Corvette ZR1 to cost £109,000 in UK

Filed under: Car Buying, Coupes, Sports/GTs, Euro, Supercars, Chevrolet, UK

The car that Top Gear liked to drive, if not exactly to look at, has a price they definitely won’t want to pay. At an on-the-road price of £109,000, the ZR1 costs nearly £48,000 pounds more than a Z06 in the UK. As if that weren’t problematic enough, that price puts the left-hand-drive-only ZR1 £8,000 past the 911 Turbo and a colossal £55,000 beyond the GT-R Premium Edition. True, that’s still the base GT-R, but Nissan has a whole lot of room to play with when it prices the V-Spec.

True as well, the price of the ZR1 also includes a driver training course and a 3-year / 60,000-mile warranty, which should count for something. Perhaps not £55,000, though. Luckily for Chevrolet UK, it will only have to sell two of them this year, and single digits in the years to come. You can read the full press release after the jump, and then decide if you’d rather have one lump of incredible American metal or a GT-R and a Swiss bank account.

[Source: GM]

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Russia Report: GM retailer deals with increased demand, limited supply

Filed under: Car Buying, Plants/Manufacturing, GM

The Genser General Motors dealership in Moscow is in an enviable - if not frustrating - position. The outlet moves between 600 and 900 vehicles each month. But if supply could keep up with demand, the dealer’s director of sales, Nataliya Ignatova, insists they could sell around 1,200 vehicles per month during the busiest sales season.

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The Truth About Smart: fortwo rumors dispelled

Filed under: Car Buying, Economy, Green, Safety, SMART, UK

Though Men’s Vogue has already attempted to disprove the theory that only women can get away with driving one, it seems that smart has seen the need to dispel some rumors about the fortwo, their little urban runabout. Specifically, many people apparently question how large of a person the smart can easily handle, how safe a car this small could be, how much room there is for stuff and what features the fortwo is equipped with. In all honesty, the smart would probably work for a large percentage of the population of both the U.S. and the U.K., but certainly not for every situation likely to come up in everyday life. As a second car or strictly for commuting, we imagine that the smart would meet the needs of quite a few drivers who would never even consider a vehicle this small.

Just for fun, why not check out the truth about smart here. Even if you hate the car, you may enjoy seeing it mildly-mangled by a wrecking ball.

[Source: the truth about smart]

 

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In the Autoblog Garage: 2009 Pontiac Vibe

Filed under: Car Buying, Hatchbacks, GM, Pontiac, Driving

Click above for high-res gallery of the 2009 Pontiac Vibe

When the original Pontiac Vibe hit dealer showrooms for the 2003 model year, it was a different kind of General Motors vehicle in just about every way. Sure, it wore a Pontiac badge and had that horrible plastic cladding hanging off its sides, but the vehicle’s basic shape was unlike anything else in the General’s lineup. There was a very good reason for this, as the Vibe is produced by GM’s joint venture with Toyota called NUMMI, or the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. This JV currently produces the Vibe, Corolla and Tacoma pickup for both automakers, and the new Vibe is basically the same vehicle as the 2009 Toyota Matrix with a different skin and interior.

For 2009, the Vibe loses all that plastic armor but keeps its Toyota ties, receiving the recently updated Corolla underpinnings and powertrains. Will the Vibe’s many changes make the little Pontiac good enough for prospective buyers to consider again? We took a brand new 2009 Vibe GT for a week-long spin to find out.

All photos Copyright (C)2008 Chris Shunk / Weblogs, Inc.

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Craigslist Find of the Day: Official car of Sprite, the Limon Camaro

Filed under: Car Buying, Etc.

Those clever Hawkeyes don’t need Xibit to pimp a ride, so here to represent Iowa pimps we have this 1988 Camaro IROC-Z, apparently inspired by a Sprite commercial. The great thing about any pimped piece of auto is that it sells itself — all you need to do is see the car on the street and you know, as Paul Harvey said, the rest of the story. The “fresh 305, fresh tranny w/shift kit,” TV, subs, lambo doors, is par for the track course. What really interests us about this car is the price: $9,900 or “comparable trade.” We’re fine with the cash — what we really want to see is what kind of car qualifies as “comparable trade”? Thanks for the tip, Aaron!

[Source: craigslist]

 

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