Jaguar’s headquarters and production were located at Browns Lane in Conventry for more than fifty years. Part of the complex included the and its collection of 150 cars, so when the Browns Lane site was sold in 2007 , the countdown began on the museum’s remaining time.
Now comes the formal announcement that the collection will vacate its current spot in September, the tragedy being that it might not relocate to a publicly accessible location. Museum reps say that the collection will continue to be in circulation, either on the historical circuit like Goodwood or on loan to other museums. Even now the Jaguar Heritage Museum only .
Nevertheless, unless another location is secured you won’t be able to just show up, buy a ticket and stroll among cars like the 1935 SS Airline AWR564, 1950 Jaguar XK 120 NUB120 or 1956 Jaguar D-type ‘Long Nose’ 393RW. You’ll also miss Austin Powers’ “Shaguar,” if that’s more your style.
Force India has come a long way. What started out as Jordan Grand Prix and changed hands (and names) several times before landing in the stewardship of Indian bazillionaire Vijay Mallya has become a solid mid-field contender on race days. In 2011, the team finished sixth in the constructors’ standings, behind front-runners Red Bull, McLaren, , and Renault GP. In 2012, however, Force India aims to challenge Mercedes and Lotus for fifth place using the car shown above.
The VJM05 bears the same unfortunate stepped nose of the just-unveiled Ferrari F2012 and Caterham CT01, a trend we expect to see across much of the field as teams deal with F1’s technical regulations. Engine, transmission and KERS are again provided by Mercedes-Benz through a partnership with McLaren, and while former DTM champion Paul di Resta returns for another season in the cockpit. Adrian Sutil departs the team in the wake of his , his seat now occupied by Nico Hulkenberg.
We’ll be watching to see if the young duo can continue to move Force India up the F1 hierarchy. For now, you can check out the press release after the jump and photos from the car’s unveiling – which included the first on-track session of any 2012 F1 cars revealed thus far – in the image gallery above.
has been targeted by Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit advocacy organization, over the automaker’s 40 mpg fuel efficiency claim on the Hyundai Elantra. The group says Elantra owners have seen fuel economy averages of 18 and 19 mpg instead of the the 29 mpg city and 40 mpg highway reported by Hyundai and the Environmental Protection Agency. As such, the group has sent letters to both Hyundai CEO John Krafcik and President Eok Jo Kim warning that if the automaker advertised the 40 mpg claim in the company’s Super Bowl spots, Consumer Watchdog would release a retaliatory video of its own. The group has since followed through with that threat.
Hyundai has since released a new, updated version of its Super Bowl ad, and Consumer Watchdog claims the Korean automaker has now promised not to include the 40 mpg figure in any of the spots. Hyundai, meanwhile, released a statement saying the company’s advertising was “in no way” influenced by the Consumer Watchdog claims, comments or statements. for a look at the Elantra Super Bowl spot, the Consumer Watchdog clip about the vehicle’s mileage claims and a press release from the non-profit.
Also worth a read is of two cars boasting 40 mpg EPA highway ratings: the SFE and the Hyundai Elantra. Ultimately, when you get past all the noise, it’s important to remember that “your mileage may vary” is a mantra for a reason.
The diesel era at Le Mans may not be over yet, but already we’re seeing the emergence of a new propulsion trend: hybrids. recently announced the TS030 Hybrid LMP1, Peugeot was working on a hybrid version of its 908 prototype before it killed the race program, and now Audi has confirmed a hybrid version of the R18 TDI.
Few details were released, but what we can tell you is that Audi will field four cars at Le Mans this year: two with hybrid assist and two without. One will be headlined by Allan McNish, one by Oliver Jarvis, one by Timo Bernhard and one by André Lotterer, with supplemental drivers to be announced sometime before the 80th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans kicks off in June.
Audi also announced a two-car entry for the inaugural FIA World Endurance Championship, with four cars to be run at select racers like Spa and Sebring. Expect more details on the R18 hybrid to be released later this month, but in the meantime you can check out the official announcement after the jump.
If we had to pick a Super Bowl advertising shtick that we’re most susceptible to, it might just be . Especially if they are driving cars.
But this is one ad campaign you won’t actually see during the Super Bowl. Subaru will be holding its second annual Subaru Game Day Dog Walk instead, wherein owners pledge on Facebook to, well, walk their dogs. While we don’t really want to think about what would happen if they didn’t, Subaru sees value in appealing to animal lovers. Some 70 percent of Subaru drivers are pet owners, according to the company.
