Automotive News

Filed under: Videos, Supercars, Aston Martin

When Aston Martin was purchased by a group of investors led by Prodrive founder Dave Richards, news of future production Astons began to fly. The rumored product that has garnered the most attention is the mid-engined Ferrari F430 fighter we told you about recently. We loved the idea last week, and we’re still squarely in the corner of “hurry up and build it now.” Some of you will remember that Prodrive actually built a one-off sports/rally coupe called the P2 before their acquisition of Aston. It boasted blistering speed, good looks, and catlike agility.

The P2 was built to showcase the company’s race-inspired technology as applied to a road car, but production was never really an option, and for good reason. At the time, Prodrive didn’t have a factory, and factories are expensive. Now that it owns Aston Martin, however, the factory is there, and Aston’s desire for a supercar jibes perfectly with what Prodrive is highly adept at: building fast, highly capable race-bred vehicles.

Now, no one’s saying the P2 itself would be the basis of any Aston Martin. After all, it’s based on the itty-bitty Subaru R1 (a JDM city car), which has no business being mentioned in the same breath as a $300,000 supercar. Similarly, the turbo four driving the P2 is around 8 cylinders short of what a proper Aston Martin should have sitting in the engine compartment. The lessons learned and the technologies employed in building the P2, however, could certainly be leveraged on future Astons, including a supercar destined to fight the exotics. That’s where the rally-inspired coupe could leave its mark on the superluxury brand’s future portfolio.

If you’ve never heard of the Prodrive P2, hit the jump to watch video of Top Gear’s review of the concept car. It’s handling is so good that Clarkson actually tossed his cookies after an extremely impressive cone maneuver (if you don’t believe us, watch the video).

[Source: eGM CarTech]

Continue reading Will the Prodrive P2 help form Aston Martin’s F430 killer?

 

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Filed under: Recalls/TSBs, Safety, Volkswagen

Boy, that’s one hot car, that Passat. But is it so hot, in fact, that it self-immolates? The NHTSA seems to think that the ignition coil packs are prone to faults that can lead to fires underhood, in the instrument panel, or underneath the vehicle. Passats from 2000 to 2003 are currently under investigation by the NHTSA after 19 reports of spontaneous Teutonic combustion (hey!). Lucky owners who opted for the frugal TDI or spendy W8 can motor along blissfully, while gas-fueled four and six-pot drivers should start parking at the curb. No recall has been issued, but preliminary investigations such as this often end with the manufacturer issuing a recall. If it comes to that, VW’s looking at fixing about 350,000 cars.

[Source: Bloomberg via Winding Road]

 

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Filed under: Etc., Suzuki

There’s really nothing else to say here, except that the apparent supremacy of the Suzuki Hayabusa is pretty much cemented in our minds forever after watching the video after the jump. This particular bike’s turbocharged, and yes, the numbers on the speedo represent miles per hour. Note the speed at which the front wheel finally comes down. Ridiculous.

It’s all after the jump. Thanks to commenter nhl012003 for the tip!

[Source: YouTube]

Continue reading Bike Break: Insanity on a Hayabusa

 

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Filed under: Garage, Trucks/Pickups, Toyota

Click photo above to view a gallery of Tundra shots

I wanted to hate this thing. Toyota? Taking on the last bastion of red blooded American pickups? Yeah, right! The domestic manufacturers have kept cranking up quality, capability and refinement levels - who’s this upstart think it is, anyway? Not only has the Tundra garnered a metric crapload of commentary, it’s ugly. Okay, not to everyone, but it reminds me of that time I got sand in my eyelids. When a Tundra Limited Double Cab unexpectedly arrived wearing a rather appropriate shade of Herman Melville white, I was primed to register severe intestinal discomfort. Dang.

Continue reading In the Autoblog Garage: 2007 Toyota Tundra Limited

 

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Filed under: Concept Cars, Sports/GTs, Hatchbacks, Volkswagen

Click for high-res gallery of VW Golf GTI W12 650 concept

It would appear that the Audi TT clubsport was just an appetizer for the fans at the Wörthersee 2007 meet in Austria. Volkswagen has upped the ante by throwing down a stunner: the Golf GTI W12 650 concept. The ultimate GTI in every way, this car has a claimed top speed of 325 km/h — 201 mph! — and a 0-100 km/h (62 mph) of 3.7 seconds.

This is a pure show car, so don’t go running to your VW dealer waving around a fistful of cash. He won’t be able to help you. Too bad, though, as this super Golf dishes out a mammoth 650 horsepower and over 530 ft lbs of torque from the 6.0L biturbo W12 it’s got mounted behind the front seats. All that juice flows through a 6-speed automatic to the rear wheels, which are shod in some seriously meaty rubber.

Lower and wider than a stock GTI, the body retains the production car’s doors, hood and lights, but otherwise it’s all new. A number of intakes and a redesigned C-pillar help feed air to the 12-cylinder behemoth supplying the go-power. To keep the car planted to the tarmac, VW didn’t want to use a massive spoiler to generate downforce. As such, the car’s carbon-fiber roof acts as a giant diffuser that funnels air under the small spoiler at its trailing edge. In summary, the whole thing is a big exercise in the awesome.

