Automotive News

Filed under: Sports/GTs, Porsche

Click the image above for the full 35-page brochure.

We’ve endlessly covered the impending arrival of Porsche’s newest 911 variant, the GT2. Powered by the same force-fed 3.6-liter flat six as the Turbo, yet only sending power to the rear wheels, it’s destined to be one of the greatest tarmac toys of this decade. And the cat is unofficially out of the bag.

Some enterprising web-geek was able to download a scan of the GT2 brochure and aside from all the glossy photos; the real dirt is on the second-to-last page - specs.

We’ll keep it brief so you can ogle it yourself, but the GT2 is producing 530 HP at 6,500 RPM, and 505 lb.-ft. of torque between 2,200 - 4.500 RPM. A six-speed manual transmission sends power to the wheels, and allows the GT2 to run to 60 in 3.6 seconds, to 100 in 7.4 seconds and on to a top speed of 204 MPH. The curb weight is 3,175 pounds. “Respect required,” indeed.

Check the gallery below for the rest of the details, and the flowery Porsche prose.

Top tip, Brad!

 

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Filed under: Spy Photos, Videos, Supercars, Lexus

Lexus’ upcoming LF-A supercar has been spotted scorching up the pavement at Germany’s Nurburgring, the place to be for any respectable prototype these days. This latest video captures the car doing some intense laps of the notorious circuit and reveals the sound of the car’s new 5.0L V10 engine.

There have been rumblings that LF-A could be a little “soft”, but the sound emanating from its triple stacked tailpipes has a shriek that reminds us of a V10 Formula One car. With an estimated 500 hp on tap from its front-mid-engined powerplant, as well as a rear-mounted transaxle, we have hope that the LF-A will come close to a top speed of 200mph.

Though we get a glimpse of the basic shape of the car in this vid, heavy camo gear still shrouds some of the finer details. All should be revealed soon when officials take off the wraps at October’s Tokyo Motor Show, where details about a hybrid version may also be revealed.

[Source: The Passionate Pursuit]

Continue reading Video: Lexus LF-A on the Nurburgring

 

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Filed under: Gadgets, Etc., Videos, Ford, Volvo

You may remember a video that we showed on Autoblog where someone poked a hole in a tennis ball, lined up the hole in the ball with the key-hole of a car, pressed really hard, and the door unlocked. After reading your comments from that post, we decided that it was definitely worth testing to see if this tennis ball technique works for ourselves. One of the commentors from the last post on this subject used pressurized air to try to unlock four different doors to no avail, and another used a plunger (we wish we had video of that) but nobody tried a tennis ball like the video in question.

Hit the jump to see what happened when we tested the “use a tennis ball to unlock your car” trick. We tried it on four different vehicles, and we used two tennis balls, each with a different-sized hole in it to verify our findings. Check it out, and if you have a tennis ball and a screwdriver lying around the house, try it yourself and let us know in the comments if you got the same result we did. We’re guessing you probably will.

Continue reading Can you really open a locked car door with a tennis ball?

 

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Filed under: Hirings/Firings, Plants/Manufacturing, Ford

Ford Motor Company has added some manufacturing and dealer know-how to the company’s board of directors with the addition of Caterpillar Inc. group president Gerald Shaheen. Gerald’s expertise also branches out to the UAW, where he got major concessions for Caterpillar in 2005. Besides Shaheen’s jobs at Caterpillar and Ford, the man also stays busy with seats on the boards of National City Corp., U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Chamber Foundation and the Mineral Information Institute Inc., Association of Equipment Manufacturers, and AGCO Corp. Wow, either Gerald is the smartest, most hard-working guy on earth, or his main job is so easy that he has time to sit on all these other boards. How in the world does someone make time to correctly do all these important jobs?

[Source: Detroit News]

 

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Filed under: Sports/GTs, Supercars, Ferrari

In the pit lane, Jean Todt is known for saying little and saying it curtly when he does. It seems nearly every time Speed TV attempts to interview him before a race, he waves the camera off and returns to his charges. In his role as CEO of Ferrari, however, he appears to be quite a bit more loquacious. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he practically said more in one sitting than he has in 14 years as manager of the Scuderia.

