In the high-stakes world of performance cars, horsepower is king. It’s the first stat bragged about by owners trying to explain why their , or is better than their foes’, and it’s the headline figure promoted by the automakers themselves year after year.
When announced that the would be punishing the pavement with , the world stood up and took notice. Remember, though, these were just estimated figures, as the car had not yet been SAE certified. If reports from the Team Shelby message board prove accurate, the 2013 GT500 has finally gotten its official figures.
How’s about 662 horsepower and 630 pound-feet of torque?
Yep, that’ll do. It’s notable that these figures represent increases of 12 horsepower and 30 lb-ft over the earlier estimates, and they also put even more distance between Ford’s top-performing Mustang and Chevy’s 580-horsepower . It also means the Shelby lays down considerably more ponies that the and its 638 horsepower and 604 lb-ft.
Now, will we see a corresponding horsepower-addled response from or ? Only time will tell.
Zombies are more like us than you’d imagine – although they have different reasons, they hate flossing as much as many humans. That’s one of the insights gleaned from a new web commercial for the in which one of our “zombie overlords” shares his feelings on various topics, including The Bowtie’s small car.
It’s too soon for to have done this, and we know giving the thumbs up to an ad is a matter of opinion, but as far as we’re concerned, to the agency that’s responsible for this, we offer our kudos. to check it out.
Hey look! A red version of the Acura NSX Concept for the . Because it’s China, you know. Get it? Red. As in “Red China.”
And if that doesn’t prove is too clever by half, take a good look at the new photos of the red car in the , then check out our , which has the first series of official images Acura PR released for the car’s debut in January at .
If you’re thinking that all that happened here was that someone clicked a few buttons in Photoshop, well… they wouldn’t do that, would they? Well, yes, they probably would, but the NSX is , too. Nifty.
The No. 1 car purchased by men was the Porsche 911, while the car with the highest percentage of women buyers was the Volvo S40.
Some stereotypes are true. Men like V8s. Women like I4s. According to the third annual demographic study by on the car buying habits of the sexes, men continue to fixate on size while women care about efficiency and price.
The No. 1 brand for women – the brand with the highest percentage of female buyers – was at 46.2 percent. was No. 2 with 45.7 percent and third with 45.6 percent.
Men, as expected, dominated the exotic brands with sales being fueled by the most testosterone – 92.5 percent of buyers being male. was the No. 2 brand with 83.4 percent of its buyers being male and having 82.8 percent male buyers.
“The price point for many of the cars and crossovers women buyers wanted started at or below $25,000, while men tended to spend more money for their vehicles,” said Kristen Andersson, TrueCar.com senior analyst in a news release. Furthermore, women focused on smaller and more fuel efficient vehicles while men gravitated toward fast exotic cars, big pickups or SUVs.
Indeed. The No. 1 car purchased by the highest majority of men was the . The car with the highest percentage of women buyers was the , with 57.9 percent of the customers buying it being female.
Auto sales in California are red hot right now. The Detroit News reports that sales of new vehicles are up 17.7 percent in 2012, outpacing overall U.S. growth, which sits at a still healthy 13.3 percent. And since gas prices are still extremely high, cars accounted for a reported 62.7 percent of sales, while SUVs dropped to only 24.4 percent.
The car versus-SUV-paradigm isn’t all that surprising given the price of petrol, but what is surprising is the brand that has received the biggest sales increase on a percentage basis. The brand (aka the , and ) is up a whopping 222 percent through March.
That’s a shockingly big bump, but perspective comes with a glance at 2011 numbers. Last year, Chrysler sold just 2,470 vehicles in the largest car market in the U.S., compared to 7,955 sales in the first three months of this year. Chrysler has been so bad in California that in 2011 it reportedly accounted for only one percent of overall sales.
We don’t know how much of this increase is accounted for with fleet sales of the Town & Country and 200, but at the very least it’s probably safe to assume that rental car companies probably don’t make up anything close to the 222 percent increase. It seems Chrysler may have a (somewhat muted) pulse in Cali after all.
So, we think the crew at our sister site have lost their minds. Either that or they’re trying to steal our jobs.
While nominally a show and blog about mobility, most weeks Translogic is discovering all manner of geeky automotive technology, while driving alternative-fuel vehicles powered by , , , or they can find. This week, however, for the 100th show, they straight-up went to the track to drive supercars. At Disney World. Speedway.
Take that, greenies and transportation wonks. Everyone loves to flog roadgoing sex from and , even – make that especially – Translogic host Bradley Hasemeyer.
