Automobile Blog

BMW announces super 7-Series

Styling gets revised, and the result is a toned-down appearance that’s actually appealing. Either that, or we’ve gotten used to the wacky design cues that BMW has been using for almost half a decade.

A new 4.8-liter V8 engine supplants the old 4.4-liter motor, creating 750i and 750iL models where before there were 745s. The new V8 makes 360 horsepower, 35 more than before.

BMW and supertuner-partner ALPINA have created a high-performance model for M-starved 7-Series customers – the BMW ALPINA B7.

New Reviews of the BMW 7-Series include Consumer Guide’s® up-to-date road test, ratings, specifications, photos, retail and invoice pricing, and safety information.

A new 4.8-liter V8 engine supplants the old 4.4-liter motor, creating 750i and 750iL models where before there were 745s. The new V8 makes 360 horsepower, 35 more than before. Also, BMW says that the iDrive system has been made simpler to use, suspension changes will improve stability and handling, and that a new Brake Force Display taillight design will warn other motorists whether the 7-Series is braking softly or hard. Slightly revised interior panels and new exterior colors summarize the changes for 2005.

Consumer Guide’s® Used Reviews are the most comprehensive on the Web. Each Used Review of the BMW 7-Series includes yearly changes, road tests, specifications, recalls, repair costs, trouble spots, and prices.

Advantages of the 2006 BMW 7 Series:
Incredible performance on back roads
Incredible comfort on highways and city streets
Impressive quality of cabin materials

Objections to the 2006 BMW 7 Series:
Fussy iDrive control system
Befuddling ignition, gear selection and turn signal functions

The heart of the 2006 BMW ALPINA B7 is a supercharged version of BMW’s 4.4-liter V8, delivering 500 hp through a 6-speed automatic transmission. The 500 hp V8 makes 516 ft-lb of torque at 4,250 rpm, hustling the big sedan from 0-60 mph in 4.8 seconds.

Archived Reviews of the BMW 7-Series are Consumer Guide® new-car reviews that have been “frozen in time.” Archived Reviews are invaluable sources for specification and equipment listings of older models.

To go along with the extra power, ALPINA upgrades the rest of the 7-Series with the B7 aero kit, a sport-tuned suspension with Active Roll Stabilization, and 21-inch ALPINA wheels.

The BMW ALPINA B7 will be released in July, but only 200 B7s are coming to the U.S. in 2006.

GM: Production Of Pontiac GTO Ends

Due to slower-than-expected sales and the expense of recertifying the vehicle for 2007 emissions and safety standards, GM has told dealers that this year will be the last for the Pontiac GTO, with the last vehicles hitting US shores in September. Having sold 13,500 units in ‘04 and 11,600 last year, the GTO never quite lived up to expectations.

General Motors says the last of the last generation of G-T-O’s will roll off the line in Elizabeth, Australia, in June. It will hit the U-S market in late July or August.

In this case, I feel a bit sorry for GM. It did exactly what its fans wanted it to – bring over one of the magnificent rear-wheel-drive Holden products from Australia.

Pontiac never quite figured out the marketing, though; it was too expensive and sophisticated for the muscle-car crowd, too GM-ish to attract buyers away from other $35K coupes, and of course its bland styling was glaringly apparent to anyone who ever laid eyes on an ‘05 Mustang. Let’s not forget the nasty price-gouging that occurred early on, either.

The iconic muscle car traces its roots to 1964 as a souped-up Pontiac Tempest. The G-T-O went through seven different body styles before it was discontinued in 1974.

The power was there (400 HP – I mean, come on – that’s serious), the interior was terrific, the chassis was excellent – had this product launched in the late 90s when the buzz about Holden began, I think it could have made a major impact.

It was revived 30 years later as an all-new 2004 vehicle.

G-M sold 14-percent fewer G-T-O’s in 2005 than the year before. In January, year-over-year sales were down 33-percent.Launching a full lineup including a sedan and maybe a droptop would have certainly helped as well, and maybe this was more of a Chevrolet all along. Feel free to do a bit of Monday-morning quarterbacking in the comments.

Toyota’s ‘Simple Slim’ Cuts Costs of Camry Engines 50 Percent

Foundry workers at a Toyota Motor Corp. plant in Troy, Missouri, laughed out loud back in 2003 when Toyota Executive Vice President Kosuke Shiramizu traveled from Japan and gave them a new assignment: Cut in half the cost of building V-6 engines for the company’s Camry sedan by 2005.

