There are very few things that get the unanimous approval of everyone here at Autoblog. One of them is Icon 4×4, which makes impossibly expensive yet worth-every-penny reimaginings of history’s best off-roaders. For this year’s SEMA Show, Icon debuted something new that had nothing to do with off-roading, yet still had our whole team salivating.

Christened a “Derelict” by Icon founder and designer Jonathon Ward, this 1952 Chevy Coupe looks like an abused artifact from a time not worth remembering. Knowing Icon like we do, however, it’s anything but. The Derelict is fitted with a 6.2-liter V8 from General Motors producing 430 horsepower and an interior upholstered in gorgeous vintage briefcase leather, but the exterior is as original and rusty as it was when Icon found it. What we didn’t know at SEMA is that the ‘52 Chevy isn’t the first Derelict that Icon produced.

Our friends at eGarage have produced an excellent video about how the two Derelicts came to be, including how Jonathon Ward and his company made them. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t as easy as dropping a new engine into an old car and redoing the leather. The Derelicts were meant to be high-performance yet reliable daily drivers, which requires more thought and engineering than we ever imagined.

Follow the jump to be one of the first to watch this latest video from eGarage.

Continue reading Jonathon Ward talks about his Icon Derelicts in latest eGarage video

Jonathon Ward talks about his Icon Derelicts in latest eGarage video originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mercedes-Benz hasn’t exactly been secretive about its desire to offer a five-door hatchback version of its ultra-stylish CLS sedan. After all, the first concept for the latest CLS, which was introduced as a 2012 model, introduced us to the CLS Shooting Break Concept at the Beijing Motor Show in 2010. And yes, MB itself called the car a Shooting Break, not Brake.

Based on that concept, we have a pretty solid idea of how the CLS Shooting Brake will look. Judging by these spy shots that were snapped in Northern Sweden, there won’t really be any surprises. And that’s totally fine by us.

We’d expect Mercedes-Benz to deliver its super hatch in both CLS550 (with 4.6-liter twin-turbo V8) and CLS63 AMG (with 5.5-liter twin-turbo V8) flavors, which means the biggest question left to answer will be whether the company decides to call it the Shooting Brake or the Shooting Break. We, like pretty much everyone else in the world, vote for Brake.

Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake snapped winter testing originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Riding shotgun in a two-seater race car at speed is a lot of fun - trust us on this - but this video is headache inducing. And scary. Seems like the pit crew on hand at Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi was so concerned with starting the camera and setting its white balance that they didn’t bother checking to see whether the passenger’s safety harness was tight enough. And it clearly wasn’t.

You’ll notice in the screenshot above that the passenger’s helmet appears to be striking the bulkhead in front of her, which is definitely not supposed to happen. Indeed, she gets thrown around something fierce as the two-seater F1 car corners and brakes. So let this serve as a lesson to those of you who might embark on your first hot lap on a race track: Tighten up those belts until they are truly snug.

Click past the jump to watch the video in its entirety.

Continue reading This is what riding in an F1 car is like with loose seatbelts and no HANS Device

This is what riding in an F1 car is like with loose seatbelts and no HANS Device originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ferrari has had its share of drivers who knew their way around a snowy rally course. Gilles Villeneuve, for example, was famous for the drifting techniques he picked up racing snowmobiles in his native Quebec. And Kimi Raikkonen, for another, left the Scuderia for the World Rally Championship where he exercised his Finnish roots. Thing is, both of these top drivers were gone from the Ferrari roster long before the company introduced the FF as its first all-wheel-drive car.

That’s where Markku Alen comes in. The former World Rally Champion took the FF up to the Arjeplog track in the north of his native Sweden, just an hour’s drive south of the Arctic Circle, to stretch it out in the snow. Fortunately, he also brought a film crew along. While Ferrari’s shot footage of the FF playing in the snow before, none of it came out quite as majestic as this clip. Follow the jump to check it out.

Continue reading Watch as a Ferrari FF goes rallying in the snow

Watch as a Ferrari FF goes rallying in the snow originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Volkswagen has the honor of being this year’s top producing North American automotive manufacturer by a wide margin with its Puebla, Mexico facility. The factory managed to produce 510,041 units last year, beating out second-place Nissan and its Aguascalientes, Mexico plant by a staggering 149,245 units, according to Ward’s Auto. Nissan jumped from third to second place after Toyota and its Georgetown plant dropped from the top five. Toyota and Honda both saw themselves ousted from the leader board after a year pockmarked by disruptions from earthquake and tsunami activity in Japan and flooding in Thailand.

The Japanese automakers’ vacancies made room for Hyundai and its facility in Montgomery, Alabama with 338,127 units to take fourth place. Ford, meanwhile, moved from fifth in 2010 to third in 2011 with 344,446 units from its Dearborn Truck plant. Nissan rounded out the top five last year with the company’s plant in Smyrna, Tennessee taking the automaker’s second spot on the list.

Ward’s Auto reports Volkswagen enjoyed a boost from the popularity of the Jetta. That model alone helped push the company’s Puebla facility to a 75,356 unit gain over last year’s figures. Head over to Ward’s to see the full report.

