Autoblog

The "International Engine of the Year Award" is a big deal as far as bragging rights go in this industry. Think of it like the Academy Awards for engines. However, instead of members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voting, you have 62 renowned motoring journalists, from 30 countries, casting ballots for their favorite fossil fuel burner.

Last year's winner (pictured above) was BMW's twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline-6. This year's list of nominees includes Nissan's 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6 (found in the Nissan GT-R), Mitsubishi' 2.0-liter twin-turbo I4 (Mitsubishi EVO X), Audi's 5.2-liter V10 (Audi S8), Chevrolet's 6.2-liter supercharged V8 (Corvette ZR1), and BMW's 4.0-liter V8 (BMW M3). Let's sit back and listen to the orchestra for a bit... the winners don't get announced until May 7, at Engine Expo 2008, in Stuttgart, Germany.

Fiat's undeniably adorable 500 has closed off the year with yet another award. The retro-licious little supermini already won the car award of all car awards when it took the 2008 European Car of the Year award, which it somehow managed to squeeze into its little hatch packed with the Auto Europa 2008 award, EuroCarBody 2007 and the Auto Trophy.

The latest to pile on the praise is Top Gear magazine, which named the Fiat 500 its favorite City Car in the BBC Top Gear Awards 2007. Rival publication CAR also named the 500 its Car of the Year, as did rival television program Fifth Gear. Ironically, though, James May (a.k.a. Captain Slow) didn't like the 500.

That's a lot of accolades for such a small car, which Fiat is hoping will help turn its fortunes around as part of its recent resurgence in the marketplace.

[Source: Italiaspeed]

Porsche fanatics recognize the German sportscars for their engineering, less so for their design, which changes very little from one successive model to another. The company's merchandising design studio, however, is being recognized for its design prowess with another iF Product Design Award.

The product for which Porsche Design is being honored is the Worldtime P'6750 on which we reported earlier. The watch features an innovative movement, enclosed in a very Porsche-like minimalist case, that uses two windows to display the time in a second time zone and which time zone is being displayed, which can be switched at the push of a button.

This isn't the first time Porsche Design is winning the award, having taken home the prize seven times before. The citation is awarded by the International Forum Design and will be awarded this coming March at the CeBit Information Technology show, which is taking place concurrently with the Geneva auto show in nearby Hanover, Germany.

[Source: TimeZone.com and Porsche Design]

Those who have followed the post-Talladega Nights stream of Formula One refugees fleeing to NASCAR will be happy to learn that former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya has been awarded Rookie of the Year in the Nextel Cup.

The announcement of Montoya's citation comes right after the series' season closer at Homestead, where Jimmie Johnson took the title after a hot season-long showdown with teammate and title rival Jeff Gordon.

Montoya becomes the fourth Rookie of the Year for Texaco/Havoline Racing, who, in their 21 years in NASCAR have also sponsored star newcomers Davey Allison (who got the award in 1987), Kenny Irwin, Jr. (1998) and Jamie McMurray (2003). Montoya's award also calls to memory the Rookie of the Year award which fellow former F1 driver Robert Doornbos took this year in Champ Cars with Team Minardi USA, which likewise crossed the ocean to oval tracks for this past season. They're coming for you, Ricky Bobby.

Press release after the jump.

[Source: Chip Ganassi Racing]

Hot on the heels of the announced winner of EVO's Car of the Year award comes the revelation from the bigger European Car of the Year, which bestowed the citation for 2008 to the impossibly charming Fiat 500. While EVO's, like Motor Trend here, is awarded by one magazine, the European Car of the Year is named by a collection of several major European publications in several different languages from several European countries.

As we reported earlier, the 500 made the short-list of seven finalists from a pool of 33 nominees. Ultimately the retro Italian hatch beat out some stiff competition from Ford (Mondeo), Kia (cee'd), Mazda (2), Mercedes (C-Class), Nissan (Qashqai) and Peugeot (308).

Not only did the 500 take it by a wide margin – 385 points to the runner-up Mazda2's 325 – but the recognition pushes Fiat even further ahead in the annals of the award's history. Fiat itself has won the contest no less than nine times, while its subsidiaries Alfa Romeo and Lancia add another two and one, respectively. Now if they'll only start bring the 500 stateside, it can start racking up the awards here, too.

