You read the title; you're either into this video or you're not.
If you are into loud, smokey, ridiculously painted supercars going unreasonably fast, here's your daily dose of rear-mounted-camera dizziness for the day!
Continue reading...
Categories: Coupes,Ford,Motorsports,Sports Cars
The BMW 1 Series M Coupe lasted less than a generation. That car had all the right things: 335 horsepower, a limited slip differential, M-steering wheel, great seats and a massive wheel/tire package paired with equally large brakes. It's one of those cars that was a collector's edition the second it rolled onto the showroom floor.
BMW is not announcing a new 1 Series M Coupe, but they are jazzing up the 1-series for those of us who didn't get in on the very, very limited run of them.
Finally, the 135is has some unique interior and exterior styling bits like exclusive wheels, special badges, stainless steel pedals and optional black leather seats with blue stitching.
Continue reading...
Categories: BMW,Coupes,Sports Cars
Nissan is set to expand its Nismo offerings with new "RS" packages. While standard Nismo packages will continue to focus on suspension upgrades, the RS packages will include engine upgrades. Or so says Andy Palmer, executive vice president of Nissan and head of Global Product Planning.
Categories: Auto Industry,Future Vehicles,Nissan
When we first got spy shots of the Porsche 918 Coupe last week, we were thrown by the faux racecar livery applied just too well to the car. It wouldn't have been the first time a manufacturer has thrown racecar paint on a prototype to throw photographers, but this one was a little too....nice. And now we know why....
Continue reading...
Categories: Hybrids,Porsche,Sports Cars
That there is 3/4 of the #40 racing SRT Viper Cup being piloted by David Pintaric. The incident was "completely driver error" according to David Pintaric. Watch him narrate his own life-threatening crash and thank the Dodge / SRT Engineers who made the Viper so safe in the video after the jump.
Continue reading...
Categories: Coupes,Dodge,Motorsports,Videos
Much has been said about the reality of the car action in the Fast and the Furious movies, but perhaps no subject has been as thoroughly debated as the shifting. Shifting in the F&F movies does pretty much the same thing as hitting the NOS button and each car has something like 92 gears. And now Supercut has put them all together.
Not exactly all, Supercut had some rules, "It had to be an obvious gear-shift moment, with the hand/gearshift at least partially showing on screen (there are several moments in the films where you see a character's shoulder move as they shift gears, but those didn't count unless you could also see part of the hand). Everything else--barring the brief titles for each film--was cut."
Continue reading...
Categories: Celebrities,Videos
Jeff Zwart sent out a video this morning teasing the 2013 Cadillac ATS' soon-to-be appearance on the circuit at Monaco. "Gonna get to do these laps. Derek Hill is driving for me. When they give us the green light we're going to go out and hammer around this circuit and see what the ATS will do."
And, unfortunately, that's it. We don't see the ATS hit it yet, but Zwart was the man behind the videos of the ATS on the Nurburgring and at Milford so expect much of the same whenever this one hits.
Continue reading...
Categories: Cadillac,Motorsports,Videos
Rejoice my fellow Canadians as you feast your eyes upon the Chevrolet Trax mini SUV that will make its world debut at the Paris Motor Show in September. OK, so that's not especially exciting, but it gets better. Canada, along with Mexico, will be the first markets to get the Trax when it arrives in showrooms in the "fourth quarter" of this year. First!
And that's pretty much all that's known about the Trax. Well, that and it won't be sold in the United States.
"Because of the strong position of the Equinox, there are no plans to introduce the Trax in the U.S. market."
This is curious given that the Buick Encore will be sold down here below the 49th parallel despite being similar in size and concept. So Americans are interested in a tiny Buick SUV, but not a Chevy one? Odd.
Categories: Chevrolet
After a couple of decades out of the game, Lamborghini is charging back into the ultra-premium performance SUV market with a careful, reasonable, measured goal: "Make the production Urus the best-performing and lightest vehicle in its category."
In an interview with Automotive News, Lamborghini's R&D director Maurizio Reggiani broke the news to the rest of the sport-suv world that the Urus would focus not just on brute strength and crazy looks, but that Lamborghini is aiming for the lightest (under 4,400 pounds) and sportiest vehicle in the decidedly not sporty class.
Continue reading...
Categories: Future Vehicles,Lamborghini,SUVs
Section 31406 is tucked in the middle of Senate Bill 1813 and states, "Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall revise part 563 of title 49 Code of Federal Regulations, to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements under that part."
But let's not panic and start hoarding 2014 MY vehicles just yet.
Continue reading...
Categories: Auto Industry
Well here's a pleasant surprise: The 2013 BMW 3 Series Sports Wagon was officially announced this weekend and, for a change, this new wagon will be available for customers in the U.S. All too often, those of us who like things that look good and are functional are stuck watching the French and Europeans get all of the fun wagons, but not today! There are, however, still question marks for U.S. customers.
