Strange Sign: What Does It Mean?

I think it means either:

• No picnics near sharp objects.
• Do not ride magic carpet with holes.
• No walking on hot coals.

What do you think?.......................................

Company of the Year 2009 title goes to Mitsubishi!

For this financial year 2009 Mitsubishi Motors North America has got “Company of the Year” award. This is a very prestigious award received at the 13th annual Urban Wheel Awards which is been sponsored by the auto enthusiast magazine On Wheels.

On behalf of Mitsubishi group the award has been accepted by manufacturing division whose names is Jerry Berwanger and Sr. VP of procurement & supply Sandy Gillespie. From this great achievement Mitsubishi identified the true value of promoting diversity within the corporation and its consumer base.

Ford Fusion has become fuel-efficient car!

Each day Ford Motors are coming up with more and more trendy models and improvised technology and its getting well clicked in market to a great extent! Well recently Ford Fusion Hybrid Team has accomplished more than 1,000 miles over 47 hours continuously on a single tank of gas which raised funds for Juvenile diabetes Research Foundation.

This vehicle gives great mileage and saves lot of gas. The fusion hybrid car has become the most fuel-efficient car and this has been driven by hybrid engineers and also fuel efficiency experts and a NASCAR star and together these people accomplished more than 80 miles per gallon using Eco-Driving techniques.

Let’s have a look at the Mileage Techniques used by Ford Motors:

1. Below are certain Mileage techniques used by Ford Motors and they also recommend consumers to make use of these techniques.


2. Maintenance of throttle pressure and also slow down.


3. Application of brakes in a smooth way and accelerate slowly.


4. Always it’s good in maintaining a gap/space between vehicles and also foresee the traffic conditions.


5. In order to shun the fuel waste and brake wear coast up to the red lights and signs which indicate you to stop!


6. In order to reduce heavy load on engine minimize the usage of heater and air conditioning.


7. For reducing aerodynamic drag close windows when your going in high speed.


8. While maintaining the flow of traffic make use of “Pulse and Glide” technique.


9. When your climbing hills minimize workload of engine by using vehicles kinetic forward motion and also make use of downhill momentum to buildup the speed.


10. You can easily reduce momentum by shunning potholes and bumps!

[Source: Ford]

Top 5: Reasons To Save The American Auto Industry

No.1 - Keep the U.S. auto industry alive

While the U.S. auto industry has lost some cachet, with some innovation it can be returned.

The domestic cars have been a part of our heritage and part of our bloodline for a long time. Whether it’s Knight Rider’s Pontiac Firebird, the 1969 Dodge Charger from the Dukes of Hazzard or the Partridge Family’s Chevrolet 6700-series bus, American cars are part of our collective family.

It’s easy to just say “let it die,” but the auto industry is an American legacy. We invented it, we’ll be around to help it evolve and, although these are some trying times, we can bring it back to the front of the pack.

No.2 - The ripple effects

As unemployment rates approaches 10% in the United States, it will shoot into depression ranges if the American auto industry runs out of gas.

Not only do the Big Three -- Ford, Chrysler and General Motors -- directly provide 239,000 Americans with employment, they also have 775,000 retirees relying on the automakers for pension and benefits.

However, those are just the people directly impacted by the Big Three. Think about the suppliers, dealers, mechanics, and sales people across the country relying on these American automakers for employment. One in 10 American jobs is linked to the auto industry, and if that was to be removed, the effect on the country would be crushing and so that alone is a reason to save the American auto industry.

If the industry were to collapse, the amount of personal income lost over the next three years is estimated at roughly $400 billion.

No.3 - The demand for cars won't disappear anytime soon

If Ford, Chrysler and General Motors were to drive off cliff, they wouldn’t be taking the demand for cars with them. Although sales are down right now, the demand for cars isn’t going anywhere. If the American companies were to fold, Japanese, German and other foreign automakers would move in and start taking their business.

That would also leave France as the last allied country producing cars.

On the one hand, foreign automakers would help cushion the blow of all of the potential job losses, but a better solution would be to repair the current economic models of the Big Three American companies, help them become profitable and, therefore, keep the money completely in the country to save the American auto industry.

No.4 - It's the last real manufacturing sector in the U.S.

The United States manufacturers helped carry the country in World War II, it helped rebuild Europe and Japan after the war, and it also helped the U.S. survive the Cold War with Russia.

