A very nice promo vid for the latest Lamborghini creature…

PARIS, Sept. 28 (UPI) — Hybrid automobiles for a world rocked by wallet-emptying gas prices will be front and center at the 2008 Paris auto show, a mechanical employment publication reported Sunday.

Automotive News Europe reported that Renault’s Ondelios concept is powered through a 2.0-liter diesel engine and electric motors in continuance the make a front to and rear wheels.

The auto company has no plans to build the car, but instead intends to further make known its hybrid technology.

PSA/Peugeot-Citroen plans to introduce hybrid diesels on upper-medium cars and crossovers in 2011.

+ 2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid Review
+ 2009 Honda Hybrid FCX Concept Spyshots

Other hybrids expected to be at the show that runs Oct. 4-19 include Honda’s Insight gasoline-electric hybrid hatchback and BMW’s mild-hybrid version of the 7 series.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) will show commencing models in Paris, including its replacement for the Ka minicar, as profitable as the Focus RS, Ford’s fastest European-built model, and a fuel-efficient Fiesta.

For its part, Toyota will debut three new models in Paris: the Avensis, iQ and Urban Cruiser. The iQ mini-car will be the smallest four-seat car on the market, Toyota says.

In 2011, Bentley will bid adieu to its flagship sedan, the Bentley Arnage. For a proper send off, Bentley is expected to unveil the Bentley Arnage Final Edition at the 2008 Paris Auto Show in October.

Befitting a vehicle that is intended to pay homage to a 50 year legacy, many of the Final Edition’s specifications will remain true to typical Bentley portion.

To denote the limited production, “Final Series” badging will kindness the front wings and walk plates, and interior accessories will include an Arnage “Final Series” hardness plated flask and matching young hog. glasses.

Most of the vehicle’s aspects will remain traditional Bentley, however, and the Bentley Arnage Final Edition will merge the intent elements of the Arnage R, Arnage T, and the Bentley Brooklands coupe.

In keeping with that theme, exterior science of the beautiful leave be legendary Bentley, including the “Flying B” logo gracing the front cook on a grill, Bentley jewel filler cap, twin exhaust pipes, and body-colored headlamp bezels.

+ Mercedes’ Next-Generation SLK Roadster Preview
+ Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Speedster Rendering

In addition, the Bentley Arnage Final Edition will also feature Bentley’s famed 500-hp twin-turbo V8, replete with 738 lb-ft of torque.

Pricing is expected to fall in the neighborhood of $220,000, and will have existence available in the traditional Bentley range of 42 different exterior colors, 25 interior coverings, and 3 veneers.

We already took a look at MOPAR’s at the outset concept owed to be displayed at the Paris Motor Show next week, and it turns out that it has a doubled. This one is based on the unloved Compass mini ‘ute and reuses the Overland moniker that’s been popular with the Jeep brand, once owned by Willys-Overland. It’s painted in a classically-Jeep dark color mixed of blue and yellow color that covers almost the entire exterior, minus some silver accent panels on the sides (why?) and a mesh grille that’s actually kind of cool. On the inside, it’s been tarted-up by new ground-sill plates and seats with stitched-in Overland logos.

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The 2010 Audi A8 is understated and elegant…but its design is a little long in the tooth. It stays as is for model year 2009, but a significant revision is due for 2010, and we should expect to see that car unveiled sometime during the upcoming show season. Thanks the Gulf4Cars forum, we might have our first look at what to expect. Our Arabic’s a in a small degree unmusical, so we don’t understand where these scans (at in the smallest degree they appear to be scans) came from, but they look fairly solid, so let’s comment on what we can see.

Assuming they’re accurate (more distant from guaranteed), the photos (or ‘chops) show an evolutionary exterior design — no amazement, as the A8’s a good-looking car. Up confront, the gigunda shield grille is bookended by new-look headlamps that come the lead of the 2009 Audi A4. Down low, the side intake/fog lamp housings are reshaped as well. Out in the rear, the taillamps ape the ones found on the A4, Audi A5, and revised A6 — a move that ensures the family likeness is maintained straight through the lineup.

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Hyundai is headed to the Paris Motor Show with a bevy of environmentally friendly models and concepts. In addition to bringing along production-intent vehicles like the commencing i20, Genesis Coupe and Genesis sedan, the automaker will showcase two new concepts that will also carry its blue theme. Remember, blue is the new green. Anyway, the i20 blue features aero tweaks and low rolling-resistance tires in sub-class to improve its efficiency, except it’s the Santa Fe hybrid that’s a bit greater quantity interesting. That new model features an relating to electricity motor that puts out 30kW of power along by a 2.4-liter four cylinder instrument. Both powerplants feed their power through a six-speed automatic transmittal with revised gear ratios optimized for fuel savings. A 270V lithium-polymer battery pack sends the juice to the electric motor, and it all adds up to 38 mpg in the U.S. and carbon emissions of 148 g/km. We’ll be in Paris to see these things up close and private, so prop tuned.

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2008 Chevy Orlando Concept

Sitting on the same Delta II platform that be pleased underpin the Chevrolet Cruze, the Orlando rides higher and taller. General Motors before-mentioned it “explores the potential of combining the versatility attributes of a sport avail, a family van and a wagon in a single execution.” We think it looks quite a bit like a 2008 Dodge Caliber, particularly in its C-pillars and its exaggerated fender flares.

But compared to the Caliber, as well as the current Chevrolet HHR, the Orlando brings other crossover credentials. It has three rows of stadium seating, fitting up to seven people or folding down to make room for cargo.

The show car is powered by Chevrolet’s unaccustomed 2.0-liter turbo-diesel, which makes 150 hp and 236 lb-ft of torque.

Specs at a Glance:

Here is The Volt production car’s first apparition considering it’s Detroit unveiling.

The 2010 Chevy Volt was just unveiled ten days ago at GM’s 100th Anniversary celebrations in Detroit, but it’s already beginning to tour the country.

Its first stop after Detroit was GM’s 2009 Collection event at the Texas Motor Speedway in Dallas, Texas, to that MotorAuthority was invited. While there, we were able to approach, photograph, and even sit in - but not perceive by the sense of feeling - the all-new plug-in electric vehicle.

And a plug-in it is. If you look closely at the rear-end shot of the car in the gallery below, you’ll see an electrical cord going into the undercarriage.

The car later left the display area under its concede dominion - but more on that later. The interior is always rough-finished, as befits a car two years out from actual production. The air vents, for example, are not really air vents - they are molded into the dash as firm corporeal that resembles air vents.

The center console has a very finished complexion to it, but the computer screens were all on a demo loop, and we were asked not to touch anything in the cabin.

The seating in the car consists of four bucket seats, all of which are comfortable, and which provide a surprising amount of legroom for rear-seat passengers.

Tall folks won’t likely have at completely problems sitting anywhere in the car, or at least no more problems that they’d face in a largish mid-size sedan.

A large arched barrier runs down the center of the car, housing the electronics and battery compress, and dividing the interior into what feels like two distinct regions, especially in the back seat.

But the overall appearance, materials and design of the interior is very much that of a present production car, despite the rough edges owing to its pre-production nature.

+ GM Chevrolet Volt Production to Show This Month
+ 2008 Paris Motor Show: 2010 Chevrolet Volt

The Volt display car in like manner features a working interpretation of the final powertrain, still under development at GM. Once the day of experiment drives and ride-alongs in the ZR-1 was over, the crew began packing things up to head to the next destination, and the Volt was among the first to master on the frontier to the trailer. When the time came, it was merely unplugged, started up and driven off.

Upon startup, there was a brief sound from the car as it ramped up all systems, then it silently cruised away of the garages and around the paddock area to the waiting transporters.

Though it was only driven at parking-lot speeds, it was clearly capable of the feat by no difficulty, and seeing the car moving under its own power certainly brought it to the breath of life as something that’s going to be in driveways and on the streets in short order.

Trucks still difficulty.

Despite a long, hot summer of uncertainty – when sales fell 30 percent because of $4-a-gallon gas – pickups will again take center stage at the State Fair of Texas today.

Dodge bequeath prominently display its 2009 Ram pickup, including a Lone Star edition of the all-new truck, when the fair opens this morning. Ford, meanwhile, testament spectacle its 2009 F-150 pickups, as well because a new model of the big Super Duty called the Cabela Edition.

