| Price | Rs. 1,554,000 | ||||||||||||||
| Status | Available | ||||||||||||||
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Air Conditioner 
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TOYOTA COROLLA GLI 2011
2011 Acura RL
The Acura RL is a car I hadn’t driven or thought much about in years, and judging by its sales numbers, I have plenty of company. Speaking in round numbers, only 2000 of Acura’s flagship sedan left dealer lots last year. Compared to the RL, the Volvo S80 is a hot item with 5000 sold; the Jaguar XF and the Lexus GS trounce it with 7000 sales; the Audi A6/S6 blows it away with 9000 sales; and it only gets worse from there.
But of all the cars that have been left behind in the sales race, it’s hard to think of one that’s as nice as this Acura. The V-6 engine spins out a healthy 300 hp (without the aid of a turbocharger or supercharger), and does so with the utmost smoothness. The car is quiet, and rides well. The fragrant leather interior is perfectly pieced together. Mostly, though, the RL absolutely exudes the kind of drum-tight solidity and zero-defect quality that blew our minds back when the Japanese luxury brands first came on the scene.
Car-magazine writers tend to dismiss the RL because of it has only six cylinders and a front-wheel-drive-based AWD system instead of rear-wheel drive. But look at it next to the similarly configured Audi A6 3.0T, and the numbers suggest a pretty close match. Both get 300 hp out of their V-6 engines, which they send via a six-speed automatic to all four wheels. Look closer, though, and you see that the Audi’s supercharged engine churns out more torque (310 lb-ft, to 271) and yet posts better EPA numbers, both city and highway.
Take a tape measure to these two and there’s no real winner. The Audi has a 2-inch greater wheelbase, while the Acura is 2 inches longer overall. The Acura has a relatively insignificant 1 cubic-foot more interior space. Price-wise, the RL’s $48,060–$56,110 base price range straddles the A6 3.0T’s $51,075 base sticker. The biggest difference is in the area of design, where the A6—even as an outgoing model (the new version is already on sale in Europe)—is far more avant-garde, inside and out, than the wallflower Acura. But still, does that account for the huge sales differential?
I wonder if a bigger part of the story is the RL’s position in Acura’s compressed lineup. Where the A6 has only the A4 below it, Acura has the TSX competing against the A4 and then the TL in between the RL and the TSX. And with the TL SH-AWD offering the same 3.7-liter V-6 and AWD, at a price that’s between $8000 and $12,000 lower, there isn’t much reason for shoppers to step up to the RL. And so they haven’t.
Volvo C70
Sweden is home to an automotive cult known as “Raggare” (roughly translated: “pick-up artist”). Its adherents revere American hot rods and the cruising lifestyle depicted by the film "American Graffiti." It’s helpful to think of the Volvo C70 hardtop convertible in this context, as a latter day Swedish pony-car. I know; it's a bizarre concept. A hardtop convertible produced by a car company known for impeccable safety and wildly inoffensive design aspiring to super-cool sex appeal? Like Swedish meatballs, it tastes a lot better than it sounds.
The C70 certainly doesn’t serve-up any funky ingredients or visual spice. It employs the same ultra-conservative squat-nosed jelly bean shape that make the S40 and S50 look like a pair of nurses’ shoes, only longer and wider. Peter Horbury originally penned the C70 as a coupe. The rear seats were added after the fact. Whether by accident or design or accidental design, the resulting shape is far more cohesive and delicate than most four-seat drop tops.
The C70’s retractable metal roof connects the convertible with the Golden Age of American cars; the Swede’s party piece hearkens back to ye olde ’59 Ford Skyliner (a Fairlane derivative). As we’ve come to expect from hardtop drop tops, the C70’s mechanical ballet is precision engineering as street theater. The four piece lid origamis into the car’s trunk in about 30 seconds, disappearing beneath the C70’s carapace to create a genuine– and genuinely handsome– four-seat roadster. The large rear glass is a welcome addition to the show, affording C70 drivers some much-appreciated additional visibility.
Mazda MX5 aside, we’ve also become accustomed to the compromises that no-compromise retractable hardtops inflict on luggage space. Once stowed, all those fancy folding metal bits cut the available trunk space in half (the upper half). So while the C70 convertible is fully capable of mussing the hair of four full-sized adults, it’s completely incapable of stowing the traveling quartet's luggage. In fact, the truncated trunk means that even a couple of fresh air adventurers must pack light. In soft cases.
