Displaying Items By Tag: Inspired

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Italian sportbike builder MV Agusta has teamed up with Alpine to create a special edition of the Superveloce 800 inspired by the Alpine A110 sports car. It's distinguished by styling changes and its very limited production numbers.

The base bike is relatively unchanged. It's the Superveloce 800 with its inline-three making 144 horsepower and 65 pound-feet of torque, connected to a six-speed gearbox. The bike also features a retro fairing and lights that are a natural complement to the similarly retro Alpine A110 sports car.

If you're feeling blue, you're not the only one as Acura has announced the 2021 NSX will be offered in Long Beach Blue Pearl.

Acura's first in-house crossover/SUV is finally ready for another full redesign, and these latest spy photos give us our best look yet. This 2022 Acura MDX was caught by one of our spy photographers with bare minimum vinyl wrap camouflage. As such, we can tell that the new model will be quite a bit more athletic and share many styling cues with the recently revealed TLX sedan.

Starting from the front, the MDX features the pentagonal grille from the TLX. While the outgoing version has a similar grille, this one is wider and flatter. It also has headlights that fit with the grille better, adopting a more angular, slimmer shape compared to the old MDX. The grille and headlights sit higher in the front fascia, too. Combined with what looks like a longer nose, the new MDX has a more proud, upright look versus the slumped, slightly minivan-esque design of the current model.

Toyota just revealed the 2021 Toyota Sienna and 2021 Toyota Venza, both of which are hybrids. At a virtual press conference for the media, several Toyota designers went into greater detail about the new Sienna's design. As it stands, minivans don't sell that well compared to their crossover and SUV rivals. Toyota thinks it has an answer to this problem with the redesigned Sienna.

"It's combining the best aspects of a minivan with an SUV," says Bob Carter, Executive VP of Sales for Toyota.

It's winter sports season in many parts of the world, and auto manufacturers are using that as an excuse to make some pretty fun specialty versions of their vehicles. Only hours apart, Bentley unveiled an adventure-ready Continental GT, while Alpine dropped a surprise design study called the A110 SportsX. Similar to the Buick Regal TourX, the X indicates the lifted vehicle's rugged personality.    Alpine has managed to squeeze a lot of fun variants out of the A110 since debuting the sleek sports car. After the Alpine Vision concept turned into the production A110, which debuted at Geneva in early 2017, Alpine announced an A110 Cup race car in late 2017. In 2018, Alpine announced another race car, the A110 GT4, and in 2019, an improved A110S with sharper suspension and 288 horsepower debuted. The coolest A110, however, is the A110 Rally, which debuted in late 2019. The just-announced A110 SportsX takes inspiration from the Rally but drops the oversized wing for some skis. Alpine's exhibit at the International Automobile Festival at Les Invalides in Paris, France, is called "Between Retrospective and Prospective." The stand features "present and fantasized models, whose storyline is a back and forth between two eras and the richness of Alpine's history as an inexhaustible source of inspiration." In attendance were the A210 prototype, the Alpine Vision Gran Turismo, the Alpine A110 1800 Gp4 driven by François Alessandri and Jean Pierre Manzagol in 1972, an A110 "berlinette" 1300 from 1971, the A110S, and the the A110 SportsX. Alpine says the SportsX, which is based on an A110 Pure, is inspired by the winning A110 rally car from the 1973 Monte Carlo Rally. The design concept is 3.1 inches wider and has 2.4 inches of extra ground clearance. Visually, it has a two-tone look, thanks to a dark hood and roof, and a ski rack has been mounted over the rear window. Black accents are found along the body, and the front fascia features a more aggressive aero piece. It also has dark wheels, X marks on the fog lights, and little French flag accents throughout. As a design exercise, the SportsX will not make production as it stands. This might be one of the only chances to see this car in a public place, so anybody in Paris should check it out if they can.

Grande première ce soir au @Festivalauto avec l'annonce de ce concept @alpine_cars spécial sports d'hiver !#alpinea110 #alpine #ski