Translated press release after the jump.

UPDATE: Unveiling video embedded after the jump. Thanks to commenter slicecom!

[Source: VW via Zer Customs]

Continue reading Wörthersee 2007: VW shows off monster Golf GTI W12 650 concept

 

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Filed under: Aftermarket, Mercedes Benz

Defensively, the S600 Guard has got you covered: B6/B7 armor that stops standard military-grade small-arms fire, grenade, shrapnel, and explosive device protection, run-flat tires, self-sealing fuel-tank, and integrated fire-extinguishing system. Offensively, however, as any tuner would tell you, things could always be better. Even if you’re sitting in a tank, why just sit there and take the hits? RENNtech has decided to apply its expertise to the issue, upgrading the S600 guard with the kind of offensive ability that will get you out of trouble, not just protect you from it.

Partnering with INKAS, a firm that builds safes and armoured vehicles, the house of RENN has put in an upgraded ECU, a carbon fiber airbox, and bolstered the intercooler pump. Final result: the regular S600 Guard’s 517 hp gets cranked up to 640 hp, and it gets 775 lb-ft. And for pulling off evasive maneuvers, the standard brakes have been swapped out for 15.2-inch rotors up front and 14-inchers in the back. If you need more armoured get-up-and-go than that, you might want to consider an M1 Abrams instead.

[Source: Motor Authority]

 

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Filed under: Supercars, Porsche

Oh baby, does the Porsche GT2 sound like fun. The twin-turbo flat six cranks out a mind-blowing 525 hp while pushing a vehicle that weighs 220 lbs less than the already light 911 turbo. Hitting 60 mph will take only 3.7 seconds, and you can keep the speedo going up to and past 200 mph. If evasive maneuvers are needed, virtually no car handles better than a 911, and ceramic brakes enable you to stop fast enough to knock the false teeth right out of Grandpa. There is no question the GT2 will have supercar-besting performance, and now we hear that we won’t have to wait much longer for this RWD two-seater.

We’ve seen it in countless spy shots, and we’ll see the real McCoy at the Frankfurt Auto Show. Now we’re learning that the full-fledged official version will be available in November, right in time for the Christmas shopping season. We know it will cost somewhere in the vicinity of $200,000, but we’re putting it on our list anyway.

[Source: Motor Authority]

 

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Filed under: Spy Photos, Crossovers/CUVs, Dodge

Whoopee, just what Dodge needs, another crossover. We’re glad that operations are still underway after the sale announcement, but come on, have cars been forsaken? The Jalopnik boys captured an odd duo cruising around; a JC 49 with camo, followed by a PSA minivan. Would it be rude to confess we’re more interested in the French van?

Based on the Sebring/Avenger platform, the JC 49 will likely wind up with a 3.5 liter V6 at the top of the range, if the dual exhausts are any indication. The JC 49 will share a familial resemblance to the Nitro, so think squared shoulders, crosshair grille, essentially an Avenger adaptation of the Magnum idea. Look for the camo to come off around the end of the year. We can hardly contain ourselves.

[Source: Jalopnik]

 

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Filed under: Chrysler

In order to celebrate its new found freedom after being divorced from DaimlerChrysler AG, the newly minted Chrysler Corp. will ditch its current winged logo and return to the famous Pentastar logo. The Detroit Free Press is reporting that a senior executive has already emailed some Chrysler employees about the switch back to the old logo after learning about it in a meeting Monday night with veeps and senior management. In addition, the Pentastar will get a redesign to update its look.

Apparently this email from a senior exec included a few interesting tidbits, including that Cerberus CEO Stephen Feinberg regrets naming his company after the mythological three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hell. We also learn that Feinberg owns Ford and Chevy pickups, which he plans to quickly trade in for a Dodge Ram. He might want to keep them around for benchmarking purposes, though.

[Source: Detroit Free Press via MotorAuthority]

 

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Filed under: Etc., Ford, Lincoln

If just about any part breaks on your 1971 Volkswagen Beetle, you could probably get a replacement from a hundred different outlets. If the black box goes out on your 1996 Lincoln Mark VIII, your car becomes little more than a giant paperweight. With the profusion of different cars and the electrical components that go in them, automakers would face an inventory nightmare if they tried to stockpile all of the necessary replacement parts. So in order to avoid that scenario, once the warranty runs out, they simply stop making the parts.

Ted Field, Sr. found out the hard way when the black box went out on his Mark VIII. Ford doesn’t make the part any more — and doesn’t have to, since the warranty is finished and “the part is obsolete” — and no aftermarket company has reverse-engineered it. That means that an 11-year-old car with 66,000 miles on it … is also obsolete. As a customer, Field has no idea how popular — or not — the Mark VIII would be, and couldn’t have had any idea when he bought the state-of-the-art car that he’d be scrounging for parts just a few years later (relatively speaking). We often consider the price of technology on the front end — say, how much more will a car equipped with ABS cost? But as cars become more and more computerized, and the obsolescence of computer technology occurs in faster cycles, it will be interesting to see what kind of price we have to pay on the back end as well.

Thanks for the tip, Stedwoo!

[Source: LA Times]

 

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