The dealership’s new location, at 9455 Interstate 10 West, is on a 3-acre site that’s larger than its former location at 4623 Fredericksburg Road.

“We moved because we wanted to better serve our customers, be in a new building and be compliant with what Porsche wants us to do,” General Manager Abigail Kampmann said.

“We have more square footage in the showroom. That’s where we grew the most.”

The dealership, which sports a sleek façade, joins eight other luxury vehicle dealerships along Interstate 10 West between Loop 410 and Boerne.

“This corridor has become an outlet for high-end,” said Rick Cavender, whose family owns a number of dealerships, including Cavender Audi on I-10 West. “And that is why we’re close to The Rim, close to The Shops at La Cantera.”

In choosing a site for a dealership, “we look for proximity to competitors that have the same type of premium brand,” Cavender said. Although buyers of high-end vehicles are loyal to their favorite brand, “we like the opportunity to conquest, to bring those people into our market.”

And the strategy is working. Since the move early in February 2010 from the dealership’s former location on Loop 410, sales at Cavender Audi have increased, and so has the number of visitors to the store.

“It’s a much better demographic, has proximity to our competitors and there’s greater ability of our buyers to pay for a premium import,” Cavender said.

Kampmann agreed that it’s good to be close to other dealerships and to high-end neighborhoods. “We’re close to the Medical Center and The Dominion,” an exclusive residential community, she said.

The Porsche dealership’s former location was built in the 1960s. “It had been upgraded, but we were looking for a new home, and this land became available,” she said.

Kampmann holds an executive post at family-owned The Performance Cos., which in 2008 bought the I-10 site that had been occupied by Calloway’s Nursery. She declined to disclose the company’s investment in the new location.

Article source: http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/article/S-A-s-luxury-car-corridor-gets-Porsche-3344803.php

Luxury car manufacturers, as a result, are trying to deliver better fuel economy without harming the essential nature of their exotic machines. That essence is excess — more power, performance, better handling, superior build quality, better safety technology and more standard amenities than can be found in less-expensive automobiles.

It is a contradictory pursuit that makes perfect sense in today’s marketplace. Buyers of luxury cars aren’t asking for less power, according to engineers and sales executives at Mercedes-Benz, Lamborghini, McLaren Automotive and Bentley — four companies I spoke to for this week’s column.

Those buyers instead are demanding oomph absent penalty — especially desirable in a time of rising fuel prices and globally increasing taxes on mobile-source pollution.

Manufacturers are using a variety of technologies to solve the power-economy paradox. Among them are a growing reliance on aluminum, high-strength but lightweight steels, and carbon fiber and other composite materials. The aim is to reduce weight and thereby limit the work and fuel consumed in moving a load.

Older technologies, such as turbocharging, using exhaust driven impellers to pull more air into combustion chambers to get a bigger bang per unit of fuel burned, are being revisited with remarkable results. Consider this week’s subject, the 2012 Mercedes-Benz S350 BlueTEC 4Matic sedan, a born-again diesel member of Mercedes-Benz’s premium S-Class line.

There have been Mercedes-Benz turbo-diesels before, first introduced by the company in 1977. But none like this.

Diesel engines generally get 30 percent more miles per gallon than their gasoline counterparts. Turbocharged diesel engines, such as the one in the S350 4Matic, improve on that performance by directly injecting diesel mist into the combustion chamber for a better air-fuel mixture.

The results will impress anyone who loves driving. Here is a large, fully dressed, all-wheel-drive luxury sedan that moves from 0 to 60 mph in seven seconds, yet delivers 17 to 25 miles per gallon in the city and 25 to 37 miles per gallon on the highway.

Mileage is affected by multiple factors, including driving styles and road conditions. But those are fairly decent numbers for a large, high-performance luxury sedan.

You fall in love with the sheer movement of this one. All of that torque, most easily described as engine’s twisting power, gives you a powerful launch from “start.” Once you’re underway, cruising is a breeze with a seven-speed automatic transmission deftly managing the gear changes.

The S350 4Matic is luxury defined. It has every imaginable amenity and safety technology, including automatic distance monitoring between your car and the one in front of you and Mercedes-Benz’s patented “Pre-SAFE” predictive protection system to hold you in your seat and otherwise cushion you in the event of a crash.

