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Recently, the new car maker made the news with its founder being fired and with any new CEO come new ideas. According to the rumours, the future Tesla saloon might feature a petrol engine which wouldn’t power the vehicle but would be used to recharge the batteries, an architecture similar to the Chevrolet Volt’s.

Thanks to this technical move, the Tesla saloon would require less batteries which, of course, would reduce the production cost. Also, the petrol engine would allow to increase the saloon’s autonomy as it would permanently recharge the batteries. The car would then reach an autonomy of around 400 miles, which is a strong sales argument when you want to sell electric cars at a high scale. Indeed, new management also decided to go mainstream as the future saloon won’t cost the initial £25,000 but closer to the price of £15,000 announced for the future Chevrolet Volt.

The Tesla saloon which will be dubbed Whitestar will be on sale in 2010.

If you have been toying with the idea of writing off your old car, maybe it is time to reconsider. Keeping it for the next 10-15 years might bring you a future profit if the car is among the list established by the auction specialist British Car Auctions.

According to its spokesman Tim Naylor, Jaguar and MG will still be icons in the coming years despite troubled times for the former and the collapse of the latter. The XJS coupe and XJ6 could prove to be real winners so, if yours is starting to rust, perhaps it is time to look after it. Like the E Type nowadays, the recent XK8 and XKR will probably be highly valued in twenty years.

If you cannot afford a Jaguar, a coupe or a convertible will bring you the best return on investment. The MX5 looks set to be the future MG B. Like the British convertible, its volume is impressive and it re-introduced the traditional roadster into modern life. In the same trend, the fashion victim Audi TT will also be a big hit, especially the first generation. Its design, which takes its inspiration from Bauhaus, will be a designer’s classic. Surprisingly, the Peugeot 206 CC is included in the list. Many people may find this laughable, but this small convertible brought the folding metal roof concept to the masses.

Once again, Mazda shines with the RX-8. With its rotary engine and its rear doors, it will become a cult. Let’s hope petrol will still be available to fuel the voracious engine. Among Japanese cars, the S2000 will also become a collector’s item. Its high rev engine will be more than enough to encourage people to buy it.

Here are the first pictures of the facelifted Croma which will be unveiled at the Bologna Motor Show next month. The main changes concern the front face, which adopts the new corporate design. Like the Grande Punto and the Bravo, the new Croma features larger headlights and a new bonnet. The current striped grille is replaced by a new chrome grille. At the back, the bumper gets a bolder shape while the taillights are blacked out.

On the inside, the Croma features a new sportier leather trim and darker wooden panels. The wheel adopts the new Fiat logo as already seen on the Fiat Bravo and Fiat 500.

In terms of technology there are no changes and the current lineup includes the 140bhp 1.8 litre and the 147bhp 2.2 litre for the petrol engines. The diesel units feature the 150bhp 1.9 litre Multijet and the 200bhp 2.4 litre five cylinder unit.

the facelift is minimal and will not change the destiny of the Croma. In the current range it is, and will remain, anonymous.

Nissan released the Nissan Pivo at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2005. The car stunned people with its easily-rotating cabin. Nobody has been authorised to drive the car but an Australian journalist has been able to experience the rotating cabin. Very impressive!

Callaway will celebrate its thirtieth anniversary by unveiling the C16 speedster at the next Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, probably the most upmarket car show in the world.

This time, the American tuner decided to be more radical. It will add a speedster to the current coupé and convertible models. On the speedster, the windshield will be replaced by two wind deflectors.

Like the other models, the Callaway C16 speedster is powered by the 6.2 L V8 found in the original Corvette. Thanks to a supercharger the power reaches 690bhp/700hp and the torque is 660 ft-lbs/895N. With such power, the speedster can run 0-60mph in 3.2 seconds and reach a top speed of 210mph/338km/h.

On the technical side, the car has received a new suspension set that features an advanced spring/damper system. The user can customise the suspension settings for track or road conditions by choosing one of the 10-position compression and rebound modes.

The C16 speedster will cost £148,000/€222,000/£305,000.

In an interview, Spyker’s chairman said that the company will delay production of the C12 Zagato in order to give priority to other models.

Unveiled at the last Geneva Motor Show in March, the C12 Zagato is set to be built at a level of only 24 units. The car is the result of a meeting between Andrea Zagato and Victor Muller, Spyker’s founder and former CEO. The latter was a fan of Zagato models and bought a Lancia Flavia Zagato at the age of eighteen. Naturally, he asked Zagato to design its own interpretation of the Spyker C12.

The C12 is powered by the 6.0 liter, 12 cylinder, 500 bph W12 engine from VW. The engine is coupled with a six-speed manual or automatic gear box with F1-style shifting. This enables the car to reach 193mph/310km/h and to run the 0-62mph in 3.6 seconds. Despite an all aluminium body, the car weighs 3265lbs/1480kg due to an incredibly luxury interior that includes Chronoswiss instruments and a Zagato-designed full leather interior with brushed aluminium instrument panel. On the outside, the sports car has a F1-inspired design, notably the nose and the air fenders. Of course, it features the legendary Double Bubble from Zagato.

All units have already been sold for £334,000/€495,000/$684,000 each.

Brilliance revealed the definitive M3 coupe at the Changchun auto car fair. There is nothing new on the exterior or under the bonnet. The biggest changes are inside with a revamped interior. The amateurish red/black interior has been replaced by black. It is reminiscent of BMW interiors: very serious, and very promising. The M3 might be the right car to help us forget the disastrous crash test endured by the BS6 saloon.

The Zhonghua Brilliance coupe is powered by 1.8 litre turbocharged engine, developed in collaboration with Porsche. The engine produces 170 bhp and can be coupled with a manual or an automatic gearbox. But the car’s real selling point is the price. In China, the coupe will be sold at £10,400/€15,350/$21,100.

With SAIC and its subsidiary Roewe, Brilliance is generally considered to be one of the most promising Chinese carmakers. It benefits from its joint venture with BMW, for which it produces the BMW 3 and 5 series cars for the Chinese market. The company also receives help from the German carmaker in developing its own cars.

Source: China Car Times

This is the first official picture of the new Skoda Combi, due to be launched officially at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September. The former Skoda Combi, which could not really be described as sexy, was mainly appreciated for its huge boot capacity. Going by the picture, the design of the new model seems to be rather dull.

The Combi will probably offer the same range as the saloon. There will be a choice of a 60 bhp 1.2 litre, 70 bhp 1.2 litre, a 85 bhp 1.4 litre and a 105 bhp 1.6 litre for the gasoline engines. For the diesel, the car will offer the 80 bhp 1.4 litre TDI engine.

The car is set to compete with the new 207 SW estate but may also compete with the Skoda Roomster. Less expensive than the latter, it will offer a similar boot capacity. The Czech carmaker must think that the sex appeal of the Roomster will make the difference. We will just have to wait and see whether they are right or not.

A previously unknown designer named Daniel Paulin has revealed his first car, at least in virtual terms: the VR Concept. The car is the Paulin’s interpretation of the 2012 performance car. It is stylish, muscular and we love it.

Critics will say that it is not revolutionary. It looks like the Saab Aero X or the 1954 Corvette concept cars, but so what? As a consultant for Hyundai, Kia or Tata, we can hope to see their future models taking inspiration from the VR Concept.

In the past, Daniel Paulin worked for Ford, where he was involved in the design of the Focus Concept, the C-MAx and the funky Fab1 for the Thunderbirds movie.

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Skoda has increased its global sales by 13% for the first six months of 2007. The company sold a total of 311,000 cars worldwide.

The best seller is still the Octavia with 146,772 sales made in 92 countries. The recent launch in China met with great success, with more 6,000 requests registered by dealers in one month. 16,000 new Fabia were sold since its launch a few months ago. This, however, is a low figure if we take into account the Superb model’s sales, which reached 11,000 units despite its old age.

Western Europe remains the core market for the carmaker with over 173,000 sales, 12% more than last year. Central and Eastern Europe is the second biggest market for Skoda with a total sales figure of 115,960 cars for the first six months of 2007.

Considered an upper-brand in India, Skoda sold 5,913 cars, almost all of which were Octavia models.