https://t.co/g9O2B0yciZ — Festival Automobile (@Festivalauto) January 28, 2020

Nissan is reportedly hard at work on the next-generation of its legendary Z car (although the company won't explicitly confirm), and we're hearing it will have a familiar look. Sources who have seen the upcoming sports car at dealer meetings told us it will feature heritage-inspired design. "They're going back to the roots of the car," one source told us.  The silhouette and general shape is similar to the current Z, but the design is all new. The front end mimics that of a 240Z with a square mouth and near-round headlights. Its rear taillights are meant to follow that of the 300ZX from the 1990s. On the inside, Nissan is finally going to move the Z into the new age. The 370Z doesn't even have a modern infotainment system today — where one might expect a screen, Nissan instead has a storage cubby. The next-gen Z will get an interior design similar to other new Nissans like the redesigned Altima and Sentra. Finally, it will get a real infotainment system. From a powertrain perspective, we're told that a version of the 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 from the Infiniti Q50/Q60 400 Red Sport will be pulled for duty. That engine is paired with a nine-speed automatic transmission only right now, but we're told a manual transmission will be offered alongside the automatic. As a reminder, Nissan did pair the 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 with a manual in a 370Z SEMA show car previously, but it still hasn't seen a production application. As for a possible Nismo variant in the future, one of our sources also tells us it's likely that we'll see this version join the next-generation Z car eventually. Close to 500 horsepower is rumored for this specific flavor of Z. The 370Z, which is still a wonderfully fun car to drive, is fairly long in the tooth at this point. It's been on sale since 2009, and it's hard to tell the difference between one of those first models and a brand-new 2020 370Z. That's when you know it's time for a change. Stephanie Brinley, IHS Markit principal automotive analyst thinks Nissan needs to move along, too. "It's getting old. I think that some direction in the next couple years would be good. I think it'll get to the point that safety compliance issues will need to be addressed," Brinley told us. Nissan seems to want a change, too. We've seen spy shots of what could be a mule on the Nurburgring, and a previous Motor Trend report has essentially confirmed that the car is in the works and on the way. There's no hard date for a reveal at this point, but it's rumored to be a year and a half to two years out still. Nissan has given us a steadfast no comment on everything, but that's the usual for matters like this. We were told that Nissan has plans to introduce 12 new products in the next 20 months. There's a chance this is one of them, but we wouldn't doubt it if a low-profit sports car were delayed. As it gets closer to a final reveal, we'll be on the hunt for spy photos and every scrap of detail we can find on the next-gen Z. It'll be an exciting road, as this sports car is essential to the automaker's lineup. "It's part of Nissan's reputation. It's part of what makes Nissan, Nissan," Brinley says. We agree.

At the 2020 Tokyo Auto Salon, a customization show that is kind of like SEMA but definitely not the same, manufacturers promote what is available and explore what's possible. Mazda brought a variety of vehicles to the show, but none more intriguing than the Mazda Motorsports Miata, Mazda3, and CX-5 concepts. The trio has race-inspired graphics, as well as a slew of visual and mechanical changes. The three vehicles have a core pack of changes, then each one has its own signature pieces to create some differentiation. The roadster, hatchback, and crossover have height-adjustable suspensions, upgraded brakes, MazdaSpeed tow hooks, circular number body decals, new wheel nuts, Alcantara steering wheels and shift knobs, special heel plates, MazdaSpeed six-point harnesses, and MazdaSpeed sport seats. The Miata and 3 have Fujitsubo stainless mufflers, while the CX-5 has a slightly different exhaust. The Roadster appropriately has the most involved individual upgrades. It has a body kit with front, side, and rear alterations, and it sits on RAYS ZE40 17x7.5J wheels wrapped in Potenza RE-71R 215 / 45R17 rubber with beautiful white lettering. It also has a Cusco roll bar, a MazdaSpeed rear spoiler, a MazdaSpeed strut bar, and a MazdaSpeed lower arm bar. Inside, the door trim, decoration panel, shift boot, center console lid, and parking brake boot are draped in Alcantara. An aluminum pedal set is adds a final touch of polish. On the Mazda 3 hatchback, the aero kit is specifically noted to be "Signature Style." Mazda also upgraded the strut bar and lower arm bar, and threw on Rays ZE40 18x7.5J wheels in Potenza RE-71R 215 / 45R18 tires, also with white lettering. Black mirror caps, a scuff plate, and a sports pedal set complete the concept. On the CX-5, Mazda made it sportier but also added some crossover-focused features, too.. It has Mazda-styled aero, an Auto Exe sports muffler Rays G25EDGE F1 20x8.5J wheels, Bridgestone ALENZA001 255 / 45R20 tires with white lettering, and a new wheel nut set. It also has a scuff plate, premium floor mats, a premium luggage mat, and sports pedals. For now, these are only concepts, with no word as to whether anything similar could hit Japanese markets, let alone U.S. shores. A Mazda engineer previously said a MazdaSpeed3 wouldn't happen, but the company is reportedly considering a 3 with a 250-horsepower 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine.