2016 Alfa Romeo 4C Spider Just a few months after the death of the coupe version of the Alfa Romeo 4C, were seeing the Spyder version also being flushed down the drain, killing the model completely.The wonderful little car was touted for its excellent road feel and handling prowess; it was also the last official car to be available without power steering, which is what made it great in the first place.The 4C was powered by a 1.7-litre turbocharged four-cylinder that churned out 237 horsepower, more than enough to move the carbon-fibre-tubbed vehicle around. A scant weight of just 895 kilograms didnt stand in the way, either. As Alfa Romeo restructures itself to be a more restrained company, the small sports cars days were numbered anyway. The Giulia and Stelvio are still around to take the place of the performance section, but the focus will no longer be on fun, but instead on profitability. As FCA is poised to become a larger presence in Europe, a place where Alfa Romeo hasnt sold a city car since the MiTo, it will have to rethink how it approaches vehicles.The merger between FCA and PSA could have something to say about the death of this vehicle, but with the word around FCA being rationality, its unlikely well see a small, two-seat sports car for quite some time under the Alfa Romeo brand
Origin: The best car Alfa Romeo makes, the 4C Spyder, is now dead
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The curious case of the crumpled Camaro and two dead buffalo
It’s not uncommon to find bison near or on the road in Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories. It’s right there in the name. Locals know that and drive appropriately. And according to one local gas station attendant who says he gassed up a Chevrolet Camaro with New Jersey license plates on a Saturday night in May, the young, male out-of-towner was notified of the potential mammalian road blocks. I asked him where he was going, and he said he was heading out of town, the Petro-Canada attendant, Brian Dragon, told the CBC. I told him there were a lot of buffalo on the road, and I told him to be careful. Unfortunately, it seems the unknown driver of the Camaro with tinted windows throughout and black American air force-inspired decals on the side was not cautious enough. Kathy Lepine and her mother drove up on the scene early the next morning, seeing the two dead buffalo a short distance from the smashed vehicle with its body badly damaged, the windshield collapsed and a blanket draped eerily over the driver’s seat. But perhaps the most bizarre and grisly detail was that the driver was nowhere in sight. We saw the buffalo upside down and kind of mangled, followed by the red car with the star on it, Lepine said. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a vehicle accident so fresh and that bad the whole front end of that vehicle was toast, like, it was crushed. Local authorities from the nearby town of Fort Smith have yet to release any details about the accident, including whether or not they know where the driver is, saying only that there was no ambulance called to the location.
Origin: The curious case of the crumpled Camaro and two dead buffalo
GM talks with Amazon-backed electric truckmaker may be dead
2019 Rivian R1T Electric TruckHandout / Rivian It’s becoming clearer why electric truck-making startup Rivian may have spurned the chance to form a partnership with General Motors: The company appears to be doing just fine on its own. With a US$700 million funding round led by Amazon.com just completed, Rivian has six vehicles planned by 2025—and that’s just the models that will be sold under the Rivian brand. The startup also will be making several models for other companies, founder R.J. Scaringe said in an interview at the New York auto show. One of them is related to the Amazon deal, Scaringe said, declining to give more detail. Scaringe’s grand plan helps explain why talks that would have given GM a stake have reportedly fallen apart. With both consumers and businesses showing interest, Rivian is rebuffing a deal that may have required a level of exclusivity that would have kept it from building vehicles for others. “In general, my reason for starting Rivian was to do big things without anything preventing us from doing that,” Scaringe said, while declining to discuss talks with GM specifically. GM and Rivian came close to a deal that could have benefited both companies. GM would have been able to lend engineering and manufacturing expertise. In return, Rivian may have helped the largest U.S. automaker get an electric pickup to market quicker. With those talks in the past, Scaringe has big ambitions. He said that by 2025, Rivian’s plant – a former Mitsubishi factory in Normal, Illinois, bought for just US$13 million – will make the half-dozen different pickups and sport utility vehicles of varying sizes. None of the vehicles Rivian has in the pipeline will be a sedan, Scaringe said. All of them will be larger pickup and SUVs because those vehicles are popular and burn the most fuel. Rivian’s electric-vehicle platform, which Scaringe prefers to refer to as a “skateboard,” is a big part of his vision to deliver returns to those who’ve backed him. In addition to retailing trucks and SUVs, he’s open to selling the technology to others for a myriad of applications, such as stationary batteries. The company, headquartered in Plymouth, Michigan, is drawing significant interest from consumers. As Tesla did with the Model 3 sedan, Rivian has been taking $1,000 deposits for the R1T pickup and R1S SUV that will go on sale starting in the fall of 2020. Rivian invited all depositors to check out the company’s vehicles at an event Tuesday at Classic Car Club Manhattan. While Scaringe said he figured he would draw a limited audience from the New York Metro area, about 1,200 people showed up, with some visiting from as far away as Hawaii. Rivian has more than 1,200 pre-orders, Scaringe said, though he declined to say how many. He’s already looking for ways to expand production in Normal. A little more than half the depositors want the pickup
Origin: GM talks with Amazon-backed electric truckmaker may be dead
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