Brabus has taken the time to work over the new in the company’s trademark over-the-top style. The result is the Brabus Bullit Coupe, which is headed for a debut at the Geneva Motor Show this week, complete with an 800-horsepower version of the same V12 found under the hood of the . That kind of craziness is so beautiful, it almost brings a tear to our eye.
The engineers at Brabus bored out the block to 6.3 liters of displacement, up from 5.5 liters in factory form. Throw in a pair of turbos and you have a vehicle capable of dumping a staggering 1,047 pound-feet of torque on the rear tires.
Or at least you would if Brabus didn’t have to electronically limit final output to 811 lb-ft of torque. The company says there simply isn’t a transmission out there capable of standing up to that kind of twist. Even with the limited grunt, the Bullit Coupe can pop off a 0-62 mph run in 3.7 seconds on its way to a top speed of 229 mph. Pure brilliance.
In grand tradition, is producing another Grand Edition. This time they’re taking the already high-end, high-price, high-style coupe and making something God himself might be seen driving. If he could afford it. And if he were European because we Yanks probably won’t get the chance to buy one.
Creation of the opulent CL Grand Edition probably takes Mercedes much longer than six days since “handcrafted” and “hand-finished” are used to describe the transformation a CL coupe (either the 550 or 600) undergoes to get the Grand Edition badge. This package is more than just a badge. There’s also the choice of three “designo paint finishes” of platinum black metallic, mocha black metallic and for an extra $2,000 the matte magno cashmere white. AMG furnishes front, rear and side sill panels to give it that high-paid sports star look.
Inside, the handcrafted is available in black, porcelain and armagnac to go with the CL’s standard burl walnut or black ash trim.
Underhood is the CL’s bi-turbo 4.6 liter V8 gushing out 435 hp or the CL600’s 5.5 liter, bi-turbo V12 with 517 hp. With that kind of power, will never fail you.
If the Grand Edition were available in the States, all the extra luxury would add about $6,400 to the price, not including that unshiny white paint. A wise man might say it’s a true bargain considering the special edition only adds about 5% to the base $115,000 price tag.
The E90-chassis is nearing the end of its production run, as based on the . As is typical when there’s a , sales and marketing feel the need to goose the current model to maintain interest. Here in the States, we saw something like that in the , while BMW’s British outpost is readying its own exclusive model, the Limited Edition 500.
Available as either a coupe or convertible, the Limited Edition 500 will be unsurprisingly limited to 500 cars. Each will receive a “laser cut” trim piece on the dash identifying it as such, and the palette will consist of just three colors: Imola Red, Mineral White or Santorini Blue. Other than that, there’s not much to report here, as the Limited Edition 500 is mechanically identical to the bog-standard M3, which is to say both wonderfully precise and rev-happy.
The big attraction, then, is the bundled equipment, which BMW describes as “well over £4,000 worth of additional equipment included for only £1,000.” So some quick back-of-the-envelope math says those cheeky Brits are just offering a $4,500 discount on a nicely optioned M3. List price for the coupe is £55,690 (some $88,000 – including Britain’s infamous Value Added Tax), while the convertible runs £59,785 (almost $95,000).
Just as nature abhors a vacuum, the Internet abhors secrets. got so close to keeping its i-oniq concept coupe away from us before the , but the web won again when someone uploaded images of ithe i-oniq’s blood red interior and McLaren MP4-12C-like doors.
We don’t have any hard information except that the car hints at future Hyundai styling elements and is a hybrid with a 1.0-liter, three-cylinder gas engine. Stay tuned for details from the Geneva floor in the coming days.
Over at HQ, the bubbly is flowing like high-octane unleaded. Of all the sports cars sold in the U.S. in 2011, 30 percent were either a or . Woo hoo! *POP!*
Take that, ! Take that, ! Take that, um, ? and ? Yeah, Camaro trounced all y’all! Beat Mustang by almost 18,000 cars and the Dodge Challenger by, wow, more than 48,000 units! And don’t even think about lining up your CR-Z next to a Camaro, ’cause you’ll get smoked!
In the big-ticket sports car class, the Corvette is still king. In fact, nearly as many Vettes were sold in 2011 as the , and the combined.
