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Auto news; Opel Insignia “Sport Tourer,” Saab 9-X Air for Paris GM is prepping the ground for its 100th anniversary celebration tomorrow by announcing two more vehicles that will make their debut at the Paris auto show next month. The first is a wagon version of the Opel Insignia sedan, shown this summer at the London auto show. The striking new wagon version won’t be coming to the U.S. but offers a ..Auto news; GM is prepping the ground for its 100th anniversary celebration tomorrow by announcing two more vehicles that will make their debut at the Paris auto show next month.

The first is a wagon version of the Opel Insignia sedan, shown this summer at the London auto show. The striking new wagon version won’t be coming to the U.S. but offers a stylish counterpoint to the VW Passat and Ford Mondeo wagons that are mid-size mainstays in Europe.

The Saab 9-X Air concept shares some of the details of the 9-X concept that’s made the rounds at recent auto shows. Only, its two-door body has a cut-down windshield and rakish speedster-esque details that push the idea of an open-top Saab down a market class from today’s 9-3 Convertible. A cool green-lit interior is a part of the concept package due at Paris.

The presentation’s still going on; stay tuned for photos and more info as soon as we get it in hand. And stay in touch tomorrow as GM celebrates its centennial with a first look at the 2011 Chevrolet Volt.

Looking for the timing belt for you car or vehicle is one of the essential thing to do if your current timing belt is not working anymore or required replacement. Do not wait until last minute to change this timing belt because it may harm the engine. So if you are new on the auto parts, this timing belt is actually refer to the “connector” that will control the timing of the engine’s valves. There are a lot of people has made their own prediction on when is the best time to replace this parts. This is very important because be keeping tract the time to replace timing belt will ensure your car engine run smoothly. Some people say we need to change this in between 45-to75,000 miles. I think this figure can be accepted since it is just rough estimation for the timing belt to be replaced. Different manufacturer like Honda, toyota, BMW and others giant car company has different type of timing belt in term of design and size. However, the function of this belt is the same and need to be replaced in certain amount of mileage or time. Don’t save your money for not paying attention to replace this parts because in long run, it will spoil your engine if the timing belt is breaks or skips. Like i mention earlier, different car or vehicle manufacturer has different type of design for this timing belts and that contribute to the life span of this parts. Please check your car manual book attached to it in order to make sure when or what is the life span of your car’s timing belt. Nevertheless, please make sure you put more attention to this timing belt because the price of repairing the engine due to the failure of the timing belts can decrease the money on your pocket.

I frequently get stuck in a traffic jam behind a car with the sticker that shows a picture of Omar Mukhtar in profile on it, which has recently become very popular on cars around Tripoli, mainly on trendy newly imported models.

And each time that happens, I stare at the picture, and recall different situations with mixing feelings and contradicting thoughts.

“Are our dead ones aware of what happens in this life after they leave?”, a voice at the back of my mind wonders.

“Umm, I am not sure about ordinary people, but martyrs surely do, they are martyrs, they gain special treatment”, I would reply.

“Even if they do, would being beloved, looked up to, or famous mean a lot to them?, or are the causes of contentment up there different from here?” the inner voice would wonder.

That would make the scene from The Lion of the Desert at which Omar Mukhtar (or Anthony Quinn) says: “as for me my life would be longer than my hangman” played back in my head.

“He was definitely referring to the life in paradise rather than in the hearts and minds of his people” the inner voice would add.

I happen to agree, but at the same time I find myself completely overwhelmed by the pleasure of seeing Omar Mukhtar’s statement being proven true even with the worldly secular parameters, the man who was martyred 77 years ago, still inspires the youth, amazes the brains, and makes news in 2008!

I have a personal experience to tell in regard with Omar Mukhtar’s picture in profile, I remember at seventh grade we where tasked to draw about the Libyan resistance to the Italian invasion, many students made complicated colorful pictures full of fighters, tanks, horses, etc.., I only put a ten-dinar bill in front of me and drew a sketch of the Omar Mukhtar’s face as I saw it on the banknote, the teacher was so impressed, she asked me not to approach it with any colors, and said that she would teach me a light and shade technique I could use for variety.

For the following two fine art class hours she did exactly as she promised, she spent most of the time sitting beside me and teaching me how to give dimensions to a drawing by using nothing but a pencil, in that way I went through every single detail of the picture doing exactly as I was instructed…

The outcome was beyond expectations, we created a fabulous simple/complicated, old/new picture, only one of its kind.