These are North America’s top producing auto plants originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Volkswagen has the honor of being this year’s top producing North American automotive manufacturer by a wide margin with its Puebla, Mexico facility. The factory managed to produce 510,041 units last year, beating out second-place Nissan and its Aguascalientes, Mexico plant by a staggering 149,245 units, according to Ward’s Auto. Nissan jumped from third to second place after Toyota and its Georgetown plant dropped from the top five. Toyota and Honda both saw themselves ousted from the leader board after a year pockmarked by disruptions from earthquake and tsunami activity in Japan and flooding in Thailand.

The Japanese automakers’ vacancies made room for Hyundai and its facility in Montgomery, Alabama with 338,127 units to take fourth place. Ford, meanwhile, moved from fifth in 2010 to third in 2011 with 344,446 units from its Dearborn Truck plant. Nissan rounded out the top five last year with the company’s plant in Smyrna, Tennessee taking the automaker’s second spot on the list.

Ward’s Auto reports Volkswagen enjoyed a boost from the popularity of the Jetta. That model alone helped push the company’s Puebla facility to a 75,356 unit gain over last year’s figures. Head over to Ward’s to see the full report.

These are North America’s top producing auto plants originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know what you’re thinking: Another day, another BMW bodystyle. Except this one’s different.

The Bavarian automaker, much like its fellow German marques Audi and Mercedes-Benz, has exploded its product offerings with spinoffs of its established models. So the two-door 6 Series has bred a four-door GranCoupe version. The 5 Series, in addition to the sedan and wagon, has given us the oddly proportioned 5 Series Gran Turismo. But the upcoming 1 Series Gran Turismo is another kettle of fish in that it is not expected to share the small rear-drive platform with its recently revised namesake, but rather pack a new front-drive platform.

According to BMW Blog, the long-rumored 1 Series GT will finally make its debut next fall at the Paris Motor Show. When it does, the tall hatchback will be targeted directly at the Mercedes-Benz B-Class, slotting (in form at least) in between the existing 1 Series hatchback (pictured above) and X1 crossover. But if front-wheel drive isn’t how you picture your BMW channeling its power, an all-wheel xDrive version is also tipped to be in the cards, as well as a hybrid model.

BMW 1 Series GT tipped for Parisian debut originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know what you’re thinking: Another day, another BMW bodystyle. Except this one’s different.

The Bavarian automaker, much like its fellow German marques Audi and Mercedes-Benz, has exploded its product offerings with spinoffs of its established models. So the two-door 6 Series has bred a four-door GranCoupe version. The 5 Series, in addition to the sedan and wagon, has given us the oddly proportioned 5 Series Gran Turismo. But the upcoming 1 Series Gran Turismo is another kettle of fish in that it is not expected to share the small rear-drive platform with its recently revised namesake, but rather pack a new front-drive platform.

According to BMW Blog, the long-rumored 1 Series GT will finally make its debut next fall at the Paris Motor Show. When it does, the tall hatchback will be targeted directly at the Mercedes-Benz B-Class, slotting (in form at least) in between the existing 1 Series hatchback (pictured above) and X1 crossover. But if front-wheel drive isn’t how you picture your BMW channeling its power, an all-wheel xDrive version is also tipped to be in the cards, as well as a hybrid model.

BMW 1 Series GT tipped for Parisian debut originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Panamera That Can Win Back Purists

The roads winding from the southernmost coast of Spain up to Ascari Race Resort near the town of Ronda are enough to bring telling tales out of any car that professes to have high performance intentions. What talented few acquit themselves well on these roads are then exposed to the 3.4-mile Ascari circuit, and that’s usually enough to send most of them home in a huff of brake dust and blow-by.

This time in the crucible, it’s the 2012 Porsche Panamera GTS, a car first shown under the hard lights of November’s Los Angeles Auto Show. Despite not being the most powerful in the range, this naturally aspirated GTS is tipped to offer the most race-like dynamics of the entire Panamera portfolio. And after 100 or so miles on public amusement park roads and 20 or so on the track, this plus-size GT showed us it’s capable of dicing it up like a 911 or Cayman while delivering an understandably different experience from behind the wheel.

Continue reading 2013 Porsche Panamera GTS [w/video]

2013 Porsche Panamera GTS [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What happens when a Dodge meets an Alfa Romeo? The Dart, that’s what happens. But as promising as Auburn Hills’ new economy sedan is, what we’re really looking forward to is what Ralph Gilles and company over at the SRT division can cook up. And the folks over at Motor Trend think they’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect.

For the Dart SRT4, Dodge could go one of two ways: turbocharging the existing Tigershark 2.0-liter four, or shoehorning in the new all-aluminum 1.8-liter turbo four from Alfa Romeo. Since the latter would likely push the Dart SRT4’s price up beyond $30,000 and competitive levels, the smarter money’s on the former. But in order to compete with the likes of the Ford Focus ST and Subaru WRX STI - and outshine the 285-horsepower Caliber SRT4 it succeeds - we could be looking at nearly 300 horses under the hood.

Couple that with a six-speed dual-clutch transmission (we’d still hope for a manual), upgraded rolling stock, brakes and suspension, and a more aggressive aero pack and we could be looking at one very mean pocket rocket indeed.

Dodge working on 300-hp Dart SRT4 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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