Toyota Auris Gets Extra Trim as Midlife Cycle Refresh

Launched two years ago, the second generation Toyota Auris already reached its midlife and the automaker decided to show us what goodies it will feature for the next two years to remain in the buyer’s top three list.

In case you were wondering, no, the Auris “facelift” has close to no design changes, but it will come with extra features and more trim levels both for the hatch and Touring Sports wagon.

We’re not sure how the new trim levels will be named according to their market, but we can take a look at what the UK will get and try to extrapolate from there.

Most importantly, the 2015 Auris will be offered in the new Icon Plus version, which starts at £17,645. It builds on the Icon grade while adding newly designed 16-inch alloy wheels, rear privacy glass, new Tungsten Blue metallic paint and a folding function for the electrically operated rearview mirrors.

The new Toyota Touch 2 infotainment system will be offered as standard starting with the Icon grade, while the more fancy Touch 2 with Go including navigation and advanced connectivity will be found on Icon Plus and Excel versions.

In case you want more extras on your Auris, you can tick-mark the boxes for a panoramic roof and leather upholstery if you have anything else than the basic Active model, while a reconfigured list of accessories can be considered for further customizing, including the Parking Pack, Protection Pack and Chrome Pack.

And due to customer demand, the Auris Hybrid will now be offered in three trim levels - Icon, Icon Plus and Excel - available for both the hatch and the Touring Sports version.

The 2015 Auris is now available to order, with first customer deliveries being scheduled in June.

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Over 200 Nissan Leaf Models Recalled for Missing Spot Welds

GM and Toyota managed to start the year with some huge recalls involving millions of vehicles world wide, with problems ranging from unresponsive lights to software glitches and even steering racks coming apart. But that can’t even hold a candle to the boo-boo Nissan did with some of its Leaf electric vehicles.

If you got unlucky enough to get a faulty car from GM or Toyota, their issues can be dealt with pretty quick at any dealership that handles the recall procedure. However, the problem the Leaf has requires the car to be replaced.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that Nissan is recalling 211 Leaf EVs in the US and 65 more in Canada, all built this year between February 28 and March 12. The problem with them is that the automaker might have forgotten to weld some structural body elements up front, which can affect the vehicle’s performance in a crash.

In case you’re an owner with some mechanical knowledge, the missing welds should have been located on each side of the engine, just above the sway bar ends. If the series of six spot welds are there, your car is OK. If not, Nissan will replace it with a new, hopefully well-welded one.

However, the recall won’t start until the middle of June, so in the meantime, try not to have an accident. So far, no accidents or injuries have been reported. You can also contact Nissan at 1-800-647-7261 or NHTSA's Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236 (TTY 1-800-424-9153) for additional information.

The Insurance Institute For Highway Safety (IIHS) hasn’t fully rated the 2014 Nissan Leaf so far as it still needs to go through the notorious small-overlap crash test. The Leaf however is rated “Good” in all other tests.

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Watch Dogs Prank Gives People Hacking Powers over Cars and Traffic Lights [Video]

They say that Superman is the ultimate hero because of his power, but after playing Watch Dogs, many people will want to have hacking skills instead of super strength.

An open-world action adventure game set in the city of Chicago, Watch Dogs is all about controlling and manipulating everything that's digital using the power of a cellphone. The hyper-connected world we live in could be the dream playground for somebody with the right software. Hacking into people bank accounts? Too mainstream – how about hacking into the whole city with a choice to either do right or wrong.

In order to show people just how liberating and cool hacking into everything can be, the makers of the game got together with a prankster called Hassan Al Hajry. He fooled people into thinking their phones could change the world around the with a tap of the screen and the help of a 'special' app.

Spurred by the simple tricks Hassan shows them, the victims decided to use the phone to do bad deeds, like breaking into cars and changing the traffic lights. The power to cause an actual car crash or take somebody else's prized Ford Mustang is so bad that it's good.