As reaction settles down to news that has right from under the nose of for a cool billion, we can now get back to the four-wheeled performance Audi does best. And there are few better ways I can think of doing that than throwing body and mind into a fully optioned new Audi S7 and hitting the sunny German countryside.
At least for this scribe-driver, Audi does a much finer job on its S models than it attempts to do on the RS versions. Not that the RS lineup is a bad thing, but its various members often strike me as just souped-up S models – not the true RennSport icons they ought to be. I want mayhem and magic in an RS and never really get it. What I probably really want is rear-wheel drive and about 400 fewer pounds to lug around, but knowing Audi’s modern day raison d’être, that’ll never be allowed to happen.
But the S cars are genuinely satisfying Sport-driving professionals that happily double as very stylish everyday drivers. The current civilian Audi that expresses best the stylish part of the equation is the sleek . It’s a funny car in that the initial reaction to the swoopy A7 was a bit hesitant from some quarters. But the enthusiasm has grown over time and now the sportback-style car is a certifiable hit in the United States and elsewhere.
has high sales hopes for its new rear-wheel-drive sports car. According to Ward’s Auto, Jack Hollis, Scion’s vice president, said that he anticipates sales as high as 20,000 units each year. “We’re confident we can sell every one we get our hands on,” Hollis stated.
The FR-S is slated to hit dealerships at the beginning of June and Scion projects that it will sell around 10,000 units before the end of the year, with an additional 20,000 cars finding homes in 2013. The automaker already has 1,243 pre-sale orders for the FR-S.
The nearly identical will also be sold in the United States, but parent Fuji Heavy Industries has less ambitious sales hopes. is only looking to move between 5,000 and 7,000 units annually. Hollis believes the FR-S, which is (not including $730 for destination) will sell in higher numbers largely in part to Scion’s larger network of dealers.
The latest hotted-up safety car for DTM is the . If we’d been in a racing accident, we’re not sure we’d trust the men who stepped out of a car that’s half steroids, half Satan, but after 12 years of providing the safety cars (along with ) for the German touring car series, we’ll assume knows what it’s doing.
The most powerful ever will rush to the scene with 517 horsepower, an “aerodynamically optimised light bar” and other Christmas lights, AMG Track and Aero packages and an AMG-specific exhaust.
The safety car is more powerful than the 500-horsepower Mercedes actually racing in the series, so if it weren’t for the extra weight it’s carrying, it might even beat the other cars to the scene of the accident. You can read all about it and peep it in the high-res gallery of images.
There’s a that the designers at might have been dreaming about before they penned the Lithia. We don’t think this kind of inspiration is anywhere near criminal, though, and before anyone broaches the topic of Chinese design, they should know that the is an ex-General Motors man: , who has work on the and the on his resume.
CH Auto helps automakers prepare cars for sale in China, from design through to engineering – part of Darancou’s brief is to make sure those two departments work together. The Lithia, showed off at the , has probably been done as a company calling card. Powered by lithium-ion batteries, the spec sheet claims a 150-kilometer range (93 miles).
There has been a lot of discussion from industry analysts about who will replace CEO , but he’s not the only CEO of a major American automaker that will eventually need a successor.
, CEO of since shortly after its emergence from bankruptcy in 2009, told Automotive News in an interview that he hopes his successor comes from within the automaker’s ranks, as opposed to bringing in an outsider. Candidates are said to include GM Vice Chairman Steve Girsky, North American head Mark Reuss and global product leader Mary Barra.
Interestingly, Akerson himself was imported from a private equity firm called The Carlysle Group, and he has indeed had to learn how the auto industry operates, as he told AN:
“This is the funniest industry. Most industries people are straight up with it. Here everybody slaps everybody on the back, you just got to make sure they don’t have a knife with it.”
Despite this acknowledgement, Akerson is still not one to pull punches. GM’s CEO , “They are trying like hell to resurrect . Well, I might as well tell you, you might as well sprinkle holy water. It’s over.” And he’s not backing down. “A little bit of holy water wouldn’t hurt, I won’t back off that.”
If a rumored and a is to “holy water,” we’d say Ford must agree with Akerson’s assessment.
To some residents of Midtown Manhattan, sex is a problem. Specifically, is a problem and they’ve asked the Community Board to ban weekend parking on their streets.
The board granted the request, citing chronic drug use, double parking and rampant sex. Unfortunately, the board has no power to enforce the ban and is awaiting a review by the Department of Transportation. If passed, the NYPD will presumably get involved and start asking frisky fornicators to get a room.