But back to the Camaro. Why is the (at minimum) 323-horsepower Camaro listed alongside the relatively anemic 122-hp Honda and 138-hp Hyundai? Smoke and mirrors from Chevy? Maybe, but probably not. They’re all two-door coupes… except for the Veloster which has three. They’re also all available in red and considered compact cars by the EPA…. except for the CR-Z, which is a two-seater. More likely, the three are in the same GM target market of 25-40-year-old males… who want to get 40 mpg while going 150 mph with the convenience of a hatchback?
We give up. Feel free to peruse the press release .
Tweaked RS5 On Ice Is More Thirst Quenching Than Before
We’ve admittedly had our share of issues with the approach takes with its RS cars. In theory, “RS” represents the German tradition of heavy-breathing RennSport driving – essentially for cars that can really race. What we have found most often, however, is that the RS more readily approximates a branding exercise that comes sort of close to smacking us upside the head with thrills, but falls short in key ways – especially when Audi has brought us to a track, eagerly awaiting our feedback.
RS models tend to weigh a lot, and the company’s Quattro obsession can harm handling while cornering – and it costs a pretty pickle or two to boot. The RS model that finally got us closest to Renn Sportiness was the (a car that’s finally hitting the U.S., having already been savaging European roads since 2009). Then we waited until Spring 2010 and the RS5 that promised us things – wonderful things. The upon which it is based was possessed of the near-perfect rear-biased sports coupe proportions, and the it spawned was a pretty solid piece of work, too, so we were excited to drive it.
A means we already know what the BMW 6 Series Gran Coupé looks like, and we already know the base-model . The top slot, however, will be taken by the M6 Gran Coupé and it is in barren polar areas still preparing for primetime.
’s challenger to rob from the piggy bank of the gets the expected M treatment with muscled-up additions front and back and quad exhaust pipes. It will stand over the middle-tier 650i and its 4.4-liter V8 good for 445 hp and 480 lb-ft. The M6 Gran Coupé will use the same turbocharged V8 as the and , doling out a minimum of 560 horsepower with rumors suggesting perhaps 580 hp.
Check it out in the gallery, and that almost-complete segment should get ready to rumble once this arrives.
has managed to keep its i-oniq concept coupe under wraps since it , but the internet couldn’t wait for the concept’s debut.
The crew from the Korean Car Blog snagged this first official image of the i-oniq, the next interpretation of Hyundai’s “fluidic sculpture” design language. And it’s certainly a looker, in a oddly French kinda way.
Coming in around 173 inches, the i-oniq is a little shorter than coupe, and is reportedly a serial hybrid, with a small displacement gasoline engine powering up a battery pack, with a pair of motors driving the rear wheels.
Unfortunately, those are all the details we have for now, but we suspect a full reveal before its debut next week.
has already been releasing a steady drip of information about what’s going into its 2013 XTS like its , and now it’s focusing on lighting choreography. Cadillac reminds us that its lighting signature is vertical bands of illumination, tying it back to 1948, when the tailfins for which the brand is still known were first used on cars like the Fleetwood Sixty Special and Series 61 Coupe.
The illumination system goes by the intriguing names of either “Lead Me to the Vehicle” or the Phil-Collins-esque “Take Me Home” and is charged with adding drama and security. Twenty light sources are used in total, starting outside with the LEDS in the headlights, mirror housings, door handles and around the perimeter. Inside, LEDs are used everywhere from overhead to controls to door handles to the footwells, and they are timed in their illumination and dimming, “similar to a production crew lighting a theater stage.”
for a press release and vids demonstrating the latest in Art & Science.
Magna Steyr may not be a name most consumers would recognize, but it is one of the biggest players in the auto industry. As a contract manufacturer, it has produced some 2.5 million vehicles across 21 different models, including the , and , to name just a few.
The Austrian unit of Canadian mega-supplier Magna International, Steyr has also helped countless automakers develop new vehicles and technologies, and though it doesn’t market any vehicles under its own name, it often showcases its abilities with a series of concept cars labeled MILA. And this is the sixth and latest.
Called the MILA Coupic, the show car demonstrates an adaptable bodystyle. What looks at first blush like a crossover coupe (similar in form to, say, the ) can turn into a pickup truck or convertible. The front and rear glass roof panels can also be opened independently of each other, giving the MILA Coupic an even more adaptable form and showcasing the type of innovative roof approaches that Magna Steyr has applied in making the mechanisms for the , Fiat 500C and .