For the rest of the school year, if I where to go to that teacher seeking help or asking for my work to be marked, she would browse through my drawing book until she found my drawing of Omar Mukhtar, then she would spend some time watching it as if there was something dynamic on it!

I was not worried about my drawing as I thought it was safe on my drawing book, but by the end of that school year the teacher came to me smiling and saying: “hey Khalid, I am going to take your drawing of Omar Mukhtar and display it on the school exhibition, Bahi?” , I was like “huh!“, giving no stuff about my opened mouth and raised brows, she goes through my drawing book, tears my most precious sheet from it, and goes back to her desk…Now can you believe, after all those years, the thought that I could have asked for the drawing to stay with me preys on my mind in connection with seeing the sticker on the car in front of me?!.

Many other pictures of Omar Mukhtar are available, but his picture in profile has for many years been the first thing than jumps into minds when the name Omar Mukhtar is mentioned, also many people would recall parts of the movie the Lion of the Desert as they think of Omar Mukhtar, the film was produced in 1981, and is broadcasted several times a year on national TV, so every single Libyan has it memorized by heart.

A new international movie, about the era of the Italian invasion of Libya is being shot, it is named Dhulm, Years of Torment, based on a story by the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi with the same title, the Syrian director Najdat Anzoor has been chosen for the movie, and the Egyptian star Omar Sherief was supposed to play the role of Omar Mukhtar in it, but at the last minute he apologized for not participating because of a prior engagement.

From the beginning, I was not enthusiastic about the idea of Omar Sherif embodying Omar Mukhtar, and now I find myself even more traumatized by the alternative name they have suggested, the Syrian TV actor Jamal Suleiman!!, it really makes you wonder what the producers were thinking!, what on earth would make people think of some low-profile TV actor to play the lead role in an international movie costing more than Fifty million dollars!.

If we looked back in history, we will see clearly how smart Mustapha Akkad was to choose Anthoy Quinn for the starring role, Anthony Quinn was unknown in Libya and the Arab world, we had never seen him before, so it was easily for us to believe him when embodying Omar Mukhtar, on the other hand, Anthony Quinn was a box-office mega star in the west so his name helped in marketing and in conducting the message to the west, in other words, western audience, who had never heard of Omar Mukhtar, went to theaters to see their beloved star Anthony Quinn, whereas Arab audience, who had never heard of Anthony Quinn, went to theaters to see their beloved hero Omar Mukhtar, thus, the film could reach the widest possible spectrum of audiences.

The producers of the new movie have to learn from that, and have to understand that the appearance of any Arab in this film will be in favor of the person himself, while the appearance of any non-Arab will be in favor of the film as a whole.

On the 77th anniversary of Omar Mukhtar’s martyring, I would like to conclude my post by the following excerpts from a long article written by a non-Libyan Islamic lecturer, Amr Khaled:

The desert lion. I think the title is much weaker than its carrier. Maybe he gained it when he killed a lion in the desert; a lion that used to cut the road off the passengers and impose “taxes” on the merchants. Don’t laugh; when weakness and humility get you, even an animal can rule you.

But the voices of protesters were loud and uncontrolled by the Italian punishments. Fatima Al-Abareia cried for the nation’s catastrophe when the Sheikh was hanged. The Italians called her “The woman that tore down the wall of silence”…since after her cries were raised from everywhere to vibrate the universe. I’m not exaggerating if I say that the heavens Angels remembered with Earth’s inhabitants, the noble martyr.

  On a winding test track hidden in a dense pine forest near the Dutch border, a new generation of Fords is being put through its paces. The vehicles are small, stylish and fuel-efficient - everything Ford Motor Co.’s North American lineup is not.

Whether Ford thrives - or even survives - depends as much on what is happening here, at its European proving ground, as it does on what is happening in the boardroom in Dearborn. The automaker, still struggling to stop a market share decline that began more than a decade ago, is betting this new lineup of small cars from Europe will win American consumers back from its Asian rivals.

Ford tried a similar strategy before, albeit on a smaller scale, and largely failed.

It cannot afford a repeat. The automaker has lost $23 billion since the end of 2005, including $8.7 billion in the second quarter this year.

Ford was caught by surprise when U.S. consumers abandoned its profitable pickups and sport utility vehicles. It needs these European cars to fill the gap.

“We all have the scars on our fingertips from the last 15 or 20 years,” said Andreas Ostendorf, Ford of Europe’s chief engineer for product development. “Now is the time to do it right.”

