The American-built Nissan Altima has received a minor facelift for the 2010 model year, with a mildly-changed interior and some tech enhancements to its navigation and entertainment systems. Available as a sedan and a coupe, the new Altima will first go on sale in the U.S. this October, with a possible GCC release by this winter.
The U.S. NHTSA safety agency has alerted Lexus and Toyota owners about conditions that could cause the accelerator to get stuck in the pressed position under certain conditions. The agency “strongly recommends” taking out removable floor mats on the driver’s side in certain models and not to replace them with any other mat, either from Toyota or any other brand. After numerous reported “unintended acceleration” incidents, Toyota is now conducting a major recall on 3.8 million affected cars, but only in the United States.
Highly-anticipated by the Honda community, the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show in October will mark the debut of the Honda CR-Z hybrid concept again, except this time it is a near-production version. The sporty-but-slow CR-Z, slated for Japanese production early next year, is a revival of the Honda CR-X from the 1980s. Based on the Civic of that time, with a puny engine and decent suspension, it became somewhat popular among budget-minded car enthusiasts. The new CR-Z is expected to be exclusively hybrid.
The snooty Aston Martin sport-luxury carmaker, once quintessentially British but then pimped out to foreign owners, is in trouble after the Kuwaiti “sovereign wealth fund” that owns 51% of the luxury carmaker admitted it was struggling to refinance its debt.
Mitsubishi’s Australian division is the one to announce the redesign of the 2010 Outlander, featuring a new nose that mimics that of the Lancer Evo for no apparent reason.
About 42 hours after Highcroft Acura driver Scott Sharp walked away from a crash during practice for the Petit Le Mans racing event in the United States, a freshly-built Acura ARX-02a was rolled out for the morning warmup on Saturday. The Highcroft crew put in marathon sessions of work, totalling 20 hours, to build a brand new racecar, as LeMans teams do not generally have a backup car. A spare carbon-fibre tub was picked up from the Honda Performance Development shop in California and shipped, while the crew at the Atlanta racetrack salvaged 10% of the old parts for use in the new car.
Holland & Holland, makers of “the world’s finest sporting guns” and Overfinch, makers of tuner Range Rovers, have joined forces to create the ultimate luxury off-roader for drunk hunters. The Holland & Holland Range Rover is “a quintessentially English take on motoring luxury,” with interior fittings to store wine bottles and hunting rifles.
Unlike industries in the Middle East, which exclusively make use of utilitarian Japanese pickups with puny four-banger engines, the Americans like to do their blue-collar jobs in style. For those who feel that the massive Ford F-150 is too small for their needs or their egos, the company is offering the redesigned 2011 Ford Super Duty.
The Toyota 4Runner 4×4 was launched back in 1984, based on the four-wheel-drive Toyota pickup architecture, as a smaller alternative to the Land Cruiser. And while it was last seen in the early 1990s around here, the 4Runner continued in the U.S. market, with styling harking back to the 80s original. Now, as the Middle East prepares for the launch of the blobby 2010 Prado, the Americans are celebrating the launch of the blocky 2010 4Runner. While both share similar platforms and engines, the American-built 4Runner looks far more purposeful.
We are getting reports from various readers that the all-new 2010 Nissan 370Z coupe is available in some showrooms around the UAE and other GCC countries.