Automotive News

Filed under: Motorsports, Ferrari

When I was a kid growing up in Canada, I first got into Formula One racing when Gilles Villeneuve took the Grand Prix world by storm. After dominating Formula Atlantic for a couple of years, he ran a couple of races with McLaren at the end of the 1977 season. Shortly after that he signed with Ferarri as second to Carlos Reutemann and really captured the F1 world’s attention at the Long Beach Grand Prix where he flung his car around on the beach front streets, leading the first half of the race before crashing - something that happened all too often in his career.

At the end of a tumultuous rookie season, he won his first race at home in Montreal at the track that would ultimately be renamed in his honor. He finished second in the 1979 championship to new teammate Jody Sheckter before a couple of fallow years with Ferrari. In 1982, as the Italian team was making a resurgence, teammate Didier Pironi ignored team orders at the Imola race and passed Villeneuve for the win. At the next race in Belgium, Gilles went all out in qualifying to beat Pironi and pushed too hard, crashing into Jochen Mass. His Ferrari was launched into the air and came down nose first. The crash took his life, and one of tne of the most exciting drivers of all time was gone. Villeneuve may not have been the best technical driver, but watching him force some evil handling cars around a track was always a pleasure, and F1 has never been the same since. There is a tribute video from YouTube after the jump.

[Source: F1-Live]

Continue reading It’s been twenty five years since Gilles Villeneuve died

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Click here to advertise on the Worlds largest Blog Advertising Network

Filed under: Aftermarket, SEMA, Coupes, Sports/GTs, Chevrolet, GM

Though rumors are still swirling beneath the surface that General Motors may be working on a true mid-engine Corvette that would be sold alongside the next-generation C7 model, no one really expects such a paradigm shifting car to ever see the light of day. That hasn’t stopped Phil Somers from American Super Car, who is building a mid-engine car with a Sting Ray body powered by a 1,000-hp, twin-turbo LS V8 for this year’s SEMA Show in Las Vegas. Called the V7twinturbo, the car is built on a tube chassis and has an independant suspension that supposedly can handle the stampede of ponies beneath the car’s rear-hinged engine cover. Shifting will happen via paddles that operate a Mendeola transaxle, while every other aspect including braking, steering and handling will be top notch, as well. The picture above is of a scale model that’s been photoshopped for effect, which is good because those DUB rims need to go.

[Source: MaxChevy via Jalopnik]

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Click here to advertise on the Worlds largest Blog Advertising Network

Filed under: Etc.

In anticipation of its July 4th opening, the Transformers movie cast is beginning to hit the talk show circuit. The first on the couch was Josh Duhamel, who popped a squat on the Ellen show yesterday, played with a couple Transformers toys on stage, and debuted a full scene from the film in which Blackout lands at a military base and picks a fight. Duhamel plays Captain Lennox in the movie, not a far cry from the ex-Navy SEAL he plays on the TV show Las Vegas, we suppose. Not a bad gig for the guy that beat a young Ashton Kutcher in a runway model walk-off (Eat it, Kutcher!).

Check out the scene from Transformers after the jump, and keep an eye on our burgeoning gallery of movie pics below.

Thanks for the tip, Rob!

[Source: Siebertron]

Continue reading VIDEO: Ellen gives us latest glimpse of Transformers

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Blog advertising

Filed under: Supercars, Ferrari

There is a basic principal of economics that we all know about called supply and demand. As long as the demand for a product exceeds the supply, the price can stay relatively high. If the supply grows beyond the demand, the price drops. US automakers have proved this principle in no uncertain terms as demonstrated by the level of incentives they have to provide to move their vehicles.

Ferrari, on the other hand, has always tried to make sure that the supply of its sports cars fell a little bit short of demand. That has allowed it to keep its prices high and maintain an exclusive image. Unfortunately, it has faced an enviable problem in the last few years as new markets have exploded in places like China and newly wealthy individuals decide they need an insanely fast car to demonstrate those financial resources to the local populace.

Ferrari doesn’t want to find itself in the situation that Porsche faced in the late ’80s when that automaker greatly expanded production to try and meet demand, then suddenly found itself stuck as a recession hit and it had a lot of unsold cars. Over the past seven years, Ferrari production has swelled from 4,000 to over 6,000 this year, and at the same time waiting lists have also doubled from twelve to twenty four months. A tough problem to deal with, but at least a Ferrari is a little harder to knock off than a Hermes bag or a Rolex watch. In the meantime, dealers are trying to steer new buyers toward used models to get them into the family while they wait for a new example, and the company is keeping tabs on dealers to quash abusive waiting list practices.

[Source: Wall Street Journal]

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Blog advertising

Filed under: Etc., Volkswagen

Well, this is interesting. By his own account, sculptor Lee Stoetzel is “very interested in the far-reaching power of nature.” If you needed further evidence of this, it’s currently being displayed at the Mixed Greens Gallery in New York in the form of an almost-full-scale VW Transporter built out of wood and steel (but mostly wood). The craftsmanship is very impressive, and if you’ve simply gotta have it, you can put it in your…well, somewhere (Flower bed? - Ed.)… for a mere $65,000 USD. As impressed as we are by Stoetzel’s work, we’d still rather buy a perfect example of the real thing…for less. Then again, we aren’t the most cultured bunch.