[Source: Autovisie via Italiaspeed]

click above to see more high-res pics of the new Ford Mondeo

We believe it's that time of year again when every automotive media outlet and its sister (publication) begin giving out its Car of the Year (COTY) award. Auto Express in the U.K. is kicking things off by awards its respective COTY statue to the new Ford Mondeo, as well as the honor for best family car and estate car. The editor's don't mince words when they say the Mondeo is "Ford's finest ever car". We'd like to agree, except we probably won't ever get a chance to drive the new Mondeo, at least not this generation of the car. Hopefully, Ford CEO Alan Mulally will have his way and the next-gen Mondeo will merge with our Fusion sold in the U.S. Perhaps then we can corroborate the opinion of Auto Express that the Mondeo is a COTY caliber sedan. Until then, however, we'll just congratulate the car from afar.

[Source: Newspress]

Honda took four categories in the latest J.D. Power's 2007 Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study. APEAL measures how happy an owner is with the design, content, layout, and performance of their car within 90 days of purchase. When the votes were tallied from the 91,000 respondents, Honda won with the Fit (Sub-compact), CR-V (MAV), Ridgeline (Mid-size pickup), and Odyssey (Van), beating Mercedes and BMW who both took three categories each.

Among the domestics, Ford was the only winner, with the Mustang and the Edge. According to J.D. Power, new or redesigned vehicles tend to score the best, and that cars that score well in the APEAL Study need lower incentives to lure buyers. And in case you were wondering, closely following another study that took the same measure of owner happiness, the Jaguar S-Type did not make the list this time.

[Source: J. D. Powers]

When did the day come that interiors designed by our own domestic automakers were being celebrated as the best in the biz? After decades of dull designs, cheap materials and poor fit and finish, that day would be today. Ward's Auto has released the results of its 2007 Interior of the Year Competition, in which both its own editors and members of the auto industry at large choose the best inner sanctums in seven vehicle classes ranging from Economy-Priced Car to Premium-Priced Truck. Shocker: Domestics cleaned up, being awarded 11 out of 14 class awards between the editors' choices and the popular vote (and that's not including the Volvo S80's editor award for Premium-Priced Car). The Saturn Aura and Chevy Silverado, in particular, were singled out for their fine furnishings by both judging bodies in their respective classes, just like they were in the North American Car and Truck of the Year Awards last January.

Ward's also awarded prized for Best Brand Expression to the Jeep Wrangler, Best Interior Trim to the Infiniti G35, Best Cup Holder to the Chrysler Sebring and Best Overall Comfort to the Lexus LS 460L. Check out all the award winners after the jump, and pontificate on the state of affairs that led us to this day when domestic interiors are getting props aplenty.

[Source: The Auto Channel]

The last couple of days, we've all been inundated with news of Chrysler's sale to Cerberus, and that's what we lead Podcast #66 with. As much as it makes analysts and pundits foam at the mouth, news about the sale is a pretty dry affair. We'll be keeping an eye on how things go with the newly independent Chrysler, though.

On a more amusing note, we marvel at the confidence GM has in its new Malibu. The suggested sales tactic is to put the new Malibu beside a Camry in Chevy showrooms and guide the customer through how the Malibu is better. Of course, it's mainly a sales stunt - as the only way to tell anything about a car is by driving it. We wonder if Malibus will start popping up in Toyota stores - it'd improve the scenery compared to all the Joe Camel-looking cars, that's for sure. Perhaps the most momentous item we cover this week is Autoblog's first purchased spy shots, capturing the new Honda Accord in the wild. On the spy shot tip, our discussion moves on to the Saab 9-3 and we eventually end up talking about cellphone shots of the Blue Devil. Betwixt the Saab and hot 'Vette, we briefly ponder why German companies are filling their trophy cases with engine awards. German Engineering, ja. We finish up with a simple request - that Motor Trend, Automobile and their sibling buff books be well treated by their new stewards, which devolves into a confessional about who bought a back issue on eBay that featured one of their favorite cars. It's a 36 minute affair this week, enjoy!


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To paraphrase Gordon Gecko, when it comes to Honda, "green is good." The Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit advocacy group out of Cambridge, Massachussetts, voted Honda the country's greenest automaker for the fourth time in a row.

Their UCS study, called Automaker Rankings 2007: The Environmental Performance of Car Companies, examined the emissions from every car made by eight car makers, representing 96% of cars and trucks sold in the US. The report lauds Honda for achieving the better-than-average smog scores in every class, while Toyota, which came in second, was praised for being the only manufacturer to improve its global warming performance every year since 2001. (Honda's environmentally-themed F1 team was left out of the study.) Of the eight automakers studied, The Big Three came in as the last three, with DaimlerChrysler earning the UCS's Rusty Tailpipe award as the dirtiest automaker.

The full UCS report in pdf format is here. If you check out the item at AutoblogGreen, they've got nifty video greenness to go along with it.

[Source: Netscape]