Yesterday, Evo magazine released a video in which Chris Harris goes to Munich to find out if the BMW 1-Series M Coupe is a proper M car. His conclusions will bring joy to BMW fans, as Mr. Harris thinks that everything from the engine character to steering and damping "feels like a really good package".
"This is going to be the car that everyone wants" he says, although that largely depends on the price point. Let's just hope the Germans won't get greedy. In any case, Harris' input is a very valuable one and it seems that BMW's engineers are on a good path with the upcoming 1-Series M Coupe.
The newest M family member will arrive in showrooms in the first half of 2011 and it will be smallest Bavarian car ever to wear the coveted M-Technik badge.
Here are the first real life photos of some of the Mopar-tuned Chrysler Group products that were introduced at the SEMA aftermarket show in Las Vegas. If you follow the break, you can find photos of the customized Fiat 500, Dodge Redline Charger, Dodge Durango and Jeep Grand Cherokee, plus a video with Mark Allen, head of Jeep Product Design, showing off three new Jeep studies.
Some people are just meant to go places. In the case of 16-year old Azeem Hill and the rest of Simon Hauger's West Philadelphia-based high-school hybrid team, that place is somewhere into the vastly expanding world of alternative fuel technology.
The West Philly Hybrid X Team, builders of the EVX GT and EVX Focus, is the result of an after-school program at the Academy of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering meant to educate youth about the future of hybrid tech and transportation. What's more impressive is that this young underdog team was in the running for this year's Automotive X Prize.
After besting some really heavy hitters (like MIT, for one), the EVX team was eventually disqualified. Still, let's give a digital round of applause to these guys for going out there and doing the damn thing with the big boys.
Azeem and other members of the program started out at ground level and learned everything necessary in order to create a hybrid car with the goal of returning 100 mpg in the city, 70 mpg on the highway, and still being able 60 in under 5 seconds. Check out the vids below to learn a little more about the program and its goals.
Last night, the Chrysler Group's Mopar division held a special media event at its SEMA Show booth in Las Vegas to show off its new goodies, which include the 2011 Dodge Challenger SRT8 392 Inaugural Edition, Charger Redline, Durango and the Rich Evans Mopar-powered Challenger. This video from the presentation provides us our first glimpse of the 2011 Challenger SRT8's interior, which doesn't look any different from the current model sans the newly designed and badged three-spoke sports steering wheel. Follow the jump to watch the video clip.
Under the "Revive the Passion" motto, Porsche Classic began a 12 month restoration project of a 1973 911 T Coupe (US model) on behalf of the Porsche Club of America (PCA) in August 2010. The fully restored classic will be raffled off among PCA members and presented to the winner at the U.S. Porsche Parade in August 2011. The video after the break explains what Porsche Classic is all about and how the cars are being brought back to life.
This T Coupe is a "narrow body" 911, known as the F model, and it's a favorite amongst collectors. It was also delivered in the classic color combination – silver exterior/black interior – and, since it was built in the last model year, its value performance is considered especially high.
In its better days, the 2.4-liter six-cylinder Boxer engine was good for 140HP at 5,600 rpm. Tipping the scale at just above 1 ton (1,050 kg or 2,315 lbs), the 911 T can (and will, once restored) reach a respectable top speed of 205 km/h (127 mph).
At the 26th Annual Brazilian Motor Show in Sao Paulo, the local motoring press were abuzz over Rossin-Bertin's Vorax. Carscoop reported on the carbon fibre bodied, BMW M5 engined supercar in an article last week.
We have videos aplenty, including a first taste of the Vorax's sonorous V10 soundtrack and a look behind the design process that features an interview with designer Fharys Rossin himself (albeit in Portuguese).
On display at the show was a white coupe and red convertible, though there was no word on whether one of them was the barnstorming 750 hp (559 kw) supercharged variant or whether this would be visually different to the "standard" 570 hp (425 kw) model.
The brainchild of a 37-year-old ex-GM designer, the R$700,000 (US$409,836) Vorax is set to go into production in either late 2011 or early 2012. Carscoop has its fingers crossed that this Brazillian heavyweight champion is more God than dog.
