Lusso Has a Price: 2014 Maserati Ghibli MSRP Announced

Considering that California is responsible for approximately 35 percent of all U.S. Maserati sales (and we’re told that occasionally the Golden State accounts for as much as 40 percent of the brand’s American business), it’s only natural that the Ghibli make its North American debut at the Los Angeles auto show. Although its looks are undeniably authentic Maser-riche, the base price is a comparatively buttoned-down $65,600.

While that’s just the starting point for the two-wheel-drive Ghibli, it does include a few niceties like keyless entry, dual-zone climate control, leather upholstery, and six-way power adjustable front seats. Upgrading to the all-wheel-drive Ghibli S Q4 adds a power adjustable leather-wrapped steering wheel, eight-way adjustable power heated seats, and a sunroof. Details and pricing information for standalone options or packages such as Premium, Cold Weather, Technology, Sport, and Luxury aren’t yet available, but with truckloads of Ghiblis en route to dealers, we suspect this information will be revealed shortly.

As the smaller, shorter, lighter, and more dynamic little brother to Maserati’s Quattroporte flagship, the Ghibli represents the company’s cornerstone in its plans to build 50,000 cars annually by 2015.

2015 Lamborghini Deimos Spy Photos

What It Is: The successor to the Lamborghini Gallardo, which has been on sale for a decade now. While speculation is rife that the Gallardo’s heir will be named after the prison island Cabrera, we previously discovered a Lamborghini trademark application for “Deimos”—the god of terror and dread, if Greek mythology is to be believed—and the Italian marque very rarely trademarks a badge it doesn’t intend to use.

The prototype caught by our spy photographers wears heavy cladding, but it can’t hide its dramatic, wedge-shaped proportions. The car was penned by Lamborghini's own styling department under Filippo Perini and is a fine spiritual successor to the Gallardo, which was designed by Italdesign Giugiaro with significant input by then-Lambo chief designer Luc Donckerwolke. LED headlights and taillights provide futuristic accents and similar depth and signatures to those elements found on the Aventador. As the Deimos’s big brother can attest, such wedge-like, angular proportions translate nicely to a topless variant, something we fully expect in the years after the car’s launch.

Why It Matters: The Deimos, as is the case with the Gallardo, will be Lamborghini's volume model. (At least until the Urus SUV comes to market. It was confirmed earlier this year by Rupert Stadler, CEO of Lamborghini’s corporate parent Audi, although the Sant’Agata-based automaker has yet to make a formal announcement itself.) The Deimos will outsell the Aventador by quite a wide margin, and will continue to serve as a gateway to the world of this extravagant brand. The supercar also must prove that Lamborghini is a true technology leader, both to win over new customers and to maintain its standing within the Volkswagen Group.

Platform: Underpinning the Deimos will be a mid-engine platform that will be shared with the second-generation Audi R8. The frame will be made from aluminum, but Lamborghini will use a significant amount of carbon-fiber componentry in an effort to keep weight down.

Powertrains: Motivation will be provided by an evolution of the Gallardo's naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V-10, which will continue to be shared with the R8. In standard guise, this engine is expected to make close to 600 horsepower. Power will be routed exclusively to all four wheels, but, as it did in launching the Gallardo Balboni, Lamborghini is considering rear-drive variants for sometime in the future. The automated manual transmission of the current Gallardo will be killed off to make way for a far smoother seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. A manual transmission version is not confirmed, nor is it likely to come to fruition, but it is technically possible.

Competition: Aston Martin V12 Vantage, Audi R8 V-10, Ferrari 458 Italia, McLaren MP-4-12C, Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG.

Estimated Arrival and Price: The Lamborghini Deimos will make its auto-show debut in Geneva this coming March before terrorizing showroom floors later in 2014 as a 2015 model. The starting price likely won’t move much from the Gallardo’s entry point of roughly $200K.

BMW Reveals X6 M Design Edition With a Familiar Livery

BMW’s ungainly X6 soon will get a replacement, but in the meantime, what’s an automaker to do with its aging crossover coupe? Apparently the auto industry’s answer to many a question: Make a special-edition model! BMW has done just that, taking the ultra-bizarre high-performance X6 M and slapping some stickers on it to create the “Design Edition,” of which just 100 examples will be sold worldwide.


However simple its gestation, the Design Edition actually looks pretty cool—and fans of the MotoGP motorcycle-racing series should instantly recognize the X6 M’s duds. The M stripes swooping down the hood and down the sides of the body mimic those applied to BMW’s MotoGP safety vehicles, like this awesome M6 Gran Coupe. In fact, we wish a light bar was available as an accessory, because we’d install it quicker than you could say “safety vehicle.” The Design Edition’s modifications are rounded out by a set of 21-inch wheels, BMW Individual Piano Black interior trim, a full black-and-red Merino leather interior with red contrast stitching, and a numbered dashboard plaque. Even though BMW will offer the special X6 in red and black, the only paint option we’d consider is the white you see here—because you can’t pretend to pace Marc Marquez or Jorge Lorenzo in the other liveries.