Both companies are well-nigh more optimistic now about the critical pickup segment – the domestics’ largest source of profit – than they were just 90 days ago.

“For the time actuality, we have hit bottom,” said Mark Fields, president of Ford Motor Co.’s Americas division. “We’ll see more variations in sales from fuel costs. But I don’t think we’ll see the big swings that we saw this rise.”

“Pickup small commodities sales in August were the highest [nationally] that they’ve been all year, and ours were double what they were in June,” aforesaid Jim Yetter, senior supervisor for Dodge launches. “It kind of proved to us that the segment is here to stay.”

+ 2009 Toyota Tacoma Pickup Truck Pricing
+ 2009 Dodge Ram to Charge Pickup Truck Market
+ 2007 Ford F-150 Coverage: Pictures & Videos

In August, humiliate gas prices and heavy truck incentives allowed the pickup segment to regain some traction. At their peak four years ago, 2.5 million pickups were sold in the U.S. – a number that has plummeted 40 percent to a projected 1.5 the public this year.

The dive alarmed Detroit, prompting many in the auto toil to wonder if the segment was in a free fall with no bottom in sight. Worries multiplied this week with the collapse of some Wall Street financial institutions and a likely prolonged credit crunch.

But after more extensive consumer research this summer, Dodge and Ford officials say they are confident that most truck owners are sticking with their pickups.

“Back in March, April, May, a lot of us weren’t sure that uniform through incentives that the customers were in that place,” said Doug Scott, truck marketing manager conducive to the Ford Division. “It is clear to us a little while ago that the full age of full-size small commodities owners are still truck buyers.”

That is an important finding for both of the struggling manufacturers. The Dodge Ram and the Ford F-series trucks are the automakers’ top-selling vehicles – and by a large margin. And while the truck segment has shrunk, both silent depend heavily on revenue from the trucks, analysts say.

The new ‘09 Ram goes on sale this week at dealerships, and the restyled ‘09 F-150 arrives early next year.

“We don’t believe that there has been a fundamental shift in consumer preference,” said Tom Libby, senior director of effort; labors analysis during J.D. Power and Associates. “In ‘73-74 and ‘78-79, when similar firing spikes depressed pickup sales, the segment came back.”

Prior to this year, most in the industry thought that pickups attracted two force groups of buyers: those such as contractors and construction workers who needed them for their jobs, and more casual owners who used them as commuter vehicles or for weekend chores or operate.

In research, though, Chrysler erect that there may be as many as five distinct groups of truck buyers

“Just understanding this gives you a pleasing good see of what is going on in the segment,” said Dodge’s Mr. Yetter. “It is a division more complex than we had thought.”

Ford’s Mr. Scott agreed. In a study of its own in July, Ford surveyed 2,000 full-size pickup owners and followed those up with focus-group interviews in Texas and Georgia.

“One of the big discoveries from this research is remote in March, April and May, we declared those casual buyers are gone,” he said. “What the research told us is some will be back and others never gave up their trucks – they honest bought small cars to commute in and used their trucks on weekends.”

J.D. Power and Associates expects pickups to rest the third-largest segment in the auto industry for at least the next independent years, with sales hovering at their current level through 2013 – somewhere between 1.4 million and 1.6 million trucks a year, Mr. Libby declared.

“This portion should always consider decent sales because there is no real alternative to full-size pickups because of people who need them,” he declared.

The seeming shift to ungenerous cars earlier this summer was “really to a very narrow range of small cars that got over 30 miles per gallon, and they were hot for three months,” said Paul Taylor, chief economist of the National Automobile Dealers Association.

“If we get back to where people think gas prices will stay at $3 to $4, we’ll see more of a shift back to larger vehicles,” Mr. Taylor said.

At Hayden Elder’s Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep dealership in Athens, the buyers are before that time back. With help from some generous factory incentives, he says he had his best sales month in 25 years in August – and 80 percent of his sales are trucks.

“Let’s go back to the recent ’70s with the oil embargo,” said Mr. Elder, co-chairman of the national Chrysler Dealers Council.

“I was working at a Chevy store and guys in big Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles and Buicks would drive in and drive out in Chevettes. One year later, used-car lots all over town were full of Chevettes.

“History repeats itself,” he said.