There is never a shortage of hotdogging on any given race day, but that was particularly true this week at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.
That’s because the folks at Laguna Seca decides to let the iconic Oscar Mayer Wienermobile take two hot laps of the 2.238-mile circuit. Neither Laguna Seca officials nor Oscar Mayer released lap times, but we can only assume that the Wienermobile was a, um, dog around the track.

As far as we can tell, the Wienermobile, which was on display at the nearby Casa Munras Hotel & Spa in Monterey, was piloted around the track only in the name of some good spirited fun. The stunt did, however, generate more than 7,000 Facebook likes in a matter of 48 hours.

Laguna Seca’s infamous Corkscrew is harrowing enough in something like a BMW M5 — we can only imaging what life was like behind the wheel of a giant hot dog on the downhill sweeper.

GM is setting the bar high for its 2016 Chevrolet Malibu, telling suppliers to prepare for a significant increase in production over the outgoing model on higher projected demand.
Reuters reports that GM has prepped its suppliers for a 25%-50% increase in production vs. 2014, or a total of 250,000-300,000 units.

Total sales of 250,000 units would have made the outgoing Malibu the eighth-best-selling four-door in America in 2014. At just 188,519 units, it finished 11th, well behind its biggest domestic rival (the Fusion) at 306,860. The Toyota Camry was #1 with more than 428,000 sold.

GM has been hyping the new Malibu in advance of its debut in New York, revealing earlier this week that its new Hybrid model will deliver at least 45 mpg combined when it undergoes EPA testing. This figure would top hybrid rivals such as the Ford Fusion (42 mpg), Toyota Camry (41 mpg) and Hyundai Sonata (41 mpg). The segment benchmark is currently set by the Honda Accord Hybrid, however, with a 47 mpg combined rating.

Chevy has also been touting the 2016 Malibu’s updated MyLink technology, which includes a full suite of teen driver safety tech.

Stay tuned for full details and live images of the 2016 Malibu when it hits the show floor in New York next week.

German BMW tuner Alpina is celebrating its 50th birthday by introducing limited-edition versions of the 5 Series-based B5 Bi-Turbo and the 6 Series-based B6 Bi-Turbo.
Appropriately called Edition 50, both models are powered by a heavily-revised version of BMW’s 4.4-liter V8 engine that has been upgraded with a pair of beefy Alpina-designed turbochargers, new lightweight pistons, a high-capacity fuel system, a bigger oil radiator and no less than three intercoolers.

The modifications bump the eight-cylinder’s output to 600 horsepower and 590 lb-ft. of torque, figures that make the Edition 50s the most powerful road-going cars that Alpina has ever built. Both models can reach 62 mph from a stop in 4.2 seconds and go on to a top speed of 204 mph.

Visually, the Edition 50s stand out from their regular-production counterparts thanks to model-specific multi-spoke forged alloy wheels and a handful of commemorative emblems. Buyers can choose to have their car painted in Alpina Green, Alpina Blue or a new hue called Edition 50 Sepia that was designed by BMW’s Individual division.

The interior gains piano black trim on the dashboard, the center console and the door panels as well as a metal plaque engraved with the car’s serial number. Front sport seats upholstered in a combination of black and Forest Green leather are available at an extra cost.

Alpina will build just 50 examples of each commemorative model. In the United Kingdom, the B5 Bi-Turbo Edition 50 carries a base price of £86,850, a sum that converts to roughly $130,000.

Mercedes-Benz has announced that its Vans division will expand its lineup with a midsize pickup before the end of the decade.
The truck is at the embryonic stage of development so concrete details are vague at best. However, Mercedes promises that the yet-unnamed pickup will be able to haul about 2,200 pounds when properly configured and that it will offer all of the comfort and safety features that buyers expect to find in a vehicle with a three-pointed star emblem on the grille.

Mercedes’ truck will presumably be offered in several body styles including a single cab, a crew cab and a cab-chassis. Whether the truck is being developed in-house from the ground up or with input from another automaker is up the air. In recent years, Mercedes has collaborated with both Renault and Volkswagen on commercial vehicles.

The upcoming pickup truck will be sold in a number of global markets including Europe, Latin America, Australia and South Africa. However, at the time of writing Mercedes is not planning on offering the truck in the United States.

