Automotive News

Filed under: Videos, Supercars

Click above for supercar gallery from Goodwood

We had a video camera with us at Goodwood and captured some footage of the supercars in action. This clip shows them exiting the paddock on their way down to the start line. While the F1 cars are prohibited from doing full speed runs for safety reasons, no such limits are put on these things. So the Bugatti Veyron was allowed to go full tilt up the hill and took advantage of the opportunity. Unfortunately he came up on traffic well before the end and didn’t get a full run on the timesheet. Most of what you’ll see in the 7-minute clip is the parade from the paddock and back again, but there are a couple of passes in there as well, including James Glickenhaus testing the grip of the 330 P4/5 above. You’ll also see a nose to tail profile of the new Nissan GT-R. Follow the jump for the YouTube clip produced and posted by our buddy over at SoCalSpeedZone. And if you haven’t seen them yet, don’t forget to check out our galleries from this year’s Festival of Speed.

Thanks, Duane!

Continue reading VIDEO: Goodwood - The Supercars

 

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Filed under: Sports/GTs, Supercars, Aston Martin

Some were better than others, but the Bond flicks get us going back to the theater every time. There’s just something irreplicably stylish and enchanting about the entire series, and 007’s rides make up a big part of that allure… at least for hopeless car nuts like us. But just like the acting and storyline vary with each production, so does the coolness of Bond’s cars. So where does each one rank? Just prior to the launch of the latest installment with Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, the pundits at Cars.com convened two specialists to rank the top 7 of 007’s cars.

Earning top honors was the classic ‘64 Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger (which we also got to see in its cameo encore appearance in Casino Royale), ahead of the ‘75 Lotus Esprit featured in The Spy Who Loved Me. Surprisingly, the ‘97 BMW 750iL from Tomorrow Never Dies started from the second row, out-qualifying the ‘85 Aston Martin Volante from The Living Daylights, the 1930’s Bentley Mark IV (From Russia With Love), the 2002 Aston Martin Vanquish (Die Another Day), and the ‘99 BMW Z8 (The World is Not Enough). The experts also gave honorable mention to the markedly more affordable ‘61 Sunbeam Alpine from Dr. No.

For our part, we’d certainly have placed the Vanquish ahead of the 7-Series, and ahead of the ‘85 Volante, but the real question is where the specially-made Aston Martin DBS would slot into the list. (And for that matter, what will Bond drive in the next episode?)

[Source: Cars.com]

 

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Charlotte, NC – July 17,2007 - Continental Tire of North American (CTNA) will supply select tires to the BMW Performance Center and the BMW Performance Driving School in Spartanburg, South Carolina, it was announced today by Ed Marohn, Director of Automotive Aftermarket Sales for Continental Tire of North America. The tires will be provided for the BMW M5, which is the featured vehicle for the BMW Performance Driving School.

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Filed under: Euro, Green, Tech, Ford

a 1941 Ford with organic plastic body panels

Okay, let’s get the spliff jokes out of the way - there’s lots of stuff made from hemp, and it won’t get you high. It would be nice to swap plastic off-gassing for an entirely more pleasant type of new car smell, though. Don’t get your hopes up for a Ford you can smoke, however. What’s really going on is research into building cars from renewable organic materials that are also more easily recycled than the metal and petrochemical parts from which that cars are currently constructed.

The effort has Ford teaming with the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and hemp fiber supplier Hemcore. The DEFRA is throwing about £500,000 (roughly $1 million) at the effort, and Ford already has experience using plant matter to build auto bodies. There was a prototype in 1941 with a plastic body fashioned from plant material. We wonder what a rush to plant matter body materials will do to the price of crops; much the same way the E85 push has caused the price of corn to increase. It would be nice, however, to have plastics that can be more easily reused, and may biodegrade instead of plugging up landfills for millennia.

[Source: Winding Road]

 

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Filed under: Motorsports, Sports/GTs, SUVs, Suzuki

Click image for hi-res gallery

Damn. If only the real Suzuki XL7 was this awesome. The car you see above is the machine that Monster Tajima hopes to break the current Pikes Peak Hill Climb record in. While the Suzuki Sport XL7 Hill Climb Special has about as much in common with the regular XL7 as a funny car does with a production vehicle, it does indeed have one of the GM-sourced 3.6L V6es under its bodywork, only this one’s a fully worked-over, twin-turbocharged unit dishing out over 1000 horsepower. The target is Rod Millen’s 1994 record of 10:04.06. The 2007 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb takes place this weekend, so we’ll know soon enough if Monster’s new ride has what it takes to put a new entry in the record book. In the meantime, we’d like to suggest that Suzuki add a “Hill Climb Special” checkbox to the list of available XL7 options for the rest of us.

[Source: Suzuki Sport]

 

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Filed under: Trends

With fuel prices ever creeping northwards you’d think the automakers would start slowing down on upping the size of their new models. Unfortunately, the notion of ‘less is more’ isn’t the case when it comes to building and selling new cars. The belief in the auto industry is that consumers view bigger as better, a problem that’s increasingly being associated with vehicles not normally regarded as being large.