However, manufacturing in the United States has dwindled to the point where people ask the question: What does America manufacture besides debt? The answer is going to be virtually nothing if the American auto industry shuts down, which is a big concern and one of the reasons to save the American auto industry.

The manufacturing industry is important to any country because it creates jobs, independence and boosts the internal economy. Right now, the United States has started to rely on outsourcing a little too much, and we would much rather keep the property here. Just as in the past, manufacturing jobs create employment for generations of working-class people, and we want to keep that industry so that our kids will have a place to work too.

No.5 - Opportunity to promote innovation

Since Henry Ford began his mass production, the United States has been one of the leaders in the auto industry. While it’s true that they have recently become fat, sloppy and disorganized, the reality is that if they were at one point innovative enough to dominate the market, they can do it again.

The American auto industry has to become sexy again. The focus of the projects needs to shift to innovative, fascinating products: be it hybrids, nuclear fission, diesel, or fuel cell technology.

If the spirit of competition can return, so will the bright, aggressive souls who once lead the automakers to the top spot. We’ve been the leaders before, and now that the wake-up call has been delivered, it’s time to get hungry again.

SRC:http://www.askmen.com

Ford backed the title as ford best Selling car in Europe!

Day by day Ford Motors are moving a step ahead in the market. The hottest car in Ford backed the title as Best-selling car in Europe. Its none but the new Ford Fiesta. It gives a very trendy look with amazing technology and engine. This car has become fastest selling car in the Europe market and there are talks all around the market that there has been no Fiesta till now which is moving out in the market so rapidly and earning high returns in a very short period! This is a great milestone accomplished by Ford Motors! Guess Ford Motors gonna go ahead by launching more and more trendy cars with great output.

This map shows number of CARS by country wise

The invention of the automobile did more than change travel, it changed the way people live and work. Americans own the most--one out of every five cars in the world--but 14 European countries have more cars per person. The freedom of cars has its limits: Germans have 208 cars for every kilometer of pavement.

Audi promotes “INTELLIGENT EMOTION” project

Audi looks into the future. Under the title “Intelligent Emotion,” students at Munich University of Applied Sciences, aided by Audi, have developed visionary ideas for the mobility of the future – from a hybrid supercar to an alternative concept for lightweight design of interiors. The results are presented in eleven future-oriented concept studies.

“The next generation of employees is our future,” says Wolfgang Egger, Head of Audi Group Design. “That’s why sponsoring design students is one of our high priorities. With the “Intelligent Emotion” project we have obviously inspired them to find new and creative approaches for the future of personal transportation.” The project was headed by Dr. Othmar Wickenheiser, Professor of Transportation Design at Munich University of Applied Sciences. Wolfgang Egger and Stefan Sielaff, Head of Audi Design, mentored the project.


The objective of the design project was to present Audi as a sporty premium brand as well as a pioneer in technology and design. The balance between innovation and brand recognition was to be represented in a product with great emotional appeal that also conforms to the requirements of society.


“The results are impressive,” says Wolfgang Egger. “The students have addressed the subject of mobility in the future with very well-conceived and lucidly presented approaches. Each concept, each model, contains at least one idea or feature that we could certainly conceive of as being included in a future production vehicle.”

During the creative process, Audi designers supported the students. After all, they too are constantly pursuing innovative ideas to reinforce Audi's status as a leading brand in automobile design. “What sets a good designer apart is the very special ability of conceptualizing the future and visualizing it in images,” says Stefan Sielaff, Head of Audi Design. “Current developments such as alternative engine concepts or increased efficiency of our vehicles also call for answers from the designers. We find it fascinating how students approach such challenges – above and beyond the technical and regulatory requirements that the design of production cars has to meet.”

As Egger explains: “Emotion as a driving force must go hand in hand with responsibility as regulator. The students’ assignment was to develop esthetic approaches that reflect the new ecological, technical and social issues while also portraying an Audi as an attractive, sporty automobile. The results are of very high creative quality and provide plenty of substance for intensive discussions.”

The project results have been published as a book – with commentary by Audi’s chief designers. Published by Heel Verlag and titled Audi Design Projekt, the book is available at booksellers for €29.90.

