Auto News & New car review

The Ferrari F430 Scuderia, a lightweight version of the F430 coupe, goes on sale next spring.
The F430 Scuderia, which joins the F430 Coupe and Spyder already on the market, is powered by a 510-hp, 9000-rpm, 4.3-liter V8 engine that makes almost 30 horsepower more than the standard F430 engine. Ferrari says it can go from a dead stop to 62 mph in a mere 3.7 seconds. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve big fans of the Land Rover LRX concept’s styling, which looked as good in black (unveiled in Geneva) as it did in the original white (unveiled in Detroit). So we’re suitably pleased by reports that Land Rover is preparing to build the vehicle, which could get the nameplate Freelander Sport in keeping with the nomenclature already set in place by the Range Rover Sport. Read the rest of this entry »

The name of SEAT’s new entrant in the important upper-medium market (whose protagonists include the Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Vectra) is today revealed as ‘EXEO’. Pronounced ‘Ex-ay-o’, the newcomer is scheduled to go on sale in 2009, and is a prime example of the Spanish brand’s intention to expand into new market segments. Read the rest of this entry »

With retro rides – from the Fiat 500 to the Dodge Challenger – popping up left, right and center, it would be all to easy to forget the vehicle that started the trend: Volkswagen’s New Beetle. Now with ten years on the road since introduction in 1998, the New Beetle is getting a little long in the tooth, but VW is preparing to launch its successor. However, while the current version is available only in two versions (coupe and cabrio), the next iteration may come with a few new twists in the lineup, mirroring the steadily-evolving range of variants of the MINI. That is, if the latest reports are to be believed. Read the rest of this entry »