Nissan Qashqai (+2)

Nissan Qashqai, I clearly remember the first day I read about Nissan’s new car Qashqai on Top Gear Magazine on 2007. It was totally something different than the existing model range and I was not able to pronounce it properly. Actually, with many people we had the same issue. We were trying to develop a phonetic and which end up totally wrong!

Qashqai was the leader of front-wheel drive small size SUV segment. Before Qashqai, only front-wheel drive concept was a bit risky. Because, it was contradicting with the mentality of SUV. Manufacturers were hesitating to remove the four-wheel or all-wheel drive system from an SUV. I was not that sure that, it would receive this success. However, it did!

Actually one my dear friend Ferruh Uztuğ was one of the first people in Turkey who bought the Qashqai. It was a bit risky decision and I didn’t wish to stop him from this exciting purchase. Hopefully, it was a gambling end up with win! Later on, Qashqai became so popular and strength its new segment of front-wheel driven small SUVs. Even the Land Rover followed this lead by front-wheel driven Evoque and Freelander.

I drove this car couple of times and it was way better than the Almera and Primera. Even the Nissan realised that those cars are terrible, and went into production. Once again, Qashqai is a great example of integration of cleaver and contemporary design with competitive features. And it was so successful, they introduced +2 model later.

The engine options are; 1.6-lt (117 PS) and 2.0-lt (140 PS) petrol engines and 1.5-lt (110 PS), 1.6-lt (130), 2.0-lt (150 PS) diesel engines. The best option will be the 1.6-lt diesel! 5-Speed, 6-Speed manuals; CVT and 6-Speed auto transmissions; front-wheel and all-wheel drive options are available across the range.

For pricing and specifications, please follow the Nissan's web site.

Ferruh Uztuğ is Professor at Department of Communication Sciences at Anadolu University, Eskişehir, Turkey.

Pictures' Copyrights

Nissan

World Car Awards

I am not into too much about World Car of the Year award however, this year I really appreciated the winner! Volkswagen UP. Most of the times, I am not paying very high attention to  this award and sometimes I really don’t agree with their decision. But, Volkswagen is a realy revolutionary car for urban transportation without scarifying ride comfort or ergonomy. I really like the UP and it would be a great solution to tiring and boring urban transportation.

They also awarded, Range Rover Evoque as the World Design Car of the Year, Porsche 911 as the World Performance Car of the Year and Mercedes-Benz S250 CDi as the World Green Car of the Year. I agree with Evoque, they created a new path for the urban SUV market and developed a new design language. 

Mercedes-Benz S250 CDi offers the smallest diesel engine (2,2-lt), the lowest consumption 5,7lt/km diesel and cleanest CO2 level 149g/km on its segment. 

However, I would not award the new Porsche 911. Because, its steering wheel replaced by an electric steering wheel that reduces the connection with the road and McLaren MP4-12C offers much better performance levels than the 911.

Pictures' Copyright

Mercedes, VW

Volkswagen Cross Coupe

Range Rover Evoque was the last year’s the most outstanding vehicle. It received an unbelievable level of demand; even the Land Rover was not expecting this! However, there is a downside. If a car receives a very high demand, in following years you may see it everywhere and it diminishes some of its demand or prevent customers to buy it.

At that moment, they will look a good substitute and VW realised this possible scenario and released the Cross Coupe concept in Geneva. In my opinion, this is the best-looking VW for ages. Most of the VW vehicles have that conservative family car looking except some models like Golf R and GTi, but the rest have that DNA inside.

However, VW is changing it DNA and it is very clear with Cross Coupe. If they put this car in production, it will be the one of the major rivals of the Range Rover Evoque. Actually, it looks better than Tiguan and Touareg!

This Cross Coupe is planned to be TDI plug-in hybrid powertrain. 2,0-lt turbo diesel engine is connected with two electric motor and creates the a consumption of 1,8lt/km and 46g/km CO2 level. And combination of all electric motors and diesel engine, it will produce 306 PS with outstanding 700 nm of torque. Acceleration to 100 kph (62 mph) in 6,5 seconds and top speed of 220 kph (137 mph).

These figures are really good, keep eye on Cross Coupe!

For more photos: Cars & Life Facebook Page

Pictures' Copyrights

VW

Price of Land Rovers in Turkey

I always mention about the car taxes in Turkey and how expensive to own a car. However, I never provided the price of a car in my blog, until now! 

You can find the price of Land Rovers and Range Rovers below. These prices do not include the optional equipments and downloaded directly from the official distributor. If you are complaining about the car prices, just check these!

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Land Rover
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Das Reliability with Range Rover Evoque

For very long time, Das Mercedes releases videos of their state of art technology of reliability. I guess, they have been producing these videos for last four hundred years. How Das Mercedes is well made, how it is well checked, how the competitors cannot keep up with them. Actually, you suppose to emerge the last idea from the videos, they never mention it :)

I cannot deny the reliability of Das Mercedes autos expect the years from 1997 to 2004. Those years, the robots, which were supposed to test the reliability of the cars were on long holiday. You can see this on first generation M Class, E Class during (2002-2004) and some other models also. Hopefully, they spend nearly one billion euro to increase their quality. And they did it!

Meantime, the competitors close the gap between Das Mercedes. Fifteen years ago, you can see the reliability and quality gap between Das Mercedes and the others, but now the gap is quite close! And for some particular brands, there is no gap with Das Mercedes. How I know? Land Rover recently revealed a reliability and quality testing stage of the new Range Rover Evoque. In old days, we only see this type of videos with Mercedes cars but now we see Land Rover vehicles! As we can see, Land Rover is going to reveal more reliable vehicles over the years, starting with the Evoque. Please don’t manipulate this sentence and assume that, “current vehicle are not reliable and after this video, they will be reliable”. Of course not! This is just a short summary of what Land Rover has done to improve their quality and reliability for last years.