In Watch Dogs, you play Aiden Pearce, a wiz kid who's criminal activities resulted in his family's death. The game revolves around hacking into ctOS, a central management system for Chicago that you exploit to gain access to the whole city.

 

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Nicky Diamonds' New Customized Wraith

Nicholas Tershay, aka Nicky Diamonds, the owner of Diamond Supply Company, has recently received his customized Rolls-Royce. Considering he is an ex skateboarder that started a small business in his San Francisco apartment in the late 90s, we have to admit this guy knows what he’s doing and is living the dream.

The designer recently posted an image with his freshly customized crazy Rolls-Royce Wraith, ordered four months ago. Considering the ex skater has a passion for blue diamond cars, it’s good to know the Wraith is still dressed-in its original color, black. Amongst the cars he wanted customized in this color, we’ll only remind you about the Ferrari 458 Italia and the Chevrolet 1969 El Camino.

Anyway, about the car. It has been reported to be the fastest British car to be built by Rolls-Royce, we don’t really believe there is anybody out there not familiar with its ferine features or its forbidding price tag. We’re looking at a 2-door coupe with a 8-speed automatic transmission with its crazy 6.6-liter V12 engine.

Just imagine holding that kind of power in your hands and pushing the gas pedal. It would only take 4.6 seconds to get the beast to its first 62 mph mark. We’re pretty sure Nicky enjoys the ride.

Just so you know, Diamond started his skateboarding hardware supply line out of his San Francisco apartment in the late 90s. After some time, he relocated to Los Angeles to build his brand. It was only a couple of years until he put his company on its feet and became popular amongst skateboarders, celebrities and other designers. Now that’s what you call “The American Dream” com true.

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MINI USA Teams Up with Tony Hawk for Birdhouse Skateboards Summer Tour

Former partners MINI USA and Tony Hawk have once again joined forces to bring joy to the world and smiles on our faces. The veteran skateboarder and the BMW subsidiary just announced that they will be teaming up once again for Hawk’s Birdhouse Skateboards Summer Tour.

Birdhouse Skateboards is Tony’s company and makes some of the best boards out there, in accordance to the legend’s beliefs. To mark the renewed collaboration, Hawk jumped over a moving MINI Cooper Hardtop, destroying a ramp in the process (more details in the video below).

“Tony Hawk is an original and an icon, who, over the years has built a loyal community of individuals around him and his brand who share a common interest and an active lifestyle,” said Lee Nadler, Manager of Marketing Communications, MINI USA.

“The MINI brand and the MINI community share many of those same passions when it comes to originality, customization and style. Our partnership was a natural fit,” he added.

A fleet of custom MINI Countryman models will be shuttling some of the best skaters in the world throughout the summer, during the Tour, motoring from city to city.

Not only that but, in collaboration with MINI designers, Tony will create a custom board for this event only, that will be handed out as prizes at their various stops around the country.

The culmination of the endeavor will be at the 11th annual action sports carnival Stand Up for Skateparks, set to take place on September 21, 2014, in Beverly Hills. Over there, skaters will meet up with the best BMX riders in the world and put on a show to remember, raising money for the Tony Hawk Foundation.

“Owning and driving a MINI is like skating and being a part of the skateboarding culture and community,” said Hawk. “MINI and skating are about design and self-expression; they are about building a community around something that is otherwise very individual.”

The Tony Hawk Foundation is a charitable, non-profit organization, established in 2002 that promotes and provides technical assistance and funds for high-quality public skateparks in low-income areas throughout the US.

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Remus Launches M235i Aftermarket Exhaust [Video]

BMW’s latest little bundle of joy is part of the 2 Series range and is wearing the M badge on the boot (and 13 other places) but it’s not a proper M car. Confused? You should be.