“We were thinking they were either crazy or didn’t really mean it,” says Robert Lloyd, 51, who, as president of Toyota’s Bodine Aluminum Inc. unit, would be expected to deliver on Shiramizu’s goal.

Shiramizu, however, had a secret weapon. Back in Japan, 300 engineers were working on a new technology for pouring molten aluminum into molds to create parts for engines. The new equipment, part of a larger Toyota cost-cutting program called Simple Slim, allows Toyota to use smaller and cheaper molds.

The new engine technology is now in use not only at Bodine, which Toyota bought in 1990, but also at foundries in Japan and China. Partly as a result, the cost of building an engine for the redesigned Camry that was scheduled to go on sale in March will be about $1,000, half the cost of an engine for the previous generation of Camrys, says Gary Convis, executive vice president for North American manufacturing.

“It’s amazing how Toyota can cut costs even further,” says Atsushi Osa, whose $4.1 billion fund at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Co. in Tokyo includes automotive shares. “This definitely gives them a competitive edge over their rivals.”

Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn planning to cut costs further

Nissan Motor Co, Japan’s second-largest carmaker, plans to cut production costs by 12 percent as surging commodity prices threaten to curb earnings.

The company will start making different models on the same production line in Taiwan, Thailand, South Africa and Indonesia, said executive vice president Tadao Takahashi in an interview on Friday. The carmaker also plans to use 80 percent of global factory capacity by the year ending March 2008, from 75 percent last fiscal year, to achieve the cost cuts over three years.

“It’s extremely important to continue cutting costs,” Takahashi said.

The Tokyo-based maker of Altima sedans already has 18 so-called flexible production lines in Japan, the US, Mexico, Europe and China.

Nissan chief executive officer Carlos Ghosn, poised to report a sixth year of record profit for the year ended March 31, needs to hone efficiency to compensate for higher prices for raw materials. He has cut ¥1 trillion (US$8.5 billion) in costs since taking the helm at the company in June 2000. The new technology has allowed Nissan to retool its assembly lines to make a new model in one and half months, compared with more than three months in 1999.

“Every company that’s successful has to come up with ideas to reduce costs,” said Koji Endo, Credit Suisse’s Tokyo-based analyst who said Nissan shares will “outperform” the market.

“Nissan will probably achieve the cost cut target,” the analyst said.

Nissan also plans to increase the number of suppliers that make parts at its production sites, measure factories more rigorously against each other and offer more models.

Nissan plans to sell 28 new or redesigned vehicle models in the three fiscal years ending March 2008. Nissan, 44.3 percent owned by Renault SA, expects to sell 4.2 million vehicles globally in the year ending March 2009. That’s up 16 percent from an estimate of 3.62 million units, which the company plans to sell this business year.

The automaker, boosting capital investment by 13 percent to a record ¥540 billion this fiscal year, also expects return on investment capital to exceed 20 percent, Takahashi said.

Nissan shares fell 0.4 percent to ¥1,374 in Tokyo at the close of trading.

“It’s important to keep the factory running steadily and to do so, we need to be able to offer models suited to customers’ preferences and local needs,” said Takahashi.

Nissan’s factories in Japan have a utilization rate of about 85 percent, which is among the highest, Takahashi said.

Prices of cold-rolled steel sheets in Tokyo rose 13 percent to Â¥87,000 as of the end of fiscal first half in September, according to data from Japan Metal Daily’s Web site.

Nippon Steel Corp said it charged an average of ¥75,600 per ton for steel in the third-quarter.
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Interview: Harrison Ford

At 63 years old, veteran actor Harrison Ford doesn’t look a day over 50. This tall, confident and matter-of-fact Hollywood legend is in Sydney to promote his new thriller “Firewall”, bringing fiance Calista Flockhart and her young son along for the ride. Mark Beirne sat down with Indiana Jones himself and discovered the serene family man behind the action hero.

Q: You’re renowned for playing heroic roles. Are you a heroic guy off-screen?

A: Yes absolutely. I was able to find time from saving lives this morning to chat with you here, but I’m on call and if anyone needs a hero… No, to be honest with you I don’t understand this at all. I don’t play heroes, I play lawyers or doctors or detectives and if the dramatic circumstances which are the framework of the film call for the character to do something physical, that’s probably where the notion of me picking films in which to play heroes comes from. But I have never picked a film to be part of because I felt the character was a hero.

Q: This is quite a physical role. What sort of training do you do to keep in shape and perform the stunts?

