TimeSport

 The Skoda Fabia Monte Carlo Tech edition is limited to only 1,000 cars

This is the Skoda Fabia Monte Carlo Tech, a limited edition version of the Fabia Monte Carlo that adds sat-nav and Bluetooth – normally an £875 option – for no extra cost.

Limited to 1,000 cars in the UK, and on-sale now, there are two engine choices available, with 500 each of the 104bhp 1.2-litre TSI petrol model and 104bhp 1.6-litre TDI diesel being offered.

Prices for the Fabia Monte Carlo Tech start at £11,990 for the petrol model, and £12,960 for the diesel. Each car is available in a choice of two colour combinations – red with a contrasting black roof, or white with a black roof – and both come with five-speed manual gearboxes.

All Monte Carlo Tech models include piano black body trim on the exterior, black covers on the door mirrors, a black radiator grille, smoked headlights and 17-inch black alloys.

Inside, in addition to the Amundsen satellite navigation system, there are black sports seats, which feature bigger side bolsters, a black roof lining a leather-wrapped steering wheel with red stitching, and a leather-covered handbrake and gearstick gaiter. Silver door sill guards and metal pedals complete the look.

The original Skoda Fabia Monte Carlo was launched in January 2011 to celebrate 100 years of the Monte Carlo rally. The anniversary also tied in with Skoda’s 110th anniversary of competing in motor sport.

Skoda UK claims that the Fabia Monte Carlo model has been a success for the firm, with more than 4,000 sold since the car went on sale.

= Official pictures and details of the BMW Concept X4, ahead of its debut at the Shanghai Motor Show

We already know BMW is planning to plug the gaps in its standard line-up with the 2 Series and 4 Series. Now it’s turning its attention to its X models as it introduces the Concept X4 at the Shanghai Motor Show later this month.

This previews a production car set to be unveiled early next year – just as BMW introduced the 4 Series Coupe Concept at the start of this year, with the production model set for release at September’s Frankfurt Motor Show. Tone down the lights, wheels and bumpers, and the idea is you’re looking at a showroom-ready car.

There’s a clear design link between the 4 Series Coupe Concept and the X3, with both featuring a fresh LED headlamp pattern that flows straight into the grille. The shape of the lights is a little more angular than the curvy units fitted to the 4 Series.

In profile, the X4 has the same low-slung, high-riding silhouette as the X6. There’s a rising feature line running back from the front wing, joined by another which curves up around the rear wheelarches. The chunky wheelarches are almost squared off – a trick Jeep uses to make its cars look more muscular.

As with other BMW X models, matt black plastic cladding surrounds the wheelarches and runs along the side skirts.

From head-on, BMW has marked out the X4 as one of its coupés by making the outer air intakes a lot more pronounced than the central intake.

Move to the rear, and the car looks a bit like the new 3 Series GT. The bumper is a lot deeper, though, and features some rugged underbody protection and two large exhaust pipes.

BMW has altered the dimensions of the X3 to help create a more dynamic look for the X4. It’s exactly the same length, at 4,648mm, and has the same 2,810mm wheelbase, but it’s 53mm lower and 34mm wider. This gives a similarly planted look to the X6.

That extra width could be added to the track of the X4 – as it is in the X6 – which could help make it feel a little more stable through corners. Add the lower roofline and lower centre of gravity, and the X4 looks set to be one of the best-handling SUVs in the BMW line-up.

No pictures of the interior have been released yet, but BMW will probably keep the layout near-identical to the X3’s, as it has done with the X6, in an effort to minimise development costs. Due to the sloping roofline, there’ll be a little less headroom and a smaller boot – so while the X3 has a 550-litre load area, the X4 will probably have around 500 litres of space.

BMW hasn’t provided any details about engines or transmissions – only that the X4 will come with the xDrive four-wheel-drive system.

The car will probably share engines with the X3, as the X6 shares X5 engines. That means a 181bhp 2.0-litre diesel in the X4 20d, a 254bhp 3.0-litre straight-six in the X4 30d and a flagship using the same engine but producing 309bhp.

BMW does offer a rear-wheel-drive version of the X3, but hasn’t confirmed whether a 2WD X4 will be available.

The company will be hoping to continue the success story started by the X6, which has consistently sold well since it was introduced in 2008. For every two-and-a-half X5s that found homes globally last year, BMW sold one X6. Similar sales figures for the X4 are likely.

The car will be built alongside the X3, X5 and X6 at the Spartanburg plant in South Carolina, US. Prices are expected to start at around £30,000 when order books for the X4 open early next year.

Jimmy Durante was born of humble circumstances on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the dark days of the 1890s, but went on to become one of the most well-respected and highest grossing stars of the Jazz era. Yet however great was his regard, when he was eventually enshrined in pop music by Cole Porter with “You’re the Top,” Durante was memorialized solely for his signature sniffer. To quote: You’re a rose/You’re Inferno’s Dante/You’re the nose/On the great Durante.

Similarly, though it began as the offspring of workaday Japanese automaker Honda in the dark days of the 1980s, Acura went on to become one of the most well respected and best-selling car brands of the post-Malaise era, producing immortal and beloved hits like the Integra, the first generation Legend, and the original TSX. Yet when reviewers write about the brand today, they’re always certain to lead with a reference to the straked and argent beak Acura designers stuck on their models in the late aughts. To quote: You’re an axe/You’re Charles Barkley’s razor/You’re a shield/That could block Spock’s phaser.

