Auto car sports

Chrysler's redesigned / facelifted Sebring, which will go on sale in the U.S. later this year as the new 200 sedan , was only just released on Tuesday, yet we already have news that it may be sold in mainland Europe as a Lancia and as a Chrysler in the UK and Ireland (the Italian firm has withdrawn from these markets). The Fiat Group is considering the move not so much for retail sales as to help boost fleet sales in key markets such as Germany and the UK. "We are running numbers to see if it could become a profitable business case," Olivier Francois, CEO of the Chrysler and Lancia brands told Autonews Europe. The news site reports that a major drawback to this move is that no diesel engine will be available on the 200 in the United States, where the car will be offered with 2.4-liter 4-cylinder and 3.6-liter V6 gasoline engines. However, the report doesn't mention that the current Sebring [Convertible] is offered with a 2.0-liter CRDi turbodiesel engine in certain Eu...

Following CEO Sergio Marchionne's comments at the 2010 Paris Motor Show ( see here ), Autonews Europe has uncovered new information regarding the Fiat Group's future product launches. One of Fiat's most important models in Europe, the third generation Panda, was originally due in summer 2010 but its launch had already been pushed back to September 2011. Now, sources inside the company told the news site that the introduction of the small five-door hatchback will be further delayed until January 2012. The third generation Lancia Ypsilon supermini has also been delayed more than two years, as have the replacements for the Fiat Idea / Lancia Musa small MPV twins and the Fiat Multipla 3+3 seater people carrier, which has been in production since 1998. The latter two launches were scheduled for December 2011 but have now been postponed until the second half of 2012. Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne froze his company's spending in 2008 as the financial crisis hit Europe. Spending w...

Fiat has addressed a question at least a few people were asking this year in Paris, explaining its lack of significant presence at this year's Paris Motor Show . According to CEO Sergio Marchionne, Fiat has been building up steam, waiting to release new product until late next year in order to better balance the brand's many companies' funds. "We have saved ammunition awaiting for the recovery," Sergio Marchionne told journalists on the sidelines of the Paris Auto Show. "New models will arrive at the end of 2011, early 2012. Launching new products in a market that is so structurally weak has no sense," Marchionne added. Hopefully between now and then we'll at least get a few hints at what Fiat will offer in the form of some sexy new concepts. Other than waiting for that to happen, expect the super-sized Italian automaker to be concentrating on the Chrysler/Lancia revamp as well as trying to acquaint people in the States with the 500 mini and, hopef...

The developers of the New Stratos have released some new video footage of their Ferrari F430 Scuderia-based supercar. The first clip shows WTTC and former Formula-1-Pilot Tiago Monteiro fine-tuning the chassis of the New Stratos at Balooco test track, Italy, while the second video is from the final wind tunnel test that took place on September 13th at Pininfarina's plant in Turin. We're still waiting for the full technical specs and performance numbers but for now, head over the jump to watch the two aforementioned videos plus one more with the owner of the one-off supercar, Michael Stoschek, tackling the Arosa hillclimb in his classic Lancia Stratos Group 4. _______________________________ VIDEOS _______________________________

We've been keeping an eye out for video footage of the one-off New Stratos supercar being developed by Pininfarina ever since the news broke out about the build. And today we found the first film showing the car in the flesh doing some rounds on the track. The man you see talking about the reborn Stratos in the video clip is none other than Michael Stoschek, the German automotive parts supply magnate behind the project. Our knowledge of the German language is pretty much limited to certain key phrases such as "Bier, bitte mehr bier" and "Du siehst hübsch aus", so if any of you could translate, we'd appreciate it. The New Stratos has been in development since late 2008. It's based on a shortened Ferrari 430 Scuderia chassis and, as you can see in the video below, power comes from a Ferrari V8 engine.