Ditching the Daisy: Will the New VW Beetle Rev Men’s Engines?

Courtesy Volkswagen

With a laundry list of testosterone-friendly design and technology changes, Volkswagen is looking to bring a neglected demographic into the Beetle owner’s circle: dudes. (via Techland)

They’ve cast off the cutesy and made room for the macho. The iconic driving machine gets a facelift to become a little rougher around the edges – but is its look still too female-friendly?

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VW popped the old bubble roof and opted for a sleek rounded-off top.  Designers swapped in a couple of fierce-looking LED headlights and stretched the car slightly to give it a “powerful appearance with muscular tension,” the company said in a statement. Most masculine of all are the Beetle’s wheels. It rolls on eye-catching 10-spoke wheels that span 19 inches. All the plain Jane details – right down to the circular tail lights, have been scrapped in favor of more futuristic features. But still, it’s no pickup truck.

In the redesign, Volkswagen says it looked to its legacy. The original Beetle was driven by men and women alike, with no regard for gender-biased details. The generational shift brought a stark preference of pink versus blue, and the New Beetle found itself most attractive to a female crowd. The car’s girly aura was cemented with the installation of a flower vase on the dash. While that daisy, which has become a symbol of the Beetle itself, has now withered and replaced by a sleek instrument panel, can they transform the entire Beetle’s image with just a bit of plastic surgery?

So, will we see more men driving Beetles?  It appears we’ll find out this fall, when the car hits showrooms.

Head to our friends at Techland to see the nuts and bolts of the car.

(More on TIME.com: See the 50 worst cars of all time)

Nick is a writer and producer for TIME with a penchant for breaking news and viral videos. His work is often found at the intersection of celebrity and technology.

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Mercedes-Benz Updates the E-class for 2012 With More-Powerful V-6 and V-8 Engines

Mercedes-Benz has laid bare the key changes to its 2012 lineup, and the big news is engines, engines, direct injection, and engines. We’ve already had a spin in the freshened 2012 C-class, and over the next few months the 2012 E-class and S-class benefit from a similarly comprehensive powertrain overhaul.

The E350 coupe, cabriolet, sedan, and wagon receive Mercedes’s 3.5-liter, direct-injection V-6, which produces 302 hp and 273 lb-ft. (That same engine is also launching this summer in the 2012 C350.) It replaces an unrelated 3.5-liter V-6, which made do with older-style port fuel injection, and produced 268 hp and 258 lb-ft. Higher up the range, the E550's 382-hp, 391-lb-ft V-8 is history. It’s replaced with Benz’s twin-turbocharged, direct-injected 4.7-liter V-8. When dropped into the E-class sedan, coupe, and cabrio, it produces 402 hp and 443 lb-ft—that’s down from the 429 hp and 515 lb-ft it makes in the CL-class coupe and soon-to-launch 2012 S-class sedan. While the E550 coupe and cabrio route power to the rear wheels only, the E550 sedan is now sold exclusively with 4Matic all-wheel drive.

For E-class shoppers demanding four doors, a V-8, and rear-wheel drive, there’s always the bone-crunching E63 AMG. As we already knew, the 2012 E63 moves from the naturally-aspirated 6.3-liter V8 to AMG’s new favorite son, a twin-turbo 5.5-liter V-8. (It’s either already available in, or will soon be sold in, the CL63, S63, and CLS63.) In this application, it makes 516 hp and 518 lb-ft. Most exciting for enthusiasts with a penchant for blowing enormous sums of money is that after a two-year hiatus, the E63 AMG wagon is back as a special-order model. We can’t think of a vehicle better suited for European delivery.

Freshened 2012-model-year Benzes will begin arriving in dealerships in June, with some waiting to land until October.

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Cadillac Planning to Offer Four-Cylinder Engines for Several Models

May 2, 2011 at 2:35pm by Jens Meiners 2010 Cadillac XTS concept

Cadillac will offer four-cylinder engines in a number of future models. The compact engines should make for a stark contrast with the dinosaur-gulping euphoria that is the company’s supercharged LSA V-8 in the CTS-V.

Unlike Cadillac’s other forays into engine downsizing—including one motor, the 8-6-4, that was at least intended to downsize itself while in use—this attempt should be quite a lot more functional. The upcoming full-size Cadillac XTS and compact ATS sport sedan sedan will offer turbocharged Ecotec four-cylinder engines; we’d expect these units to make between 220 and 260 hp—although we hope they’ll be at the top end of that scale.

We’ve learned that if shoppers respond positively to the notion of four-cylinder Caddies, the company is also considering adding a four-cylinder option to the SRX crossover and next-generation CTS as well. Since we live in an increasingly China-focused automotive world, there’s an additional case for using the force-fed Ecotec: Its 2.0-liter displacement gives GM a tax advantage in the all-important Chinese market.

The big question is whether customers will go for a four-banger on Cadillac’s American home turf. Chances are that from behind the wheel, most drivers wouldn’t notice the difference between a high-output turbo four and a more traditional V-6. Moreover, with Cadillac’s focus on matching European model offerings, this move makes sense: Audi has long offered Americans a turbocharged four in its A4, and an A6 with the same engine is on the way. BMW is bringing its own two-liter turbo four to the U.S. next year, and Mercedes-Benz is set to do the same with the C250 sedan and coupe.

It’s a rapidly changing automotive market, but we still have a bit of a difficult time swallowing the notion of a Cadillac with a four-cylinder engine—even if it sells well, even if it offers plenty of power, and even if it returns respectable fuel economy. This is a company that, in the early 1930s, offered a V-12 as its mid-level engine; the range-topper was a V-16. Then again, that engine made 165 hp. Maybe a turbo four with 260 ponies ain’t so bad after all.

Tags: Cadillac, Cadillac ATS, Cadillac CTS, Cadillac XTS, General Motors |

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