Well this is a damaging blow to the “vorsprung durch technik” aka progress through technology line spun by one German manufacturer. The EU has expanded on the VW Group emissions testing scandal by laying more charges against VW, Audi and Porsche along with BMW and Mercedes-Benz, in other words, pretty much all of Germany’s mainstream manufacturers! In the original issue, … [Read more...]
Rack and Pinion Steering
Rack and Pinion Steering on cars is one of those inventions that appeared early on in the life of the automobile and was taken from another source. Many early components on cars started out life being used by other machines before being enhanced and evolving into something far more complex. The simplest explanation of how it works is that the steering column has a classical … [Read more...]
BMW Takes Control of China JV
Times, they are a changing. China, where there is a massive growth in car sales as the economy grows and the population becomes wealthier, has been looking at market forces and investments. China, like Japan up to 70 odd years ago, was a closed market and to enter it, a company needed to have a majority local partner. That meant that all the European and US car manufacturers … [Read more...]
Monteverdi
This article is a description of one of the few Swiss car makers: Monteverdi. The marque was formally founded by Peter Monteverdi in 1967 after he turned the family business, a car dealership, into a specialist manufacturer. Prior to founding the manufacturing company, Monteverdi had been building specials for road and racing which included MBM (Monteverdi Binnigen Motors) … [Read more...]
Magna Steyr to Build New Sports Cars
I read a report that Magna Steyr would be contracted to build two new sports cars that are being jointly developed by Toyota and BMW. There have been reports for many months about the Toyota Supra coming back to market and this most recent report now suggests that it will be built in Europe as opposed to Japan. The concept Supra was showcased at the Geneva International … [Read more...]