(source: Audi)

2009 Car of the year-Insignia

Insignia is considered this year’s car who gained 321 points against its close competitor Ford Fiesta who backed 320 points. Third position was gained by Volkswagen Golf with just 223 points. Insignia is the first Opel to win in 22 years. Ford has won this award five times. This year there was very tough competition with nearly 37 candidates fighting to win. But there were only 7 finalists. There were nearly 59 jury members, 20 gave Insignia top points, while 19 gave fiesta first place.

Opel has designed Insignia with premium values at an affordable price. This model is loved by many jury members because of its safety, comfort, efficient engine with great looks and visual quality. Other features of this car are Opel eye that can read road signals, FlexRide suspension and nine-model Adaptive Forward Lighting, 4*4 transmission, 2.8V6 Turbo engine and 6 gear automatic transmission.

It is designed in an excellent way with 4/5 door sleek derivatives, Sports Tourer wagon with elegance of lines and appealing looks. Another outstanding characteristic is aerodynamics.


TECHNICAL DATA

Body: 4/5-door saloons, Sports Tourer wagon

Size: 4.83 (4.91) X 1.86 X 1.50 m.

Transmission: Front Wheel Drive/ Four Wheel Drive

Petrol Engines:1.6 (115 hp), 1.8 (140), 2.0 Turbo (220), 2.8 V6 Turbo (280)

Diesel Engines:2.0 Turbo (110, 130, 160 hp), 1.9 Twin Turbo (190)

Maximum speed: 0-100 km/h acceleration:

Petrol engines: 192 to 250 km/h. - 12.9 to 6.9 s.

Diesel engines: 186 to 218 km/h. - 13.9 to 9.5 s.

Combined fuel consumption - CO2 emissions:

Petrol engines: 7.6 to 11.6 l/100 km – 179 to 272 g/km

Diesel engines: 5.8 to 6.8 l/100 km – 154 to 179 g/km

Car Nominees for the year 2009!

Nomination for the year 2009 started and 37 cars got nominated among which seven car models came as finalists viz. Alfa Romeo MiTo, Citroën C5, Ford Fiesta, Opel/Vauxhall Insignia, Renault Mégane, Skoda Superb and Volkswagen Golf.

15 Crore earned by TATA through NANO forms!

Its very proud for Tata Motors that it has earned Rs 15 crore at a time through NANO which has become peoples car. This car got a very good response from people. As this costs just Rs 1, 00,000, all people from various backgrounds are coming forward in buying this cool and trendy car. Just in a month Tata Motors has earned good return and its for sure that Nano will no where be loss to them as its very economical. Guess Tata will earn more and more profits on this car and this profit and good response has been a kind of encouragement to the Tata Motors!

Ford Ahead of Honda in Initial Quality!

For the first time ford Motors is going beyond Honda Company i.e. it is one step ahead of Honda. It has reached new levels of customer satisfaction with its improvised technology and quality. It has also tied up with Toyota when it comes to Initial Vehicle Quality. RDA Group of Bloomfield Hills, Mich conducted GQRS (Global Quality Research System) survey for Ford. And Ford feels that it’s a great achievement and they also feel that proud that they are ahead of Honda.

Well there were few models which led respective segments in the survey as follows:

Ford Mustang – initial quality and customer satisfaction for sports cars

Ford Taurus – initial quality for large cars

Ford Taurus X – initial quality for crossover utilities

Mercury Milan – initial quality for midsize cars

Ford Ranger – initial quality for compact pickups

They feel so happy and pretty proud that they have got fruit from their hard work. Well based on the present situation guess Ford may earn more returns move further ahead of all repute companies like Honda!

Some surprising Cars Photos

Amazing Hand-Built Wooden Ferrari Engine On eBay

This Ferrari 365GTB/4 V12 engine meticulously built from eleven different woods, just popped up on eBay. It's one of 25 hand-made by Bill Dietz, each taking 400 man hours and combined three years to build.


Ferrari engines of any vintage are pieces of art on their own, but this absolutely faithful recreation in woods ranging from oak to Philippine mahogany takes things to an entirely different level. Everything is perfectly recreated in wood, from the valve covers to the velocity stacks to the bolts holding the pressure plate on. It got us thinking, what would be cooler to have as a living room decoration, an actual Ferrari engine or this ultra-rare piece of craftsmanship? We're thinking the wooden one, as having a real Ferrari engine would mean a waste of a perfectly good Geo Metro transplant motor.

Due to Oil Leak GM Recalls 1.5 Million Vehicles

GM is recalling about 1.5 million vehicles due to an oil leak that could cause an engine fire.