Hoping to learn from its past to avoid repeating it, Ford is overhauling everything about how it develops new models, from executing a design to choosing parts suppliers to considering the needs of drivers around the world.

The poster child for Ford’s earlier failures is the first-generation Focus - a critical success in Europe that was stripped down for the U.S. market, where it became a lackluster economy model.

Ford of Europe used the success of the Focus as a springboard to become a small car leader. Engineers created some of the best-handling front-wheel-drive cars on the road, while designers sketched out a new look that put Ford on the cutting edge of automotive design.

But there was little impact on Ford’s showrooms in the United States.

It was the sort of narrow strategy that has typified Ford for decades: each region narrowly focused on producing vehicles for its own markets with little regard to what is going on in the rest of the company - a costly anachronism in the era of globalization.

Two years ago, new CEO Alan Mulally walked in the door shaking his head at Ford’s divided global structure. He quickly outlined a plan for uniting the company and using its global scale to turn the tide.

Under his “One Ford” plan, each region has global responsibility for doing what it does best.

Designers and engineers in Dearborn continue to work on trucks and crossovers. But the Europeans are in charge of small cars for the world.

And those European small cars are about to become a big part of Ford’s U.S. lineup.

As gasoline prices hit record highs this summer, Ford unveiled an unprecedented plan to retool truck and SUV factories in North America to produce these fuel-efficient cars for the domestic market. Ford’s new Fiesta, which just debuted to rave reviews in Europe, will lead the charge.

By this time next year, workers who are today building F-150s will be training to build this sporty subcompact.

Ford’s critics wonder what will be lost in translation this time. Even if the new Fords that begin hitting U.S. showrooms in 2010 are as good as the ones racing through the dark pines of Belgium today, Wall Street wonders whether the Euro Fords can ever garner the big profits Ford’s big trucks and SUVs used to generate.

Making sure Ford meets vehicle performance and profitability goals means taking an entirely different approach to vehicle development, says Gunnar Hermann, the head of Ford’s compact car program.

He is in charge of developing the next-generation Focus that, in 2010, will replace the models now sold in Europe and the United States.

This time, he says, the car is being designed to be sold around the world from the start by a team of designers and engineers that includes representatives from each region.

“This is the real difference now,” he said. “From the first minute on, you operate really globally. And you make sure each region has a say.”

Suppliers are another important part of the equation. When Ford brought the first Focus to the United States, it parceled out important components to companies that were not part of the product’s development.

That introduced all sorts of quality problems into a vehicle that had already established a reputation for reliability. There were waves of recalls, and Focus buyers in the United States reported parts falling off in their driveways.

This time, supply contracts are global. Suppliers must agree to provide parts for these cars no matter where they are manufactured.

The parts must be modular so they can be swapped to meet the specific requirements of each market.

Ford says global parts contracts will translate into lower components prices, a key element of its strategy to sell the vehicles profitably in the United States.

Another piece of the profit puzzle is the labor agreement Ford signed last year with the United Auto Workers. The deal transferred responsibility for retiree health care from the company to the union, dramatically reducing the cost of producing cars in the United States.

“The UAW contract was a game-changer,” said Jim Farley, Ford’s global head of marketing, sales and service. “Before that, the numbers would never have worked.”

Small is big. Consumer tastes also have changed, he said, creating new opportunities for Ford.

High gas prices and economic uncertainty have soured American consumers on big vehicles. Even if gas prices come down, most people realize they are likely to go back up. And tight credit has forced many to economize.

In Europe, small cars are the norm, and consumers are willing to pay big prices for ones that deliver quality and comfort. In the United States, the base price for a Focus runs from less than $14,500 to just under $17,000. In Britain, a newer - and nicer - version starts at just under $22,000 and can go well over $35,000.

The original Focus was too expensive for Americans to even consider, so Ford eliminated many features. The new Focus is being designed from the start to sell for what Americans can afford and is being built up to give Europeans what they expect.

But Farley believes many Americans are also ready to pay top dollar for a premium small car.

So, Ford will offer inexpensive entry-level versions of its new small cars to get customers in the showroom and then try to sell them up to more expensive - and more profitable - versions.

BMW AG has proven Farley’s point with its popular and pricey Mini Cooper, which can command well over $25,000. It remains to be seen whether fashion-forward drivers will respond to a Ford with as much an enthusiasm.

But some analysts say Ford still has a long way to go.

Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics LLP says cars like the Fiesta are still European designs that are being adapted to meet changing consumer demand in the United States. He says Ford has a long way to go before it can match companies like General Motors Corp., which uses the same global platform to produce different cars for different countries.

“It’s a great idea as a stopgap,” Hall said. “But if they don’t maintain discipline on this project, they’ll be in the same situation again. They’ve got to go way farther next time.”

The Fiesta design was already done when Mulally decided to bring it to the United States. Ford acknowledges that reworking it has added cost to the program, but the company also says these costs are being offset by the added scale the American version brings.

The new Focus, and other vehicles based on that platform, will be the first real product of the “One Ford” strategy.

“You can’t do this overnight,” Hermann said. “It is an evolutionary process.”

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The Detroit Free-Press had singled out 10 vehicles that they expect to redefine the auto industry in the next year. The list includes models like the well-known Toyota Prius and Ford F-150 to the newcomers like the Lincoln MKT and the Chevrolet Traverse. The 10 cars on this list have been labeled as the most interesting and important cars to keep an eye on as we move into the 2009 and 2010 model years. The 10 cars to make the list in no particular order are: 2009 Audi A4, 2009 Chevrolet Traverse (pictured above), 2010 Chevrolet Camaro, 2009 Dodge Ram, 2009 Ford F-150, 2010 Honda Insight (pictured below), 2010 Lincoln MKT, 2009 Toyota Venza (pictured below), 2010 Toyota Prius and the 2009 Mazda 6.

via: freep.com

What you see in the photos is called the Dream Car 123, and represents an electric car built in shape of a pyramid and maybe, why not the future of the electric vehicles. Although at its beginnings, the car had a range of just 80 miles, a top speed of 45 mph and to buy one you had to pay almost $60,000, according to the manufacturer things are changed now: the costs dropped to approximately $8,000 while the range increased to an astonishing 240 miles! And to make an idea of how this car can (…)

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Ceravision has been producing a lamp system they call Ecolumination. Using microwaves to supply the energy, they focus the power into a small quartz or ceramic bulb. The company explains that because they are electrode-less, they last longer, while the technology provides high quality, energy efficient light.

Last month they worked their technology into the headlights of a BMW racecar and took it out for a fast test spin. They ran the test at Silverstone, the home of the British F1 Grand Prix.

Tim Reynolds, Ceravision’s CEO, explains:

“The automotive project was conceived to demonstrate the effectiveness of Ceravision’s Ecolumination lamps in the extreme environment of motor sport. Under test conditions on the Silverstone circuit, the headlights showed significantly lower energy usage than that of current headlamps or the projected savings from future LED lights.”

The company is now seeking partners to bring the headlights rapidly to market. You can check out more of the tech, here.

Insurance for imported cars occupies a special place in car insurance industry. There are specialists who offer their expert advice and service on how to choose the right car insurance for imported cars at the best price. So the best way to get the best car insurance for imported car is to make use of the services of such specialists. They will help you not only to get the right car insurance for imported cars but will also help you to deal with terms and conditions of car insurance policies for imported cars.

There are different auto insurance covers available in the market for imported cars. The best car insurance cover for imported cars will be the Comprehensive Cover. This cover ensures protection to the car, its passengers, third party and their property. It covers all liabilities due to an accident or natural disaster. In short, you can say that it offers full protection for the car. This cover can be expensive than all other covers, but for an expensive imported car this cover is worth its value.

If you opt for Third Party Fire and Theft Cover, it will cover repairs to your car due to fire or theft and repairs for third party’s car, if you caused the accident. But it won’t cover the repairs to your car due to the accident. This means that if you are involved in an accident and if your car is damaged, you will have to meet the expenses for its repair from your own pocket. This cover is less expensive than Comprehensive Cover but it can be very expensive if your car needs to be repaired due to an accident.

The Third Party Cover is the least expensive of all the covers as it offers the least protection to the car or its owner. This cover offers protection to the third party’s property but does not offer any protection to the car or its owner.

It is always better to have Comprehensive Cover when you have an imported car.

Living in a kibbutz has the makings for a good life. You have no need for money, have your breakfast served like clockwork in the morning, your clothes get washed by someone else, and your kids can play freely unsupervised. Another bonus of belonging to the community of a kibbutz – a socialist model developed in Israel –– is use of the kibbutz car fleet. You don’t own a car in a kibbutz, but sign one out, when you need it. Taking the kibbutz cooperative model to the urban environment is Car2Go an Israeli company that uses the concept of car sharing (