Subaru has also launched two social networking app as part of its marketing effort: Dogbook for Facebook and MapMyDOGWALK.
Do we even need mention that this is a brand that shares a nickname with a TV cartoon dog?
On Tuesday, President Barack Obama visited the Washington Auto Show, and he even had time to get a closer look at a few vehicles. We’re guessing that the carmakers were more than happy to set aside some time to talk to the Commander In Chief, but not every automaker got the chance.
Bloomberg says that the Association of Global Automakers is upset because the president only spent time with the Detroit Three, even though other automakers reportedly flew in executives from around the world for the occasion. The executives were reportedly on hand and waiting in a “bullpen” in the event President Obama had any questions about specific vehicles, but The Pres stuck to American cars like the , , and the .
AGA CEO Michael Stanton voiced his disappointment about the perceived slight, adding that many members “bent over backwards to meet the request from the White House.” Stanton also points out that AGA members have invested $43 billion in the U.S. and employ over 80,000 workers here.
Of all the car shows around the calendar year, the Boca Raton Concours d’Elegance doesn’t typically fall on our radar screen. But maybe it should, because the annual event in Florida – young as it is – has a history of offering firsts. Maybe not the first time a vehicle is seen in North America, mind you, but a first just the same.
the event included the sale of the first examples of the , Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster and Audi R8 GT to be delivered in America. The year it was the (yeah, that’s the one with the V10) and . And before that, the event’s auctioneers sold off the first Audi R8 Spyder, and .
Noticing a pattern here? Organizers have no intention of dropping the ball this year, when they’ll be auctioning off the first U.S. deliveries of the new . Now if you’re thinking that we haven’t even seen the new SL63 AMG yet, you’re absolutely right. The new itself has been shown, but not the AMG version, which is expected to pack Affalterbach’s 5.5-liter twin-turbo V8 with 571 horsepower on tap. Once the car has been unveiled and deliveries commence, the winner of the auction is guaranteed to be the first to get one in the United States.
As if that’s not enough, there will also be an Audi R8 GT Spyder – one of only 50 slated for production and the only one in red to be made available in the U.S. – as well as a and a whole mess of special-edition Shelby muscle cars, with proceeds going to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Follow for more info, or head down on February 25th to see the bidding frenzy at the Boca Raton Resort & Club.
The annals of automotive history are filled with nameplates that weren’t quite able to survive the boom and bust nature of the business, especially here in the United States. One of the most successful orphaned automakers was , for such design gems as the bullet-nosed post-World War II Starlight and trend-setting fiberglass-bodied .
Sadly, Studebaker officially ceased producing automobiles in 1966, though a small portion of its legacy lives today in the form of the ex-Kaiser . But if a Colorado-based business has its way, the Studebaker name will once again appear on vehicles sold in America. Somehow, we’re far from convinced any of its conceptual designs will ever see the light of day.
Looking over the proposed revival, we see a range of so-called Studebaker cars, trucks, motorcycles and scooters. Half the motorcycles are actually Hyosung models from Korea with Studebaker scripting on the fuel tanks, and the other half are nothing but poor renderings. As for the cars, well… there isn’t a single shred of Studebaker DNA in any of them. In any case, the company is reportedly looking for “qualified investor/partners”. We wish them the best of luck… they’re gonna need it.
Our sister site follows up on its with a new episode this week. This one is a smorgasbord of automotive tech, including a spin on the Solowheel, a mobility device that’s sort of like half a Segway.
The Translogic crew also talks to the chief technology officer at Panasonic, who draws some interesting comparisons between electric cars and refrigerators. shows off a new gesture-based, heads-up display. announces a new version of its and shows it off in some concepts.
Forget about all the talk, about the contracts and the lawsuits. The real sign of the Formula One season gearing up to start is when each team unveils its new car. As you may already know, unlike most other series, each team in F1 is not really considered a team. They’re called “constructors”. Each is responsible for designing and crafting the cars they’ll be fielding in the championship.
That process got under way last week when Caterham beat all the others to the punch by unveiling its new Renault-powered . And that’s all well and fine, but we all know that the Caterham is far more likely to finish last than finish first. What you’re bound to see taking checkered flags is the car you see here: the new McLaren MP4-27.
McLaren, you see, is the winningest team on the grid this side of . And with Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton – both world champions – performing the driving duties, the British squad is hard at work on closing that gap. The more immediate challenge, however, is overcoming Red Bull, which returns as reigning champion once again and to which McLaren finished second last season.
The MP4-27 you see here is the car with which McLaren hopes to seize the lead. Although the design looks rather similar to the 2011-spec it replaces, McLaren insists it represents a comprehensive redesign. Fortunately that does not include the stepped platypus nose already shown on the Caterham and which is expected to proliferate across a good part of the grid. Power once again comes from , a relationship that McLaren it is not about to terminate in favor of another supplier or building its own engines in-house.
We’ll have to wait and see as the season gets underway to see if the MP4-27 will be a winner for McLaren, but for now you can check out the high-resolution images from the launch in the gallery above, and for the full press release and the sound file of the Mercedes-Benz V8 cranking over.
There’s no end to the perks of being a Formula One racing driver, especially if you happen to drive for Scuderia . As if piloting one of the fastest F1 cars on the grid weren’t enough, Ferrari has gifted each of its gifted drivers his own , and , to name just a few. And something tells us that if either Fernando Alonso or Felipe Massa wanted anything else from the expansive - product range – say, a , for example – that would hardly pose a problem.
That’s exactly what the talented duo got the other day at the Fiorano test track at Ferrari headquarters in Maranello, where the first two examples of the new SRT8 in Europe were delivered to the pair of stars. Certainly, the Grand Cherokee SRT8 has plenty to love, what with its 6.4-liter Hemi V8 and 5-second dash to 62 mph, but Fernando And Felipe got more than that.
These two unique examples were decked out in Rosso Corso , with matte black front grille, a black offset racing stripe, black roof, carbon fiber trim and white accents. Ride height was lowered by 1.5 inches on unique forged and painted 20-inch alloys, and the interior has similarly been decked out in red leather accents and top-stitching and even yellow dials on the instruments.
Nice work if you can get it. All you have to do is convince the most victorious team in motorsport that you’ve got what it takes to be world champion, and you can have one too. Otherwise you can for the press release and scope out the high-res images in the gallery above.
The suitably rapid expansion of the Racing division is showing no signs of slowing down. The British marque has its own Formula One team, is supplying engines to the IndyCar Series, oversees both GP2 and GP3 teams, has competition versions of its road cars in various GT and rally championships, runs its own karting program, and offers enthusiasts top-notch trackday programs with the Evora GT and Exos/Type 125 single-seater. But that’s not enough: now Lotus is gearing up to take on Le Mans.
The company was planning to design its own LMP2 racer, and it had snagged the designer of the 908 HDi away from the Peugeot Sport racing program. But that apparently didn’t go quite as smoothly as planned, so Lotus has instead opted to back an independent team to run a second-tier Le Mans prototype on its behalf.
That team is Kodewa, headed up by former HRT F1 team principal Colin Kolles and his father Romulus. They’ll be running a chassis built by Lola and powered by a V8 prepared by Engine Developments – the same arrangement by which Lotus is powering its Indy program. The car, as you can see, features the same iconic black and gold livery as other Lotus racers, penned in this case by Daniel Simon – a former Group designer responsible for the Tron:Legacy lightcycles and the livery run on .
Look for the Lotus LMP2 to debut when the FIA World Endurance Championship kicks off here at Sebring in March, with a second car expected to join at Spa in May. Press release after the jump.
Some may beg to differ, but from where we sit, the acquisition made of back in 1998 was a good thing, and remains as such. The resulting supercars to roll out of Sant’Agata Bolognese have been better than those made under prior owners by leaps and bounds. But who would have thought the relationship would benefit Audi as much as it has?
Not only did the partnership give Ingolstadt the sweet-revving V10 engine that powered the RS6 and S8 (until recent pressures necessitated a switch to a twin-turbo V8 instead), but it also gave Audi the underpinnings for the … and a page or two out of the Lamborghini playbook.
The R8 has since grown to include two different engine specs, a convertible version and the hard-core R8 GT. But as if all that weren’t enough, it led to the crême-de-la-crême R8 GT Spyder. The limited-edition roadster packs the 5.2-liter V10 engine tuned up to 560 horsepower and unburdened of 187 pounds of excess weight, all without a roof to get between driver and the wind rushing rapidly by.
The hard-core, tire-burning attitude, however, is not all the R8 GT Spyder got from its Italian cousins. It also picked up a Lamborghini’s price tag, as Audi USA has just announced the sticker on the exclusive roadster: $210,000. That doesn’t include the $1,200 destination charge, taxes or optional equipment like carbon-ceramic brakes or Bang & Olufsen sound system.
That may seem mighty steep, but if you’ve got the cash to burn, don’t hesitate for too long, because with only 333 units to be built in total and just 50 earmarked for the United States, they’re bound to go fast. Like, Lamborghini fast. for the full press release, and seeing as how Audi has released a whole mess of new photos since the car’s initial launch, we’ve put those together for you in a fresh high-res image gallery.
If you, like us, were wondering how MG managed to away from in the British Touring Car Championship, well you had good reason to wonder. The racecar driver and Fifth Gear co-host had, after all, driven the factory-backed team to both titles in 2010 and landed himself third and his team second just this past season. But you can wonder no more, as the latest news from the BTCC paddock is that Chevrolet has withdrawn from the popular saloon racing series.
The news arrives as a bit of a surprise coming from the front-running team, particularly at a time when the grid has expanded enormously in the past couple of seasons. The reason? According to Autosport, Chevrolet wants to focus its energies on the World Touring Car Championship, where the same outfit RML that ran the BTCC team fields similar touring cars – driven by Yvan Muller, Rob Huff and Alain Menu – with considerable success: The RML Chevrolet team has claimed both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles for the past two seasons running, making it something like the Red Bull Racing of touring cars.
A longtime competitor in the BTCC, RML reportedly hopes it won’t be long before it is back on the grid in the British series, and given that most of the cars in the championship are fielded by privateer teams, we wouldn’t be surprised to see them return as early as next year. In the meantime, General Motors will be well represented in the series by Vauxhall.
Don’t believe anyone who tells you “they don’t build ‘em like they used to.” Not even us. Because they do, in fact, build them even better, with the benefit of a century’s worth of automotive development. Styling, however, is a matter of taste, and beauty is in the proverbial eye of the beholder. So you could certainly make the case that cars were more beautiful back in the day.
That, you see, is where the Huet Brothers come in. Several years ago, the Dutch fraternity rolled out the HB Special, a retro roadster based on a Triumph TR6, designed for use in classic rallies organized by the Huets but also available for sale in limited quantities. Now Tino and Paul are back with a fixed-roof coupedesign they’ve been working on.
Still in the development phase, the classically proportioned HB Coupe promises to offer the comforts and reliability of a modern car with the style and charm of a classic. Weighing in at little over 2,400 lbs, it packs a 3.0-liter inline-six of unspecified origin – presumably BMW – mated to either a six-speed manual or seven-speed dual clutch transmission. So equipped, the drivetrain is said to be good for 306 horsepower, an anticipated 4.3-second run to 62 mph and a 155 mph top end. A 2.0-liter, 204-horsepower diesel four (with six-speed manual or automatic) is also scheduled to be available for a 5.6-second sprint.
HB is also planning a more performance-oriented version as well as a racing model in the future, but the brothers are taking things one step at a time. In a novel approach to raising capital, HB is selling wristwatches and other gear to help get the project off the ground, and it has two timepieces currently on promotion in a group deal you can . There’s no word yet on pricing, so watch this space for more. In the meantime, you can scope out the video and details and the design renderings in the image gallery above.
With six cars joining the grid this year in the DTM series, is sure to present wildly different liveries – largely determined by the sponsors brought on board – for each one. And this is the first.
Based on a sponsorship deal with BP, this particular DTM is decked out in the bright green color of Castrol Edge motor oil and the light blue of German gas station network Aral. This car’s unveiling is the first time we’re seeing the new touring car in anything but flat black or BMW’s trademark striped white color scheme.
To pull of its entry into the competitive German racing series and take on its rivals at and , BMW is bringing in four of its proven factory drivers (including three-time World Touring Car Championship winner Andy Priaulx) and has poached longtime Mercedes AMG driver Bruno Spengler and Audi’s reigning DTM champ Martin Tomczyk.
All eyes will be focused on Hockenheim where the season kicks off in late April.
We’d guess a thief’s favorite is whichever one he happens to be hooning around in – ahead of either illegally selling it, stripping it for parts or falsifying its VIN to pass it off as a legit car. But the ‘Stang that’s attracted the most attention from this scourge of society is none other than the 2000 Mustang.