It’s not clear whether the X6 M Design Edition will be sold here, but our gut says no. BMW only released info on the car in Europe, and the photos show an X6 M wearing European plates. That’s okay—as a consolation prize, BMW is sending the redesigned 2015 X6 our way.

Ferrari FF & Ferrari 612 Scaglietti

       

There are not many Ferrari owners in Serbia. They say that about only fifty Ferrari’s ever made it to this country. Seeing a Ferrari in Serbia isn’t something that happens every day. For photographer Stefan Sobot it was a big honor to do a photoshoot with even two Ferrari’s. One of those two Ferrari’s, the FF, is a one-off.

A Ferrari isn’t only a sports car for fast driving. Ferrari also made some classic models, the so-called granturismo models. This includes the Ferrari 456 GT but also the older Daytona from the sixties. The modern granturismo’s are the 612 Scaglietti and the FF. During the development of the FF, Ferrari went a step further by choosing a new type of bodywork, the shooting brake. The FF in the following photoshoot is a tailor made FF which is known as the Czech Edition. Ferrari gave the car different unique features including the colour Rosso Dino worth €30.000,-. The 612 Scaglietti got the colour Nero which looks more classic. A more outstanding colour doesn’t fit this classy 612 Scaglietti. It are two completely different cars which have one similarity, their home town, Maranello.

      

First Lamborghini Veneno Roadster can be found in Beverly Hills

Nine copies which are each worth 3.3 million Euros. It’s quite expensive to own a limited Lamborghini. After the Sesto Elemento, this is the third very extreme car with which Lamborghini wants to show they’re the ‘bad boy’ of all supercar manufacturers. The first of nine copies can be found in Beverly Hills. That’s where this Veneno Roadster was captured.

One of the members of the GoldRush Rally had the opportunity to take a look at the car at the owners house. The Roadster got a special colour, Rosso Veneno. Engine-wise, the Veneno Roadster is equal to the closed version which was shown on the Geneva Motor Show. Remarkable is the fact that Lamborghini builds more copies of the Roadster than the Coupé. Apparently, after the presentation of this beast in Geneva, there was a big demand for some extra copies. It would be great to see one of those copies on the street but there’s only a very small chance that this will ever happen. Although GoldRush told everyone that this car can be spotted near Beverly Hills, so we just hope for the best! 

2015 Nissan GT-R NISMO

Weaponizing Godzilla.

• NOVEMBER 2013
 
• BY TONY QUIR

• OGA 
• MULTIPLE PHOTOGRAPHERS

After cutting its teeth on the Nissan 370Z and the Juke, Nissan’s recently unleashed in-house tuner NISMO screwed up the courage to take on Godzilla. The resultant GT-R NISMO, which debuts at the Tokyo show, is essentially a weapons-grade, more-hard-core version of what’s already one of the most extreme cars on the planet.

Añadir leyenda

Sales of the GT-R NISMO will begin in February in Japan, but we remain about a year away from U.S. deliveries. It seems the wait will be worth it, in no small part because output is up from 545 horsepower and 463 lb-ft to 595 horsepower and “more than” 480 lb-ft. The bumps come courtesy of revised intake and exhaust systems, reworked ignition timing, and larger turbochargers swiped from the GT-R GT3 race car. Peak horsepower is available at 6800 rpm versus 6400 in the regular car. Nissan coyly admits that it could extract even more power from this new setup, but say it drew a line to prevent the transmission from returning itself to its constituent bits. The health of the NISMO powerplant is ensured by a new higher-capacity oil pump.

Nissan tells us that adding a NISMO version allows the standard GT-R to mature slightly, and it will become a bit softer and quieter and a touch friendlier should you want to subject it to daily use. On the flip side, the existence of a softer “base” GT-R allowed NISMO to really dial in this new version for track duty, and it gets stiffer springs and dampers, as well as larger anti-roll bars that include a 17.3-mm hollow piece out back. While the new car’s dampers are also electrically adjustable through three settings, NISMO has renamed the settings from Comfort, Normal, and R to Track, Race, and Race Plus. Even the softest Track setting is said to be quite firm.

Top: 2015 Nissan GT-R NISMO. Bottom: 2014 Nissan GT-R Track Edition.

The chassis changes didn’t stop there, however, as the front forged Rays wheels are half an inch wider than the stock units and are therefore wrapped in more rubber: 255/40RF-20 run-flat Dunlop SP Sport Maxx GT 600 DSST tires, the same label as before, but we’re told that the compound is stickier. The broadened front meat is a clear attempt to improve front-end grip and decrease low-speed understeer.

To keep the suspension laser-focused on its most important task, NISMO versions will incorporate more adhesive bonding and structural seam welding to increase overall rigidity. In the interest of decreasing lift and drag, the NISMO version gets a special body kit that incorporates new front and rear bumpers, side skirts, and a towering rear spoiler that work together to increase downforce, Nissan says, by more than 220 pounds at 186 mph. A new matte gray paint is exclusive to the NISMO.

But that’s not the end of the NISMO GT-R story: Nissan set itself a goal of breaking a 7 minute, 10 second lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife, and to do so the team developed a lighter and even more intense GT-R, one which it will offer to customers. This version hasn’t been officially named yet, so Nissan is referring it the “GT-R NISMO with the track package” for now. (As opposed to the GT-R Track Edition.)

Equipped with that package and running the stock Dunlop tires, the GT-R posted a stunning time of 7:08.69 on September 30 with former FIA GT1 champion Michael Krumm behind the wheel.

The powertrain will remain the same as the NISMO’s, but it has its own aero kit with a front splitter and an extra-bodacious rear spoiler. A smattering of carbon fiber parts—single-piece race seats that Nissan says will come here as accessories, front fenders, trunklid, and hood—sheds a claimed 143 pounds overall.

To top it off, the “track package” model receives additional chassis tweaks made in large part to cope with the Nürburgring’s uneven surface. The electronically controlled shocks are replaced by manually adjustable Öhlins units, and the spring rates are reduced slightly. Aside from a pad change, the front brakes remain two-piece floating rotors with six-piston calipers. NISMO promises that buyers will be able to order a car like the one that ran the 7:08.68 for less than $200,000. How’s that for weapons-grade?

2015 Mercedes-Benz C-class Spy Photos: Merc's New Sedan C-een Sans Camo

What It Is: The next-generation Mercedes-Benz C-class, caught prancing about undisguised. It has good reason to flaunt what it’s got: Compared to the somewhat generic current car, the exterior of the 2015 is far more sensual and looks a lot, in fact, like a small S-class. Cues cribbed from the C’s none-more-luxurious sibling include the prominent grille and headlights, the curved character line on its flanks, and the vertical, smartly integrated taillights. The contour of the rear window evokes the striking S-class coupe concept, and we’re told to expect a similar treatment on the next-generation E-class, too.

The C-class nabbed by our photographer wears the optional AMG Sport appearance pack, highlighted by larger front intakes, a blade on the front bumper, 18-inch multi-spoke wheels, and an SL-style grille with a centrally mounted star. But the C-class will also be available with less extroverted side skirts, more chrome trim, and a traditional front end with the three-pointed star ornament atop the hood.

Inside, the new C-class packs one of the more well-designed and -executed interiors in its class. The cabin was revealed last month, and you can read our hands-on impressions here.

Why It Matters: The next-generation C-class will be a pivotal piece in Benz’s plans to increase sales numbers and grab market share from cars such as BMW’s 3-series and upcoming 4-series Gran Coupe, as well as the Audi A4 and the Lexus IS. It will be one of the highest-volume—and therefore highest visibility—cars to wear the swoopy new styling language ushered in by the new CLA- and S-classes, and that nice, new cabin symbolizes Benz’s renewed focus on challenging erstwhile leader Audi on interior quality and design.

With the front-wheel-drive CLA positioned as the sporty and youth-leaning entry-level model, the C will focus on core Mercedes virtues such as comfort, elegance, and luxury. The C-class range will span an entire family of vehicles, including a station wagon, a two-door coupe, and atwo-door convertible. We are likely to see the latter two here, but probably not the wagon.

Platform: The architecture of the new C-class shares many components with Benz's other rear-wheel-drive models; its closest relatives are the next E-class and the next GLK. It is designed to also accommodate 4MATIC all-wheel drive, and it will of course come packing the latest in Mercedes assistance systems and connectivity.

Powertrains: In the U.S., the C-class will be offered with turbocharged four- and six-cylinder gasoline engines. Expect around 250 horsepower from the four and more than 350 from the twin-turbocharged six. The only available transmission at launch will be Daimler’s own seven-speed torque-converter automatic, but it will be supplanted at some point during this model’s life by a nine-speed auto. No manual transmission will be offered here, but Benz will have one in Europe. There will be no AMG version. OK, we’re lying—of course there will be an AMG version. The C AMG will bend space and time with a twin-turbocharged V-8 pumping out well over 500 horsepower, and which will be mated to a version of AMG's Speedshift dual-clutch automatic.

Competition: Audi A4, BMW 3-series, Cadillac ATS, Lexus IS.

Estimated Arrival and Price: The next C-class will be unveiled at the 2014 Detroit auto show next January before going on sale the following fall as a 2015 model. You’ll pay $35K or so for an optionless four-cylinder C-class, as we’ve been told Benz aims to minimize any price hikes over the current model. View Photo Gallery