Peugeot: you need help, lots of it!

I love Peugeots, had one for 5 or 6 years. But lately I think Peugeot is loosing the plot on the design of its cars. Let's clarify what's wrong: detailing. Namely the identity of the front design. It's wrong in the current 407, passable in the 308, and completely wrong in the Peugeot 408 preview below and the 3008 that follows. By the way, the 408 image is from Autojournal and it's credible and it signals that the final design might be frozen by now.

There are also a couple of things wrong in the technical department: the huge front overhang in most recent Peugeots, and the lack of multilink in the Peugeot 308 range: remember when the 306 was clearly superior to the Golf III in handling?... Oh, and about that 3008 Prologue thing below, is that some sort of SUV-thing?... cuz Peugeot lacks AWD in that range of cars. Just don't try pulling a FWD-SUV, ok?

There are many things done right in recent Peugeots too: interior design and perceived quality, diesels, diesels, diesel engines, diesel engine technology...

So not everything is wrong, the overall design proportions are ok, the detailing and front end is really the worst part... but it's a very important one. But I can help you. For free, just cuz I like you people and the cars you made for so many years. Don't be afraid of sending an email, I won't share your secrets in the blog since I respect your work and the work from other manufacturers. I can help you make it work in the future.

Toyota's future AE86

Toyota is working on a new AE86, you know, the classic affordable RWD coupe from the late 80s, made famous in drifting movies and Japanese manga. This is great news. With all this crisis going on manufacturers are droping plans for affordable RWD platforms. Of course, I love RWD cars, the more the better and preferably from mainstream manufacturers. BMWs are nice but are expensive...

The new car will share bits with Subaru since both brands (Toyota owns part of Subaru) are collaborating on the new platform and engines. This includes a new 2.0 boxer engine and that is even sweeter: RWD+boxer equals love!

Reportedly Nissan is also working on a compact mainstream RWD coupe. So more choice other than Subaru and Toyota. Brilliant stuff.

2009 Alfa 149

The (great) photoshop below is from AutoExpress magazine and shows how the new Alfa 149 will look like. It's gorgeous and it seems that spreading design cues from the Alfa Romeo 8C across the range is a good idea.

The car itself is not really new since it borrows everyhing that is out of sight from the Fiat Bravo. Apart from the cheap rear suspension that is not a bad proposition. But then, this new Alfa is supposed to go against the BMW 1-series and Audi A3 so it looks to me that fighting those cars without a multilink at the rear is not a good thing... Anyway, the A3 fights the 1-series without having RWD so maybe with great design and marketing Alfa manages to improve its sales performance.

Focus RS in blue

The other day I was looking for a photo of the uber-Focus to illustrate the revoknuckle article but could only find hideous green units. But thanks to fordeurope.net found this one of a blue car. Looks massive, a true predator!

We can't wait for it to arrive and check how the numbers translate in real-world performance. Will it be much heavier than a ST? Anyway, for now it looks ready to destroy the competition (and its own front tyres too).

New Toyota Prius leak

Some images of generation 3 Prius leaked today. Shock!... the car looks like the new Honda Insight...

The design looks safe and unsurprising but the real interest point of this car is plug-in availability: when and how?

EV Future: Pininfarina B-zero

One of several electric concepts shown at Paris auto-show, the Pininfarina B-zero hints at a close market availability.

Not sure if we believe in that, the cooperation with Bolloré for the batteries is a plus point, but bringing a new car to market is a huge investment.

2009 VW Polo

Now that the Ford Fiesta is arriving to market it should be time for VW to remind us about their new Polo that will be on sale next year. Hence some night shots of the Polo appeared in Autobild magazine.

The new car is closely related to the new Seat Ibiza except that it will not look like crap. One can expect a modern and mature design, pretty much a small-Golf look with the new VW face, a much better design proposition than the chromed atrocity of some recent VW designs. Some very upscale rear light cluster is apparent in the images and we can also expect a very good photo-perceived quality inside. VW recently went back to what it knows best in the new Golf VI: simple interiors dressed in black with touches of chrome. Simple and effective in providing a quality appearance.