While we’re not sure what it is about the venerable pony car in that model year that’s caused it to rise to the top of the inaugural National Insurance Crime Bureau “Hot Wheels Classics” report on Mustangs, we are finding the study to be compelling reading. Who knew that 411,155 Mustangs have been stolen since 1981? The report is similar to , but focused on just Mustang thefts, with data dating all the way back to 1964. Apparently NICB got the idea to do a Mustang-centric report after being asked for data from MustangEvolution last year.
Even more interesting than the report, however, is that NICB has also posted a six-minute documentary about how it helped reunite a Shelby GT350 with its rightful owner some 25 years after the car had been stolen. While not exactly part of the report, the video is a pretty cool showpiece for the nonprofit group that investigates car theft and insurance fraud.
To read the full press release and check out the NICB’s video, click .
What binds car enthusiasts to one another? A love for cars, certainly, but we’d argue there’s a deeper psychological connection. Namely that we’ve never quite grown up, and don’t really care to. We’re all still the little boys we once were, hanging posters of our favorite supercars on the walls of our childhood bedrooms. The only way to convince us of the reality of our own age is to show us how old the then-new supercars we pined for as kids have now become. So it’s with a big lump in our collective throat that we bring you the news that the XJ220 is now 20 years old – and along with it, that we’re all 20 years older than we were when it came out.
The first time we got a glimpse of the mid-engined XJ220 was actually back in 1988 when it debuted at the British Motor Show. But that was in concept form. It wasn’t until 1992 that the first customer took delivery. And while it was a fair bit different from the concept version (okay, so the drivetrain was very different, with half the cylinders and half the driven wheels of the V12 concept), what we got was still earth-shattering in its capabilities – particularly for its time, but still by any objective measure. The production XJ220 packed 550 horsepower, hit 60 in less than four seconds and hit a top speed of 213 mph… a new record in the early 90s.
By the time production ceased two years later, Jaguar and TWR had built just 275 examples. The one pictured above is one of ten pre-production prototypes, specifically the example that Andy Wallace piloted to that landmark top speed at Ford Stockton, Texas, in 1991. The yellow example (also pictured in our high-resolution image gallery) was one of the very rare XJ220 S homologation specials with carbon fiber bodywork and 700 horsepower on tap. Click the thumbnails to scope it out and follow the jump for the full press release to take a trip back to your childhood.
Race cars are going hybrid these days. Formula One racers store regenerated brake energy. packs a flywheel into the 911 GT3 R. Just the other day, unveiled its new TS030 Hybrid endurance prototype. And now even Jim Glickenhaus’ one-off -powered, Pininfarina-designed P4/5 Competizione is said to be getting a hybrid powertrain.
Emerging reports from Europe indicate that the GT prototype is preparing to return to the Nürburgring-based VLN series, but this time, it’ll be packing some electric boost. That bit is tipped to come from a system provided by Magneti Marelli that’s similar to the Kinetic Energy Recovery System it developed for Scuderia Ferrari for use in F1. The 4.0-liter V8 will continue providing principal motivation, but the added jolt of power could be just what the team needs to conquer the Green Hell with green(er) propulsion.
During the automaker’s Quality Forum, reporters were told that had reduced “nonconforming deliveries,” a euphemism for bad batches of parts from vendors, by 85 percent from 2007 to 2011. Yet problems remain, according to a report in Automotive News, with suppliers in North America – both the U.S. and Mexico – who account for 70 percent of Nissan’s global nonconforming deliveries.
That statistic presents another challenge to Nissan’s North American expansion plans. The company built a quarter of its global production here last year and it just announced a , Mexico. Additionally, it has already confirmed a deal to and it has already suggested that it and Daimler will do .
Nissan hasn’t named suppliers, nor did it get into the kinds of issues it was having. It also isn’t immediately clear what – if any – of these “nonconforming” parts are being assembled into vehicles that are shipped to dealers without getting flagged at a quality checkpoint somewhere along the assembly process. Even if all of the bad parts are caught ahead of delivery to customers, remedying the problem is likely to be costly and time-consuming.
Even so, Nissan is on the case, with AN reporting that the Japanese automaker has already cut the rate of nonconfirming deliveries by 85 percent globally since 2007.
