SATURDAY, 1 AUGUST, 2015
Streamlined nostalgia To celebrate the 65th year of Plus 4 production, Morgan last week launched the AR P4 at the Silverstone Classic. Selling in the UK for £54 995 (R1 075 672), each of the bespoke Morgan +4 will be handassembled. Only 50 will be made to mark 1950, the year Morgan made the first Plus 4. Unlike the 1950s models, the 2015 AR P4 has a Cosworth 2,0litre engine that makes 167 kW (225 bhp) and a long list of standard features will make the car unique. PHOTOS: SUPPLIED
Dream run by Green Team E07116 electric car puts its monstrous 1 200 Nm of torque down through all four wheels, which sent the University of Stuttgart’s Green Team to a new worldrecord 1,779 seconds over the 0100 km/h run. It is 0,006 of a second faster than the previous record of 1,785 seconds held by the ETH Zurich and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
Nextgen collaboration ‘We are combining the manufacturing expertise of Nissan and Daimler in one production plant’ ALWYN VILJOEN FOLLOWING on the news that Nissan and Daimler will develop a Merc bakkie on the Nissan NP300 platform, Daimler and the RenaultNissan Alliance on Wednesday announced they will invest a total of $1 billion (R12,7 billion) in a new joint manufacturing in central Mexico. Called the Cooperation Manufactur ing Plant Aguascalientes (Compas), the plant will be 50:50 owned by Daimler and Nissan. Compas which will oversee the con struction and operation of a manufac turing plant for the production of next generation premium compact vehicles for the brands MercedesBenz and Infin iti. The stateoftheart plant will be lo cated near the Nissan Aguascalientes A2 plant. It will have an initial annual pro duction capacity of more than 230 000 vehicles and will create about 3 600 di rect jobs by 2020 with potential for add ed capacity. Production of Infiniti vehi
News of a bakkie with a MercedesBenz badge has generated much excitement, but as owner of this 1956 Merc 180D bakkie Gary Bowes points out, the Nissanbased bakkie will join a long line of pickups with threepoint stars. PHOTO: MBZPONTON cles will begin in 2017, the first Mer cedesBenz vehicles will roll off the line in 2018. Compas CEO Ryoji Kurosawa said the plant is an outstanding example of the global reach of the RenaultNissan Alliance and Daimler cooperation. “To gether we are combining the manufac turing expertise of Nissan and Daimler in one production plant in Mexico for the production of nextgeneration pre mium compact cars,” said Kurosawa.
“Aguascalientes was selected as the loca tion for this new plant thanks to the state’s wellestablished supplier base and Nissan’s track record in highly effi cient manufacturing in Mexico for more than three decades,” he added. Compas CFO Uwe Jarosh said the plant gives MercedesBenz Cars its first production location for compact cars in the markets served by the North Ameri can Free Trade Agreement. As announced in June 2014, Daimler
and Infiniti will also cooperate in the development of the nextgeneration premium compact vehicles for the brands MercedesBenz and Infiniti. The partners will closely collaborate at every stage of the product creation process. Brand identity will be safeguarded as the MercedesBenz and Infiniti vehicles will clearly differ from each other in terms of product design, driving charac teristics, and specifications. Daimler and Nissan will also produce the nextgeneration premium compact cars at other production locations around the world, including Europe and China. In terms of size, Daimler Group is much smaller than the RenaultNissan Alliance, which sells one in 10 cars world wide. Daimler last year sold over 2,5 mil lion vehicles, while Renault and Nissan sold 8,5 million vehicles in nearly 200 countries. The Alliance also operates strategic collaborations with automak ers including Germany’s Daimler, Ja pan’s Mitsubishi, China’s Dongfeng,
and India’s Ashok Leyland. MEANWHILE IN CHINA General Motors (GM) and its Chinese partner Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation announced a $5 billion, fouryear project to develop a new range of affordable modern vehicles using GM’s four modular platforms and en gines developed by both companies. Like the RenaultNissanDaimler plant, GM and SAIC plans production for Mexico, but adds Brazil, China, India to the mix, with the tiny market of South Africa still a possibility. GM estimates the partnership can sell two million units annually into these markets. GM product chief Mark Reuss said in a statement: “This new vehicle family will feature advanced customerfacing technologies focused on connectivity, safety and fuel efficiency delivered at a compelling value. It will be a combina tion of content and value not offered pre viously by any automaker in these mar kets that are poised for growth.”
Terrafugia gets sleeker This onetenth scale windtunnel test model of the Terrafugia TFX was recently shown at EAA’s AirVenture at the Oshkosh show in the U.S. In the full scale TFX fits in a normal garage and has a 300 hp engine that provides thrust in the air and charges the batteries for the hub wheel motors that drive the car on the ground. Terrafugia said it will have a range of over 800 km. The company hopes to sell flying cars to the world, and said in a statement the new developments ‘represent exciting, significant progress on the path towards the realisation of Terrafugia’s revolutionary vision for the future of personal transportation’. PHOTO: TERAFUGIA