The “Soleil de Nuit” – Sun of the Night – is another stunning example of how a modern interpretation of Bugatti’s core values “Art, Forme, Technique”: A very unusual colour/material split characterizes the “Soleil de Nuit”, the second Middle East one-off model created for the Dubai Motor Show.


The horizontal split in the lower part of the car – a synthesis of polished Aluminium, painted Black Blue Metallic enriched by mirror shine meshes – softens the lines of this Grand Sport and gives the body a new touch of sportiness. Blue Metallic in the upper body parts and also in the inner side of the (“Sang Noir”) rims, the outer side of which are in diamond cut, underline the exquisite appearance of this dramatic looking car. A strong burnt orange interior crowns the attractiveness of this impressive “Soleil de Nuit”.

Via: Autogespot , Source: Cam Shaft auto blog

The TSX Sport Wagon weighs 3,599 pounds, which sounds like a V6 would be required, but why add cylinders if theyre not needed? Acura seems to think so, since its not offering the 280-horsepower, 3.5-liter V6 as an option, even though it can be had in the TSX sedan.

• Power moonroof with tilt, auto-open/close, auto-reverse and key-off operation
• Xenon High-Intensity Discharge (HID) headlights
• Front bumper-integrated fog lights
• Heated side mirrors with passenger reverse gear tilt-down and integrated directional signals
• 17-inch, five-spoke alloy wheels
• Auto-on/off headlights
• Chrome door handle trim
• Speed-sensing, variable intermittent windshield wipers
• Intermittent rear-window wiper
• Integrated dual-outlet exhaust
• Roof rails

Being a wagon, theres ample storage space, and even with the second row upright, you can fit a commendable amount of stuff in the 25.8 cubic feet of storage out back. Stow that second row and youre treated to 60 cubic feet of space, or more room than many mid-size crossovers.


This marvelously smooth four-cylinder powerplant boasts a ho-hum 201 horsepower at a sky-high 7,000 rpm and 170 pound-feet of torque at 4,300 revolutions, but the numbers dont tell the whole story. We couldnt help but scour the road ahead to search out areas where we could safely bury the throttle in the carpet. Acceleration from a stop isnt particularly impressive – likely about seven seconds to 60 mph – but once on the move, the free-reving four moves the tach as easily as anything within earshot of 200 ponies. Its disappointing that the TSX still features an old-school five-speed automatic transmission, but this slushbox is still silky smooth, something weve come to expect from Honda and its luxury arm.

Since were talking about a four-cylinder with a displacement of only 2.4-liters, fuel economy is still very respectable. The Environmental Protection Agency tells us that the TSX Sport Wagon is capable of 30 miles per gallon on the highway and 22 mpg in city driving. We managed 24.2 mpg in mixed driving during our time with the wagon; not bad for a vehicle with more cargo capacity than many crossovers in the mid-size segment.

At the IAA, the 2013 Audi Sport quattro concept shows how the new version of the legendary Sport quattro could look that was to marvel at the IAA 30 years ago.


The legendary Sport quattro in 1983 celebrated its premiere at the IAA, 30 years later, with the Audi Sport quattro concept shows how a tuned to the motor sports vehicle might look like today.

Although the show car has the genes of the original - Quattro in itself, has grown to a length of 460.2 cm but significantly and is also a combination of sportiness and elegance offer. Latest LED - Lighting characterizes the design of the lamp units, while the body shape was designed very muscular.

No matter from which side you look at the concept car that meets a brawny form from any angle and is reminiscent of the Sport quattro from 30 years ago, who was also extremely brawny.


In the interior it is also very sporty, but stands out, in dark gray tones of the interior with much elegance. The designers have focused on the design of the interior to the essentials, and the dashboard looks very tidy and modern.

Here, the Sport quattro concept also offers plenty of space for passengers and even a boot volume of 300 liters, which would certainly be enough for a short break.


During the Sport quattro from 1983 with 306 hp had to find from the long, has released its new Audi Sport quattro with a 700 hp (515 kW) plug-in hybrid drive equipped. Here, the proven 4.0-liter V8 biturbo be combined (412 kW) and an electric motor with 150 hp (110 kW) with 560 hp.

