Wednesday, May 31, 2006

The Best Fleet of Future Cars....

2007 Saturn Sky For Saturn, the Sky's the limit
Mississauga News - Ontario, Canada
... The 2007 Sky is the car that had to be built to grab that attention. The Sky is just about as close to driving a concept car as you can get. ...

BMW, TOTAL Pair for Hydrogen Vehicle ResearchCarpages.ca -
Canada
... seems to be lagging behind, with no news nor rumours of a hydrogen test fleet or potential hydrogen cars since showing it's A2H2 Fuel Cell Concept car at the ...

Chevrolet's Redesigned Camaro Can't Hit the Streets Soon Enough
The Ledger - Lakeland,FL,USA
By MARK PHELAN.
That's all I can say after 40 minutes driving the ravishing Chevrolet Camaro concept car around General Motors proving grounds in Milford, Mich. ...

Peek into future at Kuala Lumpur
Jakarta Post - Jakarta,Indonesia
... The Toyota Motor Triathlon Race Car (MTRC), for example, is an open-wheeled, two-seater concept car that uses fuel cell technology. ...

Daimlerchrysler to Present Pioneering Drive Concepts at The
...Auto Racing Daily - USA
... The smart fortwo cdi hybrid concept car combines a diesel drive system with an electric motor, and it demonstrates that hybrid systems can not only reduce fuel ...

Nissan launches cars jointly designed with Conran company
MarketWatch - USA
... The first joint work by the two firms was a concept car displayed at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2003 followed by jointly designed compact models in 2004. ...

New sport concept car from Tan Chong
Malaysia Star - Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR: Edaran Tan Chong Motor Sdn Bhd, the sole distributor of Nissan vehicles in Malaysia, expects to introduce its sport concept car in Malaysia next ...

Fulda Maybach Exelero
BusinessWeek - USA
... the modern interpretation of the streamlined car of 1938, a number of creative minds were assembled in the project team for the new Fulda Maybach Concept Car. ...

Showcase: KLIMS conquers!
Malay Mail - Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia
... 2006-winning vehicle Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution and the Colt Ralliart Turbo prototype; Lotus Exige S and APX crossover, and Volvo 3CC concept car are just ...

Ogle: It's the future, silly!
New Straits Times - Persekutuan,Malaysia
... Since Honda is busy working on a self-drive system for its cars, perhaps this future car will simply drive itself. But where does ASIMO fit into all this? ..

Chevy's new Camaro
Independent - London,England,UK
... chief Bob Lutz, never very good at staying "on message", has declared the intention to put the Camaro into production, and I'm driving the concept car right now ...

20 years of convertibles
Montreal Gazette (subscription) - Montreal,Quebec,Canada
... It also received the Best in Show award for its Aero X concept car during its world premiere at the Geneva Motor Show in March. ...

Volvo Cars YCC Concept Car Has Received The 2006 Swedish Design ...
Auto Racing Daily - USA...
YCC (Your Concept Car) is Volvo Car Corporation‘s attention-grabbing concept car, devised, planned and created entirely by a team of women. ...

Madrid Auto Show: Citroen C-Buggy live shots!
Autoblog - Santa Monica,CA,USA
Alberto, our compatriot over at Autoblog Spanish, snapped a bunch of shots of the Citroen C-Buggy concept car, an off-road interpretation of the Citroen C ...

Full throttle for Mille Miglia
Engineer Online - London,UK
BMW has unveiled a concept car that combines modern technology and historical styling prior to this year's Mille Miglia race in Brescia , Italy . ...

How Women At Mazda Shape The Future
carpages - UK
... They have already helped to create the Sassou concept car and other new models for the Japanese manufacturer, which sells 300,000 cars a year in Europe. ...

Aston Martin to put Rapide concept into production
Mobilemag.com - USA
It's been a rumor for a few months now, but Aston Martin has confirmed that their Rapide concept car will be put into production. ...

Monday, May 29, 2006

The History Of The Porsche

by Andrew Manifield

Ferdinand Porsche played an important role in the development of airplanes and racing cars, and the construction of tanks for the Wehrmacht. He is an automobile engineer with more than a thousand patents to his name. He was appointed chief engineer at Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart in the 1920s. Later on, he set up his own engineering workshop and designed among others the Volkswagen. At the plant where Volkswagen was made, Wolfsburg, he was chief of operations and at the end of the war he was interned by the Allies.
He was released a few years later and started building his first car with his son, Ferry Porsche. The car was named the Porsche 356 and it was a sports car and a reminiscent of the Volkswagen. It had the same four-cylinder boxer engine that was rear-mounted, just like the VW. It was far from being a powerful sports car, developing only 40 bhp and a maximum speed of 87 mph (140 km/h). First produced as a convertible and later as a hard top it distinguished by the very elegant and innovative body. It was developed in the workshop of Erwin Komenda, a master of restrained streamlining who had been in charge of sheet metal and design techniques at Porsche since the VW Beetle. The new style of closed coupe was designed by Komenda and it soon became the embodiment of the sports car, thanks to its fastback.
This tradition was continued by Komenda and Ferdinand "Butzi" Porsche, the founder's grandson, with the 911.
The 911 became easily recognizable: it had attractive sloping bonnet and what later became characteristic "frog eye" headlights, curves running from the top edge of the windscreen to the rear bumper and a straight waistline. From a functional and technical point of view it was more like BMW 1500, although it retained the stylistic features of the original Porsche. The new 911 will become the foundation stone of Porsche's identity, even though the design was not always appreciated. During the 1970`s and 1980`s, the designers attempts to distance Porsche from its legendary design brought the company to the edge of disaster. The more modern 924 model, "a people's Porsche", developed with Volkswagen, as well as the 928 were far from fulfilling the expectations.

In the 1990`s, the company realized that what for over twenty years was perceived as a straitjacket, it was in fact a market advantage. During the 1990`s, Porsche became highly profitable since they now knew that the typical Porsche features were timeless. Nearly forty people now worked in the design department on further developments of the long-running 911. These developments included the 911 GTI, a powerful combination of sports and racing car, put forward by the in-house designer Anthony R. Hatter. In 1999, chief designer proudly presented the new Boxster which enabled Porshe to establish a second independent range of models.

About the Author:
Having spent months of research on different subjects, for independant companies, Andrew Manifield has decided to publish his articles on many subjects at his own website, visit to learn more. http://www.qualified-publishing.co.uk/porsche