New Fiat Strada Small Pickup Truck

Starting from next week, Fiat will offer its new Strada pickup truck in its home market of Italy. The Strada is Fiat's second best-selling commercial vehicle after the Ducato with 127,800 units sold worldwide in 2011. It is built at the company's FIASA plant in Betim, Brazil. The revised light commercial model comes in three flavors named Working, Trekking and Adventure plus three body styles, including short cab, long cab and the four-seater crew cab for a total of six different variants.
The most distinct model is the Adventure crew cab with its 4x4-esque looks thanks to a raised suspension and extensive body cladding. This version also features a new standard electronic locking differential called E-Locker and 205/65 R15 off-road tires.
Fiat says that the new Strada's overall dimensions are unchanged over the previous series with a length of 4,409 mm (4,457 mm for the Adventure), a width of 1,664mm (1,740mm for the Adventure) and a common wheelbase for all versions of 2,718mm.
The payload, including the driver, ranges from 630kg to 705 kg (1,388 to 1,555 pounds) depending on the version.
Power comes courtesy of a 1.3-liter Multijet 16v Euro5 diesel engine that delivers 95-horsepower and 200Nm (147.5 lb-ft) at 1,500 rpm and consumes 5.3lt/100km (44.4 mpg US) on the combined European driving cycle.
In Italy, prices before tax range from €12,900 (US$16,700) for the Working Single Cab model to €16,000 (US$20,700) for the flagship Adventure Crew Cab version.

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Crash Tests Reveal that Most Cars Sold in Latin America are Deathtraps on Wheels

The FIA Foundation announced the results of the first ever crash tests carried out by the Latin New Car Assessment Program (Latin NCAP), and the news isn’t good for consumers and automakers alike.
Actually, the crash test results reveal a terrifying reality: most of the best selling cars in Latin America’s emerging markets offer minimal or no protection at all to their adult occupants let alone children...
Max Mosley, president of Global NCAP, said: “The latest results of the Latin NCAP reveal that South America’s most popular cars are still about 20 years behind the levels of safety enjoyed in Europe and North America. This cannot be acceptable.”
"We want to see the UN’s global crash test standards applied to all new cars across the world. And we want consumers to be aware of the life and death choices they make when buying a new car," Mosley added.
The 64 km/h (40 mph) frontal impact crash tests revealed that most of the cars that were tested suffered from poor structural rigidity which, along with the absence of airbags in most of them, “awarded” them an unheard-of, in the 21st century, one-star rating!
This kind of performance is indeed scary, especially when compared to models sold to the European and North American markets, where the top five-star rating for every new model, save for ultra compacts which usually score four stars, is the norm.
Whereas in North America and Europe safety agencies constantly upgrade their requirements, in most Latin American countries safety regulations are virtually non-existent.
A measure of the work that needs to be done is the fact that Argentina and Brazil will make airbags mandatory by 2014 – and that, sadly, is hailed as a sign of progress.

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Formula 1: Brazilian GP Qualifying Results

In Abu Dhabi, Sebastian Vettel matched Nigel Mansell’s record of 14 pole positions in a single Formula 1 season, which stood for 19 years. In the final qualifying session of the season at the Brazilian track of Interlagos, he had his last chance to break it - at least for the current season.

Which of course he did, consistently beating his teammate Mark Weber who will line up beside him on Sunday's starting grid.
"There has been quite some talk before the qualifying, before this weekend, about this particular record and I think the best thing was just not to think about it at all”, said Vettel after qualifying.
“Yesterday we did have sort of a rough start to the weekend where I wasn't 100% happy with the balance yet but then I think we made the right choices overnight and again going in to qualifying,” he added.
Despite topping the timing seats on Friday’s second free practice session, breaking Red Bull's domination on the other two, Lewis Hamilton did not perform as well in the official qualifier. He was 0.2 seconds slower than Jenson Button was in the other McLaren, and 0.562 seconds slower than Vettel.
Predictably, given the teams’ overall performance in 2011, Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari was in fifth place. Nico Rosberg was quick enough in practice to challenge the Spaniard, but eventually had to settle with beating the second Ferrari with Felipe Massa, as well as his team mate in Mercedes GP, Michael Schumacher, who couldn’t manage anything better than 10th place.

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