Half the problem could take care of itself soon. Patrons of two nightclubs in the area are being blamed for the illegal displays of public affection, medication and parkification: The Parlour Midtown and Rebel NYC. The Parlour’s liquor license is is under review due to “several violations.”
And, by the way, if you’re wondering how to properly do the backseat mamba, check out (kinda NSFW) for some helpful tips. Just stay out of Midtown.
There’s little doubt that commercial vehicles are almost as vital to an automaker’s sales figures as passenger vehicles are, and to that end many have dedicated commercial vehicle operations. The group’s is called Fiat Professional, and it’s just rolled out its latest offering.
Called the Punto Van, it is, as you might have guessed, a Punto hatchback, stripped down and fitted with body panels where the windows usually go. Capable of carrying 35 cubic feet and 1,150 pounds of cargo, the Punto Van is powered by a 1.3-liter MultiJet II diesel in three states of tune (75, 85 or 95 horsepower), two trim levels and three colors.
Taking the place in its line-up where the previous versions of the Grande Punto and Punto Evo sat, Fiat Professional just took the wraps off the new Punto Van at the Commercial Vehicle Show in Birmingham, England, with order books opening later this month. for the official press release.
Say what you will, but in this business you’re nobody until you have your own watch line. has several, teams up with Breitling, partners with Jaeger-LeCoultre, with Parmigiani Fleurier… the list goes on and on, and now includes one more: Carroll Shelby and David Yurman.
The collaboration was forged over the timepiece you see here, created to accompany the 950-horsepower unveiled at the just last month. The David Yurman Limited Edition Shelby 1000 timepiece features a Swiss-made Valjoux 7753 automatic chronograph in a 43.5mm stainless steel and rubber case with tachymeter bezel and guilloche racing stripes on the galvanized steel dial.
It’s affixed to the wrist by a rubber strap with snakeskin texture, and only 300 examples will be made: 150 in bare stainless steel and 150 with a black PVD coating. It’s the first of many Shelby-branded wristwatches that the David Yurman brand will be making for Shelby, and you can check it out in high-resolution by clicking the image above and for the full press release.
Most accidents in motorsport will immediately terminate any chance you have of winning the race. Not so when you’re nickname is “Crazy Leo.” Rally driver Leonid Urlichich demonstrates in the how you can shake off an accident like a boxer recovers from a right hook.
The footage comes from the 2012 Rallye Perce-Neige held in early February where Leo and his navigator Carl Williamson were competing in the woods of Maniwaki, Quebec. Leo reportedly tapped the brakes while careening flat out down a snowy straight and his doth protested. The car spun around backwards and slammed, rather violently, into a telephone pole. Amazingly, the damage was mostly cosmetic and the car wound up facing the right way on the track, so Crazy Leo just hit the gas and continued on to ultimately finish the rally in second place.
to watch a trio of videos showing the accident as well as the crowd’s reaction to Leo’s recovery.
Have you ever bought a brand new cars only to forget where you put it? How about 300 of them? Probably not – unless you’re Miami-Dade County, which was recently reunited with 298 vehicles it bought brand new between 2006 and 2007.
The county “discovered” this fleet of no-mileage vehicles after reading about them in a there (see the source for more images). Most of the misplaced motorcade is made up of hybrids whose warranties either expired with very few miles on the odo or will very soon.
Looking to save some face, the county has rushed at least 123 of the hybrids into service. The warranty covered the hybrid bits for eight years or 100,000 miles, but we’re not sure if that covers cars parked for five of those eight. We’re also not sure what that much time in Miami heat and humidity does to an unused hybrid powertrain, but it can’t be good.
The county, as you probably guessed, is looking into how it lost so many cars. The leading theory is that they might be part of Carlos Alvarez’s time as mayor. He was the mayor during the period the Toyotas were purchased, but a 2011 recall election successfully removed him from office. Apparently the voters “felt, among other reasons, that he had been behind multiple acts of misappropriation of funds.”
We’ve tried to contact Toyota to see what kind of warranty support these cars will get but haven’t had any luck so far. We’ll update with their response.
Beneath the gorgeous and impossibly long looking hood of the Mazda Takeri Concept lies plenty of real estate. By our estimation there’s room for any number of powerplants, from a high-revving to a twin-turbo V6. However, when launches the new 2014 , which will , it will only contain a measly little four-cylinder, according to Autoweek.