Continue reading...
Categories: BMW,Wagons
Surprisingly enough, the Porsche Boxster is not the cheapest car in the Porsche stable. Despite the diminutive nature, lack of seats, small motor and relatively spartan interior without getting a ton of options, the Boxster is still more expensive than the base Cayenne. To those of us not running a famed German carmaker, this would seem like an open window to develop a new base model roadster/coupe that could undercut both the Cayenne and the Boxster but still turn a tidy profit. We know they're working on a sub-Panamera Pajun and a sub-Cayenne Macan, so why not a sub-Boxster Bojun?
Because it would risk alienating traditional customers...
Continue reading...
Categories: Auto Industry,Future Vehicles,Porsche
Last week we looked at the makes that have been most successful at capturing the youth market.
It would be ageist not to also shine a spotlight on those makes getting the most support from the senior-citizen set, wouldn't you agree?
Continue reading...
Categories: Buick,Cadillac,Chrysler,Lincoln,Mercury
In a Q1 financial report, Ferrari quietly announced that they will be launching "the new Enzo, a limited series model and our first ever hybrid car," by the end of this year.
First was the video detailing the V12 Hy-KERS powertrain that will power the upcoming Ferrari Enzo replacement and now we have Ferrari announcing a release date well ahead of schedule? This is not the Ferrari we're all familiar with.
Ferrari didn't give any other news into the new hypercar, but did provide some interesting insights into the business of Ferrari. Did you know that....
Continue reading...
Categories: Auto Industry,Ferrari,Future Vehicles
Legendary racer and carmaker Carroll Shelby, 89, passed away last night at Baylor Hospital in Dallas Texas of undisclosed causes. Last week Shelby updated his Facebook page from the hospital where he was being treated for pneumonia thanking fans for their wishes and saying, "I spend my time thinking about the next car I want to build while working on getting stronger. It's hard for me to rest when there is so much I want to do."
Obituary: Carroll Shelby Dies at 89
Related Features: The Art of Shelby, Top 10 Shelby Cars of All Time (Both contain spectacular photos of Shelby and his creations.)
Updates to follow.
Categories: Celebrities
There are a couple of easy ways to get car guys interested. There are few ways to get a car guy interested that also get the EPA and the green crew on board. Turbocharging is one. Adding lightness is the other. Cadillac already has that first one in the bag by offering a 270-horsepower 2.0-liter 4, and now they're saying they've got the second one, too. "“The team focused on grams, not pounds, every day of the ATS’s development,” said David Masch, ATS Chief engineer. “Even the smallest of changes could contribute to the overall mass goal.”
Continue reading...
Categories: Cadillac,Sedans
Bentley exists in a very fun little world of elite vehicles. They're amazingly expensive, rare anywhere except Southern California, Miami and London and when they need to appease fuel economy rules and societal pressures say "You need a smaller, more fuel-efficient engine!" Bentley responds by dumping in a 500 horsepower V8.
Bentley claimed that this new motor, and some other tweaks (aero, tires, power steering that is inactive at center) would be good for a 40 percent increase in fuel economy. Doesn't sound that hard, actually as the current GT is rated at 12 MPG city, 19 mpg highway and 14 mpg combined.
We don't have the city number and thus no combined, but the EPA has just released the highway numbers for the new Continental V8 and claim that the big coupe now returns a downright acceptable 24 mpg. According to the good people at FuelEconomy.gov, this V8 will save the average V8 Continental driver $1,000 per year in fuel costs.
Continue reading...
Categories: Bentley,Coupes
When a house in Texas containing a Fisker Karma caught fire last week and the car was believed to be the hot spot, everyone began panicking over batteries all over again despite the fact that the car wasn't plugged in. Turns out, however, this one might be the fault of good old fashioned exhaust heat.
Continue reading...
Categories: Electric Vehicles,Fisker
To go along with the Porsche 918 Spyder set for release sometime in 2013, Porsche is also readying a hardtop variant which we're calling the 2014 Porsche 918 Coupe.
Seen here testing in Germany, the road-going 918 Coupe was previewed by the 918 RSR (racecar) which debuted at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show. This road car ditches the canards, massive wing, central wiper, pointless side-view cameras, side pipes and deep-dish racing wheels in favor of things real people use. Though we've got to say we liked the sidewall the racecar was sporting.
Power is set to come from the same 9,200 RPM, 562 horsepower V8 teamed with electric motors from the 918. Power goes to all the wheels and combined produces a dizzying 759 horsepower and 568 pound-feet of torque.
Continue reading...
Categories: Coupes,Porsche
