Car News

Rolls-Royce Cars has ruled out offering overly large wheels for its vehicles, despite the brand’s design chief, Giles Taylor, admitting he has an affinity for big rims. Taylor told CarAdvice at the 2015 Frankfurt motor show that there is a limit to what is acceptable for the brand in terms of wheel size on its cars, though he suggested that some high-profile owners have pimped their rides with much larger wheels to help with the street cred of the cars.

Leading General Motors executives say Holden’s trend-setting design work and performance engineering know-how will influence future models built and sold around the world. Addressing journalist in Frankfurt last week, GM CEO Mary Barra praised Holden’s design and engineering teams and promised continued investment to ensure they could keep contributing on a global scale.

Alfa Romeo believes that autonomous cars will become an industry norm, but that ultimately these systems will never fully take away the enjoyment of driving a car manually. Speaking to CarAdvice at the Frankfurt motorshow last week, the CEO of Alfa Romeo and Maserati, Harald Wester, said autonomous driving technology would soon be a regular feature across a variety of cars.

Renault Sport will seek to double its sales over the next few years, and while much of this is expected to come from the next-generation (five-door-only Megane RS), it looks like also necessitating the addition of a whole new RS derivative.

The growing global joint-venture between Mazda and Toyota could have implications for Australia’s massive light commercial sector. There are whispers that the next Mazda BT-50 one-tonne ute could be twinned with the Toyota HiLux, rather than the Ford Ranger as it is at present. Ford and Mazda have made utes together for multiple generations — Ford used to have a large interest in the Japanese brand — and are partners in an AutoAlliance plant in Thailand that makes the BT-50 and Ranger.