The S350 4Matic has a healthy exhaust note, the way the tailpipes sound when pushing on the accelerator. But more pleasing is the constant purr of its turbo-diesel 3-liter V-6 engine (240 horsepower, 455 foot-pounds of torque) when moving along the highway.

It’s a stink-free drive, too. There’s no smoke, no discernible discharge of diesel particulate matter. The car requires ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel, which translates to a sulfur content of 15 parts per million. The fuel is now available at most service stations nationwide.

The kicker is what Mercedes-Benz does with burned fuel gases in the S350 4Matic’s exhaust stream before those gases reach the car’s catalytic converter. From a compact container near the spare-wheel well, a urea formula (Mercedes-Benz calls it “AdBlue”) is automatically injected into the outflowing gases, turning them into ammonia, which is then converted to harmless nitrogen and oxygen after passing through the catalytic converter into the atmosphere.

It is a complicated business. It’s expensive. But no one who makes and sells cars for a living truly believed that providing a high-performance luxury sedan with maximum fuel economy and ultra-low emissions would be easy — or cheap.

Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/cars/2012-mercedes-s350-extravagance-and-economy/2012/02/15/gIQATvkqJR_story.html

A range of new Opel models is in the pipeline according to Opel and Vauxhall CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke, who has expressed he wants the company to produce a new flagship luxury model, a crossover, and a new sports car.

The Opel Insignia, set to launch in Australia during the third quarter of this year, is currently the company’s flagship vehicle, and it has been highly praised by international media. Stracke says he wants to build on its success and offer something with a higher level of luxury.

Stracke spoke out about plans at a recent Frankfurt event, saying, “I believe we need a top of the line car to be positioned in the luxury segment. The Insignia car has done a great job of showing we can make premium-like products, but establishing ourselves properly in this territory will be a long journey”.

He also said it would be beneficial for the company to bring out an all-new crossover to take on the premium SUV segment, including rivals such as the Mercedes-Benz ML-Class and BMW X5.

Opel doesn’t currently offer any type of SUV or crossover in its international line-up, with the sub-compact Opel Mokka set to become the first later this year. It’s rumoured the new SUV model could be based on the Buick Enclave, using the GM Lambda platform.

A new sports car was also mentioned, with Stracke saying in a recent Autocar report the company could benefit from “possibly another roadster … a car with a deeper connection into the company than the Opel-Vauxhall VX220 and the Opel Speedster that came from the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky.”

Before anything is given the green light however, Stracke made it clear that plans would have to be assessed after it launches the new Ampera, Mokka, Astra convertible and Junior in 2013.

Article source: http://www.caradvice.com.au/159397/opel-crossover-luxury-flagship-sports-car-under-consideration/

The company, founded by former Aston Martin designer Henrik Fisker in 2007, needs the car, which has come up against its share of teething problems from a recall to software glitches, to sell well.

It hopes to shake off production delays to tap the rest of a $529 million federal loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to bankroll its next model, the Nina sedan. CEO Fisker told reporters — gathered in Beverly Hills for what’s billed as the first chance for U.S. reviewers to take the car for a spin — it was exploring financing alternatives.

“Our survival is not dependent on the DOE,” Fisker said. “We have already looked into alternative financing and we have really good possibilities,” he said without elaborating.

“We don’t want to put ourselves into a position where we’re at the mercy of the DOE.”

Fisker, which has never made a profit, received $193 million of the federal loan to support the rollout of the $102,000 plug-in hybrid sportscar. The $336 million balance of the loan is intended to fund development of a sedan known as the Nina that will be sold at a lower price.

But last week, Fisker said it had suspended work at its assembly plant in Delaware — a former General Motors Co factory — and laid off 26 workers while it renegotiates terms of the federal loan.

Fisker said on Monday the company — wary of over-aggressive targets after missing Karma production and sales targets — was discussing more realistic milestones.

A DOE spokesman had also cited delays in getting the Karma to market as a factor. The automaker has missed several launch dates before handing its first Karma over to actor Leonardo di Caprio, who is also a Fisker investor, in July.