Make sure you check out his sportbike made of shells, too.

[Source: Mixed Greens Gallery via Hemmings]

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Create Instant Buzz

Filed under: Economy, Volkswagen

When Volkswagen created the New Beetle in the late ’90s, it revived the iconic shape of the original people’s car, but not much else. The original was pushed around by an air-cooled boxer four-cylinder that ultimately provided the basis for the first Porsche engines and countless dune buggies and kit cars. The modern edition was essentially nothing more than a nostalgic looking body on a run of the mill Golf platform.

It now seems possible that the new entry level car VW is working on may be more like the original Beetle than the Lupo that it was supposed to replace. The baby VeeDub could turn out to have it’s engine sitting on top of the rear axle much like the Smart ForTwo and come in Beetle-esque and sedan body styles. The emerging market variant would be powered by a two-cylinder engine, while Europe and the US would get a direct injected, turbocharged three cylinder FSI. The cars would be kept simple with a target price of $10,000 to $14,000.

If you can’t wait until the end of the decade for rear engine VeeDub and you’re in South-East Michigan, you might want to head down to Riverside Park in Ypsilanti for the Michigan Vintage Volkswagen Festival on Sunday May 13 from 10-4. This year they’re celebrating fifty years of the Karmann Ghia.

[Source: Automobile via eGMCarTech]

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Click here to advertise on thousands of blogs including mine

Filed under: Motorsports, Ford

A while back we posted on the impending debut of two Fords in FIA GT3 class racing - the Ford FR500GT and Ford GT. Last weekend both cars debuted simultaneously at Silverstone in the GT3 class and raced alongside other contenders like the Jaguar XKR GT3, which also debuted that weekend, the Ferrari F430 GT and Lamborghini Gallardo. The Ford factory-backed FR500GT apparently didn’t make a great showing, but the two Matech Ford GTs impressed everyone by holding their own before trailing off at the end. One of the GTs actually qualified second for the race in a field of 50 GT3 cars, but it only managed to finish 16th. The GT3 class race at Silverstone was actually won in a thrilling manner by the Kessel Racing Ferrari F430 Challenge, which held off a charge at the finish by the Berg Racing Lamborghini Gallardo, finishing just a half second ahead of its Italian foe.

Check out some excellent on track photography over at Supercars.net, who had a photographer on hand during the race. The pics really tell the story.

[Source: Supercars.net]

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Blog advertising

Filed under: Motorsports, Honda

If you try out something never seen before, and it works, it’s called innovation. If you try out something never seen before, and it doesn’t work, it’s called an experiment. And this particular experiment, carried out by Honda’s F1 team, was called “elephant ears.”

During last week’s test session at the Barcelona F1 circuit, Honda was trying out fixes for its car’s notoriously bad handling under braking. One of the attempted fixes was these arced winglets on the nose. The wings were of no use: Honda set the slowest time of the day. Hence, we’ve probably seen the last of them. Nevertheless, even without the wings, Honda F1’s Engineering Director, Jacky Eeckelaert, said “The braking is definitely better now and the lap times have improved and become more consistent, but there is still a long way to go to bring the team back into contention.” For a team with Honda’s history of winning, the arrival of their new car can’t come soon enough.

Thanks for the tip, Steve!

[Source: TSN]

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Create Instant Buzz

Filed under: Sports/GTs, Euro, Hatchbacks, Honda

Click for 55-image high-res gallery

As if our fellow car enthusiasts in Australia don’t already have it good enough (what with the high-power Commodores, Falcons, Utes and assorted Ford Europe imports), now Honda UK’s going to start exporting its Swindon-built Civic Type R 3-door to the island continent. When sale kick off in July, Oz will be the first non-European market to receive the Type R hatchback. It’s also scheduled to make the trek to Eastern Europe, with sales in Russia and the Baltic states beginning by the end of the year. This Type R is an altogether different vehicle than the just-introduced JDM Civic Type R (gallery), which is based on the sedan.

Pricing should be in the vicinity of $40,000 Australian dollars (around $32K USD). The Civic Type R generates 201 horsepower at 8,000 RPM from its 2.0-liter DOHC i-VTEC powerplant, makes the run to 60 in around six seconds, and has a top end of 146 mph. It went on sale in Europe in March. As for us, the most recent rumors point to 2010 for a possible US-market Type R sedan. We’ll wait patiently.

[Source: just-auto, sub. req’d]

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Click here to advertise on the Worlds largest Blog Advertising Network

Filed under: Convertibles, Videos, Mercedes Benz

Looking for a way to be seen while you drive around in a vehicle that says you have an oversupply of funding coupled with a shortage of sense? Presented for your approval, the obscenely fast Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren roadster. Just like the fixed-roof SLR, the styling cues lifted from 1950’s racing glory are present in the scoopage, and the supercharged V8 can crank you right up to 207mph. That’s enough to suck the hair plugs right out of your scalp should you attempt that velocity with the top retracted. It is cool to see the uber-exclusive Benz tooling around and ogle the doors that remind us of chopsaws. Funny, though, all that money, and you still get a fabric roof, while the lowly MX-5 can be had with a natty retractable hardtop.

Video after the jump

[Source: MotorAuthority]

Continue reading VIDEO: McMerc cabrio in motion

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Click here to advertise on the Worlds largest Blog Advertising Network