The disk-shaped electric motor is placed between the engine and the transmission TFSI 4.0. It derives its motive power from a lithium-ion battery in the rear, which stores 14.1 kWh. The electric range should be 50 kilometers of consumption per 100 kilometers is just 2.5 liters.


Is switched via a modified 8-speed automatic transmission. For even better traction of quattro all-wheel drive also features a sport differential on the rear axle. The sprint from 0 to 100 km / h should be completed in 3.7 seconds, top speed is 305 km / h.

Too bad it 30 Not already there birthday in the new edition of the Sport quattro Series version, but the concept car is already a very accurate view of what perhaps could be reality in the near future.

Photo Credit: © Audi

Gran Turismo have the Italian sports car maker Maserati has a long tradition. Since 2007, Maserati offers its customers the four-seater Gran Turismo coupe. Overall, the Italians were able to sell them until today 15 834 vehicles. 2011 there were 2706 units. Thus, the Gran Turismo became the best-selling model of the Italians, whose total sales amounted to a total of 6158 cars 2011th Now the company has upgraded its successful model, and adapt features of the sportiest version of MC Stradale, the refined interior, and improves performance by another 20 hp to 338 kW/460 hp. We were able to drive the revamped Maserati Gran Turismo sport already.

2013 maserati granturismo

Optics
This will have a close look to see the new version. Slightly modified front spoiler, new interior of the headlights with LED daytime running lights and the trident, the symbol of Maserati brand lights, now in red. This is a typical feature of the most powerful model of the respective series.

At the rear, LED lighting technology now provides a slightly different look. The same goes for the darker finish tailpipes of the exhaust system. Inside, it may be the front-seat passengers to be comfortable new seats. Reshaped to provide rear-seat passengers a little more leg room and comfort. They can be varied electrically adjustable and even tall people will find an excellent driving position behind the now slightly flattened at the bottom sport steering wheel. This works for a sport car but still quite large and bulky.

Interior
The interior is logically laid out. The instruments are easy to read, all switches within easy reach. With its 460 hp, the maserati Gran Turismo category is the most powerful variant of this model, but not necessarily the most athletic. This is reserved for the MC Stradale, which brings a few kilograms less weight on the scales. With slight changes to the hardware and software of the strong 4.7-liter V8 engine, the engineers were able to further increase the power and torque by up to 20 hp and 30 Nm.

Drive
The engine pushes still to strong demand and despite its torque of 520 Newton meters of strongly on speed, since the maximum torque is applied only at high 4750 rpm. A choice of two transmissions, one automatic system with six speeds and an electrified six-speed gearbox. In the latter should be the response times compared to the base model reduced significantly. But while driving could not confirm this, especially as the fastest response times occur only if at least 5000 revolutions of the crankshaft are reached and the gas pedal is depressed to 80 percent.

Since winding country roads offer few opportunities to really take advantage of this. But even on the highway to let this advantage does not necessarily determine. Its more something discordant when the Maserati changed his own course or if the driver at the steering wheel to shift up rocker moves. Since the works of our automatic version is also driven much more harmonious.

Landing gear
The suspension ironed out bumps in the road, despite its tight coordination and provides exceptionally well away from speeding driving for good cornering stability. For quick passage ways acknowledged the coupe with a rear herausschwenkendem, but only if the ESP is switched off. In the rear-wheel drive unbridled acceleration in 4.7 seconds, it creates from a standstill to 100 km / h and reaches a top speed of 300 km / h A wonderfully dull rumble accompanies each intermediate sprint. But also widely heard the outcry at the gas station, eventually consumes the Maserati GranTurismo sport an average of 14.5 liters, at faster pace, however, possible to have more than 20 liters per 100 kilometers.

 

BMW 6 Series 640d M Sport

Test date 27 October 2011  Price as tested £66,745


Having launched the cloth-top version in the UK in March, BMW is now introducing the new BMW 6-series coupé. The closed-roofed two-door is billed as the firm’s ultimate grand tourer: a car with comfort, luxury, spaciousness, efficiency and high-end technology that’s unrivalled in its class.

