2001 Volkswagen Passat Glx 4motion Awd Wagon 2" Lift on 2040-cars

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Top Gear names BMW i8 Car of the Year, Corvette, Ferrari, Mercedes also win big

The lads at Top Gear have released their listing of the finest cars of the past year, handing the ultimate honor to BMW's revolutionary i8 plug-in-hybrid supercar. "The i8 is a milestone in the annals of automotive history and a glorious statement for an exciting and positive future. The i8 delivers - and then some," the British mag wrote. The i8, though, was far from the only hybridized car to take victories. James May and Richard Hammond both highlighted hybrids as their personal cars of the year, with May saluting the Ferrari LaFerrari and the Hamster, unsurprisingly, heaping praise on the Porsche 918 Spyder. Jeremy Clarkson, meanwhile, opted to shock many by selecting not only an American car as his best of 2014, but giving the honor to of all things, a Corvette. Clarkson wasn't the only person to honor the USA's iconic sports car, with the new, 650-horsepower Z06 variant being named TG's Muscle Car of the Year. Other big winners include Mercedes-Benz, which TG honored for S-Class Coupe (Luxury Car of the Year), the new AMG GT (Sports Car of the Year) and the not-for-US C-Class Estate (Family Car of the Year). The 458 Italia Speciale A snagged a second win for Ferrari. The best of the rest include the Citroen C4 Cactus, Renault Twingo, Volkswagen Golf R, Lamborghini Huracan and Audi TT. Take a look below for the celebratory press blast from BMW. The BMW i8 wins Top Gear Car of the Year The BMW i8 has been named as Top Gear magazine's global Car of the Year 2014. The plug-in hybrid performance vehicle beat off some stiff competition from a host of other premium and luxury manufacturers to win the overall award. The editorial team of Top Gear commended the BMW i8 for its breadth of abilities. Its 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine combined with an electric motor gives searing acceleration and driver enjoyment but all wrapped in a package that takes BMW's EfficientDynamics philosophy to the extreme courtesy of CO2 emissions less than 49g/km and a 135mpg combined cycle figure. Charlie Turner, Editor in Chief at Top Gear magazine, said: "The BMW is a milestone in the annals of automotive history and a glorious statement for an exciting and positive future. The i8 delivers – and then some. It's the kind of car we should celebrate, a beautiful vision of the future, delivered now.

Take a listen to the Volkswagen ID 3 and Koenigsegg Jesko

What could better demonstrate our diametric vehicular future than sound clips of the Volkswagen ID 3 and the Koenigsegg Jesko? Battery-electric vehicles don't make enough noise on their own, so VW partnered with composer Leslie Mandoki for the legally-mandated Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System (AVAS) that warns pedestrians and cyclists of the EV's presence. Mandoki — a German-Hungarian who once played drums in a Euro disco band called Dschinghis Khan — was asked to come up with a sound for the ID 3 that VW said "defines its identity," "radiates safety and the promise of effortless mobility," and that "must also impress with its unique character." The definition of the ID 3's single-motor, 201-horsepower character is this: Occupants and people around the hatch can hear the sound as the car accelerates to 18.6 mph, and when reversing. At higher speeds, the sound of wind resistance and tire noise takes over. As our library of AVAS tones grows, it's clear that EVs will provide a soundscape as varied as that of internal combustion engines. Here, for instance, is the industrial thrum used as the Karma Revero GT's pedestrian warning: And here is the sci-fi soaring from the BMW Vision M Next, as composed by Hans Zimmer: At the other end of the aural chamber, we have the Koenigsegg Jesko. In this case, the composer is a 5.0-liter twin-turbo V8 running on a bio-ethanol E85 blend that's almost suitable for IndyCar, powering the engine up to 1,600 horsepower. Output on pump gas will be 'only' 1,281 hp. The Swedish automaker released a clip of the exhaust note of a car in progress inside the Angelhom factory. Here's what we can look forward to: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. All these sounds have a place at the table, even if we'd prefer Karma booked some time with a producer and an Autotune session. To paraphrase Sesame Street, though, one of these sounds is definitely not like the other.

Porsche-Piech buy 10% stake in VW's holding company

In August, 2009, as the scuttled merger of Porsche and Volkswagen had gone bad and Porsche was backed up against the ropes, Porsche Automobil Holding SE (PAHSE) relinquished a ten-percent stake in itself to Qatar Holdings as well as options it held on 17 percent of VW shares. The sale meant that, for the first time since the founding of the company 61 years before, an entity outside the Porsche and Piech families had a say in the running of PAHSE.
Buying that ten-percent stake back returns full ownership to the two families, the holding company's sole possession being ownership of 50.7 percent of VW's common shares. The price paid wasn't disclosed, but at market rates the purchase would be worth close to $1.25 billion. Qatar intends to hold onto the 17-percent stake it has in Volkswagen.