Chicago Auto Show

2011 Chicago Auto Show: 2012 Camaro ZL1 Revealed

Image: © GM Corp.

After months of speculation, the new uber-Camaro was revealed today at the Chicago Auto Show. To the surprise of many, the car didn’t carry the expected Z/28 nameplate; instead, Chevy opted to label the car the Camaro ZL1. Don’t feel bad if you don’t know the significance of that name, since it was used only once, as an internal order code for an aluminum-block racing engine option on the 1969 Camaro. Only 69 were ever built with the ZL1 order code, and their performance and value is the stuff of legend. What better way to honor the name than by building the most powerful and most capable Camaro in Chevrolet’s history?

Image: © GM Corp.

As rumored, the ZL1 gets powered by the LSA, 6.2 liter supercharged V8 from the Cadillac CTS-V. The ZL1 loses a few ponies in the translation, since the CTS-V is a Cadillac and the Camaro is a Chevy. If you want specifics, the ZL1 gets rated at 550 horsepower versus the Caddy’s 556, while torque drops to 550 ft lb from the CTS-V’s 551. It’s academic, really, and I suspect that both cars would put out nearly identical numbers on a dyno. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find that the ZL1 has a similar zero to sixty time (3.9 seconds for the Caddy), but Chevy isn’t publishing those numbers just yet. Read more…

Volvo unveils touchscreen rear entertainment with 500GB and WiFi

In-car entertainment turned it up another wireless notch at last week’s Chicago Auto Show when Volvo showed off “the industry’s first Internet connected Rear Seat Entertainment System with Windows XP, WiFi and a 500G hard drive.”

Officially, it remains a test-bed study for the moment, but the idea is that you can do everything on a rear headrest touchscreen that you can do on your home computer. You can also plug your computer into the car and load the XC70′s system with your own music and video to keep things quiet in the back row. While it’s officially only in the ‘conceptual phase,’ we have it on very good authority that the system will be available in 2011 Volvo XC60 and XC70 models beginning this summer.

Follow the jump for Volvo’s take on the RSEi-500 setup, and be sure to get ready for Geneva, where Volvo will reveal an XC90 with a crappy rolling chair, a cubicle and a water cooler.

[Source: Volvo]

AutoPage Podcast – Chicago recap/Geneva preview

It’s Chris² as both Shunk and Paukert join Dan and for Episode #166 of the Autoblog Podcast this week. First up, as usual, is the Autoblog Garage, housing a Suzuki Grand Vitara and a Kia Soul this week. From there, we take a quick trip through the Chicago Auto Show’s highlights. The 2011 Ford Edge, Toyota Avalon, Honda Odyssey concept, and Hyundai Azera all figure in the conversation.

We leave the stockyards for the land of fantastic chocolate and mull a few of the things we’re likely to see at the Geneva Motor Show. Toyota’s updated RAV-4 and the 5 by Peugeot garner mention before we return stateside to talk about Chrysler’s refreshed LX cars and Fiat-based Caliber replacement. On the entertainment tip, Adam Carolla’s Top Gear USA revelation catches our attention, and then we entertain ourselves by beating up on Mercury’s choice of the Tracer name for its upcoming version of the Ford Focus.

Check out our listener’s awesome photo gallery below, and direct fanmail to Podcast at Autoblog dot com, review the show in iTunes, fill out our survey, or even leave us a voicemail on our Google Voice line 734-288-8POD (734-288-8763). Until next week, hit up Joystiq and Engadget when podcast loneliness sets in. Thanks for listening!

2012 Acura TL to debut at Chicago Auto Show

Acura has announced that it will debut the newly refreshed 2012 TL at the Chicago Auto Show next month. Details are slim as of this writing, but the automaker says that the 2012 model “further enhances its position in the segment with aggressive, yet refined styling and performance.”

In its current form, the TL has been praised for its high-quality and tech-friendly interior, not to mention the relatively impressive driving dynamics of the SH-AWD 6MT model. However, the biggest deal-breaker for the current TL has been its styling, which has garnered a whole slew of negative praise – especially the angular front fascia. We’ll have the full details on the 2012 TL closer to its official debut on February 9, so stay tuned.

