With only an ECU and suspension upgrade, the five-year-old, second-hand smart fortwo BRABUS of David Ward and Adrian Hull took victory in the Cannonball Run – a 3,000 mile dash across Europe inspired by the famous 80s film starring Burt Reynolds and Jackie Chan.

continue reading "Smart ForTwo Wins Cannonball"

Daimler achieves EBIT of €2,053 million

* Net profit of €1,395 million (Q2 2007: €1,849 million)
* Earnings per share of €1.40 (Q2 2007: €1.74)
* Unit sales up by 10% to 566,500 cars and commercial vehicles
* Revenue up by 6% to €25.4 billion, adjusted for exchange-rate effects up by 11%
* Full-year EBIT from ongoing operations (excluding Chrysler) expected to exceed €7 billion

Stuttgart - Daimler AG (stock-exchange abbreviation DAI) continued its successful development of the prior quarter with a very good second quarter of 2008. “Strong unit sales and further efficiency improvements in all of our divisions led to very good results in a difficult environment,” stated Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management of the Daimler Group.

continue reading "Daimler achieves EBIT of €2,053 million"

The following cars are the most Fuel Efficient cars in U.S. and they promise that they can save you lots of pennies:

1.  Toyota Prius
2.  Honda Civic Hybrid
3.  Smart Fortwo
4.  Nissan Altima Hybrid
5.  Toyota Camry Hybrid
6.  Volkswagen Jetta TDI
7.  2009 Ford Escape Hybrid
8.  Toyota Yaris
9.  Mini Cooper/Clubman
10. Honda Fit

The miniscule Smart ForTwo is celebrating its 10th birthday this month as the first model rolled off Daimler’s assembly line in Hambach, France on July 2, 1998. The Smart ForTwo began as the brainchild of Swatch CEO Nicolas Hayek who joined forces with Mercedes-Benz in 1994 creating the Micro Compact Car AG. However, the joint venture experienced heavy losses and dispute which caused Swatch to pull out.

In 2007, Smart introduced the second generation ForTwo that like its predecessor is offered in Coupe and Cabriolet forms. Since the beginning of 2008, the ForTwo is available for the first time in the U.S. and starting from mid 2009 it will also be sold in China. Over 150,000 customers have purchased a second-generation Fortwo since the model was introduced in March 2007. All in all, more than 900,000 ForTwos have been sold since the two-seater mini car was launched in 1998. Smart’s future plans for the ForTwo include the introduction of an electric drive version equipped with lithium-ion batteries in 2010.