Ask a Nordic furniture designer; there’s a fine line between austerity and minimalism. The C70’s cabin struggles to cross this aesthetic boundary. While its “floating console,” easy-to-read analogue dials and sensible, tactile switchgear are the very model of a modern major general, there’s a fundamental lack of drama to the space. The blahs weren't helped by our tester’s British Pensioner Grey colour scheme. And as long as we’re being sensible, the C70’s seats provide excellent lumbar support, and nothing helpful in terms of lateral support.
As with many Volvos (I’m looking at you XC90), the C70’s engine bay is too small for the kind of large displacement powerplant that you’d expect in such a glamorously impractical automobile. Yes, transverse-mounted engines conform to the Volvo brand's safety first demands. Yes, the C70 gets an entirely respectable 21 mpg in urban pose mode, and 29 mpg during open road cruise control. But the C70’s 2.5-liter engine is hardly the stuff of muscle car dreams. We’re talking 218hp @ 5000 rpm.
Mind you, Volvo’s been at this turbo-five business for quite some time. They’ve tweaked the mini mill to deliver 236 ft. lbs. of torque @ 1500 – 4800rpm. With so much twist arriving early and staying for lunch, the C70’s acceleration feels a lot more than merely adequate. (Zero to sixty takes roughly seven seconds.) It’s a remarkable achievement, given the C70’s heavy roof, chassis stiffening, Boron steel windshield pillars and ballistic roll-over bars.
Unfortunately, when the revs start to swell, the C70’s throttle response becomes a bit… vague. And then there’s the fact that the C70 puts its power through the front wheels. In Oakley wearing mode, the little Swede is nimble enough. Should wind-in-the-hair motoring tempt you into a little accelerative abandon, it's best to start paying attention. For one thing, torque steer is an issue. For another, despite a top-flight suspension (MacPherson struts with coil-over shocks and stabilizer bars at the front and an independent multi-link at the rear), the sporting C70 driver must make constant mid-corner corrections.
In that sense, the C70 has traditional pony car dynamics: quick off the line, comfortable over the long haul and "challenging" in the bends. Of course, any Raggare worth his “Yank tanks rule!” T-shirt would reject a front-driver sight unseen– especially one from a marque whose products are chrome anti-matter. Never mind. There are enough wealthy Volvo-lovers out there who don’t see any disconnect between sexy handsome, safe and practical, who'd no more thrash the C70 through the twisties than a ducktail wearing Raggare. In short, just like köttbullar, the C70 may not be cool, but it is satisfying.
2011 Ford Taurus
Ford introduce the new version of Ford Taurus in the year of 2011. 2011 Taurus version is basically a rerun following the splashy introduction of the reinvigorated 2010 Taurus. This five-passenger full-size four-door retains its aggressive styling and is again available with front- or all-wheel drive.
The 2011 Ford Taurus carries over with one engine and transmission, a 3.5-liter V-6 and a six-speed automatic. The engine has 263 horsepower and 249 pound-feet of torque and the transmission. SEL and Limited models have steering-wheel paddles that allow manual-type control over gear changes. Taurus comes with front-wheel drive, which places the weight of the engine over the wheels that also drive and steer the car.
2011 Ford Taurus is among the largest cars on the road, but a relatively low roofline, bulging hood, and Mustang-inspired cockpit position it as a car Ford hopes will appeal to drivers who believe a big sedan conveys an image of sporty power, not family-car practicality.
The 2011 Ford Taurus announced the base price range between $25,995-$34,445.
Ford Taurus 2011-style pat, apart from adding some new colors, including the reservation of Bordeaux red metallic, blue metallic Kona, and Sterling Gray Metallic. 2010 Ford Taurus restyling gave an aggressive new look inside and out, but not really change the size of a car that can trace its basic chassis of the Ford Five Hundred 2005. Taurus is among the largest vehicles on the road, but a relatively low roofline, bulging hood, and the position of the cockpit-inspired Mustang as a Ford hopes will appeal to motorists who believe a large living room conveys an image power play, not a family car practice. This concept is amped up high performance 2011 Ford Taurus SHO, which are discussed separately. Curiously as big of a car, the Taurus has not quite the vast interior space than you expect. Taurus 2011-lineup continues with the base model SE, SEL middle and bottom-line Limited.
Options and standard equipment that expands as you go up the collection, the 2011 Ford Taurus has an impressive balance of comfort, pleasure and safety. Among the comfort features heated and cooled front seats – although the front seats are air bladders that inflate and deflate to massage your back and buns. For more information, and entertainment there, a voice-activated navigation and the popularity of Microsoft developed the access traffic Ford Sync hands-free real-time satellite data transmitted. There is also an iPod USB and Bluetooth. On the security front, 2011 Ford Taurus is available in Collision Warning with Brake Support.
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