But if this version of the 6-series really does prove to be a car of significantly greater substance than the last, it will probably be in no small part thanks to its engine, and the arrival of this 640d gives us our first chance to put BMW’s very latest 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged diesel under our road test microscope. Considering this car maker’s incredible track record in producing benchmark diesel motors, equally miraculous performance and efficiency are definitely on the menu.

Trademark BMW handling is perhaps what’s most in question. The more powerful 650i convertible tested earlier this year oozed competence but lacked precision, involvement and driver reward. So it’s for the 640d to show that M Sport spec and a fixed roof can sharpen the 6-series’ character.

Design 

BMW aimed for a more elegant, athletic look with the third-generation 6-series, with some success. The long bonnet profile, wide-hipped stance and taut surfaces of the new car make it more appealing, to these eyes, than the rather amorphous car it replaces.Sizable proportions help. At almost 4.9m long, it has grown 74mm.
The car’s underbody construction is a unitary body in white made of steels of various strengths, with aluminium used for the front suspension turrets. On top of that, the 6-series has a more innovative outer skin designed to boost rigidity and save weight. Aluminium doors and bonnet border plastic front wings, while the bootlid is made of a glassfibre-reinforced plastic composite. Despite the variety of materials used, the car’s paint finish is uniformly good and its panel fit consistent.

Like the 7-series and 5-series saloons, the 6-series is suspended via double wishbones at the front and BMW’s multi-link-style ‘integral’ rear axle. As standard fit, all versions have fixed-rate dampers, conventional anti-roll bars and electro-mechanical power steering with Servotronic speed-dependent assistance.

Adaptive dampers and anti-roll bars come as part of BMW’s Adaptive Drive options package. Our test car had them, adding reach to the car’s Performance Dynamic Control selector – which, in the 6-series, has a new Comfort+ setting to match Comfort, Sport, Sport+ and Eco Pro.

The car’s 309bhp six-cylinder twin-turbocharged diesel engine is probably the technical high point (see Under the skin, p67). But amid options such as surround-view cameras, a night vision system, a head-up display and what’s described as the most advanced hi-fi audio system yet offered on a BMW are adaptive LED headlights with a cornering function. They light the road to the left and right of the dead-ahead dependent not only on speed and steering angle but also vehicle yaw rate. Trust Munich to come up with headlights capable of compensating for unexpected night-time oversteer.

On The Road

 

We wondered if the 640d would achieve both 150mph and 50mpg in our hands. In the end, it didn’t manage to quite hit those figures on the one-mile straight at MIRA’s proving ground or over our touring route. But a wind-assisted one direction maximum of 146mph at MIRA and 46.4mpg on a simulated motorway run are far from shabby for an 1840kg coupé.

When you start the six-pot diesel, it settles into a hushed, thrummy idle; rumbly but not clattery. Reach for a gear and you’ll find an electronic selector of the kind that we’ve become so familiar with that anything retaining a mechanical operation now feels old-fashioned. A mechanical connection would, however, remove the irritation that the lever will move yet not select a gear if you’ve not pushed the release button on its side far enough. It’s not a big deal, but we suspect neither would a fix be. Likewise, we’d prefer more confirmation that the ’box has dropped into park than just a light on the dash.

Watch our BMW 640d M Sport video review 90sec verdict
Still, the eight-speed gearbox itself is a unit that displays its competence and intelligence by shifting so smoothly and cleanly that, for the most part, it barely enters your consciousness that it’s doing it at all.
What does make its presence felt is the amount of performance on offer. From a standing start, the 640d is quite capable of overpowering its rear tyres and setting its ESP light ablaze as it heads to 60mph in only 5.3sec, and 100mph in just 13.1sec. If you’re at 30mph and ask for full throttle, just 4.5sec later you’ll hit 70mph. This is a car in which you’ll never want for performance, and it’s all delivered with a sound that’s the best automotive diesel noise this side of a Challenger II tank: extraordinarily smooth and powerful sounding, with no unwanted top-end overtones.

That the 640d can do all this while returning 46mpg at a cruise and comfortably 32mpg at any time makes this one of the finest powertrains available today.

It doesn’t take long in the 640d to realise that you’re at the wheel of a big car. It’s long but also wide, which makes threading it along tight streets no easier than it would be in one of the four-doors on which the 6-series is based. That should be no great surprise, but it is a shame this coupé doesn’t come with a greater feeling of natural agility and nimbleness of the sort that marks out, say, a Porsche 911.

