Vw Camper Westfalia 1984 Rebuilt Engine Volkswagen Vanagon Van on 2040-cars

Auto blog

VW readying two-row CUV concept for Detroit

We're likely getting yet another glimpse of Volkswagen's future crossover at the upcoming 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, in January. According to Automotive News, two anonymous sources within the automaker indicate a CUV concept will be shown there. The concept is said to be a five-passenger preview of the brand's future seven-seat model. Previous versions of the crossover have carried the name CrossBlue (pictured above), but there was no indication whether or not that would continue. The original three-row concept debuted at the 2013 auto show in Detroit, and VW followed it up with the CrossBlue Coupe Concept in Shanghai later that year. In early 2014, the company announced the CUV would go into production sometime in 2016, along with plans to invest $7 billion in North America over the next five years. During the summer, the automaker made things even more official when it declared plans to invest $900 million to build a 538,000-square-foot expansion into its Chattanooga, TN, factory to assemble the new model. Production of the crossover was slated to begin by the end of 2016, at the time. According to Automotive News, even more changes in VW's CUV lineup are on the way. The Tiguan is reportedly getting an update next year that could be joined by coupe and long-wheelbase variants, as well.

Top Gear names BMW i8 Car of the Year, Corvette, Ferrari, Mercedes also win big

The lads at Top Gear have released their listing of the finest cars of the past year, handing the ultimate honor to BMW's revolutionary i8 plug-in-hybrid supercar. "The i8 is a milestone in the annals of automotive history and a glorious statement for an exciting and positive future. The i8 delivers - and then some," the British mag wrote. The i8, though, was far from the only hybridized car to take victories. James May and Richard Hammond both highlighted hybrids as their personal cars of the year, with May saluting the Ferrari LaFerrari and the Hamster, unsurprisingly, heaping praise on the Porsche 918 Spyder. Jeremy Clarkson, meanwhile, opted to shock many by selecting not only an American car as his best of 2014, but giving the honor to of all things, a Corvette. Clarkson wasn't the only person to honor the USA's iconic sports car, with the new, 650-horsepower Z06 variant being named TG's Muscle Car of the Year. Other big winners include Mercedes-Benz, which TG honored for S-Class Coupe (Luxury Car of the Year), the new AMG GT (Sports Car of the Year) and the not-for-US C-Class Estate (Family Car of the Year). The 458 Italia Speciale A snagged a second win for Ferrari. The best of the rest include the Citroen C4 Cactus, Renault Twingo, Volkswagen Golf R, Lamborghini Huracan and Audi TT. Take a look below for the celebratory press blast from BMW. The BMW i8 wins Top Gear Car of the Year The BMW i8 has been named as Top Gear magazine's global Car of the Year 2014. The plug-in hybrid performance vehicle beat off some stiff competition from a host of other premium and luxury manufacturers to win the overall award. The editorial team of Top Gear commended the BMW i8 for its breadth of abilities. Its 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine combined with an electric motor gives searing acceleration and driver enjoyment but all wrapped in a package that takes BMW's EfficientDynamics philosophy to the extreme courtesy of CO2 emissions less than 49g/km and a 135mpg combined cycle figure. Charlie Turner, Editor in Chief at Top Gear magazine, said: "The BMW is a milestone in the annals of automotive history and a glorious statement for an exciting and positive future. The i8 delivers – and then some. It's the kind of car we should celebrate, a beautiful vision of the future, delivered now.

VW delays new Phaeton flagship sedan

The Bugatti Veyron was a crusade begun by former Volkswagen Group CEO Ferdinand Piech. Even though the old patriarch is no longer with the company and the astonishing coupe is rumored to have never made a cash profit, everyone understands why the car remained in the family and why a successor is on the way. The same can't be said for the VW Phaeton, another one of Piech's pursuits. Thirteen years after the budget brand introduced the now 89,650-euro ($101,000) luxury sedan that competes with other in-house products, no one knows why it lives. Since VW made roughly 4,000 of them last year, the news that it's being delayed won't affect many people. The next-generation Phaeton developed on the MLB platform is apparently ready to go right now, but Bloomberg reports that the bosses have demanded lower production and material costs before it gets a final green light. At the moment the Phaeton is put together by hand by white-gloved technicians, which might sound like a great place to start counting pennies, but again, those technicians only built 4,000 sedans last year. That's fewer than the Eos, which is being retired for slow sales, and VW sold 3,411 Eos models in the US alone last year. Recent hire Herbert Diess is the VW exec in charge of the cost-cutting push. The Phaeton is a grain of sand - but a very important one - on the beach he's meant to conquer: Diess plans to raise VW brand profit to more than six percent by 2018 at the same time there's a group-wide push to save $5.5 billion. That number would more than double the brand's current 2.7-percent profit for 2015 so far, that current number being about half the profit over at struggling French maker PSA Peugeot-Citroen. The new Phaeton's on-sale date had been reported as 2017 or 2018 earlier this year. It isn't clear how long the sedan will be pushed back because of the production changes.