According to data compiled by Edmunds, SUVs have grown on average ten inches in length and gained 474 pounds over the past decade, a trend that’s reflected in almost all other segments. The Honda Accord and Civic models are a prime example of the practice that’s occurring right across the industry. For example, the current ‘07 Civic sedan (pictured) has nearly the same legroom as a 1990 Accord and they’re only around 100 pounds apart.

The major problem lies in fact that more weight requires more horsepower, which usually requires higher fuel consumption, a vicious cycle that automakers are now being forced to change.

There are still some carmakers using innovative packaging and better technology to make new models lighter. Mazda lopped off a massive 100kg from its already super-small Mazda2 model, and the new Audi TT is lighter than the outgoing car thanks to an aluminum spaceframe construction.

[Source: USA Today]

 

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Filed under: Concept Cars, Time Warp, Etc., Euro

Huge high-res gallery available by clicking above.

The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena is one of the most well-respected automotive design schools in the world, and its alumni have been heading design houses all over the globe for decades. So when you go to their annual Car Classic concours, it’s very likely you’ll find yourself among some famous faces — Former students like Freeman Thomas (Ford), Geza Loczi (Volvo), Dave Marek (Honda), Jae Min (Audi), David O’Connell (Mitsubishi), Frank Saucedo (GM), and Franz von Holzhausen (Mazda). And some famous non-students usually show up too, people like Jay Leno, Bruce Meyer, George Barris, Reeves Callaway, Barry Meguiar, and this year’s featured speaker, Luigi Colani. Not a true concours, it’s a chance to study and discuss great design. Sure there are trophies, but it really ends up being a master class in transportation design through the ages.

This year’s theme was “Dream Machines: Imagination Gone Wild,” and the very first car we spotted as we entered this scenic campus told us it was going to be a fun day. It was a 1969 Bizzarrini Manta Coup. We had never seen one before but it took our breath away. After a few seconds with the owner we discovered it was a show car designed by fledgling designer Giugiaro back in 1969. It’s based on a retired Bizzarrini race car because they happened to have had it lying around. It’s a three seater, ala the McLaren F1 and it’s simply gorgeous. After that first taste, the show just got better from there. The Monkeemobile, the “Round-door” Rolls, a Duesie SJ, Porsche 959, Talbot Lago, Hot Wheels “Twin Mill,” and many, many more delights.

Follow the jump for a partial list of entries and a few more highlights.

For more information about this event and the college, click here.

Continue reading 2007 Art Center Car Classic features Dream Machines for everyone

 

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Filed under: Gadgets, Etc., Chevrolet

As long as everybody is on to them, Google is apparently set to step out of their surveillance vans and greet the world in a fleet of shiny new Cobalts. A Gizmodo reader happened to spot a StreetView camera van finishing a round of picture taking duty and followed it back to Google’s Mountain View, California campus. While driving through the Google lot he spotted several dozen Cobalts with funky antennae on their roofs. It seems these Chevy sedanlets will be the new fleet for the next round of Google Maps StreetView captures. The “Quad Cs” (Chevy Cobalt Camera Cars) will likely be unleashed in the near future to complete Google’s mission of capturing the entire Earth, on camera at least.

[Source: Gizmodo]

 

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Filed under: Motorsports, Sedans/Saloons, Green, Videos, Ford

Click on the Fusion for a gallery of shots from the first track test of the 999

Finished off in gray primer, the Ford Hydrogen Fusion 999 rolled out of the garage at the Transportation Research Center in Ohio this weekend. The team checked out all the systems on the vehicle, started up the fuel cell in the vehicle for the first time and then started some un-powered runs to check out the brakes and steering. A series of runs with a push start up to 60mph from a truck confirmed that details like the ability to stop in a timely manner did indeed function. Once they confirmed it would stop, it was time to see if it would go. For the full story on the development and testing of the hydrogen Fusion head over to AutoblogGreen. There’s also a video after the jump.

[Source: AutoblogGreen]

Continue reading VIDEO: Ford starts testing the Hydrogen Fusion 999

 

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Filed under: Car Buying, Hybrids/Alternative, Green

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The J.D. Power and Associates Alternative Powertrain Study has found that hybrid consideration among new car buyers is slipping, albeit only slightly. At the same time, the willingness to consider a clean diesel is growing. Overall, 7% fewer buyers are adding a hybrid to their list of potentials, but in the 16-25 age group the drop is actually 13%. For some reason, the hybrid message is getting lost on the people just entering the car buying market. One possible reason could be that, according to the study, buyers wanted to pay no more than $2,396 extra for a hybrid over a traditional competitor, but get 18.5 mpg more. As those shoppers have discovered that hybrids can’t provide that cost/benefit ratio yet, they are perhaps staying with the standard option. It’s not much different in the diesel category, with folks willing to pay $1,491 and expecting 15 mpg better. However, the perceived benefit of diesels is opposite that of hybrids — hybrids could be coming down off the pedestal, while more people are realizing that diesels are fuel efficient and, finally, clean.

[Source: J.D. Power and Associates]

 

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