The Bavarians created a new ‘breed’ of cars that they are selling under the M Performance Automobile badge. Namely, all the cars that have an alphanumeric number that starts with an “M” and has more than 2 characters are part of this range. For example, the M135i, M50d and M550d Touring xDrive are all part of this division, that aims at taking down Audi’s S range.

The M235i might very well be the best of them yet, offering plenty of bang for the buck and a sexy, sleek look to go with it. Unlike the M135i with which it shares almost all underpinnings, the 2er looks 10 times better and offers less practicality, exactly what you’d want, right?

There’s also another essential difference. The engine under the bonnet has the same design, with a 3-liter 6-cylinder architecture and a turbocharger attached to it but it makes 6 HP more in this application (320 HP vs 326 HP).

Maybe that, maybe the difference in weight makes the M235i a bit faster than the M135i but you don’t really feel that difference on the road, as we found in our testdrives.

For the Coupe, German exhaust specialists from Remus just launched a new system that is bound to make your car louder and more powerful with only one modification.

Their system adds 13 HP and 19 Nm (14 lb-ft) of torque to the stats, raising the total to 339 HP and 469 Nm (346 lb-ft) of torque, plenty for a small car like this one. Furthermore, it sheds 3.7 kg (8.1 lbs) of weight of the total, not much, but it’s good to have it.

The sound is the most important thing though, when buying an aftermarket system. In that department, the custom alternative really makes a difference and stands out while also keeping it quiet enough to be comfortable on long roads. Check it out, in the video below.

 

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Toyota and Taylor Swift Team Up to Promote Road Safety

As with other automakers, Toyota is working hard to make vehicles safer in a crash, adding sensors, complex passive safety systems, auto-braking and tons of airbags. But how useful are all these systems if people can’t even cope with the simplest one of them - the seatbelt.

Latest studies in ASEAN countries show that only 25 percent of vehicle passengers use the seatbelt all the time, whatever the seat they take in the car; 56 percent use it only when occupying the front seats, while the rest either forgets to buckle up or use it from time to time.

You might say that the percentage is OK as it is, but it gets pretty scary when you know that some 300 million people risk their life each day because they simply can’t stand a textile belt over their chest when traveling in a car.

And it’s not like we’re back in the days when the seatbelt was manually adjustable and once you have snuggly fasten it over your body, your mobility was restrained. All seatbelts now are pretensioned and will allow you to move freely, locking and restraining you only under sudden deceleration.

But if people don’t listen to the automakers’ advices, maybe they’ll start get safer if a cool celebrity delivers them the message. That’s what Toyota hopes to achieve by recently teaming up with seven-time Grammy Award winner Taylor Swift.

Part of her RED Tour in Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore this June, Taylor will help educate her fans on the importance of wearing a seatbelt. Seatbelt-wearing messages will be broadcasted via social media platforms and they will also be screened during concerts along with other traffic safety rules.

What Taylor Swift and Toyota want people to learn is the fact that only by fastening your seatbelt, the fatality rate in traffic accidents drops by around 15 times. And just because you have an inflatable “pillow” exiting through the dashboard at the moment of impact isn’t enough to keep you safe. Actually it's a hot balloon and you can also miss it by inches if the seatbelt isn't controlling your movement towards it.

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Next Volkswagen Phaeton Will Be a Chrysler 300 Rival

The Phaeton is a car made from the same mould as the first generation Touareg. Before these two ground-braking cars arrived, the idea of a premium Volkswagen was unfathomable and the brand probably wouldn't be what it is today. Yet while the Touareg flourished and spawned offspring, the Phaeton remained a relative recluse, enjoyed only by the purest of fans. A replacement has long been speculated, but never materialized because the Germans simply couldn't build a solid case for their expensive four-door.

All that has changed, as the Phaeton seems to be on the fast track to production. A report published by Edmunds suggests the new Phaeton will take on American mid-size premium sedans like the famous Chrysler 300 and its rival from Ford, the Taurus.