Fisker continues to crank out something like 25 of its Karmas a day, with about 1,500 made so far and about 400 to 500 delivered to European and American buyers, its CEO said.

WANTED: STRONG REVIEWS In addition to the federal loan, Fisker has raised more than $850 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Advanced Equities and Qatar Investment Authority. Hewlett Packard Chairman Ray Lane is a managing partner at Kleiner Perkins and a Fisker board member and investor.

But Fisker needs its Karma to go down well with its target clientele to sustain its cash flow.

On Monday, it let reporters get behind the wheel of about a half-dozen of its svelte four-door sports sedan and cruise about 70 miles up into the sun-drenched Malibu mountains and back.

Their sweeping curves — intended to resemble a cheetah in full flight — and distinctive high-pitched whines turned heads, drawing the kind of attention the four-year-old startup craves as it struggles to put behind it a harsher form of scrutiny.

Fisker has found itself under the microscope as its woes have mounted. In January, it halted sales for four days to fix a software malfunction that at times triggered warning lights while temporarily freezing navigation systems.

Article source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international-business/fisker-automotive-pins-hopes-on-its-karma-luxury-car-as-it-seeks-more-cash/articleshow/11885453.cms

Lotus is synonymous with racing at the highest levels of motorsport; with the company having made its name by winning races with the likes of Jim Clark, Mario Andretti and Ayrton Senna. This association helped the company become very successful in the road car market during this period.

Things started to go awry following the death of founder Colin Chapman in 1982 and the company’s reputation for high performance innovation inspired by motorsport participation gently evaporated.

However, the company is now going back to its roots under the direction of its new CEO, the former Ferrari man Dany Bahar. This has seen them return to high level motorsport (Formula One, Indycar and Le Mans) and bring high performance motorsport technology to road users like never before with the new T125.

Get closer to F1 than ever before

Named in order to align it to Lotus’s first ever championship winning F1 chassis (Lotus 25), the Lotus T125 is as close to the company’s current F1 racer as usability and finances allow. Powered by a 3.5 litre 640 BHP Cosworth V8 despite only weighing 650kg and with F1 inspired aerodynamics, the T125 is perhaps the highest performance track day car the average petrol head will ever get their hands on.

Only 25 T125’s are to be made, with each buyer getting a complimentary day of individual training with Formula 1 race winner Jean Alesi, who is going to be contesting the Indy 500 race for Lotus next year. Additionally, each T125 owner will be able to pick their own colour scheme or livery for the car, with historic Lotus JPS, Camel and British racing green liveries all being available to customers.

However, all of this performance and exclusivity does not come cheap; with the T125 costing close to $1 million. On top of this, anyone who is thinking of driving the vehicle will have to pass stringent health and fitness tests in order to prove that they are capable of handling the remarkable forces which the car places on the occupants body, with 5g (five times the force of gravity) being generated by the vehicles advanced aerodynamics in certain corners.

One slight deviation from F1 machinery is that it does come with its own starter motor, ensuring that you will not have to have your own pit crew to get you started every time you take to the track. Lotus’s marketing and PR executive Kevin Smith commented: “This is as close as you can get to the F1 experience.”

The future is just beginning

The T125 is just the start of Lotus’s future according to Bahar, who has steered the company back down the motorsport route. Bahar believes that the association with Motorsport is what made Lotus so successful during it prime, and is hoping that it is not too late to recapture past glories.

Its focus on developing technologies for motorsport projects are expected to have a knock on effect on the company’s road legal vehicle fleet, with a new Lotus Esprit, Elan and Elise all set to hit the market within the next five years.

Perhaps the one major flaw of the T125 is that $1 million would likely be enough to buy you a seat in a major motorsport category like F3 for a single season, or perhaps even a winter testing day for perennial F1 back-markers HRT.

It should also not be forgotten that $1 million is only the initial buying costs, and does not include fuel or insurance prices; not to mention the cost of replacement tyres with F1 tyres regularly burning out after about 20 laps of some circuits. It is also unlikely that conventional breakdown cover companies would be interested in offering you comprehensive packages, with the cost of replacement parts likely to be astronomical.

Article source: http://www.coolsupercars.com/the-1-million-supercar/