[Source: Acura]

Core-Toons breaks down the 2010 Chicago Auto Show

Without doubt we have never come across a more comically true summary of the auto show experience. A nine-panel series on the experience of the Chicago Auto Show by the magnificently named Lunchbreath is so spot on that it’s already giving us PTSD about the Geneva Motor Show, and Geneva hasn’t even happened yet. From the camera phones to photo profiling to that guy in the Escalade, it’s all in there. If you like the panels below, check out his Unsolicited Proposals to Detroit, and the Housewares Trade Show for something completely different.

2010 Chicago Auto show:2010 Furious Fuchsia Dodge Challenger

With little or no money for actual product development in recent times, the folks at Auburn Hills have turned to digging through their library of eye-catching (and eye-searing) exterior colors to drum up interest. In October, the Challenger went Plum Crazy and now, here in snow-coated Chicago, it’s become Furious Fuchsia.

The color is patterned after an even hotter one called Panther Pink offered on the original Challenger in 1970 (the Plymouth Road Runner version was called Moulin Rouge). While it’s not certain as to why someone within the Pentastar’s product-planning department decided that what the world needs is a rebirth of the hot pink muscle car, it’s here, it’s quite pink, and for better or worse, amazingly eye-catching.

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Chicago Auto Show 2009: Ford’s North American Fiesta Movement starts here

What Car?’s Car of the Year, the new Ford Fiesta, was sitting at the Ford booth at the Chicago Auto Show sporting a fresh look. All tricked out to promote the Fiesta Movement, the Fiesta was looking pretty good – and very green. Lime green, that is. The Fiesta Movement is Ford’s plan to give 100 people a chance to drive one of these small cars – for free, if you’re willing to participate in the “secret assignments” – for six months. While we’ve seen the Fiesta, in various guises, for what seems like ages at auto shows, we still need to wait a while until the car actually goes on sale in North America in early 2010.

Chicago Auto Show 2009: Under the skin of the Toyota FCHV

Toyota first began researching hydrogen fuel cells way back in in the ’90s, and the Japanese automaker has continually refined the drivetrain and platform that houses it ever since. We got the chance to drive the latest FCHV a few months ago, so we were naturally interested to see what makes these cars tick. Fortunately for us, Toyota put a cutaway of one of the hydrogen-powered SUVs on display here at the Chicago Auto Show. See our gallery below.

In its latest configuration, the FCHV features four separate storage tanks that keep the hydrogen compressed to 10,000 psi. After the compressed gas leaves those tanks, it flows through regulators that reduce the pressure to something the PEM fuel cell stack can process. A fresh fill of hydrogen allows the FCHV to travel up to 350 miles.

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Chicago Auto Show 2010: Fisker Sunset shows up in black

While walking the hallways at the Chicago Auto Show looking for interesting things to write about, we stumbled upon the Fisker booth and found a pair of extended-range plug-in hybrids to point our DSLR lenses at. We were especially attracted to the droptop Sunset model, in this case painted up in a beautiful coating of jet black paint. Equally as jaw-dropping was the brown leather interior, which had a worn-in baseball glove-like finish that looked awfully inviting.

Joining the Sunset was the expected four-door Karma, painted up in a familiar shade of gray. See them both in our high-res gallery of live images from the show floor in Chicago.

2010 Chicago Auto Show: all-electric Ford Connect Transit will make an appearance

At the 2008 Chicago Auto Show, Ford unveiled its Transit Connect utility van for the U.S. market. In 2009, the company was back with the urban delivery vehicle, this time decorated for use by a variety of small businesses, and confirmed that a plug-in version would be coming to the U.S. At the 2010 show, which starts next week, the Transit Connect will be back, and this time Ford will be displaying the all-electric version. Finally.

There are not a lot of surprises left to learn out about the Transit Connect BEV. Ford is working with Azure Dynamics on the vehicle (not Smith Electric Vehicles), which will use li-ion batteries from Johnson Controls-Saft to get a range of about 80 miles a charge. The van will be available to commercial fleets sometime later this year, and we’ll be in Chicago and will try and get for information from Ford about when the vehicle will be available and how much it might cost.

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