Creating a car leads to deal with lots of conceptual decisions, way before starting to convert the design sketches into what will be manufactured. Each category demands a particular external size and has its particular competitors, so one of the biggest decision is on what subdivisions the car will compete – in other words, what variations it’ll receive. The strategy of deriving sedan, wagon, minivan, pick-up and other categories from a single car became famous around the 1980s, with cars like Opel Kadett E and Renault Mégane. Since the main idea here is to reduce costs by having cars from different categories sharing several parts, the initial examples used to change almost only the rear section. But in nowadays it’s necessary to deal with a much more competitive market, which demands each car to be as original and creative as it can possibly be, even when it’s “related” to others. That’s why even those are receiving more exclusive parts, inside and outside, achieving whole different variations. However, if sharing parts is the solution to save money, the simplest logic states that reducing those common items would result at more expensive cars. That’s why there are so many automakers working to make that sharing start from the very beginning of each project.
After that Scandinavian group test whose photos were spreaded all over the Internet, the first member of the seventh-generation Golf siblings is now released. The all-wheel-drive system is now produced by Haldex and became more efficient: the equipment became lighter and has faster power management between the axles according to the demand, which also results at a 4.54 l/100 km fuel consumption. This system will be initially offered with the TDI 105-hp 1.6L and 150-hp 2.0L diesel engines, with a price addition of € 1.800.
The German tuner offers performance upgrades to the handling and engine departments along with cosmetic upgrades for the A5 Sportback's exterior.
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Like many specialized texts have already stated, if the Mercedes cars were people with some sort of family relations, CLA would surely be a son whose both parents were the current generations of A-Class and CLS – this last one, in turn, could even be thought as a result of E-Class with CL. But before thinking of very unusual ways to use the family concept, the Germans deserve the bigger applauses for obtaining that mentioned knowledge concerning the car market in nowadays. In other words, since CLS’s concept has proven itself successful in sales and harmless to E-Class, later they started to think of reducing this formula’s scale. On the other hand, it’s easy to see they’ve finally found how to make A-Class prosper, so it would be very nice to take more advantage of that. So the sedan showed at these pictures is another result of the very concept that in Renault has just generated Captur. Examples like these are highly unlikely to bring conceptual revolutions because they’re the mere merge of other concepts, but once again this doesn’t come as a complaint at all. The truly meaning here is that Mercedes realized that cars like CLA are the right track to follow, so from now on it’ll be very hard to see this automaker releasing another “experimental” car. It is true that they needed to forget some of the old rules, but the final result is the much wider propagation of the image they’ve built through all these years.
It's one thing standing on the side of the Nürburgring waiting for testers to run by, and another when you're doing so in an arctic climate at temperatures as low as -30 Celsius / -22 Fahrenheit, as was the case with this Volkswagen XL1 pre-production prototype.
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The fourth-generation Clio is being so well-received worldwide for the simple reason of offering most of what people are searching in a car today. Since this car has never been so attached to traditions, like Golf’s C pillar or C3’s round body, this project took advantage of this enormous freedom. Renault chose a very attractive new design language, and managed to create a “magnetic” car. Whether for the aggressive front elements which highlight the brand’s logo, lots of inspiration from sports cars applied to the sides and a very elegant rear or a spacious interior filled with technology, safety, comfort and very efficient engines, the fact is this car is an excellent project. So the overall reaction did nothing more than just proving once again that everyone do prefer what’s best. However, one of those formulas of the current car market is the crossover concept. The idea of offering most of each category’s advantages in a single car must be as old as the very categories because it comes from the purest common sense, but the true challenge has always been how to execute it in a customer-attractive way – Pontiac discovered the effects of doing this wrong with Aztek, by the hardest way. So when the first modern crossovers achieved worldwide success, it was a matter of time for each and every automaker to create their own ones. And since Renault had on one hand this successful Clio, and the assurance of the crossovers’ good acceptance at the other, what else could you expect them to do next?
Volkswagen developed the CrossBlue specifically for the U.S. and Canada to preview an upcoming model designed to slot between the smaller Tiguan and the more luxurious and pricier Touareg SUVs.
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It’s very strange to see Audi releasing such an important version of this crossover when it’s about to turn five years old worldwide, because at that age most of the automakers are used to wait the car’s half-age facelift or at least using the new version to give bigger importance to that facelift, like Ford has recently done with Fiesta ST. Nevertheless, it’s always exciting to remember the unusual letter combination at this car’s name reminds this is Audi’s very first sports crossover. This is an important moment because represents when the S versions’ tradition meets the recently created Q family – Audi has been releasing sports versions for decades, but their first crossover came only in 2005. Besides, it represents one more example of the luxury brands’ most recent practice: in order to increase sales, they’re investing more than ever at entering new categories and, whenever it’s possible, creating them. There are luxury minivans and hatchbacks, four-door coupes, sporty crossovers… And they never take too long to receive their sports varieties: there are sports versions (like Audi S, BMW M and Dodge R/T), even sportier versions (like Audi RS and Dodge SRT) and only the accessories kits (usually referred with the previous labels but followed by “Package” or “Line”). Of course, it’s always nice to see a company working for please its customers, but this easily leads to wondering if some limit will be ever achieved.
Lurking behind the Rodius' very Mercedes-Benz-like chrome grille is SsangYong’s latest 2.0-liter e-XDi Euro 5 diesel engine that generates a maximum output of 153hp (155PS) and peak torque of 360Nm (265 lb-ft) delivered between 1,500rpm and 2,800rpm.
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Creating an entire new idea for each generation of a given car allows the brand to adapt it with the current times much easier, such as what Fiat has done with their medium-sized hatchbacks: Tipo’s straight lines were very common at the late 1980s, but when the following decade’s trends became to appear they had to respond. This reaction came with not one, but two cars: using two names enabled Brava and Bravo to give much better interpretations of two-door and four-door hatchbacks separately, but both with very creative designs. Later, if the 2000s brought the straight lines back but with more imponent shapes, creating Stilo was much better than discharacterizing the previous cars. And when the car world associated organic lines to a nostalgic trend, Fiat showed a modern reinterpretation of Bravo. Meanwhile, one of the opposite examples can be given with Golf: straight lines, round lines, bigger shapes, organic shapes… Volkswagen did their best to follow each and every trend along with keeping traditions such as the overall shape and iconic details like the “C column”’s big width. Sometimes they did it better and sometimes worse, but it’s undeniable that those years built a very strong image to its customers. Like BMW, Mercedes-Benz follows the traditional path even more strictly – cars like CLS and B-Class are much more younger than E-Class, for example.
The original Octavia came after the Second World War, at first using the codename 440. The idea at that time was to create a resistant car without any other concerns but the lowest final price possible. However, this car came with a much more elegant design than what was seen at the other Soviet vehicles, which gave it a different status. This name was dropped in the 1970s with the end of that car’s production and came back to life only twenty-five years later. The automaker was already bought by Volkswagen, making Škoda their “pragmatic” division almost like what Renault does with Dacia. Describing this concept needs wider-meaning words than “low-cost” because they aren’t restricted to the cheaper categories – Octavia, for instance, is a mid-size sedan. Their public is much more rational, giving away design and performance extravagances in exchange of a reliable, non-expensive vehicle. Until the last decade this idea used to imply maintaining older projects or taking equipments away to reduce the price, but in nowadays these parameters have changed. Cost reduction is now considered since the car’s first sketches, which enables cleaner designs, simpler construction and specially sharing as many parts as possible with other cars, from the platform to visible items, in cases like Logan and Sandero’s new generation.
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Amarok S Cabine Dupla 4x2: R$ 87.830
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