The News for April 17th, 2015

Welcome to the Hooniverse News! As always, this is a weekly recap of some of the biggest stories in the automotive industry without the fluff or bull. I just throw in a little opinion of mine (this week it’s actually a lot) because I can. This week:

• Unique Bentley Mulsanne celebrates the famous Bentley vs. train race

• Volvo XC90 T8 pricing announced, will be in America this fall

• Volkswagen creates another mental GTI concept for Gran Turismo

• Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X Final Edition is not the final edition you were looking for – with bonus news editor rant

• Fiat 500c 1957 Edition pairs retro style with a cloth top

• Cadillac improves the ELR’s equipment and its price

• What’s your automotive news?

Bentley Mulsanne Speed Blue Train

If I had a nickel for every super-limited special edition car I’ve covered here on Hooniverse, I could probably afford to buy one of them. While automakers want us to believe they’re powerful symbols of something meaningful from their history, more often than not it’s just another way to move units with an aging design.
Bentley surely has no problem with moving Mulsannes off the lot, so what do they have to gain by giving a couple some special branding? Nothing, other than the chance to remind everyone about one of the greatest races in history… which is actually a lot to gain, I guess.
Back in 1930, the chairman of the fairly new Bentley Motors, Captain Woolf Barnato, accepted a bet that he could beat the Calais-Mediterranee Express – also known as the “Blue Train” – in a race from his hotel in Cannes back to Calais. Barnato, who had the Bentley Speed Six to play with, even wagered he could be sitting in his club in London before the train even reached the English Channel. A short time later, he was, and his remarkable victory has been considered a landmark accomplishment since. It may have also inspired another famous race that involved a Bugatti and a plane…
85 years later, Bentley are honoring that race with a special Mulsanne called the Blue Train Edition. Just four examples will be made and each one is hand-built by Mulliner, Bentley’s bespoke coachbuilding division. The Blue Train Edition starts life as a Mulsanne Speed packing a 6.75-liter twin-turbocharged V8 with 530 horsepower and 811 lb.-ft. of torque. The craftsmen/women at Mulliner then add several “delightful” historical references and modern interpretations of design details from the winning Bentley Speed Six.

Some of those historical references include a special fluting pattern in the door panels, embroidered headrests, and – more noticeably – a hand-crafted veneer image of Barnato’s Speed Six on the dashboard. The exterior features twenty-one inch Mulliner all-black alloy wheels with polished center caps, a square mesh design grille similar to the Speed Six’s and complete with a Bentley Drivers Club badge, and a retractable “Flying B” with engraved working on the base that reads “Blue Train” and “85 Years” (this is the first time Mulliner has etched on the Flying B).
Just four Mulsanne Speed Blue Train Edition models will ever be built and each will go to European customers. Even the production schedule has significance, as Barnato made it to his club in London four minutes before the Blue Train arrived in Calais.
[Source: Bentley]

Volvo XC90 T8

Volvo’s stunning new XC90 is just about ready to hit showroom floors and that’s a very, very good thing. Most of us here at Hooniverse agree that it’s stunning and it’s immediately earned a spot towards the top on our sacred list of “SUVs we don’t hate”. But that’s not why it’s in the news this week. The real news here is that the ultimate XC90 has gone gold and is ready for production, price tag and all.
MSRP for the Volvo XC90 T8, the top-of-the-line plug-in hybrid with all the features a family hauler could ever need, will start at $68,100 before destination charges and any tax incentives. The XC90 T8 R-Design, with everything the regular T8 has but with added sportiness, starts at $ 70,000. The XC90 T8 Inscription, which provides more luxury and elegance, starts at $71,600. Deliveries of each are expected to begin in America this fall but test drives will be available much sooner.
The benefit of going for any of the three T8s available comes down to the powertrain. It’s a plug-in hybrid featuring two separate motors: a 2.0-liter turbocharged and supercharged four-cylinder Drive-E engine and a rear-axle electric motor. Total system output is 394 horsepower which equates to a 0-60 mph time of 5.7 seconds. The T8 can be powered exclusively by the electric motor for up to 17 miles and can automatically balance between the two available engines when needed. There’s also a power mode available which extracts all available performance from both engines, which enables that very respectable performance figure mentioned earlier.
Of course, the benefit of going for the XC90 in general is that it’s incredibly beautiful inside and out. Seriously.
[Source: Volvo]

Volkswagen GTI Supersport Vision Gran Turismo

Even though a large number of Gran Turismo 6 players have run out of space to store the game’s 8 million software updates, cars from their Vision Gran Turismo program keep being revealed. This time, Volkswagen is revealing their second VGT car and it’s once again based on the Golf GTI.
Whereas the last VW VGT was a low-slung roadster, this one is an all out race car. The GTI Supersport Vision Gran Turismo is designed exclusively for some digital racing and packs a punch like no other Golf we know of – except for that one with the Bentley engine in it. 503 horsepower and 490 lb.-ft. of torque are produced by the VR6 TSI motor which gets sent to all four wheels through a seven-speed DSG gearbox. 0-62 mph takes 3.6 seconds, which sounds mental in a GTI.
Perhaps what’s most impressive about this one though is the way it looks. All VGT cars so far have certainly looked as fast as they actually are, but this one looks like a GTI that is practically begging to see the real world. As with many other VGT cars so far, don’t be surprised to see a handful of styling queues make it to a future production car.
The Volkswagen GTI Supersport Vision Gran Turismo will be available on Gran Turismo 6 in an update within the coming weeks.
[Source: Volkswagen]

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X Final Edition

By now, everyone who has been on the internet recently knows that Mitsubishi is killing off the Lancer Evolution at the end of this year after an accomplished twenty-three-year production run. This week, they released details on the Final Edition, which will be the last Evo they ever produce. Up until now, there have been ten official versions to date and each one has been special in its own way, whether they’ve been rally champs, movie stars, or cult classics.
Of course, that was back when Mitsubishi was cool.
At one point, Mitsubishi made the Eclipse, GTO/3000GT, Montero Evolution, and of course the Lancer Evolution at roughly the same time. They were still heavily involved with motorsport and were earning countless victories in the World Rally Championship and Dakar. Lots of brands today are successful in motorsport, but Mitsubishi didn’t have to rely exclusively on marketing and special badging on cars to portray that. All you had to do was drive one – or even look at one – to know that the racing pedigree and advanced engineering was there.
If you wanted to drive a rally car to work, Mitsubishi had a car for you. If you wanted to drive an exotic sports coupe which pioneered in active aero, electronically controlled suspension, and four-wheel steering twenty years before other brands like Porsche adopted it, Mitsubishi had a car for you. If you wanted to drive an awesome truck whose only purpose in life was to follow homologation rules so Mitsubishi to race in the Dakar Rally that year, Mitsubishi had a truck for you.
Mitsubishi used to make cars that people loved. I wasn’t old enough to drive any of the aforementioned cars back in their prime, but I was old enough to admire them in games like Gran Turismo. Because of cars like those, I learned to appreciate and respect Mitsubishi for the wonderful machines they made, the brilliant engineers who created them, and the drivers who drove them to victory. Even in a video game, they weren’t just cars; they were accomplishments. If I were to fire up Gran Turismo and see the new Mitsubishi Mirage in the car list, I’d paint it the ugliest color I could find and try to see how many times I could roll it down the Mulsanne Straight.
Fast forward to 2015 – Mitsubishi is still making cars, but they now produce just one car that ever gets talked about or even noticed; it’s the Lancer Evolution X, and it’s about to be discontinued.
But hey, times are changing and Mitsubishi has to move on to building electric vehicles and utility trucks to survive. But before they do, how about one last hurrah for the Evo?
The Final Edition, as they call it, was supposed to be an awesome send off for an awesome car. It was teased with all the right bits: a proper sport suspension, sticky tires, an HKS tune on its existing turbo-four that pumped out 473 horsepower, and the sporty yet simple styling that Evos have always had.
That was just the concept though… and we should have known better.
The actual Lancer Evolution Final Edition will be Japan only (expected) and limited to just 1000 units (also expected), but it won’t have an HKS tune and it won’t have any more power than normal. The final spec sheet then is 294 horsepower paired with a five-speed manual transmission with BBS alloy wheels, Bilstein shocks, Eibach springs, Brembo brakes, and Recaro seats.
Even though it’s not as extreme as the concept, that’s still a respectable amount of hardware. It perfectly portrays that unique blend of understated performance and practicality that we all expect from the Evo on its final, unique sendoff… oh… hang on. It seems that all of those “upgrades” are already available on the Lancer Evo X MR which is already on sale. The brakes, suspension, even the wheels. The Recaros aren’t on the US models, but they likely are in Japan already. Heh.
So unless Mitsubishi are withholding some other important details about their renamed Evo MR, the Final Edition is an Evo that is only special in name and badging with nothing else to set it apart. Two decades of rallying excellence in a lovable car with a huge enthusiast following and that’s how they send it off. Not even a complimentary “we hate fun” bumper sticker.
I’m saddened but no longer surprised.
[Source: Mitsubishi, who do not – and now never will – give me press cars]

BLIPS

Fiat are proudly celebrating their heritage by offering the 1957 Edition 500 as a Cabrio model. Soon buyers of the uniquely Italian city car with be able to indulge in a cloth top Fiat 500c while rocking the vintage look. The 1957 Edition, which is already available on the hardtop 500, adds body-color/chrome capped sixteen-inch wheels, retro badging, a premium brown and ivory leather interior, sport suspension, and your choice of three classic paint colors. It’s sure to be called “cute” by everyone and their mother as it drives by, but there’s something admirable about a modern Fiat taking a lesson in style from its ancestors.
[Source: Fiat]

Cadillac really wants you to buy more ELRs, so for 2016 they’ve added a host of new features and more competitive pricing. A revised electric drive system – which is more or less borrowed from the Chevy Volt – increases power and torque by 25%, which drops 0-60 mph down to 6.4 seconds, a 1.5 second improvement over the current model. The suite of upgrades also includes a more efficient braking energy recovery system, improved all-electric driving range (39 miles), and now 330 miles of continuous driving range between the electric and gas motors. Suspension is stiffer, steering is recalibrated, and there’s now an available performance package which adds Brembo brakes and summer performance tires.
But perhaps most importantly, the 2016 Cadillac ELR will sell for about $58,495 after tax credits are applied, which is substantially lower than the previous model that drove many people away with its sticker shock. But is that still enough to convince people to buy it? Time will tell, but I’d imagine most people that look at an ELR go for the Volt instead.
[Source: Cadillac]

What’s your automotive news?

I hit an important milestone this week. As the miles got closer, I pulled into a neighborhood and snapped this before giggling like a child the rest of the way to work.

If I can rant, you can too. If you’ve got anything newsworthy to share, whether it’s a project car update or something else you found on the vast expanse of the interwebs, sound off in the comments.