ROME An ill-tempered Italian mongrel owes its life to a group of Mazda engineers. North of here, on the picturesque rural road to Lago di Bracciano, the mutt bolts from some tall grass and tries to make sport of the all-new Mazda 6 I'm evaluating...
TURIN Almost half of the engines Mercedes-Benz put in its outgoing, W210-generation E-Class were 4-cyl. units. Yet Mercedes' all-new, 2003 E-Class (W211 platform) just launched with a single 4-cyl. engine choice and a diesel at that. What's going...
CHICAGO Ford Motor Co. had plenty of news to make here at the Chicago Auto Show in February, what with the arrival of the new SVT Mustang Cobra and the announcement that the auto maker's plant here in the Windy City will assemble the CrossTrainer...
Valeo SA says that extensive R&D into combining functions of a standard engine-mounted alternator with that of a starter motor has produced the Starter Alternator Reversible System, which has achieved its technical objectives. The unit looks like...
Since the former Toyo Kogyo Motor Corp. introduced the first Japanese rotary car in 1967 (the NSU Spider, launched in 1964, was the world''s first rotary engine production car), the rotary engine has had a roller-coaster ride, one which has been...
Yes: Good times will roll Yes, definitely actually, no question about it.Name withheld Yes, I do believe that good times will return to the industry. I'm of the mindset that the auto makers might even roll out their mid-year models earlier in an...
If there's doubt the Ward's staff adores Audi AG's light-pressure turbocharged 1.8L DOHC I-4 (and the A4 1.8T Avant that wraps it), any uncertainty is quickly dispelled by the A4's odometer: nearly 30,000 miles (48,000 km) in just nine months...
NEW YORK A director of a technical team for the U.S. Department of Energy's FreedomCAR program says it will take more than a decade before mass-produced fuel cell-powered vehicles hit dealer showrooms. Patrick B. Davis told the recent Fuel Cell...
Thanks to a technology partnership announced in 1999, Delphi Automotive Systems and French auto maker PSA Peugeot Citroen unveil a Peugeot 206 concept car equipped with seven advanced technologies from Delphi, most of which are ready for...
There's talking about it, and then there's doing it. When it comes to production-vehicle hybrid-engine technology, there are plenty of auto makers making promises. But in reality, there are only two global players: Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda...