Toyota Asks If You Can Guess What This Special Goodwood Festival Debut Is [Updated]

With this year's edition of the Goodwood Festival of Speed (FoS) in England just around the corner (July 11-14), automakers are getting ready to share their four-wheel goods, some of which are new, some of which are old.

Looking to add a playful note in its presentation, Toyota released a picture of a covered car on its Facebook page with the following message:

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Opel Reveals Face of Monza Coupe Concept Ahead of Frankfurt Debut [w/Video]

Opel and sister company Vauxhall have slowly moved away from the conservative image they used to have in the days of the last-gen Vectra, a car which pretty much summed up their range some 10 years ago, as it was not particularly good to look at, drive or own, being engineered to be just competent enough to sell and not break down. Besides, it also built on a renowned Opel quality: cheap spare parts and simple cars that are relatively easy to work on and mend. Read more »

Italdesign Exec Walks Us Around the Parcour Concept and Drives it On- and Off-Road

The Italdesign Parcour was in my book, one of the more striking to look at concepts of the 2013 Geneva motor show, where it also debuted. Featuring a mid-mounted Lamborghini V10 out of the Gallardo, it offers supercar styling, but with a higher than normal ground clearance and all-wheel drive.

Now, if you thought it was merely a show car, which needed to be wheeled into and out of the back of trucks between shows, think again.

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Opel Reportedly Bringing RWD Monza Coupe Concept to Frankfurt, May Preview Buick Model

Close to two decades after the demise of the Calibra, Opel (and consequently its British Vauxhall arm) will test the public’s reaction at the Frankfurt motor show in September with the Monza study, a coupe that may preview a future Audi A5 and BMW 4-Series rival.

According to a report from Auto Bild, the Opel Monza study will feature a sharp design and, surprisingly, a rear-wheel drive setup. The name Monza was also used by a RWD Opel coupe in the 1970s and 1980s.

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Hyundai i80 is a Gran Tourer Sports Coupe Concept

With the Genesis sedan and coupe models first, and then the larger Equus saloon, Hyundai moved up a couple of notches in the industry and began flirting with buyers looking at more premium offerings, even from the likes of BMW and Lexus.

Now, while the Koreans haven't reached the point yet to look at luxury European and Japanese models directly in the eyes, there's no doubt that's their long term goal. The upcoming second generations of the Genesis Sedan (see our 'Future Car' render here) and Coupe models previewed by the HCD-14 Sedan Concept and the HND-9 Coupe Concept respectively are a clear indication of that.

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This is the New Transformer 4's 2014 Camaro Bumblebee Concept

Only hours after our spies piqued our curiosity with a boatload of far-away shots from the filming set of Transformers 4 at the GM Proving Ground facility in Michigan, and which included the new Bumblebee, Michael Bay did it again and dropped an official photo of the car. Read more »

A Design Concept for a Baby Bugatti Veyron Supercar

Unless there's something else cooking in the VW Group's kitchen, the next car to wear the "EB" (the initials of the brand's founder, Ettore Bugatti) logo will be the production version of the 2009 Galibier super-saloon with over 1,000 horses and an expected date of arrival after 2015, following a recent push back of the project.

So, what if Bugatti wanted to enhance its range with a different (see smaller and more affordable) supercar than the famed Veyron, what would that model be and look like?

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VW Reportedly Considering Door- and Roof-Less Buggy Up!, Patents Design in the U.S.

Europe's largest carmaker, the Volkswagen Group, isn't known for producing platforms and mechanical components for single body style models (at least not in the mainstream segments), and that applies for the Up! mini, which was launched in 2011 as a three-door hatchback and has since gained a five-door and a light crossover version. Read more »

Production Version of New BMW i3 Revealed in Patent Drawings

This ladies and gentleman, is what the production version of BMW's foray into the pure and extended range electric vehicle category, the all-new i3, will look like when the Bavarian carmaker presents it to the public before the end of the summer and ahead of its public premiere at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September.

While these are drawings, they are official patents of the production i3 previewed by a concept of the same name some two years ago at the 2011 Frankfurt auto show. To see the differences between the conceptual and the actual i3, we placed pictures of the two cars side by side.

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Jaguar Tells the Sad Tale of the Axed C-X75 Supercar

It looks like Jaguar is having a hard time giving up on its C-X75 hypercar. As you probably remember, the company announced late last year it was going to axe the project due to difficult market conditions that would have made a £1 million Jaguar ($1.53 million) hard to justify. Read more »

NCE Decapitates Acura TL Sedan, Proposes to do the Same to AM Rapide and Hyundai Equus

To be frank, I never understood the allure or the reasoning, for that matter, behind the aftermarket conversion of four-door sedans to convertibles, but I guess each to his own taste.

While we're on the subject of taste (or the lack thereof…), the drop-top specialists over at Newport Convertible Engineering (NEC) from Placentia, California, have sharpened their scalpels on the roof of an Acura TL sedan turning it into a four-door cabriolet with a center roll-bar to keep things in place. The gold stripes running down the middle are the cherry icing to this strangely flavored cake.