Volkswagen of America General Manager of Product Marketing and Strategy, Kevin Joostema, said they are working to determine the features which will be needed to attract typical 300 customers. Based on their latest all-new car in America, the Golf, we can expect LED lighting, lane-keeping systems and possibly even hybrid technology. He also said prices would naturally overlap with some Audi models.

The Chrysler 300C starts at $37,280, which is entry-level A4+toys money. Even the brand new A3 entry-level premium car can go that high if you go for the 2-liter turbo with quattro and check all the options boxes. If Volkswagen can give us a big sedan for that sticker, there should be no shortage of customers. Going up against the 300 actually means the Phaeton has been downgraded from a flagship to a sort of BMW 3 Series company man's car. However, if this is what's needed to keep big VW sedans alive and eek out better sales in America, then it's still for the best.

Expect the new Phaeton to come out in 2018 and be available as a plug-in hybrid, possibly based on the bigger version of the MQB that's going into the next Passat.

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White 850 hp Brabus S-Class is More Evil Than it Looks [Photo Gallery]

With over 37 years of experience in transforming your everyday Mercedes-Benz luxo-barge into a land missile that not only walks the walk but also talks the talk, Brabus was known until recently to have a rather high infatuation with the color black, especially when unveiling some of their most powerful cars.

Not to say that they are no longer in love with the darker side of life, but the pearly-white color of the Brabus-tuned S 63 AMG in the adjacent images would probably make you think otherwise.

Based on the already-powerful Mercedes-Benz S 63 AMG, the 850 Biturbo S-Class is currently the most powerful luxury sedan in the Brabus lineup, its twin-turbocharged V8 delivering no less than 850 hp.

Starting from the 5.5-liter, twin-turbocharged AMG V8 that is internally-codenamed M157, the crazy engineers in Bottrop increased the engine's displacement to 5.9-liters, replaced the stock exhaust system with one that delivers better flow, fitted larger compressors to the twin turbochargers, installed a gold-plated intake system and, last but not least, replaced the stock ECU with a bespoke unit that can make all the above work together.

The result is simply astonishing, especially since it comes with a manufacturer warranty: 850 hp and a monstrous 1450 Nm (1069 lb ft) of torque. For reasons which are most likely related to the fact that it could probably destroy the transmission and/or the all-wheel drive system, Brabus decided to electronically-limit the torque to “only” 1150 Nm (848 lb ft) of torque, which still more than you would need to tow your house.

Technically, everything related to this car now screams unholy, or evil. Everything apart from the milky exterior color, which would look more appropriate on a wedding limo from some points of view. We like it nonetheless, as the contrast between what lurks under the hood and what's on the outside is exactly what it needs to stand out from your average Brabus sedan.

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“Expendables 3” Cast Ride on Tanks into Cannes [Video]

When you see Silvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Antonio Banderas and Jason Statham riding tanks to the Cannes festival, then you definitely don’t think about anything else for a moment. And that is the exact way they actually did their debut arriving on the famous Croisette, on Sunday.

Of course fans went wild. Well, that’s after they panicked first, considering all the things going on in the world (take Ukraine, for example). But the veteran action stars went round the streets of the beautiful French city riding on tanks with no problem what so ever.

Amongst the usual compliments, the celebrities were making to each other, the cast also made jokes. Age was, of course, the main target. “When you’re a$$ falls off, it’s time to retire. We’re children with arthritis! We’re young forever”, said Stallone when asked when the stars know it’s time to retire.

In case you didn’t know, since the first “Expendables” came out in 2010, the cast got bigger and bigger. Right now, almost every star that ever managed to fire an MP4 gun on film is playing a role. The third edition includes younger stars such as Kellan Lutz and Ronda Rousey, as well as Wesley Snipes and Kelsey Grammer.

About the tanks, according to The Telegraph, they were shipped over from Britain for the event, as the Hollywood celebrities promoted the latest sequel of the Expendables franchise.

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