A: I don’t do stunts, I do physical acting. Stuntmen do stunts. You know it’s a stuntman because you’re looking at the back of his head. If it’s me you look at my face. That’s why I do physical acting and arrange these scenes so that I can do them safely and we can capture not just the kinetics but the emotional context.

Q: What was it about the character of Jack that made you go, “I just have to do this film”?

A: It doesn’t work that way, it’s not a question of “I just have to do this role”. There was a script which I thought needed some work so we explored the potential ideas to shape the rewrite, look for a director… it’s process. When I read the first script I said to myself, “This looks like it would be a good armature for audience entertainment”. There’s a lot of things going on here; there’s something in the news (computer security, identity theft), there’s emotional element of a man trying to protect his family, there’s the opportunity for a very good bad guy role. If we can get the right people in this movie, the right director, this could work. So it’s a different order of mindset than “I just have to do this film”.

Q: Most actors would give an arm and a leg to work with you. What actors do you want to work with or have worked with that have inspired you?

A: I haven’t worked with any one-armed or one-legged actors! I don’t have a list of people that I’m dying to work with. It just doesn’t occur to me to think that way. There’s a lot of people out there right now who are a really good batch of young actors coming up, and directors as well.

Q: Do you have a favourite character that you’ve played?

A: No. When hard-pressed I will sometimes give an answer that I don’t really believe. I mean I love “Mosquito Coast” but I’m persistent in saying that I really don’t have favourites. Each of the films are different, made in different places in different points of my life. I’ve been very lucky and very happy to have had the opportunities and experiences that I’ve had.

Q: Outside of film, what are you passionate about?

A: I’m passionate about flying and conservation issues. I work with an organisation named Conservation International; we work in 40 countries. I have a large science program and our strategies are based on science and economic understanding. We’re a very practical organisation and I’m delighted with the success it has had. I’ve been on the board for 15 years.

Q: According to Harrison Ford, what are the three most important things in life?

A: Family. Well-spent time. Achieving a degree of freedom and independence in whatever you do.

“Firewall” is released nationally on March 2.

Bajaj Allianz a leader in private life insurance

Bajaj Allianz has affirmed its number one position among the private life insurers with 32 per cent market share and 467 per cent growth as per the latest IRDA results for the month of December, said Sam Gosh, country manager.

Giving details at a press conference here on Monday, Gosh, who is also chief executive officer Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company, said the company is holding number one position for the last six months and has become the leading private insurance company in India.

He said that the company has done business worth Rs 351.23 crore till December last, the highest amongst the private life insurance companies.

He further added that the company has been growing at a very high acceleration in the market.
He said the company has scheduled expansion plan in the state by increasing its present eight locations to many more locations and has also decided to increase its consultant numbers to 5000.

Jatinder Kaushik, AVP sales said that the Bajaj Allianz also has served the people by providing employment opportunities and recruited about 2000 people as qualified consultants. He further added that the company has developed insurance solutions that cater to every segment and age-income profiles and said that for companies it has provided comprehensive ‘Employee Benefit Solutions’ as Group Term Life, EDLI and Gratuity and for the individual invest gain as unique life insurance plan, cash gain, child gain and risk care.
He said the Allianz has launched a complete set of need-based products to cater to each varied needs of the customer and added that currently the company has a product portfolio of 26 and more need-based products are in the pipeline.

Exclusive: 2007 Chrysler Sebring Revealed

Chrysler is preparing a full redesign of its midsize Sebring sedan for model-year 2007, with all-new sheet metal and a completely revamped cabin.

Antoine Guilbaud/Hidden Image has struck again! The spy photographers have caught the new Chrysler Sebring sedan as it tooled out and about in metro Detroit for testing.

The next-generation Sebring, which goes into production this fall, will be built on a new platform and reportedly will share some underbody components with several Mitsubishi vehicles, including the new Outlander and Lancer.

The sedan, set up with the I-4 world engine offered in the Dodge Caliber and Jeep Compass, will come with an optional V6 engine.

The base Sebring this fall is expected to share the new global four-cylinder engines from the upcoming Jeep Compass and Dodge Caliber, with an optional V6 also available.

Chrysler is dropping the Sebring coupe but will introduce a redesigned Sebring convertible in spring 2007, using many of the same chassis and driveline components from the new Sebring sedan.

The vehicle will go on sale later this year as a 2007 model.

Never competitive with Honda and Toyota, Chrysler hopes the next-generation Sebring sedan will finally give it more muscle in the midsize segment.

Check out the link for full view of the front end, as well as a photo of the interior.