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The Peugeot GTi of Surfboards to Make a Splash at the Goodwood Festival

If you're wondering what in the world has a surfboard have to do with Peugeot and the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the only logical answer we have to give you is that the French carmaker likely wants to stand out from the other brands and resonate with a younger crowd. Read more »

BMW to Debut New Active Tourer Outdoor Concept Next Month

New production and concept models are coming in thick and fast for BMW, which has now announced plans for the world premiere of a fresh iteration of its Active Tourer Concept at the OutDoor Business Show in Friedrichshafen, Germany on July 12.

The second conceptual version of the compact minivan study that we first laid eyes on at the 2012 Paris Motor Show is named the Concept Active Tourer Outdoor and according to the Bavarian carmaker, "it is aimed at meeting the special needs of an outdoor and leisure time oriented target group".

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New 345HP Volvo V40 T5 HPC Study by Heico Sportiv Eyes Mercedes A45 AMG and Audi S3

Volvo's feisty performance partner Heico Sportiv has turned the wick on the Swedish brand's V40 with the presentation of a new concept that may soon be offered to European buyers. It is named the V40 T5 HPC, which is an abbreviation for "High Performance Concept".

Heico states that it is "world’s most powerful Volvo V40" adding that the hatchback's "350 hp, 4-wheel drive and extremely dynamic driving characteristics are the ingredients that make the sporty compact car an interesting alternative to the Audi S3 Sportback, BMW M135i xDrive and Mercedes A45 AMG."

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New Jaguar E-Type Concept Project by Alexander Imnadze Looks Amazingly Sleek

There are some young automotive designers whose names and work keep popping up on our radar, and all for good reason. Alexander Imnadze is one of them.

After grasping our attention for the first time with this Lamborghini Concept, he followed up with the Ferrari Quattroporte sports sedan and more recently, the Alfa Romeo 6C, and now he is preparing a new, and might we add, very interesting design concept for a modern Jaguar E-Type.

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Future Cars: Drafting a Modern Light-Duty Pickup Truck for Ford

Ever since the demise of the much loved Ford Ranger from U.S. soil, fans of the small pickup have been crying out for a replacement. Rather than taking on the Australian designed and developed 'global' T6 Ranger, the Dearborn-based manufacturer decided to pull out of the more compact pickup market altogether in its home market, leaving buyers little choice - go F-Series or go elsewhere.

This is all fine and dandy if you don't mind the size of the bigger F-150, however for many that vehicle is far too big for their needs. Ford's argument for not bringing in the global Ranger is that it's too close in size to the F-Series - a point that I tend to agree with. Having climbed over, sat in and prodded the world Ranger in the flesh, it's easy to see why Ford thinks it would cannibalize sales of its No.1 chart-topper.

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This is what a BMW 860i Based on the Pininfarina Gran Lusso V12 Could Look Like

Even though personally, I wouldn't necessarily agree on the use of the 8-Series moniker on such a large and more luxury-orientated coupe like the BMW Pininfarina Gran Lusso V12 Concept, some officials over in Munich disagree and have hinted that the  Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este 2013 study "gives an indication of how such a car [8-Series] might look".

While there's no question that the concept model is very close to a production car, it isn't quite there yet, which brings us to this very convincing Photoshop from the creative minds at Autoprojecoes.

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Autocar Gets Behind the Wheel of the Stillborn C-X75 Hybrid Hypercar

The automotive world is often a cruel one, and some of the coolest cars never make it into consumers’ hands, because of some technicality, costs or logistics. I was quite sad when Jaguar announced last year that their promising C-X75 hybrid hypercar, which was both reportedly very green and very fast, received the axe, and I feared I would never get to see one of these in action. Read more »

Aussie University Creates a More Mainstream Solar-Powered Car called Eve

When one thinks of solar-powered cars, the thought conjures up images of going along at three miles per hour, in something that looks nothing like a car. However, they have to be made ultra-aerodynamic, to make the most of what little power it is able to capture from the Sun.

Now, the University of New South Wales in Sydney, which benefits from the experience of the Sunswift team, has announced that this year’s car (their fifth-gen vehicle) will be approached differently, and the plan is to make it more like an actual car, and just generally “be more mainstream.”

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Audi to Reveal Updated Quattro Concept in Frankfurt, Says Report

You probably remember the Audi Quattro Concept that the German carmaker presented at the Paris motor show in 2010. Although some reports said Audi canned the project, it looks like the situation could be reversed – at least according to a recent report from German magazine Auto Zeitung.

The publication says the VW Group is preparing some big novelties for the Frankfurt Auto Show for each of its core brands, including an extreme lightweight sports coupe that purportedly previews a production version of the Audi Quattro Coupe, the successor to the legendary 1980s sports car.

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