April 22, 2013
- China is Buick’s biggest market, so it makes sense for the automaker to debut its latest concept at the Shanghai auto show. The resurrection of the storied Riviera name, however, caught us a bit by surprise, especially considering Buick had applied the badge to a concept car some six years ago. Desi...
- It looks like Volvo won't be getting a new flagship sedan anytime soon. The Automotive News is reporting that the brand's current revitalization strategy won't include taking a shot at its German competitors in the full-size four-door market. This meshes perfectly with recent rumblings from Volvo executives concerning the viability …
- After starting on the pole but falling behind mid-race, James Sofronas earned back the lead position to take victory at the Pirelli World Challenge event held at the Long Beach Grand Prix this past weekend. Driving the No. 14 GMG/Mobil 1 Audi R8 LMS, Sofronas was near the front of the pack when the No. 9 K-PAX Racing Volvo S60, driven by Alex Figge, suffered a brake rotor failure near the end of the race and went into a wall. The No. 3 Cadillac Racing Cadillac CTS-V.R, piloted by Johnny O'...
- It's one thing to have a major international auto show hold its one sole press day on a weekend, and it's another to have to accommodate for that on top of a huge time difference. Such was the case with the Shanghai Motor Show this past weekend, and while we managed to get a majority of our live coverage wrapped up on Saturday, a few stragglers and updates have also worked their way into the fold. Because of that, we're giving you one more look at our official, final, tied-a-bow-on-it roundup...
- Europe's ailing economy has caused the supervisory board at General Motors, which includes four senior executives, to vote to end production of the Opel Zafira MPV at the 50-year-old Bochum plant in Germany. The closing of the car factory marks the first closure of a German automobile assembly plant in decades, and it will cost Buchum (a city with nearly 375,000 residents in the western part of the country) about 3,000 jobs. Some doubted that GM would shift production and tooling of the Zafira...
April 21, 2013
- Buick has taken the time to highlight some of the company's personal points of pride from the past 110 years. Those include everything from the automaker's very first vehicle, the 1904 Model B, to what Buick claims is the world's first concept car: The 1938 Y Job (above). That one also walked away with the worst name for a design study. All told, the automaker has sold 43 million vehicles through the end of last year, and those include the lusty 1963 Riviera. That model celebrates its 50th...
- During a discussion of the next-generation Holden Commodore and the General Motors Zeta platform, the question of an Australian-built SUV came up. Dave Leone, GM's executive chief engineer for luxury and rear-wheel-drive cars, wouldn't go any further than to say "that could be very possible," but recent events at Holden only reinforce the notion that we won't have any idea what is and isn't possible at the Aussie branch until it's actually done. If there were such an SUV in the Holden pipeline...
April 20, 2013
- Despite some hiccups, China remains the auto industry's great hope for new vehicle sales, with significant sales gains and a huge upside. Nowhere is that hope more fervent than at General Motors, which offers eight different marques in the Asian nation. China has been GM's single biggest market the last three years running, and is unlikely to give up that title anytime soon. Yet its premiere brand, Cadillac, has remained essentially stagnant, selling just 30,000 units in China last year. That's...
- At a press conference on Saturday at the Shanghai Motor Show, General Motors announced plans to further expand its presence in the Chinese market. Among those commitments are plans to build four new plants by the end of 2015, giving the automaker the capacity to produce around five million vehicles a year in the country. In order to make the most of that expansion, GM is adding 400 dealerships in China this year alone (for a total of 4,200 sales points), and it's eyeing 5,100 dealers by 2015....
- Here we have a concept in the true sense of the term. The Buick Riviera you see here - the name of which was last used in production back in 1999 - is said to preview Buick's future styling direction, which means we should expect to see more flowing body shapes to go along with new versions of the marque's classic waterfall grille design. Oh, and we don't believe there's a single porthole in sight. Powered by Buick's so-called dual-mode wireless plug-in hybrid electric vehicle propulsion...
April 19, 2013
- Judging from this small picture, it looks like the Escalade could incorporate styling cues that we've seen on new Cadillac models like the ELR and the 2014 CTS, but that article says that other design details could include tall, vertical taillights similar to the CTS Wagon, staggered-width wheels and a narrower daylight opening for the side windows. The last time we saw the fourth-generation 'Slade back in October in spy shots, the heavy camouflage prevented us from getting an idea of the...
- As fuel economy regulations tighten all around the world, each part of the automobile is getting a second (and third and fourth ...) look to see if there is any way to squeeze out a few more yards per gallon. At the SAE World Congress in Detroit this week, Lacks Enterprises was showing off its contribution to the get-every-efficiency debate: Evolve Hybrid Wheels. James Ardern, Lacks Wheel Trim Systems director of business development, told AutoblogGreen that wheels, which spin at 1,000 rpm,...
- It's nighttime in China, and Buick has just concluded an evening event the day before the first - and only - press day of the Shanghai Motor Show. The star of this evening's party was the Buick Riviera concept vehicle, a plug-in electric hybrid coupe that the automaker says gives a glimpse at its future design direction, not to mention resurrecting some nomenclature from the brand's history that includes a similarly named concept from 2007. The shape of the Riviera is said to be inspired by...
April 18, 2013
- Chevrolet has announced that the new-for-2014 Cruze diesel will get an EPA-estimated 46 mpg on the highway and 26 mpg in the city. With its 2.0-liter turbo-diesel making 148 horsepower and 258 lb-ft of torque matched with a six-speed automatic transmission, the diesel joins the base 1.8-liter four a...
- General Motors released its first quarter sales figures this week, reporting that it sold 2.36 million cars and trucks worldwide. That figure represents an increase of 3.6 percent when compared to the same period last year. GM's growth was attributed to many factors, including global Cadillac sales that were up 26 percent and Chevrolet posting a one percent increase over last year (this marked Chevy's tenth straight year of record global sales). Volkswagen came in just behind GM, as the German...