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Thursday, April 30, 2009
Now that General Motors has taken the decision to trim down its passenger car portfolio with the sale of the Saturn and Saab brands as well as the demise of Pontiac in 2010, there seems to be plenty of space for Buick to expand in new vehicle segments that would otherwise be considered a 'no-no'. How else would you explain this new Buick small sedan prototype that was caught by our spy photographers testing in Germany?
The answer to the question could be that the small Buick sedan is destined exclusively for the Chinese market where the American brand is quite popular. Still, we're pretty sure that Buick's U.S. dealers wouldn't mind adding a smaller and more fuel-efficient sedan in their arsenal, especially now that American consumer tastes are slowly shifting towards more compact and frugal vehicles.
But while at this point GM's full intentions on the small Buick sedan remain a mystery, what is certain is that the saloon is based on the same Delta II platform as the new Chevrolet Cruze and next-generation Opel Astra that will be revealed this fall at the Frankfurt Auto Show.
This means that it will be roughly the same size as the Cruze sharing the same engine options that will include numerous four-cylinder diesel and gasoline units, the later in both naturally-aspirated and turbocharged forms.
But will this be enough for the small Buick sedan to be successful? Maybe in China, but in order for the car to make it in the U.S. and justify a higher price tag than its Chevrolet stablemate, GM will have to think out of the box and forget about its effortless badge-engineering techniques of the past.
AVUS Issues Press Release on Audi RS6 'White Power' Name, Blames Translator
0 comments Posted by wedos at 5:25 PM
Dang the power of online media... Just hours after the release of AVUS Performance's modified Audi RS6 Avant that stirred a huge online controversy over its name "White Power" (see what was said on Carscoop here), as many people interpreted it as a racial slur, the German company issued an official statement apologizing to those that were offended. The tuning firm said that it was a matter of mistranslation from German to English blaming its press agency. AVUS also said that the car will be renamed simply to Audi RS6 V10 biturbo.
Our opinion? This whole matter brings to mind the Southpark episode "Chef Goes Nanners". In a nutshell, all the adults were in a racial fight over South Park's flag that depicted white figures hanging a black one on a scaffold, so they asked the opinion of the boys who debated the topic at school.
And while everyone thought that the boys were divided over the racial subject, in the end it is revealed that the boys hadn't even noticed the color of the figures shown on the flag. The whole time they thought that the issue at hand was capital punishment...
AVUS PERFORMANCE STATEMENT
Dear visitors, readers and customers,
We are very sorry and unfortunate for what has actually happened and is currently happening to our first press report. Due to a mistranslation of our latest project car - the Audi RS6 V10 biturbo - there were lots of radical right-wing rumors on all different blogs and pages that received our first press report. We distance ourselves from the project title - it was done by our press agency which obviously mistranslated our German project name into English. Furthermore we distance ourselves from anything that has to do with that group synonym and we would also like to say sorry if anyone got personally touched.
Deepest Regards
The AVUS PERFORMANCE Team
Car designers from Iran? Why not, we ask? No one ever said that automotive designing is restricted to Italians, British, French, Americans, Koreans - you get the point. These conceptual proposals are the work of young Iranian graduates in Industrial and Transportation Design and they were displayed at an exhibition titled "From Dream to Reality" that took place from 18 to 23 April 2009 at the Kamal Aldin Behzad Gallery in Teheran, Iran. As with any exhibition of the sort, some projects were more interesting than others, but we'll let you judge for yourselves.
Images: Barkhordary , Via: Carbodydesign