So that’s being a bit harsh, as despite the reported demise of a V6 engine option for the Mazda6, at least it will be getting a four-banger, according to the report. Skyactiv is, of course, Mazdaspeak for its suite of technologies that includes its next-generation powertrain with direct injection and a fancy new automatic transmission design, a combination we when we sampled it in the .
With , , and having dumped their V6’s in favor of an all-four-cylinder lineup for their midsize sedans, we’re not surprised to see Mazda follow course. We do, however, wonder how the intends to compete when it comes to performance.
With 155 horsepower and 150 lb-ft of torque, the 2.0-liter Skyactiv four in Mazda’s new crossover isn’t particularly powerful, so we hope we might see a slightly larger displacement version with a few more ponies for the bigger sedan. Or one with forced induction. Or how about a diesel engine option? Mazda has promised a diesel for North America, though it hasn’t specified which vehicle it will arrive in. The automaker has making 173 horsepower and 310 lb-ft of torque for the CX-5, at least in Europe. Now that might be just the ticket to make a top-trim Mazda6 get up and go.
It’s been almost a fortnight, which just might be a record, since we last visited . Next up to keep the high-po exotic ball in play is Tushek Supercars, hailing from Slovenia (that’s ), with its quaintly archaically named Forego T700. The company just made an appearance at the Top Marques Monaco with its first car, the 444-horsepower Renovatio T500 (pictured in our gallery below) with a modular hardtop, but the T700 will push things much further.
Founder Aljosa Tushek told Autocar the T700’s targets: less than 2,200 pounds, more than 700 horsepower, up to 3.3gs for cornering. That latter number sounds like a math error would not only double the Renovatio’s number, it would triple the cornering force sustained by the around the Nardo test track.
The limited-to-30-units Renovatio is priced at £245,000 ($394,934 U.S.) with deliveries promised later this year. Due in 2013, you can expect the T700 to outdo the T500’s price by at least double as well, and you can expect both of them to never be sold in the U.S.
Imagine you’re a spy shooter at the Nürburgring. You’ve got your ancient Scorpio parked nearby, but you’ve hoofed it up to the top of a hill in the hopes of getting the perfect angle on the track. Three heavy cameras are strung about your body like you’re a contestant in The World’s Strongest Man competition. It’s early and you are tired. And cold. The morning temperature was in the single digits Celsius, and while you’re not exactly sure what that translates to in the Fahrenheit scale, this certainly ain’t Miami.
Your job is boring. Boy racers driving all manner of would-be performance cars squeal by, inexpertly holding a line that betrays their inexperience. “Go back to your videogames, kids,” you think as you nurse your cramped and sore legs. You shift your position and the wait resumes. Sport bikes zip by and the wail hurts your ears. You get up and stretch before resuming your regimen. A momentary break in the traffic causes you to do a mental rehearsal, double-checking your gear.
Then you hear it: The tires, disembodied from the roar of an engine, but creating their own . You reach for the camera with the longest lens and barely get it up to your eye as the whooshes towards you, followed by the loud rumble of something more internally combusted. The camera is now firing on all cylinders as you expertly track the car’s pace for the few seconds it’s in your field of vision. A enters the viewfinder and you exhale, lowering the camera and turning your back to the track.
The will take just one lap of the Nürburgring that day, but you were there to capture it. It may not surface again before it goes on sale next year, but you don’t care about that. You need to hustle back to the car to download the images, so the world can see what an without exhaust pipes looks like, so the fanboys can obsess about the extra cooling vents in the hood for the batteries and the blacked-out rear window.
You will e-mail the photos across the Continent, across the ocean, back home. You’ll get a few bucks deposited in your German bank for your trouble, but that won’t happen for a while yet. By then you will have taken more photos and sent more e-mails.
And drank countless lagers. It is still early, but you think of the cliche about it being noon somewhere and head off home. Nobody will be in your favorite expat bar at this time, but you think there must be at least one bottle left in your refrigerator.
Last week, announced that it would be creating the in the form of the hatchback. Set to lap the oval at the Richmond 400 at the end of this month, the officialFocus Electric pace car was unveiled to the public at Richmond International Raceway today, showing off the battery-powered vehicle wrapped in its decidedly modest racing livery.
We recently had our Ford’s all-electric Focus and find it to be a pleasant and engaging – if inconspicuous – EV. These large decals certainly help the BEV to stand out, and we’re interested to see how the Focus Electric looks while its whirring along in front of some power-hungry NASCAR racers.
Scroll through our high-resolution image gallery above to see a few shots of the zero-emission Focus pace car, and for Ford’s original press release.