Instead, think of the 6-series as a more natural rival, in size and demeanour if not in price, to a Mercedes CL; a long-legged, easy-going luxury cruiser rather than a sports coupé. Between the Porsche and Mercedes-Benz, you’d find a Jaguar XK doing half the job of each. Question is, where does the BMW fit?
Closer to the Mercedes is the short answer. The longer answer requires an explanation beginning with the fact that, like so many high-end BMWs, the 640d rides on run-flat Michelin tyres and so seemingly demands adaptive damping dexterity before it’ll do the kind of work BMW wants it to.

The damping set-up can be moved from Comfort+ through a range of increasingly firm settings to Sport+, each bringing more body control at a loss of ride quality. On most motorway journeys, we left it in Comfort and found few places where the surface was so smooth that Sport or Sport+ provided an acceptable level of ride quality. If you do accept the harshness, you’ll find a level of natural balance and ability that does the BMW credit.

In any mode, the blend of ride and handling is seldom poor, just less optimised than we’d like given this car’s price – it lends the 640d a forever gently unsettling feeling that it’s not quite as good as it could be. What the 640d does always offer, mind, is an excellent level of cabin quietness and refinement. Few cars at this or any price feel quite so sophisticated and isolated from noise. The 6-series gets that bit of the grand touring regime spot on.

Living

Although its wheelbase has grown by 75mm, it still isn’t quite a proper four-seater. By class standards, the cabin is quite generous; luxurious up front, with more accommodating rear seats than you’ll find in anything short of a Mercedes-Benz CL. There’s enough rear headroom and legroom for small adults, but six-foot occupants still haven’t a hope of sitting line astern. In a 4.9m car, you’ve a right to better. But you couldn’t ask for a bigger boot: its 460 litres is within a couple of shopping bags of the big Merc’s, and 25 per cent more than a Jag XK’s.

Our test car came fitted with the sports seats, textured aluminium inlays and sports steering wheel that M Sport specification buys, but even without those augmentations, this would be a superbly agreeable place to spend time. There’s a fine driving position with plenty of adjustment, a set of clear instruments and an impressive mix of cabin materials, ranging from leather, through matt-finish aluminium, to solid tactile plastic. A fixed, 10.2in colour display screen dominates the whole fascia.

For UK buyers, that screen is part of the standard equipment roster, as is Dakota leather, electric memory heated front seats, an eight-speed auto, cruise control, automatic lights and wipers, and BMW Professional sat-nav with multimedia functionality.

But for all the comfort and apparent quality, you do expect a little more richness and piquancy from the cabin of a £60,000 car. Considering it’s priced so closely to Maseratis and Aston Martins, the 6-series’ cabin has a strangely cold, business-like ambience. It doesn’t really create a sense of occasion for the driver.
Provided you need to make no more than occasional use of those rear seats, the 640d has this section all sewn up. It’s cheaper than an XK Portfolio to buy and will retain 10 per cent more of its value over three years.

The deciding factor for many will be the 640d’s economy. It returned 45.5mpg on our touring economy test and is at least 50 per cent more economical than the next most frugal car in a class where petrol is still totally dominant.

Managing not to get seduced by the car’s long and expensive options list is the one caveat we’d advise. A fully loaded 640d M Sport will set you back £98,000, and it would be very easy to spend £85k on the car and still leave out the options that’ll add the most value at resale time.

 

Verdict

The BMW 6-series 640d is an easy car to admire. Few and far between are the coupés that can reach the other side of 140mph in less than a mile from a standing start, and fewer still have an engine that can also approach 50mpg on a gentle cruise.

But it’s the engine and transmission that play the starring roles in the 640d’s dynamic production. They have the diversity and the ability while the rest of the dynamic cast play a supporting role with competence, but not sparkle. The 640d is a supremely quiet cruiser but it only matches that with a truly compliant ride in its softest suspension modes, where it wants for tighter body control. Its cabin, too, is as clean and functional as you could hope for, but it is too short of ambience for a car with a price that starts with a six. Ultimately, the 640d is an easy car to like and live with, but a hard one to fall for.