Here's some recent global infrastructure news from Thuringia, Germany: a 30-meter wide, 25-meter deep sinkhole recently opened up in an unsuspecting neighborhood to swallow up some property. In this case, the only losses were a car, some road, and a driveway and garage door.
The sinkhole, which is one of the largest ones to form in Thuringia, is suspected to be the result of "a salt column, calcium sulphate or limestone [dissolving]". According to reports, the region averages twenty smaller sinkholes a year.
No one was hurt this time, but people were still evacuated as a precautionary measure in case more dirt started to cave in. By the time you read this, service crews should be at work repairing the road, filling the sinkhole, and ensuring that peoples' homes are still habitable.
Remember Murray Fowler and his BMW 2800 CS? Then you probably wondered who the next impromptu actor in BMW's "Unscripted" series would be. Well, your wait is over: it's none other than female racer and television personality Sabine Schmitz, also known as the "Queen of the Nürburgring" or the "fastest taxi driver in the world".
She earned these nicknames for lapping the German race track more than 20,000 times (according to her own estimates), mostly behind the wheel of the famous BMW M5 Ring Taxi. Other highlights of her carrier include two wins (in 1996 and 1997) and a third place finish (2008) at the 24 Hours Nürburgring.
Sabine got involved in the world of racing as a young child, when many famous drivers and motorsport personalities stayed at the Schmitz family hotel in Nürburg. As a result, all three Schmitz sisters started racing, but only Sabine had real success.
Charismatic and very natural on camera, Sabine pursued a television career as well, co-hosting a number of German motoring shows. Perhaps her most memorable moments in television are linked to several appearances on BBC’s Top Gear.
Having few things to do this weekend, I decided to crash a Toyota event. It was the 2010 Toyota Experience, which will eventually cover 17 Romanian cities and is meant to promote the Japanese manufacturer's European line-up, from the cute-and-cuddly iQ to the rough-and-tough Hilux truck and the more stylish Land Cruiser. Video after break.
Toyota chose a parking lot at a mall, very close to a main access road to the city, so that the ramp-activity could be seen by a lot of people. That's how we got there, after seeing a Hilux doing something that closely resembled rope dancing.
I'm not a fan of off-road driving, not because I don't like it, but because I'm bad at it. I managed to get a Range Rover stuck in 10 centimeters of water. Same outcome with a Defender... It seems I have that rare talent to get a vehicle stuck in a bucket of jam.
But there are drivers who make off-roading seem like it's the easiest thing in the world. Like the pilots in our video. Bear with us as the action gets more interesting after the 4 minute mark.
To say that Demitrios Bisbelis from Melbourne, Australia, is lucky, is an enormous understatement. The 31-year old man escaped almost certain death - or serious injuries at best, when he decided to get out of bed briefly at 2 am to check his computer in another room. A few minutes later, a Hyundai Excel [also know as the Pony] ploughed into his house and onto the bed he was lying on moments ago!
"it was around 2 am in the morning and I heard a massive bang, then I saw a car going through my bedroom," Bisbelis told reporters. "I thought it was an earthquake. My bed was disintegrated. I'm quite lucky to be alive, because I'm normally in bed this time of the night".
Melbourne police said the car hit a median strip on the road and then went airborne ramming through the wooden fence and into the house which is located on Frankston Dandenong Road. The two 52-year-old men who were in the Hyundai were taken to the hospital for minor injuries.
The Red Bull X1 will be the fastest car in Sony's forthcoming Gran Turismo 5 - that is, if the game ever comes out… To prove this, Sebastian Vettel was asked to do a lap of the Nürburgring race track. As you'd expect, it was done in record time and you can witness it by watching the video after the break.
This is all fine and dandy, but the X1 doesn't exist in real life. However, the science behind it is very real, so, if it were to be built, it would be the fastest vehicle on Earth. Let's check out some [virtual] facts and numbers.
On paper, the X1 measures 0.98 m (38.58 inches) tall, 2.18 m (85.82 inches) wide and 4.75m (187 inches) long - or about the same length as an average family sedan.