This snooty reaction isn’t limited to the snoot. Neither is it solely the fault of the AutoCAD wielders in Tokyo and Torrance, Calif. Somewhere along the way, just as Durante lost his radio mojo to TV, Acura lost its keel to complacency, crossover dependency, the rear-wheel drive revival and an institutional sight-lowering that Honda once fought with innovations like CVCC instead of caving to catalytic converters, but has grown to accept in this century.

Which brings us to the brand’s new flagship, which, despite Acura’s marketing tagline for it — "Luxury Defined by You" — is not called the UL, but rather RLX. As in, Frankie say.

Sit down in its cushy captain’s chair, start up the actively noise-cancelled engine, roll up the insulating laminated windows, and begin coasting along on resonator-equipped frequency-reducing wheels, and you’ll see what we mean. As if there were any doubts about the car’s intent, at the launch, an Acura executive described it as providing the kind of “relaxed driving situation” wherein one could pilot it with one hand lightly touching the wheel, making it an ideal competitor for that 1978 Lincoln you were cross-shopping.

The new RLX is actually slightly sportier than that, with an iVTEC V-6 that's smaller but more potent than the powerplant it replaces. The downsized 3.5 liter unit’s 10 hp bump to 310 hp is accomplished through Acura’s first use of direct injection, and when combined with a 76-lb steelectomy, should translate to slightly better acceleration than the old RL. Fuel economy rises as it must, from 17/24 mpg in the RL to 20/31 mpg. So to does the acronym count, with the requisite collision, lane departure, lane keeping, adaptive cruise, and low-speed following systems, all of which work appropriately well if you turn them on, which we mostly didn’t because, well, we’re generally in favor of being the ones to drive the cars when we’re driving them.

 

 The most relevant acronym here though is PAWS, which stands not for Prow All Wreathed in Silver (sorry), but Precision All Wheel Steering, a trick system that uses a pair of electronic actuators to provide unique toe-in or toe-out angles to each rear wheel. If this sounds like something Honda might have invented in the '80s, it is, kind of. But it’s much more sophisticated and computerized and magical than the four-wheel-steering setup on the 3^rd-generation Prelude. In a wet slaloming comparison with a Mercedes E-Class and BMW 5-Series, we found PAWS to be seamless yet evident, providing the RLX with a more balanced feel than one would expect of a cushy, nose-heavy front driver.

Speaking of heavy noses, the Acura still suffers from the aforementioned familial endowment, though its prominence has been dissipated by the distracting presence of its new Signature Jewel Eye headlights. These definitely look …distinctive, though the unique toe-in and toe-out angles applied to each of the lamp’s five sets of LED nodules give them the appearance of a pair of stacked engagement rings lumpily crafted by Jared after a few trips to the champagne fountain.

Our own engagement with the RLX over a variety of roadkill-littered Northern California roads was sadly similar: gemlike, yet misaligned. The cabin is finely crafted, with clean lines and smart materials, and hosts a surprisingly roomy rear bench — the result of a two-inch wheelbase stretch back there. But the space feels '90s austere, lacking the flourishes of color and handcrafted richness one now expects in the category. The dual LCD screens—the lower one controlling ventilation and media, the upper dedicated to the nav and multifarious AcuraLink features that this car’s aging buyers will never use — nicely split functions you’d want to access simultaneously, but are no more user-friendly or less distracting than they’d be on one screen. (Whom do we have to bribe to get some knurled knobs up in here?) And the 6-speed automatic transmission couples well with the engine, but lacks the bandwith, sharpness, and efficiency of the 7- and 8-speeds in its competitors

Overall, we kept thinking: this is a very nice car. But at $60,450 for the fully equipped models we were driving, we had to ask, is it twice as nice as Honda’s lovely $30,000 Accord V-6, or once as nice as a similarly kitted-out Audi A6? The answer was always no.

Perhaps our minds will be changed by the addition of 60 hp and two more drive wheels when the range-topping Super Handling All Wheel Drive version arrives later this year. We hope so. With the enticing NSX 2.0 Concept it just displayed at Detroit, Acura has shown that it can sniff out its moxie, so it’s not impossible to imagine the brand blowing past its current limitations. It worked for the Schnozolla. As no less than Frank Sinatra sang in his 1955 revision to Burton Lane’s “How About You?” I’m mad about good books/Can’t get my fill/And James Durante’s looks/Give me a thrill. Thrill us, Acura. Please.

The name of Ferrari’s new flagship has been under question for sometime. Many expected it to be called the F70, and then it was rumored to be the F150 (highly amusing for us in America). The name LaFerrari however, is even worse — hearkening back to the Dodge La Femme of 1956 —  but this is Ferrari. It can, and will, do whatever it likes.
When the sheets were removed, the Ferrari stand at Geneva erupted into cheers, clapping, and rather a lot of pushing and shoving. And for good reason, too. LaFerrari is simply beautiful. In fact, it looks better than expected, as it presents sleek, swooping lines, and limits the aggressive edge of the Enzo. That ferociousness is still present at the front with its massive hood vents and sharp chin, but it blends elegance and speed in a wondrous fashion. The interior looks as breathtaking and futuristic as you would expect as well, with its digital display cluster and Alcantara wrapped surfaces.
Beneath the skin, LaFerrari does not disappoint. A V-12 motor punches out 800 hp, but when you add the 163 additional hp provided by the coupled electric motor, a grand total of 963 raging ponies are unleashed, comfortably outdoing the 903 hp produced by LaFerrari’s arch nemesis, the McLaren P1.