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Bugatti Galibier to be "faster than anything on the market"

Before Wolfgang Dürheimer moves to Audi, he's still got a few jobs to finish as head of Bentley and Bugatti, one of them being to oversee the development of the 16C Galibier. It was back in 2009 that the two-tone concept had audiences agog, and rumors and leaks since then have had everyone wondering if the four-seat fastback will ever become reality. To hit 'rewind' on the rumormill, the Galibier was initially greenlit in early 2011 and tipped to go into production this year, a timeframe that was later revised to next year. The model was earmarked to have less than 1,000 horsepower and optional hybrid power, and at the same time, the design was meant to be finalized, but it was instead reportedly scrapped for not being outrageous enough. The Galibier then went back to the design bureau and the horsepower was subsequently announced as surpassing the four-digit mark.
Production is now planned for somewhere around 2015, and according to Dürheimer's chat with Car and Driver, the Galibier on the way will be original and blindingly fast. The executive would only commit to the "over 1,000 hp" line, but C/D believes the ouput will be around 1,400 non-hybridized ponies. Whatever the final number is, it is said to get the Galibier beyond 235 mph and, Durheimer said, be "faster than anything on the market" - and that includes wares from the aftermarket sector. Dürheimer also says the Galibier will have technologies that are automotive firsts.
What remains to be decided is the candy coating that will envelop all that sweetness, since "the final design still is in flux." We'd heard before that the hatchback's entire rear end is being redesigned, but it appears that if nothing else, the eight tailpipes will remain.

Volkswagen Group previews its wares on eve of Geneva show

The Volkswagen Group is comprised of 11 brands producing 240 vehicles across 49 factories throughout the world. So the best way to show off the range of the VW family is to cram a few thousand journalists and VIPs into a massive makeshift stand to outline the Group's goals, what's in the pipeline and what you'll be able to buy later this year.
To that end, VW pulled out all the stops on the eve of the 2012 Geneva Motor Show, bringing along 10 vehicles from across the range. We'll be delving into the details of each over the next two days of show coverage, but before that happens, you can read all about what we saw tonight from the cheap seats after the break.

Trump reportedly says he wants to wipe German cars off the U.S. map

BERLIN/FRANKFURT — A report that U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pursue German carmakers until there are no Mercedes-Benz rolling down New York's Fifth Avenue dented shares in the luxury car manufacturers on Thursday. An excerpt from German magazine Wirtschaftswoche's article, which cited several unnamed European and U.S. diplomats but did not include any direct quotes, could not be independently verified, while a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Berlin referred questions to Washington. The news and current affairs magazine said Trump had told French President Emmanuel Macron in April that he aimed to push German carmakers out of the United States altogether. Macron's administration in Paris declined to comment on the report. The Trump administration last week opened a so-called Section 232 trade investigation into vehicle imports, which could result in a 25 percent tariff on cars on the same "national security" grounds Washington used to impose metals duties in March. This could destroy exports by German carmakers, which control 90 percent of the U.S. premium market and are the biggest European Union exporters of cars to the United States. BMW owns Rolls-Royce, while Daimler has Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen controls Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche and Audi. Daimler, BMW and Audi declined comment. Porsche was not immediately available for comment. BMW shares were trading 0.5 percent lower at 0939 GMT, while Daimler and VW's shares were down 1 percent and 1.6 percent respectively, underperforming Germany's blue-chip DAX. Trump has railed against German carmakers before. And in early 2017, in an interview with German newspaper Bild, he said he would impose 35 percent tariffs on imported cars. At the time, the president called Germany a great car producer but said that the business relationship with the United States was an unfair one-way street. Germany's auto industry association VDA says its members exported 657,000 vehicles to North America last year, with total exports of vehicle components, cars, engines, as well as second-hand vehicles totaling 31.2 billion euros in 2016. Imports from the United States to Germany amounted to 7.4 billion euros, meaning a trade deficit of 23.8 billion euros the VDA's latest available figures show. However, German brands also have huge factories in the United States, where they built 804,000 cars last year, VDA said, providing jobs for U.S. workers. Berlin has reacted angrily to the U.S.