Power comes from a 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged V6 that produces in theory 1,483 hp (1,106 kW) at an equally astonishing 15,000 rpm! That's right: 283 horses more than the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.
To say that something this powerful is fast is an understatement. The X1 could easily reach 450 km/h or 280 mph, while the Veyron Super Sport maxes out at 431 km/h or 267 mph. Then again, that's in real life...
As for the other performance figures; 0-60 (0-96 km/h) comes in 1.4 seconds; 0-120 mph (0-193 km/h) in 2.8 seconds and 0-200 mph (0-320 km/h) in a truly incredible 6.1 seconds.
These numbers are a possibility because the X1 is not just insanely powerful, but also very light. According to the designers, it tips the scales at a mere 615 kg (1,356 lbs) - almost on par with a 1959 MINI, or with Mark Webber's weight, when cornering at 300 km/h (186 mph) and enduring 8.25Gs! Oh man, that is jet fighter territory! Oh, you really have to build this Red Bull, you really do.
A while back, Dr. Ulrich Bez, CEO of Aston Martin, said that "the One-77 is approaching a production reality and… the next steps are all about details and refinement to complete the composition."
Well, it seems that engineers and test drivers are indeed refining this 750-horsepower beast these days, as a prototype model has been caught on video while frantically lapping the Nürburgring race track.
The mighty 7.3-liter V12 can catapult Aston Martin's finest to 60 mph [96 km/h] in just 3.5 seconds, while the supercar's top speed has exceeded expectations, as Aston Martin's engineers were able to hit 220 mph (355 km/h), considerably more than the initially estimated top speed of 200 mph.
The One-77 will go on sale in 2011 and it will cost £1.25 million (US $1.99 million or €1.43 million).
The first ever theme park dedicated to Ferrari and the largest of its kind, opened its doors to the international press on Wednesday. Ferrari World Abu Dhabi's much-anticipated public opening was also scheduled for the same day, however it was postponed due to the death of 92-year-old Sheik Saqr bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi, the ruler of emirate Ras Al Khaimah.
Ferrari World's officials are said to have been expecting up to 10,000 people on the first day of its opening. Today, it was announced that the 40-acre theme park on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, will open to the public on November 4.
"Ferrari World Abu Dhabi is pleased to announce it will open its doors to the general public on 4th November 2010 at 12 noon. Tickets can be purchased from the ticketing counters at the Park on the day," the company said in a statement. "We look forward to welcoming guests to experience the world's first Ferrari theme park for this soft opening."
Chairman of Ferrari, Luca di Montezemolo:
"First of all I would like, on behalf of both myself and everyone at Ferrari, to express our sincere condolences to the government and the population of the United Arab Emirates for their tragic loss. Then I would like to thank the nation and all those who made it possible to make this dream - a unique theme park dedicated to theworld of Ferrari - a reality. Congratulations to everyone involved.
The park just 4 years ago was a project, an idea, maybe even a too ambitious idea, is now a fantastic reality. Everyone at Ferrari is grateful to the people who have worked without rest for the last two years to make it happen.
Abu Dhabi is a great city that constantly looks to the future, and we are very proud of our partners who share with Ferrari the same passion, the same vision, the same will to go beyond.
This park combines innovative technology and tradition, it is dedicated not only to Ferrari fans and car enthusiastic, but to the whole family; there are attractions for kids, men and women. It has also the real touch of Ferrari: how things really are for us, with our exclusive GT road cars and racing cars, but also our history and our cultural background. Something else that was crucial for us was for the Park to be a symbol, built actively on the heritage that Italy represents for the world. We are pleased to see that all this has become reality, and that the excitement - like the roller coaster that makes you feel like a Formula One driver - goes hand-in-hand with messages that perfectly combine having a good time with the reality represented by the passion for Ferrari.
We also like to think that this Ferrari Theme park can be a small contribution to reinforcing the bridge between our two cultures.
And finally I would like to express my personal thanks to His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, and to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi; for their guidance and support. Warm thanks are also due to Khaldoon Al Mubarak, and to Ahmed Ali Al Sayegh, for their invaluable support."
