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Weekly Recap: Lamborghini fires on all cylinders

Lamborghini added 192 technicians and specialists in 2014 as the Italian automaker expands under the ambitious growth strategy of parent company Volkswagen AG. The additional workers helped Lamborghini increase its sales 19 percent last year to 2,530 supercars, and further expansion is planned for this year. Lambo has added more than 500 people in the last four years, bringing its headcount to 1,175. "Lamborghini is undergoing a strong phase of growth in both sales and in terms of recruitment," CEO Stephan Winkelmann said in a statement. "We invest significantly in our people ... in 2015 we plan to hire further." The supercar maker's solid performance last year came during a time of transition. Lambo sold off the final 265 Gallardos, which were the brand's best-selling models ever. Its 10-cylinder successor, the Huracan, immediately filled the void. It garnered 3,300 orders, and 1,137 of them were delivered in 2014. The other Lamborghini, the 12-cylinder Aventador, saw its sales increase 13 percent to 1,128 copies. The sales leap comes as Volkswagen drives sales expansion across its portfolio of brands. The German carmaker sold 10 million vehicles around the world for the first time last year. Though Lambo will never make supercars in great numbers, it is expected to contribute to VW's bottom line through its image and profitable sales. Look for further growth this year, and a Super Veloce version (shown above) of the Aventador has already been spotted during testing. Lamborghini has been working on a sport utility vehicle for years, though the company has never publicly approved the project. It also showed a hybrid, the Asterion, at last year's Paris Motor show, suggesting the automaker is considering an electric future. Other News and Notes GMC ponders Jeep Wrangler fighter GMC is considering adding a competitor to the Jeep Wrangler and has discussed the idea with its dealers, according to the Wall Street Journal. Details of the vehicle are unclear, but the report suggested the vehicle could have cues from General Motors' old Hummer brand. The move would broaden GMC's lineup of trucks and SUVs and attract new customers. GMC sold 501,853 vehicles in 2014, making it GM's second-best selling brand. GMC had more volume than Cadillac and Buick combined, though it's still well behind Chevrolet's tally of more than two million vehicles. The notion of a "Wrangler fighter" could be a moving target.

Chevrolet considering midsize crossover to slot between Traverse and Equinox

Crossovers are the new hotness, and automakers are looking to cash in by offering a size and shape for every customer. With Chevrolet's debut of the new 2018 Traverse in Detroit, which grew ever so slightly compared to the first-generation model, there is now a midsize-crossover-sized hole between the three-row Traverse and the compact Equinox. When asked about that obvious space, a Chevrolet spokesperson told us the company is looking into the possibility of expanding its crossover lineup. It should be a relatively simple thing to do, since all it would take is reskinning and rechristening the GMC Acadia with a bow tie, and we all know how much GM loves platform sharing. Although they're now different sizes, the new Acadia and Traverse still use the same platform; the Acadia is now on a short-wheelbase version of the C1XX while the Traverse uses long-wheelbase C1XX parts. A short-wheelbase Chevy built on the C1XX likely would be differentiated visually from both the Acadia and the larger Traverse. It may seem like flooding the lineup with more and more models would cannibalize sales of existing ones, but Chevrolet said it would rather have customers stay within the brand rather than going to another automaker. There have been whispers that some form of the Blazer name (possibly TrailBlazer) may make a return on a midsizer, but if it does don't expect an old-school body-on-frame SUV like the old one. In the end, if Chevy builds it, customers will come. Related Video:

2024 GMC Canyon AT4X AEV Edition First Drive Review: The business-class Bison

McALLISTER, Mont. – Not far from MontanaÂ’s Ramshorn Peak is a beautiful body of water known as South Meadow Creek Lake. It sits just a hair below 9,000 feet and offers beautiful views of the surrounding highlands and — if youÂ’re lucky and the lighting is just right — a clear line of sight to Big Sky Country. To hear the locals tell it, you canÂ’t get there in a pickup truck. Apparently, to a GMC engineer, that comes across as an open challenge. And so I found myself in the two-horse town of McAlllister (not far from Bozeman), chilly in the fog of an early October morning, inspecting a line of GMCÂ’s midsize trucks in their hardest of hardcore variations. One half of the fleet was made up of the standard 2023 Canyon AT4X finished in a beautiful scarlet red; the other half, 2024 Canyon AT4 AEV Editions in a menacing gray that matched the dreary morning sky. Yep, that AEV. The Canyon AT4X is an already-capable little trail monster with all the off-road bells and whistles you could possibly ask for. ItÂ’s a virtual mechanical twin to the new Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, in fact, down to the 2.7-liter four-cylinder that produces 310 horsepower and a whopping 430 lb-ft of torque. Naturally, American Expedition Vehicles managed to turn that dial up to 11. More on that later. Canyon AT4X 3 View 32 Photos To the locals' point above, off-road trucks have existed for quite some time (just ask Marty McFly), but it has only been since their rise in popularity as mainstream commuters that the dedicated four-wheelinÂ’ pickup has really come into its own. The “you canÂ’t get there from here” Maine attitude at Bozeman latitudes betrays somewhat old-school notions about four-wheeling — and the fact that just about everybody in town owns some sort of ATV or side-by-side. The formula used to be pretty simple: You take the shortest SUV frame youÂ’ve got, add big stick axles to the front and rear, and then jack the thing up as high as you can without it falling over at the first sign of an incline. TodayÂ’s torque-monster engines have turned that on its ear. More torque means you can turn bigger tires, and what do bigger tires do? Well, among other things, they lift your truck off the ground. Shove enough tire under a truck and no matter where youÂ’re talking about, you can indeed get there from here. At its core, AT4X isnÂ’t groundbreaking.