Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Videos, Mercedes-Benz

Engine notes are a funny thing. They don’t add anything to a car’s performance capabilities. They don’t improve emissions or lower fuel consumption. They don’t contribute to ride quality or overall refinement – in fact you could argue just the opposite, at least indirectly. Yet automakers spend a great deal of time and resources to ensure their cars sound just right.

Few engines emit the kind of throaty, raspy burble that a V8 crafted by AMG does. The Mercedes-Benz performance division just makes some of the best sounding engines around. But you don’t have to take our word for it: follow the jump to watch – and more importantly hear – the new C63 AMG Coupe sliding around a wet track – without any background music, voiceover, or even much color to distract from the sweet, sweet sound – of the 6.2-liter, 450-horsepower V8 revving in all its glory.

Continue reading Hear the glorious 2012 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Coupe all by its lonesome

Hear the glorious 2012 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Coupe all by its lonesome originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: LA Auto Show, Spy Photos, Crossover, Honda, Design/Style

The North American-spec 2012 Honda CR-V won’t officially debut until the Los Angeles Auto Show in just a couple of weeks, but thanks to the automaker’s own Japanese website, we’re now getting our first glimpse at the production version of the new crossover – at least the JDM version, which isn’t expected to differ much. Honda previously teased us with a shot of a CR-V Concept, which, flashy as it may have been, gave us a good idea of exactly what the final design would look like.

In addition to the CUV’s decidedly predictable exterior, Honda’s Japanese site gives us a sneak peak inside the CR-V, where things don’t appear to change all that much from the current model. Under the hood, Honda will continue to employ its 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine, though a new six-speed automatic transmission is expected to be on tap for 2012, which should aid fuel economy and performance.

We’ll have the full details on the new CR-V in the not-too-distant future, but in the meantime, see it for yourself over on Honda’s Japanese site to get a glimpse at what’s to come.

Production 2012 CR-V revealed by JDM Honda website originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Minivan/Van, Nissan, Misc. Auto Shows, Specialty

If you lined up all the taxis in New York, they’d stretch all the way from Wall Street to Norwalk, Connecticut. They shuttle some 236 million passengers around the city every year – about 600,000 every day – and in the process, they travel the equivalent of 20,000 times around the world every year. Those are staggering numbers, to be sure, so when the city’s taxi and limousine department put out the tender for its “Taxi of Tomorrow,” it was an ambitious – and important – project.

Nissan’s NV200 bid ended up getting the contract (although other manufacturers have since gained approval as well. We’ve already seen what the van-based shuttler will look like from the curb, but a taxi cab certainly isn’t about exterior styling. Like a certain Arabian beggar in a Disney movie, it’s what’s inside that counts. And that’s just what Nissan is demonstrating with a special exposition in New York.

Opening tomorrow on the pedestrian plaza across from the iconic Flatiron Building at Broadway and Fifth, Nissan’s Taxi of Tomorrow Design Expo will showcase the full interior of the NV200 Taxi. The cab is accessed via sliding doors (for easier ingress and egress in the city’s tight spaces), a panorama roof to let tourists enjoy the upwards view (real New Yorkers, of course, never look up, a flat floor, a large cargo area for luggage, USB charging outlet, easily cleanable surfaces and and air-filtration and climate-control system independent of the driver’s.

Sounds to us like a nice place in which to cruise around the city, at least while all that stuff is still in working order. But don’t take our word for it: check out the high-res images in the gallery for a closer look – including a nifty infographic on taxi usage in the city – and the details in the press release after the jump. Or if you’re in the area, stop by the expo from Tuesday through Saturday of this week.