Not much technical novelties will differ from what is currently available in the Ibiza and Fabia. The biggest new arrival is a new 1.6 common rail diesel engine and maybe some gadgets like park assistance to differentiate a bit from the cheaper brothers.

Meet the Revoknuckle

We are not used to pure mechanical advances lately but this one is interesting and promising. The revoknuckle concept is used in the new Ford Focus RS in order to deal with the small problem of delivering 300hp to the front wheels. Now an image of the Focus RS could be illustrating this entry but I could only find pictures of some hideous-green coloured unit with lots of wing on it. So let’s keep this more technical hence the revoknuckle bits below.

The problem with all that power in a FWD car is wheelspin and understeer. Those effects can be overcome greatly with the use of limited-slip differential coupled with some good coding of the traction control software. The problem is that the use of the limited-slip differential does not solve the torque steer effect, that is, the influence of the engine torque on the steering on front-wheel drive vehicles. For example, during full acceleration the steering may pull to one side, which may be disturbing to the driver. Ford says it addresses that with geometry changes, new bearings and parts keeping the simplicity of a traditional McPherson strut arrangement, but minimizing steering disturbances and torque steer, mainly due to a reduction in steering offset.

Minimizing is a key word here. Ford does not claim to completely eliminate torque steer so I wonder what effect they have managed. The first test drives should be an interesting read.

New Skoda Octavia for Chinese market

We just got this image of a new skoda Octavia modified for the tastes of the Chinese market. Oh wait, breaking news, it's actually a restyling of the current Octavia for the European market. Well then, what a pathetic joke! The current Octavia doesn't even need a restyling.

It's funny how VW group has been changing Skoda away from mainstream design. Skodas used to be slightly more conservative and cheaper VWs. Now each new model is more polarized and moving away from the "mainstream centre". Want to know why? Because folks in most eastern Europe countries can now afford VWs... and even Audis. And VW wants them to buy more VWs and even Audis... cuz they want more profit. So there it is, carefull and clever brand management!

BMW X1

The picture below shows a reliable interpretation of the new BMW X1. The car should be presented as a concept car in the next few days and should have a mini-X5 overall design theme. That is good, actually, it looks great.

The new small-SUV is actually almost the size of the X3 (the next X3 will grow a bit) and will bring family credentials to the einser lineup with a base price cheaper than the X3 (but not much).

This is not good news for the good people at Ford, Renault or VW that lately brought new mini-SUVs to the market (Kuga, Koleos and Tiguan). Those new car are not selling very well because of oil prices and the new X1 will not help their cause.

Update: concept car images arrived. Here's the rear, not that similar after all. And I'm not showing the front of the car...

Ford Taurus

The Taurus name is an important one in American automobile landscape. A name that is currently associated to a failed car that started as the Ford five-hundred and later changed to Taurus seeking more success. Anyway, the impression below shows a reliable interpretation of the future Taurus. It doesn't look very exciting, but it doesn't need to be.

This is not the car that will save Ford of North-America. It doesn't neet to be. This car needs to look big but inoffensive, like a bigger Camry with interiors like a Camry or Accord. Just that, keeping it simple and adopting tried and tested tactics from Toyota and Honda. And that is what Ford will deliver, and with some new more fuel-efficient engines. It might not be the sales leader but it will improve sales greatly from the current model. And if every new model from NA-Ford delivers just that a safe path for the future will follow. We know this new Taurus is an improvement in the right direction, as well as the future Fusion, and the new Fiesta and the next Euro-Focus...

VW Robust

The image below shows a VW Robust prototype doing its thing, being a VW it probably had some electric malfunction.

I don't remember bothering too much about this new pick-up. But it does have some interesting points. First is the timing. Maybe VW knows something we don't but in a period where pick-up sales are going downhill it seems strange to make all this effort to enter a declining market. Hopefully VW knows that very soon oil prices will fall, ... hopefully.

