof, especially the area around the C-Pillar.  Now if you chop off the roof, the A5 turns into just another A4 with two missing doors and a missing roof, or an A4 Cabriolet, which is not bad looking but not as appealing as the A5 Coupe (to me, at least).  However, I’ll forgive Audi for chopping the roof off of the RS5 because it makes up for the looks with LOTS of power!!

First came the cute Hyundai Veloster which was fuel efficient but a little on the slow side with only a 138 horsepower. Hyundai took notes and listened to the people which resulted in the Veloster Turbo producing 201 horsepower from the 1.6-liter turbo motor. And now that the SEMA show is coming up, there is the Hyundai Veloster ‘Velosity’ Concept in the works and it’s going to put down some pretty serious numbers.

The Hyundai Veloster Velocity Concept is a joint effort between the design and engineering divisions of Hyundai America Technical Center with input from renowned British tuner, Cosworth. The technicians from Cosworth brought their decades of automotive tuning experience and were able to turn the decently powered Veloster Turbo into a 400 horsepower beast.

Just yesterday, we brought you guys the Land Rover Defender Concept 17 Wide Body which is considered to be one of the greatest and most capable off-road vehicles. The vehicle I’m showing you guys today is the Mercedes G-Wagon which has been converted into a pickup truck. This conversion has been around on the net for a while but I recently came across it and decided to share with our readers.

Like the Land Rover Defender, the Mercedes G-Wagon has history, is tough, and the overall design has remained pretty much the same since its inception. It’s pretty cool to see one of my favorite SUV’s converted into a sweet ass truck.