Déjà vu?
The yet-unnamed truck won’t be Mercedes’ first-ever pickup. The company’s Argentinian arm designed and built both two- and four-door pickup variants of the w114 (sold as a sedan in the United States) in the 1970s, and Mercedes built several car-based pickups in South Africa during the 1950s and 1960s in a bid to circumvent local tariffs that applied to commercial vehicles.

Casual car hacking could soon become much easier and cheaper, thanks to a gadget developed by programmer Eric Evenchick.
Known as CANtact, the device serves as an interface between a computer’s USB port and the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus that serves as the gateway to a vehicle’s electronic systems.

Such tools already exist, but most are specific to a single automaker and cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. CANtact takes a different approach, utilizing open-source software that can support a wide range of vehicles. Enthusiasts can tinker with the programming to expand the tool’s capabilities over time.

“I realized that there were no good tools for me to play around with this stuff outside of what the auto industry uses, and those are incredibly expensive,” Evenchick told Wired. “I wanted to build a tool I can get out there, along with software to show that this stuff isn’t terribly complicated.”

Evenchick suggests the tool can be used by enthusiasts, vehicle owners and security researchers. Each group can take advantage of a deeper level of interaction with a vehicle’s electronics systems, beyond the simple trouble-code checks available from a simple OBD-II scanner.

The CANtact tool will sell for $60, requiring a USB and OBD-II cable to complete the link. Evenchick’s supplies appear to be depleted, with the aim of fulfilling additional orders by July, but the hardware design is also open-source.

The President of the UAW Local that staffs Fiat Chrysler Automobile’s Toledo Assembly Complex is confident that the automaker will keep production of its next-generation Jeep Wrangler at the northwestern Ohio plant.
There’s been no shortage of reports that FCA is looking to shift production of its next-generation Wrangler to a new plant, but Bruce Baumhower, President of UAW Local 12, says he is confident that the 2017 version of the iconic SUV will continue to be built in Toledo.

“I think the proactive approach that we’ve taken over on the shop floor and in our local government, I think it’s going to work out for us,” Baumhower said of keeping Wrangler production in Toledo, according to The Detroit News.

The city of Toledo and the state of Ohio have reportedly offered FCA incentive deals to keep Wrangler production at its current facility, but so far none of the parties involved have revealed the details of those talks.

FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne first sparked concerns of the Wrangler leaving Toledo late last year when he publicly stated that the Toledo Assembly Complex might not be the right location to build the next-generation of the rugged SUV, which could make use of lighter aluminum for its construction.

“If the solution is aluminum, then I think, unfortunately, that Toledo is the wrong place, the wrong setup to try and build a Wrangler because it requires a complete reconfiguring of the assets that would be cost-prohibitive,” Marchionne told Automotive News.

Jeep CEO Mike Manely didn’t do much to quell those concerns when he announced last week that the automaker was still deciding where to build the next-generation Wrangler, due out in 2017.

“There’s no set date for a decision, but obviously there’s a lot of pressure and interest to make a decision as soon as possible,” Manley told The Detroit News.

The Wrangler is an extremely popular product for Jeep, accounting for more than 23 percent of the brand’s global sales.

New car efficiency hit an all time high in 2014, but a slowed pace of improvement has some concerned that the buying public isn’t ready to give up their gas-guzzlers just yet.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest fuel efficiency report, the average vehicle sold in the United States for the 2014 model year achieved real world mileage of 24.4mpg, or 0.1mpg better than in 2013. Although 2014 had the highest miles-per-gallon average the EPA has recorded to date, the rate of improvement for the nation’s fleet is slowing.

In 2013 new cars and trucks averaged 0.5mpg better than their 2012 counterparts. The improvement between 2011 and 2012 was even greater at 1.2mpg. Some of those gains could be wiped out in 2015, however, thanks to lower oil prices that are fueling sales of trucks and SUVs.

More powerful engines and heavier curb weights are also working against fuel efficiency. The EPA estimates that the average vehicle horsepower rating hit a record of 201 in 2014, up from 198 horsepower in 2013. The average vehicle now weighs 3,572, up 27 pounds from the year prior and the heaviest average on record since 1978.

Automaker will have to find a workaround for those problems as the EPA has mandated a 35.5mpg fleet-wide average by 2016. Car makers will have to hit 54.5mpg, which is about equal to 40mpg in real world driving, by 2025.