Apparently under hard breaking engine oil could leak past a heat shield and drip on the exhaust manifold causing a chance for a fire by igniting the oil from the hot surface of the manifold. This currently affects the following vehicles:

1997-2003 Buick Regal
1998-2003 Chevrolet Lumina
1998-2003 Chevrolet Monte Carlo
1998-2003 Chevrolet Impala
1998-1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue
1997-2003 Pontiac Grand Prix

A total of 1,497,516 vehicles are involved in the recall.

To address this issue, GM dealers will remove the plastic spark plug retention guide and install in its place two spark plug wire retainers. The service is free of charge of course. The fix is very simple be needed because of the potential severity of not addressing this issue which is FIRE! No one wants a fire on their older GM vehicle. That just may put someone over the edge and attempt to sue a company that is about to file bankruptcy.

Currently no fatalities have been reported but a total of three incidents related to the defects have happened. Only one of the three incidents was reported to have included an injury.

Note: This recall does not affect the supercharged version of the 3.8-liter engine used in any of the vehicles above.

Plans of vending US auto unit by AIG to Zurich!

Based on few sources there is hottest news that AIG (American International Group Inc) is planning to vend its US auto insurance business to Swiss insurer Zurich Financial Services for about USD 1.5 billion. This deal will be announced soon but it’s not yet finalized and moreover if this deal is finalized then it’s a great benefit to the insurer.

The unit which is been vended comprises the 21st century insurance business which was acquired by AIG in 2007. This take over happened when it purchased minority stakeholders.

In AIG’s US personal line unit, auto insurance business is one of the part and the AIG’ US personal line unit comprises selling products to high net-worth souls via its AIG Private Client division. AIG Chief Executive Edward Liddy has already stated that the private client division is not vended.

The taxpayers in US have roughly taken 80% stake in AIG. The concern is endeavoring to vend off assets in a bid to reimburse the government but too much difficulty has been faced by them in determining the buyers for big ticket items.

Liddy stated that keeping in mind the challenging market environment, AIG agreed to vend off 10 businesses. These comprise the sale of HSB Group to Germen reinsurer Munich Re for USD 742 million and its Canadian life insurance unit to Bank of Montreal for USD 375 million approximately.

The accident of world’s Costliest car

Russia: One of the richest cars in the world is Lamborghini, the owner of a car will never sleep even if he found any scratches on the car, but here a driver hit the car in roadside tree. And hence multimillion cars are now going to warehouse. This kind of accidents can be overcome by only car loans and insurance alone, without insurance the owner will never buy this kind of richest car.

Huge Risk involved in Small cars!

IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety unveiled a new report which states that small cars face huge amount of risk in crashes with midsize cars. Accidents occurring among midsize and big cars don’t involve any huge amount of risk. Car crashes with small cars involve high fatality rate. Although there many small sized cars coming up in the market with improvised technology and with amazing engine power, small cars are always at huge amount of risk in accidents.

US Gasoline Price Rises 10 Cents a Gallon

The average U.S. retail gasoline price rose about 10 cents a gallon over the past three weeks due to environmental costs linked to warmer weather, though the price was 40 percent lower than a year earlier, according to the Lundberg survey released Sunday.

The average national price for self-serve regular unleaded gasoline was $2.048 a gallon on April 10, up 9.58 cents from March 20, according to the survey of gas stations.

The price was a whopping $1.27 below a year ago levels, when crude oil prices soared.
"The major cause of the rise of nearly a dime in three weeks is seasonal gasoline demand, not only because our consumption rises month by month, but because of the cost of environmental compliance," Survey editor Trilby Lundberg said in an interview.

As the weather warms, refiners are required to limit vapor pressure in order to avoid smog production.

This adds to the cost per gallon, she said. "It's already kicking in this month in some parts of the county," she said.


The cost of crude oil has remained fairly constant over the past three weeks, Lundberg said.

The lower gas prices could spur demand, which is likely to result in a rise in prices, but nowhere near the record $4.112 per gallon set on July 11, 2008, "unless there's a crude oil shock, and that does not seem likely either," she said.

The lowest price per gallon was in Newark, New Jersey, at $1.83, while Anchorage, Alaska, saw the highest at $2.40 per gallon.

Los Angeles, the biggest U.S. market for gasoline, had an average price of $2.32 per gallon.

Copyright 2009 Reuters. Click for restrictions.