Motor Authority - blog Tag: Odds and ends

Bentley is staging an art auction together with Bonhams in order to raise money for The Christie, a cancer hospital in Manchester, England. The pieces to be sold have been created by the men and women of the Bentley styling and design team, which have pooled their creative talents to making art.

The art will be auctioned at an invitation-only evening event on Tuesday December 1 at Bonhams, the auction house in London.

The collection includes a vast array of sculptures, painting, digital art and photography. Created in many different media, from sculptures in bronze and set in wood, to metal and leather, to plastic, to palette knife and...

Bentley is staging an art auction together with Bonhams in order to raise money for The Christie, a cancer hospital in Manchester, England. The pieces to be sold have been created by the men and women of the Bentley styling and design team, which have pooled their creative talents to making art. The art will be auctioned at an invitation-only evening event on Tuesday December 1 at Bonhams, the auction house in London. The collection includes a vast array of sculptures, painting, digital art and photography. Created in many different media, from sculptures in bronze and set in wood, to metal and leather, to plastic, to palette knife and brush paintings on canvas, the works showcase the imagination of the men and women who design Bentley cars. A total of 22 designers have been involved in the project, including digital designers and clay modellers. Entrance to the auction is strictly by invitation only, but from Wednesday November 4 all of the artworks will be viewable via the Bentley website www.bentleydesignpassion.com. [Bentley] Read More

After more than eight years of development, the British Steam Car Team has finally broken the world speed record for a steam-powered car--a record that has stood since 1906. The new record setting run was completed in the Mojave Desert in California this week, with the latest steam car achieving an average speed of 139.843 mph--easily smashing the previous record of 127 mph. Today a video of the feat has become available via the Telegraph.

To have the record ratified by the FIA, the Hampshire-based team had to finish two runs in opposite directions, less than an hour apart. It reached a peak speed of 136.103 mph on the first run and 151.085...

After more than eight years of development, the British Steam Car Team has finally broken the world speed record for a steam-powered car--a record that has stood since 1906. The new record setting run was completed in the Mojave Desert in California this week, with the latest steam car achieving an average speed of 139.843 mph--easily smashing the previous record of 127 mph. Today a video of the feat has become available via the Telegraph. To have the record ratified by the FIA, the Hampshire-based team had to finish two runs in opposite directions, less than an hour apart. It reached a peak speed of 136.103 mph on the first run and 151.085 mph on the second. The layout of the steam car shares many characteristics with regular production vehicles. It’s a rear wheel powered, rear engine vehicle that has a traditional rack and pinion front wheel steering system. The braking system consists of four wheel discs (parachute assisted) and there is double wishbone independent suspension at all four corners. Power comes from a two stage steam turbine fed by a boiler running on LPG and developing a peak of 360 horsepower. The 13 inch diameter turbine drives an epicyclical gear train with a 4:1 ratio for a wheel speed of 3,000 rpm at 200 mph. The boiler section is in the center of the car directly behind the single seat cockpit. For space reasons, there are actually four separate boilers each capable of being run independently.   Read More

A new study has found that your profession may be affecting how much you pay each year for car insurance, and it’s not just income that’s determining the outcome but rather the vocation itself. Factors insurers use to calculate premiums will always remain a mystery but a survey carried out over 365 different professions with three individual insurance companies found that profession alone could cause an increase of up to £850, as reported by Reuters.

Using the exact same details for each field every time, barring job, researchers found that a 32 year-old footballer with a Ford Mondeo LX living in London would fork out £1,348 year for fully...

A new study has found that your profession may be affecting how much you pay each year for car insurance, and it’s not just income that’s determining the outcome but rather the vocation itself. Factors insurers use to calculate premiums will always remain a mystery but a survey carried out over 365 different professions with three individual insurance companies found that profession alone could cause an increase of up to £850, as reported by Reuters. Using the exact same details for each field every time, barring job, researchers found that a 32 year-old footballer with a Ford Mondeo LX living in London would fork out £1,348 year for fully comprehensive insurance, as opposed to a secretary in the same position paying just £501 instead. The top ten most expensive professions were footballers, comedians, stuntmen, fortune-tellers, circus employees, minicab drivers, national press journalists, builders, firewood merchants and cleaners. Telephone salesmen came in at number 15 while secretaries came in last, faring the cheapest of the lot. Read More

BMW may be topping the luxury sales charts here in the U.S. but over in Germany things aren’t so peachy and the automaker is resorting to some drastic actions to help boost its sales. At a number of its German factory parking lots, the automaker has attached more than 7,000 cards requesting employees who don’t already own a BMW to consider buying one.

As odd as it sounds, the information was confirmed to Bloomberg by BMW spokesman Alexander Bilgeri. The effort is the first of its kind in a three-decade marketing program to employees and is designed to raise awareness among the factory workers that they too are an important part... BMW may be topping the luxury sales charts here in the U.S. but over in Germany things aren’t so peachy and the automaker is resorting to some drastic actions to help boost its sales. At a number of its German factory parking lots, the automaker has attached more than 7,000 cards requesting employees who don’t already own a BMW to consider buying one. As odd as it sounds, the information was confirmed to Bloomberg by BMW spokesman Alexander Bilgeri. The effort is the first of its kind in a three-decade marketing program to employees and is designed to raise awareness among the factory workers that they too are an important part of the company. Bilgeri was quick to point out that no one would be losing their job because they didn’t drive a BMW. “What’s wrong here? You like working with us. You appreciate your job and income. But you drive a vehicle from a competitor,” read the cards signed by Ian Robertson, the company’s sales chief, Harald Krueger, BMW’s head of personnel, and Manfred Schoch, its top union representative. Government incentives and vehicle scrapping schemes in Germany haven’t helped luxury automakers like BMW and Mercedes Benz as they have pushed towards cheaper models made by other brands. Sales for the BMW Group, which includes BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce, are down 21% for the first five months of the year, totalling roughly 488,000 vehicles. Read More

In an odd and somewhat comical reversal of the usual state of things, China has today announced the halt of import of four Renault models on the back of 'serious safety risks' and non-compliance with regulations.

The models affected include the Laguna, Scenic, Megane and Megane Coupe-Cabriolet - in short, some of Renault's most successful models. The decision was made by the laboriously-named General Administration of Quality Supervision Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), reports Automotive News.

"[W]e have repeatedly found batches of passenger vehicles made by the French Renault ... do not conform with our country's mandatory standards... In an odd and somewhat comical reversal of the usual state of things, China has today announced the halt of import of four Renault models on the back of 'serious safety risks' and non-compliance with regulations. The models affected include the Laguna, Scenic, Megane and Megane Coupe-Cabriolet - in short, some of Renault's most successful models. The decision was made by the laboriously-named General Administration of Quality Supervision Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), reports Automotive News. "[W]e have repeatedly found batches of passenger vehicles made by the French Renault ... do not conform with our country's mandatory standards and relevant technical regulations, and there are serious safety risks," AQSIQ said in a statement. As funny as the ban may sound to western ears - especially when taken in light of the comi-tragic failure of the Chinese-built Brilliance BS6, which earned just one star in Germany's ADAC testing in 2007 - China is now the world's largest car market, and having its models banned from sale will be a painful barb for Renault. The Brilliance BS4 is proof that China's domestic industry isn't making huge strides, either - EuroNCAP testing this March shows the BS4 actually outstrips the flagrant lack of safety of the BS6, scoring no points at all in safety tests - though it would have marked 3 stars under the same standards applied to the BS6 two years prior. In contrast, the Renault Megane, Megane CC, Laguna and Scenic all achieved 5 stars in EuroNCAP testing. Renault hasn't yet issued a full response, with a spokesman saying only that the company was 'surprised' by the decision, and that it has ample evidence of the quality of its models in the form of press reviews and testing. Read More

Before the invention of the automobile, cycling was a popular way to get around and even today many developing countries feature far greater numbers of cyclists then motorists. That at least goes some way into explaining this new range of bicycles from Mercedes Benz, which the automaker claims feature the same level of quality as its cars.

The range of two-wheelers from Mercedes consists of a folding bike, a new mountain bike and a racing bike. The folding bike features a patented mechanism that Mercedes says allows cyclists to fold the bike down in just a few seconds without any tools. The bike can be folded into two different positions,... Before the invention of the automobile, cycling was a popular way to get around and even today many developing countries feature far greater numbers of cyclists then motorists. That at least goes some way into explaining this new range of bicycles from Mercedes Benz, which the automaker claims feature the same level of quality as its cars. The range of two-wheelers from Mercedes consists of a folding bike, a new mountain bike and a racing bike. The folding bike features a patented mechanism that Mercedes says allows cyclists to fold the bike down in just a few seconds without any tools. The bike can be folded into two different positions, one which allows the bike to still be pushed and steered, which is useful for public transport situations and the other that completely folds the bike down to fit into small spaces. Featuring eight gears, the folding bike from Mercedes uses disc brakes and has a luggage rack, but its premium quality means it commands a fairly hefty price of €1,699 (approximately $2,410). The Mercedes mountain bike on the other hand is designed for off-road tracks and is a more serious machine than the commuter friendly folding bike. Limited to a production run of just 100 units, the mountain bike features a lightweight fully sprung aluminum frame and 27 gears. It also features carbon-fiber pedals, special disc brakes and custom wheels from DT Swiss. Available in matte black or white, the mountain bike will set customers back close to €4,000 ($5,670). Finally, the most expensive of the Mercedes bikes is the racing bike, which uses extremely lightweight materials to facilitate a final weight of less than 7kg. Also limited to just 100 units, it uses a high-end carbon-fiber frame, a Carbotec monocoque carbon-fiber fork, 20 gears, carbon-fiber pedals and DT Swiss wheels in white. With all that high-tech construction, the Mercedes racing bike comes in at a jaw-dropping €4,999 ($7,085).2009 Mercedes Benz bicycle range Read More