Mazda was the closest to hitting those targets in 2014 with an overall average fuel economy of 28.8mpg. Honda was second on the list with a fleet average of 27.6mpg, followed by Subaru’s 27.5mpg fleet-wide average.

Amateur spy shots taken in Japan have given us the best look yet at the production version of the Honda S660 concept that was presented at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show.
Visually, the S660′s overall shape is reminiscent of the Beat, a convertible kei car built in the early 1990s, but its front end borrows a handful of styling cues from the Acura NSX supercar that bowed in Detroit last January. As expected, the production model is nearly identical to the concept but it is fitted with less futuristic-looking lights on both ends and slightly revised bumpers.

Inside, the production version of the two-seater loses the concept’s futuristic dashboard and gains a simpler unit with a digital instrument cluster. Aluminum pedals and a red push-button ignition seemingly borrowed from the Civic Type R add a touch of sportiness to the cockpit.

Power comes from a mid-mounted turbocharged 660cc three-cylinder engine that makes 63 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 77 lb-ft. of torque at 2,600 rpm. That’s not much on paper, but it’s plenty in a car that weighs about 1,800 pounds in its lightest configuration. Pulled from Honda’s kei car parts bin, the turbo three can be linked to either a six-speed manual transmission or an optional CVT.

The roadster is built by Yachigo Industry Company, a small Honda-affiliated supplier that has assembled many of the automaker’s kei cars and trucks over the past couple of decades. It will be officially presented in the next couple of weeks and it is scheduled to land in Honda showrooms across Japan in time for summer.

The S660 will fight head-to-head against the Daihatsu Copen. Honda’s next roadster won’t be sold outside of its home country with a three-cylinder, but the automaker might shoehorn a slightly larger four-cylinder unit in the engine bay and distribute the S660 in select markets around the world.

Mercedes-Benz has pulled the veil on its latest GLE model ahead of the SUV’s formal introduction at the 2015 New York auto show. The GLE will replace the M-Class within Mercedes’ SUV lineup.
Though technically a new model, the GLE is largely based on the outgoing ML. However, the GLE does feature several exterior design updates, including new headlights with Mercedes’ signature “eyebrow” treatment, revised front bumper and a more stylized hood. The GLE also gets new-look LED taillights.

Inside the GLE the most notable departure from the current ML is a new 7-inch screen located atop the center stack. The ML’s knob-based infotainment controller has also been replaced with a touch-based unit located between the front seats.

The letters may have changed, but the numbers on the back of Mercedes’ mid-size SUV mostly carryover unchanged for 2016. That means buyers can expect to see a GLE350 model powered by a 302-horsepower 3.5L V6, a GLE400 powered by a 329-horsepower 3.0L twin-turbo V6 and a GLE63 AMG powered by a 550-horsepower 5.5L turbocharged V8. However, there are a few new comers to the GLE stable.

The most notable new model is the GLE550e, which uses a plug-in hybrid drivetrain — a first for a Mercedes SUV. That plug-in hybrid system consists of a 329-horsepower turbo V6 and a 114 horsepower electric motor. Total system torque stands at 479 lb-ft.

Backed by an 8.8 kWh lithium-ion battery that can be recharged in about two hours, Mercedes says the GLE550e can drive on electricity alone for over 18 miles at speeds of up to 81 mph. The GLE550e should be good for around 70 mpg on the U.S. cycle.

A diesel will also be offered in the form of the GLE300d. Although a numerical increase over the last-generation ML250 BlueTEC, the GLE300d actually uses the same 2.1L four-cylinder as before. Output is also unchanged at 201 horsepower and 369 lb-ft of torque.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, a new GLE63 AMG S model will be available for order. A GLE63 AMG cranked to 11, the S model boasts 577 horsepower and 561 lb-ft of torque, reducing the time required to go from 0-60 to just 4.2 seconds.

New safety features across the range include Collision Prevention Assist, PRE-SAFE PLUS and Crosswind Stabilization. Available upgrades are set to include an AIRMATIC Air Suspension, heated rear seats, soft close doors, panorama sunroof and a harman/kardon surround sound system.

Of note, all 2016 GLE model will ship with a version of Mercedes’ seven-speed automatic transmission, but 2016.5 GLE400s will be upgraded with a new nine-speed gearbox. Mercedes didn’t say if other GLE models would eventually get the nine-speed transmission.