Filed under: Car Buying, Europe, Marketing/Advertising, Videos, Audi, Design/Style, Luxury

When BMW recently opened a store on Paris' Avenue George V, that was first and foremost a retail play that offers interaction with its cars. Audi has just opened Audi City, a metropolis cyberstore in London, and gone the other way: this is where you go to buy a car as if you were shopping in a Regent Street or Saville Row boutique, with some retail bits thrown in.

Shoppers won't peruse windows, but the digital powerwall with a Microsoft-Kinect-like interface for building the Audi of your choice in 1:1 scale and with every option represented. Audi says it is complementing its dealer network with a corporate-run presence in the city - so-called 'Customer Relationship Managers' can be a shopper's point of contact should they wish to buy a car on the spot.

There will be at least 20 more Audi Cities opening in world hotspots by 2015. Check out the video below to see how it works and have a look at the press release.

Continue reading Audi opens first digital showroom in London [w/video]

Audi opens first digital showroom in London [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Car Buying, Sedan, Marketing/Advertising, Kia

What do we even say about a name like Quoris? (Well, other than "What the heck?") With Kia calling its new flagship, rear-drive sedan the K9 in the Korean domestic market and the Quoris in the rest of the world, we think this promising car has the dubious distinction of having not one, but two of the worst names ever given to a new model.

Kia says Quoris is "derived from the English words 'core' and 'quality,'" but something was clearly lost in translation here, as Quoris is not only difficult to pronounce, it is utterly meaningless. Yes, we know it follows in a long line of such car names, but we doubt this is going to be seen as one of the good ones. It's not Lexus or Acura, heck, it's not even Amati.

Naming aside, the 2013 Kia Quoris should prove interesting when it launches later this year. Kia will be loading up the car with available features like full adaptive cruise control, a collision warning and mitigation system, blind spot detection and lane departure warning, and a multi-camera system similar to the brilliant Around View Monitor system from Infiniti.

But that name...

"Our decision to give this striking new sedan an unconventional name means it will stand out even further from the established crowd," said Thomas Oh, Kia's Executive Vice President & COO of the International Business Division, in a press release.

Okay then. At least Kia is making the Alphabet Game a little easier on the kids though. Finding those Q's can be difficult.

Scroll down to read the entire press release.

Continue reading Kia names new RWD flagship sedan Quoris

Kia names new RWD flagship sedan Quoris originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 18 Jul 2012 10:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Spy Photos, Convertible, Coupe, Hybrid, Performance, Porsche, Design/Style

We've got to hand it to Porsche - the company certainly knows how to pull our heart strings. As if we weren't already been smitten with the 918 Spyder, the automaker has the audacity to wrap one up in its historic Martini livery before sending it out to the Nürburgring for testing. Up above you can see it lifting a wheel at the Little Carousel.

We're not sure what motivation is behind Porsche's nostalgia, but whatever it is, it works.

The monochromatic white and matte black finish looks phenomenal on the 918's sinuous curves, and despite the fact that this is clearly no show car, it's our favorite look for the 918 yet. Under the bodywork sits a hybrid powertrain pushing out 770 horsepower and 553 pound-feet of torque (up to 700 lb-ft for short periods using overboost), which is enough grunt to hit 60 in 3.1 seconds.

All that's left to do now is wait and save our pennies - it will cost $845,000 when it goes on sale in September of 2013. So. It's a little out of our price range. We can dream, can't we?

Porsche 918 Spyder prototype looks sensational in Martini livery originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Etc., Videos

Unless you find yourself a native of Detroit or the city's surrounding precincts, you may have an image of the metropolis as a hive of decay. We can hardly blame you. The media and visitors alike love nothing more than to feast their lenses on the area's decaying underbelly, but it's far from all bad - there are many pockets of the Motor City that are undergoing bona-fide revivals. Detroit was built on the back of the automobile, so it's ironic that the automobile arguably sparked the city's undoing - even before the industry nosedived. That's because the mass production of cars led to them being affordable to everyday people, which in turn led to suburbanization, a move that eventually stripped much of Detroit's core.

Of course, Detroit's 'ruin porn' certainly has a photogenic aspect, and YouTube user Tretch5000 seems know that fact all too well. The master quadrocopter pilot strapped an HD camera to his remote-control flying machine and proceeded to film both the good and bad sides of The D.

With a little bit of clever editing we get to see the area's tired industrial ruins and its once-mighty Michigan Central train station juxtaposed against the greenery of Belle Isle and just about everything in between. It's a unique perspective on a still-iconic part of America's automotive heartland. Take a look at the video for yourself below.

Continue reading Tour the broken and beautiful parts of Detroit by drone

Tour the broken and beautiful parts of Detroit by drone originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 18 Jul 2012 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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