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Camaro chief: 'rock-star' 4-cylinder set for Mustang fight

It was inevitable, the 2016 Chevy Camaro had to have a four-cylinder engine. The archrival Ford Mustang packs a spunky 2.3-liter EcoBoost four-banger, and everyone from BMW to Subaru uses four-cylinders to great effect to power their sports cars. Now it's Chevy's turn. Again. The Camaro ran the infamous Iron Duke four-cylinder with 88 to 92 horsepower in the 1980s. It was a fuel-economy play at a time when performance was not a priority. After the 1970s muscle-car era, output even for the V8s didn't top 200 hp again until the mid-'80s. Thankfully for enthusiasts, things have changed dramatically in the last 30 years. The gen six Camaro will offer a 2.0-liter inline four-cylinder with 275 horsepower. It's the standard engine, slotting below the 335-hp V6 and the 455-hp V8. But don't mistake the new I4 for an Iron Duke encore. Camaro chief engineer Al Oppenheiser called it a "rock star" and said cars equipped with it feel lighter than V6 models. The four-cylinder (295 pound-feet at 3,000-4,500 rpm) also summons more torque in quicker fashion than the V6 (284 lb-ft at 5,300 rpm). Chevy expects the Camaro to hit 60 miles per hour in "well under six seconds," according to press materials. The Mustang EcoBoost (310 hp, 320 lb-ft) clocks times in the low to mid five-second range. "We're not doing it just so we have one," Oppenheiser said. "We're not doing it because like in gen three you're forced to do it because of fuel economy. We're doing it because it belongs in the car. It has a distinct character." Speaking with Autoblog recently at the Detroit Grand Prix racecourse on Belle Isle, Oppenheiser said he expects the I4 to attract a younger crowd to the Camaro and will put up stiff competition against the V6 for sales. "I've read blogs where younger folks won't buy a Camaro because it doesn't have a 2.0-liter turbo or a turbocharged four-cylinder," he said. "So we're going to excite them." While we talked a lot about four-cylinder engines, Oppenheiser also elaborated on the V6 (It's pretty damn good, too. We drove it.) and the new Alpha platform that the Camaro borrowed from Cadillac. Here's the rest of our edited conversation. Autoblog: Talk a little bit about the four-cylinder – the first turbo four-cylinder ever for Camaro. Do you have any idea what the take rate's going to be? Al Oppenheiser: I think it's going to surprise a lot of people. It's actually a fun car to drive. It's got a really good balance of turbo noise and exhaust note.

Truckmakers squabbling over who can sell Jimmy Fallon a pickup

Snagging a celebrity endorsement is a big deal for automakers, as evidenced by the recent efforts of the Detroit Three to try and woo The Tonight Show's newest host, Jimmy Fallon, into one of their trucks.
After announcing during Wednesday night's show that he was in the market for a pickup truck, Fallon set off a firestorm of efforts on Twitter, with both Ford and Chevrolet petitioning the funnyman to test out a truck. According to Ad Age, Ford recommended the King Ranch edition of its next-generation F-150 while the show was still airing. Chevy, meanwhile, waited until the next morning to pitch a Silverado to Fallon.
The winner of this social media feeding frenzy, though, was Ram. Promoting a variation of its "Guts, Glory, Ram" tagline, the Auburn Hills-based manufacturer created the hashtag #GUTSGLORYFallon. It even went so far as to park a Ram 1500 outside 30 Rockefeller Center in New York, where The Tonight Show is filmed. On the back of the Ram sat a sign, reading "Big enough, Jimmy? Test it out," referencing a joke from the Wednesday show.

Ford Smart Mobility plan moves forward with P2P car sharing

Back when 2015 was still just days old, Ford Motor Company outlined its Smart Mobility plan at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It consisted of 25 global experiments meant to test out various ideas, with a stated goal of learning how to better address future transportation needs and direct the company's efforts. Six months later, Ford is ready to take what it's learned and move to the next phase. During the keynote address at the 5th annual Further with Ford future trends event – this year held, significantly, in Palo Alto, California – CEO Mark Fields announced Smart Mobility is moving from experimentation to implementation. Mostly. On the more concrete action side of things, Ford Credit Company is working with partners in the US and London, England on a pilot peer-to-peer car-sharing program. Stateside, this will see it team up with Getaround, inviting some 14,000 people in six cities to sign up for pre-screened, short-term car rentals. Across the pond, Ford will work with easyCar Club, targeting 12,000 folks in a similar service. Smart Mobility will also bring the GoDrive one-way car sharing program under its umbrella, upgrading it from what it calls an experiment to an actual pilot program. Fields also revealed a new electric bike design called the MoDe:Flex. The sporty model joins its two previously announced brethren, the MoDe:Me and MoDe:Pro. MoDe:Link, the app that provides a variety of info and allows for eyes-free navigation using hand grips that give haptic feedback to parlay direction changes has been extended to run on an Android smart watch. There, the app can process a rider's biofeedback signals to alter output. For instance, in "no sweat" mode, the bike will pick up more of the workload as your heart rate increases, keeping you from overexerting yourself. None of the bikes are being offered for sale, or for use as part of any sort of sharing program. At least, not for now. Instead, they remain in the realm of multimodal mobility experimentation. Check out the video above for a closer look at Ford's P2P car sharing plans or move down for a look at its latest ebike. You can find lots of detail about the shift in the Smart Mobility plan in the official press release, which is also below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.