From my internship experiences from passenger vehicle sales and aftersales departments, some customers cannot be satisfied ever, whatever technology you use!

Video's Copyright

Land Rover

Published at: http://uygarr.blogspot.com http://carsandlife.net

Car of the Day # 16 Range Rove Evoque Frame

Unfortunately, this week's car does not have the capability to move :) It is made by frames!

Published at: http://uygarr.blogspot.com http://carsandlife.net

Crazy Idea: Concrete Car Interior

I know the title sounds a bit unusual for automotive industry. Concrete and automotive are totally different words; contemporary meaning of automotive is lightness and concrete is heaviness. This is that basic! But, concrete sometimes looks nice, if you could manage to use it and design it properly. In modern houses, we started to see pure concrete walls instead of wallpapers or colours! I can see that concrete is in a new era.

Like houses, cars are started to offer different interior options. It used to be between plastic and wood. Now you can use have any type of wood, brushed metal, carbon fibre or still the plastic! My suggestion is using the concrete in central console. For sure, I don't mean to use it everywhere! Using it only in the centre console with the combination of leather or wood can create unique atmosphere.

Concrete is not a very good material for car interior, which has high tendency to vibrate all the time. Therefore, I am suggesting to use concrete only for small areas. It can be used, where the wood is standing in Evoque's centre console. The advantage of concrete is the ability to provide unique interior to each vehicle. Unlike wood or metal, concrete cannot be same in each car and it will be a unique material to use for car interior.

The main problem, the weight! I am not saying make the entire central console from concrete. It can be only a few centimetres thick, for the area which is occupied by wood, and will not charge extra weight to vehicle.

I won't be surprised if I see this soon!

Published at: http://uygarr.blogspot.com http://carsandlife.net

Motor Expo, Canary Wharf, London

If you did not have time to visit Motor Expo this year, here you have the chance to see all the vehicles!

Mercedes New SLK
Mercedes New C Coupe
Mercedes SLS AMG
Mercedes Actros
Mercedes CLS 63 AMG
Range Rover Evoque
Range Rover
Range Rover Sport
Land Rover Discovery
Tesla
Nissan Leaf
Lexus LFA
Jaguar XJ
Jaguar XF
Jaguar XFR
Jaguar XK
Jaguar XKR-S
Bentley Continental GT
Bentley Continental GTC Ice Record
Bentley Continental GT Flying Spur
BMW M3 GTS
BMW 6 Series Cabrio
Mini Countryman

You can find the album on Facebook Page!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.234307956584199.80236.197690936912568

Published at: http://uygarr.blogspot.com http://carsandlife.net

Range Rover Evoque Live: Birmingham NEC

Cars and visual arts, I am not an expert on visual art but I can imagine these are two different elements. One of them a metal designed to be mobilize people and visual arts are harmony of different forms of art.

The Range Rover Evoque is the new generation Land Rover product family and something totally new to this brand. I can see the same similarity, Land Rover offers SUV with relatively big size, focused on off roading capabilities and practicality. And Evoque is something totally different; a new design concept, relatively smaller than Discovery 4, designed to cope with adverse road conditions in city life. Evoque is a domesticated Land Rover for contemporary city life. From an objective point of view, Land Rover managed to achieve it very well.

Honestly, I didn’t attend many car events. However, I know how they are! Most of them take place in hotels with some music and colourful lights. There might be several models of the car and some brochures and if you are lucky, they might give you some free things. Even though I know this ugly truth about these events, I always try to attend any event to see the car.

Couple of months ago I saw the Range Rover Evoque show and excited to attend. The information was very brief; music and live dance show! I was not expecting to see something extra ordinary. There is going to be several Evoques, a short dance show and that’s all.

It was one of the most creative shows I have ever seen. It would be unfair to compare with car show. If I compare with Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, that’s would be a better benchmark. It was totally amazing, the composition of the show and its engagement with the Evoque is a state of art.

Each Evoque model had its own story during the show; Pure, Dynamic and Prestige. Show starts with Pure, models catwalk with white colour dress. Then Dynamic, ambient colour turn into red and shows two dancers appear on stage. It is definitely narrating the character of Dynamic model, you can feel the stiffness of the and suspension and aggressive driving characters by the figures. And finally, Prestige! People who are planning to buy Prestige model would definitely love the ballet show. This part of the show narrates what you expect from the Prestige model, refinement and comfort.

One of the best bit was the horizontal led lights, which represent the day lights of the Evoque. Integration of engine sound with dance and music is something totally amazing. Engine noise was turned into engine sound, the annoying mechanical knockings became the part of the dance and the music. It is really hard to explain the show through words, you have to see with your own eyes. And feel this exquisite experience.

This show is a pure creativity and the people who worked in this project made a great job. I am sure that, in future this show will be remembered as a remarkable campaign in automotive industry.

Finally, the music played during the show was also magnificent. Started with Hans Zimmer – Time (Inception sound track) and finished with David Guetta! You can find the audio tracks below and a sneak preview of the show.

For Manchester show
http://evoquelive.landrover.co.uk

Music from the show; (You can download them from iTunes links.)

Hans Zimmer Time (Inception)
Sweet Disposition The Temper Trap
Xenia Beliayeva Satellite
Burial & Four Tet Moth
Taio Cruz feat Kylie Minogue Higher
David Guetta Feat Rowland When Love Takes Over
Kings of Leon The End
The Verve Bitter Symphony

Published at: http://uygarr.blogspot.com http://carsandlife.net