Blog Posts by: Erick Ayapana   G

The two featured videos show a Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG coupe and a Ferrari 458 on the insane Corkscrew turn at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. It’s one of the most intimidating racetrack turns thanks to its quick multi-story drop. One of these cars showcases how sweet it can ...    Read more

General Motors is doubling the size of its design center in Incheon, Korea, a facility that produced the sleek Chevrolet Miray concept vehicle and will employ more than 200 employees. The expansion will be completed sometime next year and will include new modeling studios and display spaces. The team has ...    Read more

The folks at German Special Customs (GSC) just unveiled their GoldStorm wide-body kit for the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, and it appears they have out-blinged the group of gold Benzes at the Cannes Film Festival. GSC’s “tuning program” ditches the signature round headlights for rectangular units. ...    Read more

By most accounts, the Audi R8 has been a homerun for the automaker with supercar performance wrapped in captivating sheetmetal. A refreshed model is on the way and, thankfully, the visual changes appear to be minor, though there could be some significant upgrades under its skin. Our spy photographer recently caught ...    Read more

Global sales of Toyota hybrid vehicles have just reached the 4 million mark, the automaker revealed today. The news comes just a year after it announced total hybrid sales reached the 3 million mark. Toyota said it reached the new milestone on April 30, almost ...    Read more

The Nurburgring 24 Hour race last week featured two strong contenders from Japan. The Nissan GT-R and Toyota GT86 each took home some victories. Gazoo Racing entered two Toyota GT86 cars in the SP3 class, in which one earned first place and the other finished third. ...    Read more

Toyota’s CEO Akio Toyoda has already promised more fun-to-drive cars, and now a company executive promises design is becoming a greater priority, as well. At the WardsAuto Interiors Conference last week, Kevin Hunter, president of Toyota’s CALTY Design Research unit, said “we’re going to act more ...    Read more

This year’s Worthersee Festival may be the loudest one yet. Among the many GTIs featured at the event is the GTI Black Dynamic, which boasts an 1800-watt sound system packed in the trunk. VW says Nine apprentices between the ages of 18 and 23, dubbed mechatronics technicians, performed the modifications. The ...    Read more

A few years ago Acura recalled TSX and TL sedans for faulty power steering hoses. It appears the issue has reappeared on 52,615 TL sedans. The Problem: Acura says the power steering hose could deteriorate, causing fluid to leak. Drivers may notice a loss of ...    Read more

The Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Black Series coupe is fast, but not necessarily the most practical car available. The folks at Edo Competition, however, have not only tuned a C63 AMG to produce more power than the Black Series model, but did so using a wagon. Edo performed a long list of ...    Read more

Mercedes-Benz's new cruise control system goes beyond regulating speed and braking. The system, called Predictive Powertrain Control, reduces fuel consumption by using GPS technology to shift a transmission based on the topography ahead. Mercedes says it’s the first system to link GPS and gearbox shifting together. Currently offered in the ...    Read more

With upcoming CAFE standards looming, all automakers are scrambling to reduce their fleet’s average fuel economy. The upcoming 2013 Bentley Continental GT V-8 should definitely help out the British brand thanks to its EPA rating of 15 mpg city and 24 mpg highway. By comparison, the W-12-powerd Conti is rated at ...    Read more

Tesla announced it will start selling its Model S electric car in June, earlier than originally planned. The news, however, was tempered a bit due to the company’s reported first-quarter loss of $89.9 million, almost double the $48.9 million loss reported during the same period last year. Despite that, ...    Read more

The 2012 Mercedes-Benz CLS-Class is one of the more interestingly designed models in the automaker’s portfolio. We’ve known about the upcoming CLS Shooting Brake variant for quite some time and now our spy shutterbug caught another tester out on the streets. Benz has largely ...    Read more

Perhaps the EPA should consider a new rating system for John and Helen Taylor, the noted hypermiling duo from Australia. The couple travelled an amazing 1626 miles on one tank of fuel and they did it in a 2012 Volkswagen Passat TDI, setting a ...    Read more

BMW and Hyundai are considering a partnership to develop and produce a new engine, according to a report by Reuters. Sources close to the possible tie-up have told Reuters that the two automakers met in Munich yesterday and that discussions are still in the early stages. Development is expected to ...    Read more

The folks over at Lingenfelter Performance Engineering apparently weren’t finished having fun with their 2012 Chevy Camaro ZL1. A few weeks ago, the tuner's car was the first Camaro ZL1 to achieve a quarter-mile time in the 10s. Now, that ...    Read more

The new, rear-drive Kia K9 officially goes on sale in Korea this week and now we have more details on its powertrain choices and features. The automaker first unveiled its new flagship sedan earlier this year. Kia says the K9 is the automaker's first large rear-drive ...    Read more

In the high-volume compact car segment, the 2012 Toyota Corolla pulled ahead of the pack with 24,804 units sold last month. Just a few hundred units shy of the Corolla was the 2012 Honda Civic, which found its way home to 24,423 customers ...    Read more

Volkswagen sales shot up 31.5 percent during April thanks to strong gains from models such as the Beetle, GTI, and Passat. The diesel TDI models also did well and accounted from 21.3 percent of the brand’s sales last month, up 35.2 percent compared to April 2011. “The demand and enthusiasm for ...    Read more

Though the Lamborghini Aventador J remains a one-off model, the automaker isn’t going to let us forget about its unique supercar anytime soon. The following video allows us to imagine we're driving through a deserted mountain road at night. And it ...    Read more

General Motor’s CEO Dan Akerson made roughly $0.85 for each vehicle the company sold in 2011, The Associated Press reports. His compensation package totals $7.7 million, which the automaker says is too low compared to what CEOs of other companies make. GM made the claim in its annual proxy statement ...    Read more

As the 2013 Acura ILX arrives in showrooms nationwide, Jessi Lang from Motor Trend examines the new luxury sedan to better understand the new model's significance to the brand. Why is it such a big deal? As Lang explains, the ILX is aimed at ...    Read more

Today Porsche celebrates its 81 anniversary as an established company. Like most stories involving the birth of an automaker, founder Ferdinand Porsche started his company with humble beginnings. In fact, the company’s first branded car, the Porsche 356, didn’t roll into the automotive scene until ...    Read more

Mercedes-Benz is providing the safety car for Germany’s 2012 DTM  race season and it’s a powerful one – a Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Black Series coupe. To prepare the coupe for safety car duty, Mercedes installed an AMG sports exhaust system with a “special rear silencer” ...    Read more