Then there's the name, a VW Robust? If I well remember last time VW models had some kind of robustness was in the 80s. Maybe they are in for some comic attibutes when the new pick-up arrives in the market and starts displaying the behaviour shown below.

2010 Audi A8

There's some photoshop job in the image below but still, we have reliable sources indicating that it's very close to the final version. It's that a Bangle-butt?... well it sure looks like one but it will arrive 8 years late... Will the new A8 finally end Mercedes S-Class/BMW 7-series dominance?... We can all claim that possibility and for sure Audi will bullish a lot when the A8 arrives but.... folks that can actually buy such cars will probably shrug their shoulders at these claims.

Renault Megane break

This is a good-looking CGI predicting the future Megane station. The new Megane is a nice design if only a bit inofensive. Still, much better that the previous one.

The only problem with the new Megane is the same as the Astra (if the Astra indeed gets the Chevrolet Cruze platform): no multilink at the rear! It has been 10 years since Ford introduced it at first generation Focus. Since then the Ford family got it (Mazda 3, volvo S40) as well as the Golf family (Golf, Audi A3, several Seat and Skodas) and even Hyundai/Kia have a multilink at the rear.

EV Future: Chevrolet Volt Design Inspirations and Designers

A great video on the volt. Several more are available at GMnext channel on youtube.

I have such a good feeling about this car, maybe it's because of the music in the video. Enjoy it, you can see many details of the new car in these videos.

Inside the Chevrolet Volt

I'm not a big fan of the ipod white. But probably that can be customized. Like the instrument display that can be personalized and show the information a particular driver wants. The design really touches important points: it is different from other cars to suit the green image and associated individuality. But still manages to look different from the Prius. You know, the Prius will change but the exterior of the Volt will still look more sporty.

Of course, the important bits are related to the electric drivetrain and onboard generator. But still it's good that it doesn't look like crap right?

2011 Chevrolet Volt

Finally it's here. It looks great. Our concept car of the year 2007 will arrive in 2010, hopefully. The picture below shows a really nice design, clearly individual to reflect a new powertrain paradigm but still different from the Priusinsights.

I really hope that this is for real, it must be or else GM wouldn't make this the most important presentation of the Centennial party. Anyway, if this is not for real, other cars from Nissan, toyota or BMW will be. The EV future starts in the next decade.

This car is also a giant middle finger to some folks around globe. Right Mr. Chavez?

2009 Opel Astra

Opel is on our radar! We don't usually follow Opel future cars a lot because we don't care about the brand. But lately Opel presented some cool stuff: mainly the new Insignia that is a great effort. Very good design, wonderfull station version and availability of 4WD are strong points of the Insignia. So maybe we should care more about Opel.

The new Astra could be an interesting vehicle, it seems to get some cool headlights with leds and the design in the CGI below looks ok. The car needs to have more road presence than the current version, particularly it needs to look wider than the Focus or the Golf. We are interested! Of course, we can quickly loose interest if the new car doesn't have a multilink in the rear...

Mini crossover: a future mega hit

Sometimes is fun to make predictions. Will a new car be a hit or a flop? We could bet on that... Sometimes it's easy, the new Renault Laguna is a flop and just looking at the front of the car we can see why, but the new Citroen C5 doesn't help Renault either...

The new Mini crossover, small-SAV or SUV or whatever, looks like a safe bet. Of course, it's easy to forecast succes since it's a Mini, but remember the new Clubman sort of van thing is not doing really well.

The key feature for this new Mini-SUV is the proportions, there is something about the Infiniti FX there that screams mega-hit. On top of that this could be a proper practical car with some luggage space. Maybe BMW can even achieve sub-120g/km in the 1.6 diesel version. Looking beyond the concept-car detailing this is a great car in the making.

EV Future: another Prius CGI

This one doesn't look really good, as many recent Toyotas. Just check how boring the new Avensis design is. But the next Volt doesn't look very special either. However, it doesn't matter, the real joy in the new Prius is when it arrives plug-in enabled ant what is the range in full electric mode.