Chief among his revelations was that “Ferrari has never considered a four-door car.” Many Ferrari fans will find this heartening news in an age of once-restrained brands oozing into every segment possible. In the same interview, nevertheless, Todt says that “we must pay attention to everything that is happening in our business.” With the 4-door-super-sedan-slash-GT trend having climbed the social ladder all the way to Aston Martin’s rung, it could be wondered whether Ferrari will continue to keep the doors closed on any sedan considerations.

[Source: Wall Street Journal]

 

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Filed under: Spy Photos, Euro, Hatchbacks, FIAT

Abarth is returning to the scene with force. The historic Italian tuning house, long a part of the Fiat group, has been hard at work turning Fiat’s models into hot hatches worthy of the scorpion badge’s revival. At Geneva we saw the production preview of the Grande Punto Abarth, and the Abarth version of the newly-launched 500 retromobile is expected at Tokyo. With their work cut out for them, the Fiat Abarth team is pounding the test track developing the dynamic duo.

Both cars are anticipated to benefit from tightened-up suspensions, beefed-up brakes, revised bodywork, trim and badging, and two high-performance four-cylinder engines: one producing 150 horsepower, and an even more powerful version with output in the neighborhood of 180-200hp. With these kinds of hot hatches looming on the horizon, and a Bravo Abarth expected to follow shortly thereafter, the future is looking good.

[Source: World Car Fans]

 

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Filed under: Chrysler, DaimlerChrysler

The euro has reached a record high against the dollar, and that is partly to blame for rumors of Cerberus’ difficulty in getting the money to pay for Chrysler. Cerberus is paying DaimlerChrysler $7.4 billion for 80.1% of Chrysler Group, but it is trying to borrow $20 billion. With interest rates on the rise, Cerberus wants to get money while terms are at their best. Yet with the market enduring a soft spot, Chrysler’s below-investment-grade credit ratings, its 2-year prognosis of more red ink and the dollar declining, skittish investors are concerned that Cerberus might not be able to get the job done. Cerberus Chairman John Snow, however, said he expects the deal to close this quarter as planned.

[Source: Bloomberg]

 

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Filed under: SUVs, Mercedes Benz

Click image for gallery

Mercedes-Benz is celebrating 10 years of operation at its Tuscaloosa, AL facility, which is best known for producing the M-Class SUV. At a press event held at the plant and presided over by Dr. Z himself, the automaker presented a special edition version of its SUV stalwart dubbed “Edition10.” The Edition10 limited-edition package is a paint-and-trim deal that’s quite good-looking, actually. The requisite badges are joined by other visual highlights such as darkened trim around the headlamps, darker taillamp lenses, a black chrome look to the grille, and a similar treatment on the hood vents. A two-tone interior and metallic pedals are also included, and based on what we see in the photos released, a metal steprail is also part of the package. No pricing for the Edition10 option has been released yet, and we’d expect to see some additional shots of the SUV before all is said and done.

Press release follows the jump.

[Source: Mercedes-Benz]

Continue reading Mercedes celebrates 10 years in Tuscaloosa with “Edition10″ M-Class

 

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Filed under: Marketing/Advertising, Videos, Subaru

Wow, that didn’t take very long. Those new WRX ads we just told you about are already on YouTube. You know, the ones that use “traditional” Japanese cultural references like “Fast and Furious,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” and “Blade Runner”. Several of you picked up on the fact that the American ad agency responsible for this new campaign might have their Chinese and Japanese mixed up a bit, but the point remains that as elements of popular culture, these all appeal to the target market for the new WRX, the 20- and 30-year-old guys who are into manga and anime. Follow the jump to see the “Legend Reborn” clip where a WRX slices through the jungle and heeds the call of the wild, flexing its trail muscles along the way. And we find out that apparently the call of the wild is loud enough for people in the city hear, as well. Check it out.

[Source: Subaru via YouTube]

Continue reading Subaru’s “Legend Reborn” spot hits YouTube

 

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Filed under: Etc.

To give you an idea of how much of a premium Manhattanites place on parking, consider that a new condo development on the Lower West Side is selling five guaranteed parking spaces for $225,000 apiece. That number is on top of whatever the condos themselves cost. The knee-jerk reaction is, of course, to laugh and dismissively say something like, “Who in their right mind is going to pay that to park their car?”

There are eight people vying for those five spaces.

[Source: The New York Times]

Continue reading Welcome to the era of the $225,000 parking space

 

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