Continue reading Nissan shows New Yorkers the inside of its new taxi

Nissan shows New Yorkers the inside of its new taxi originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Spy Photos, Hatchback, Saab, Design/Style

Assuming the Chinese government approves the sale of Saab to the Pang Da and Youngman companies (a very big “if,” truth be told), the Swedish automaker could indeed have a bright future… in time. With the new 9-5 and 9-4X not in need of any dire updates just yet, it’d be smart for Saab to focus on reworking its biggest volume offering, the aged 9-3. And judging by this sketch found on Swedish site Svd.se, the next 9-3 (likely called “Ninety-Three”) could be quite a rakish yet practical entry into the entry-level luxury segment. The image above is said to be taken from an internal planning document, and it depicts a handsome five-door shape, with Saab’s characteristic cantilevered “hockey stick” greenhouse and turbine-shaped wheels.

We at Autoblog were very fond of the three- and five-door 9-3 bodystyles from the late 1990s and early 2000s (as well as the 99 and 900 model ranges that sired them), and with more automakers proving that dramatically sloped hatchbacks can have a place in the luxury segment (thanks, Audi A7 and Porsche Panamera), the rebirth of a proper liftback 9-3 could be a strong move for the beleaguered company. Even from this grainy image, we can see a lot of influence from the Phoenix concept that bowed in Geneva earlier this year, albeit without the showcar’s flashier touches.

Still, who knows if this car will ever see the light of day based on Saab’s current shaky situation. For now, we’re crossing our fingers. Head over to Svd.se for the full story (and more photos).

Are you the next Saab 9-3? originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By January 2012, most of Cameroon’s archives would have been digitalized and electronically saved.

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Climate change threatens to ‘undermine global prosperity and inflict significant social, economic and environmental costs on the world’, according to a global coalition of companies who today issued an urgent call to action to governments around the world.

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Palestine has become a full member of UNESCO.

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Filed under: Motorsports

NASCAR and New York may strike you as diametrically opposite pillars of modern America. But if Formula One can race in Texas, surely NASCAR can race in New York, right?

F1 has recently announced two new races in the United States: the U.S. Grand Prix slated to race in Austin, Texas, for the first time next year, and the Grand Prix of America that will follow a year later in West New York and Weehawken, New Jersey. In other words, F1 racing is coming to two very different parts of the country. So surely NASCAR can as well.

The stock car racing series is already big in the South, but while series organizers have in the past sought a location closer to New York to mount a race, that probably won’t be happening any time soon. According to The Wall Street Journal, organizers feel they’re already reaching their target audience through the races they have in place, and that expansion into new markets wouldn’t be prudent given the lagging economy.

So if you’re a NASCAR fan stuck far away from the racing action in the Big Apple, it looks like you’ll still have to make the trek upstate to Watkins Glen or out to New Hampshire.

F1 may be coming to New York, but not NASCAR originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Etc., Government/Legal, Safety, Videos

You’re a Miami police officer, so high-speed blasts down the highway probably aren’t anything new to you. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that when you’re late to your off-duty moonlighting gig, you’d run your marked, Miami-Dade Police cruiser up to 120 miles per hour through traffic and do whatever it took to clock in on time, right?

For officer Fausto Lopez, this also means leading an on-duty Florida Highway Patrol police officer on a five-minute chase down the turnpike when she wanted to pull him over for reckless driving. And since it’s hard to get to work in handcuffs, we imagine Lopez didn’t make it to his gig at the appointed hour.

There are two videos of the tense incident after the jump, the first is an ABC News report, the second is priceless dash-cam footage of the pursuit. As Lopez is being cuffed, he apparently says, “Oh man, I can’t believe this.” He’s not the only one. Lopez is apparently only been charged with one count of reckless driving.

Continue reading Watch the Florida Highway Patrol chase down a speeding Miami cop in his own squad car

Watch the Florida Highway Patrol chase down a speeding Miami cop in his own squad car originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A group of major corporations is calling upon governments to approve a “robust, equitable and effective agreement” when they meet later this year in Durban, South Africa to negotiate a global climate change pact. The statement, which was issued on behalf of nearly 200 companies from the energy, finance, retail, and manufacturing sectors, calls for the establishment of an effective price on carbon to drive emissions reductions and an end to fossil fuel subsidies.

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