Auto Channel

Just as Volkswagen Group’s veyro supercar revived the longstanding Bugatti label, Portuguese-based designer Ernesto Freitas from Luso Motors envisages his new Voisin concept injecting some life into France’s forgotten carmaker, Avions Voisin. At the moment his new Voisin Concept remains just a 3D simulated model but Freitas has plans to create a full scale model and hopes to display it at several international car shows.

Avions Voisin was a carmaker based in Paris, which built a number of luxury cars from 1919 up until 1939. During its prime Voisin was competing with the likes of Bugatti and Bentley but the label eventually experienced some financial strife and a number of its key engineers were lost to fellow French carmaker Renault.

Freitas’ latest design draws obvious inspiration from the Bugatti Veyron and has been designed to accommodate a V12 powerplant in its engine bay. The designer’s choice would be a V12 Audi diesel but for now it remains just a dream.

As we were going through Lancia’s official press site looking for car pics we happened to notice the absurd number of images with women –and that’s not including the show car babes. Don’t get us wrong; one of the first things we do at European car salons is to visit the Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Fiat stands, but it did made us think of what Fiat has turned Lancia into. The company that once produced automotive legends like the Fulvia Coupe and the Delta HF Integrale is now all about haute-couture versions of Fiat cars adorned with chicks. Well, it could have been worse, meaning that Lancia could be making wanna-be luxury versions of Fiats without the babes… Anyways, follow the jump to check out the selected pics we downloaded from of Lancia’s site. -Continued

A strong rumour, yes rumour, going around is that Mercedes-Benz is working on a plan to cease control of Aston Martin. This rumour originally grew roots in February when Adham Charonoglu, of Aston’s Kuwaiti majority shareholder Investment DAR, thinly suggested that a tie-up between Mercedes-Benz and Aston Martin would make a lot of sense, financially and in other automotive ways. Could Merc be now looking seriously at this proposition?


Officially no one is saying. However, McLaren and Merc end their SLR collaboration by 2009, and the German company will be looking at replacing it from in-house, probably straight from AMG or possibly elsewhere. Aston Martin could present a great option for Merc going forward in the premium sports car segment. The sharing of technology would help Aston Martin to a great degree as it increases its sales footprint around the globe and parts becoming more and more expensive to make.

Ford Motor Company is reporting that it is paying its CEO Alan Mulally more than USD22 million (€13,95 million) for work done during the 2007 financial year. Ford reported losses amounting to USD2.7 billion during the same period. Union boss Ron Gettelfinger who serves as President of United Auto Workers said: "We did not sacrifice so that management could find a way to reward themselves with higher compensation,” referring to the agreement the UAW made with the auto industry in 2007.


Mulally replaced heir apparent Bill Ford Jr. at the helm in 2006 when he was hired by Ford, now chairman, from a successful flight running aero company Boeing. That year he received USD39 million in compensation for his troubles. Ford is to reward all workers, including hourly ones in North America with bonuses as a thank you for helping to guide the company through hard times.

It aims to return to profitability in 2009 after narrowing annual losses by USD10 billion in 2007. Partly to thank are the sales of the Aston Martin brand. Jaguar and Land Rover money should only reflect in next year’s annual financial report and we know more or less how much that will be already.

McLaren and partner Mercedes-Benz are preparing to part ways on project SLR as production of the car is scheduled to stop in 2009. The marriage, brought together on and off the F1 race track, produced 261 SLRs in 2006, and 275 in 2007. These are not exactly the 400 – 500 a year figures that the makers were hoping for originally. The 467kW über two-seater’s exploits have been well documented, yet it never quite ignited the blaze its creators hoped it would.

McLaren is on course to start building their own supercar which is codenamed P11 for the year 2009. This is one of the reasons the Ferrari-McLaren saga continues to bite so deep; technologies learnt in F1 are often adapted for road cars by the manufactures concerned and for McLaren to learn so many Ferrari secrets is an endless sore point at Maranello.