Penske

Looks like the decision by Penske Automotive to be the Official U.S. Distributor for the smart brand of cars was... uh, smart. According to reports, smart new car sales are one particular bright spot for the company, which saw sales from other outlets drop somewhat. Used cars also

When not watching racing buddy Helio Castroneves waltzing for his life on ABC's hit show Dancing with the Stars, Sam Hornish Jr. can be found in all manner of racing cars. Considered one of the Indy Racing League's star drivers, Hornish Jr. also carries around the accolade of being last year's Indianapolis 500. After eight seasons of racing IndyCar, however, Hornish Jr. will be be jumping ship and joining fellow Indy-defects and former Indy 500 winners Dario Franchitti, Juan Pablo Monto

First the good news for Audi Sports North America. The No. 7 R10 won the LMP1 class during last weekend's 9th Round of the American LeMans Series race at Mosport. With the win, Audi has clinched the LMP1 championship with three races left to run. Unfortunately, Audi has yet again failed to claim an outright win despite dominating the entire race ahead of those pesky LMP2 cars.

Bob Lutz may not be a huge diesel fan but General Motors is beefing up their internal diesel prowess anyway. They have reached an agreement with long-time collaborator Penske Corp. to buy a fifty percent stake in Italian diesel maker VM Motori S.p.A. The new 2.9L V-6 diesel that GM announced at the Geneva Motor Show was jointly developed with VM Motori and the Italian company also supplied the engines that were used in the previous Jeep Liberty diesel.

In an effort to further GM's plan of becoming one of the dominant automakers offering diesel-powered vehicles, the company announced plans to purchase a 50-percent stake in VM Motori S.p.A., an Italian diesel engine manufacturer owned by Penske.

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With the recent announcement that Roger Penske's UnitedAuto Group will be offering SMART FourTwos in the US in 2008, DaimlerChrysler has decided to have a little fun and show people what the SMART brand is all about. To that end they have married a SMART car to a Unimog chassis developed by Greek rally racer Stefan Attart. Although similar to a vehicle created in 2005, known as the forfun, the forfun2

LMP1: Audi R10 TDI (Capello/McNish)

Dieter Zetsche came to Detroit today to announce some pretty big news... not so much that SMART is coming to the U.S. (that was the worst kept secret of June 2006), but rather that Roger Penske and UnitedAuto Group Inc. will be the one doing the honors.