The folding seat module also allows for easy loading, and when folded forward, is said to seal off the passenger compartment in pickup mode. Although all we’ve got to go on visually at the moment is the solitary rendering which you can click above to enlarge, but there’s a full press release after the jump as we prepare to depart for where this show car, among countless others, will be unveiled next week.
When is a not a Volkswagen? If by Volkswagen, you mean the “people’s car” as it was initially intended, then the answer is: When it starts costing thirty to forty grand. But even with new pricing in place, the is still a far cheaper proposition to other German “four-door coupes” like the , Sportback and and the new .
Whereas the MSRP on the outgoing model started at $28,514, the freshly updated 2013 model starts at $30,250. That, of course, is just the starting price for the base model with the 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder. Start piling on the options – especially big-ticket upgrades like the VR6 engine and 4Motion all-wheel drive – and you’re quickly looking at a price starting at $41,420 for the top-of-the-line Executive model.
The adjusted pricing puts it well into the company of entry-level models from luxury marques, but if you shun badge snobbery enough to consider dropping that kind of cash on a VW, consider as well that it’s also comparable in both pricing and specification to . for the press release.
Italian magazine Quattroruote has somehow procured a set of renders showing every angle of the . The show car will arrive at the and is heavyweight celebration of several Pininfarina milestones: the 10th anniversary of the company’s Engineering Centre, the 30th birthday of its Styling Centre and it’s named for the town of Cambiano where Pininfarina is located. What’s more, it was inspired by the design house’s , an example of which was reportedly owned and slept in by the company founder.
Are you ready for the word “coupe” to carry more baggage? The designers call the Cambiano a coupe, but it’s got three doors: one on the left, two on the right. Other details are as novel: it’s roughly 16 feet long, weighs 3,740 pounds and is gets its power from a diesel-fueled microturbine providing juice to four electric motors of 80 horsepower each. The stats are estimated to include a 4.2-second run from zero to 60 mph and a range of “better than 200 kilometers.”
There’s a lot going on with the design so have a look at the photos in the gallery and judge for yourselves, but we find ourselves mesmerized by a Daytona Charger backlight that flows into an Intrepid rear end. Pininfarina designers spoke like there was more to this car than just a concept exercise, though, so we’ll look forward to seeing it in Geneva.
? Good. Mercedes AMG? Better. Mercedes AMG Black Series? Now we’re talkin’. The top of the line range from the German automaker’s performance division has tinkered with CLK, , and to devastating effect. The trouble is, as much as we love driving these kinds of performance machines on the road, we have to begrudgingly admit that most of the earth’s surface is covered in water. That’s where Mercedes’ partnership with Cigarette speedboats comes into play.
The two powerhouses have collaborated in the past on an , then passed the goods on to partner Ducati for a , but now the partnership has lead to the 50-footer you see here.
The Black Series 50′ Marauder takes its inspiration from the , but where the muscle-coupe has an impressive 510-horsepower 6.3-liter V8, the Cigarette packs a pair of Mercury Racing engines good for 1,350 horsepower – each. The beast is decked out in a black and white paint scheme, swathed Alcantara and fitted with a hundred billet aluminum components.
The result was unveiled at the 2012 Miami Boat Show – the largest annual event in Florida – just last month, but if you missed it you can check it out now in the press release and the high-res image gallery.
hasn’t announced it yet, but sources familiar with BMW’s production plans have told Autoblog that the M135i concept, which will be shown at the , will go into production.
The 1 Series hatch with modifications and a gas-powered, turbocharged inline six will send 300+ horsepower to its 18-inch wheels in either rear-wheel drive or xDrive configurations. it will perform much like the 1M Coupe, getting from standstill to 62 mph in under five seconds.
Continental Europe will get it for sure, but markets like the UK won’t since xDrive isn’t yet compatible with right-hand-drive. The UK market that only the X models will have all-wheel drive until the next-gen 5 Series arrives. We’re probably out in the cold as well, but we’ll know more in Geneva.
Long before Jaguar was a five-time Le Mans victor instantly associated with the Leaper icon and cars like the the E-Type, it was Swallow Sidecar, making hexagonal outriders like the one pictured above. When the company got into automobile production it maintained the name Swallow and produced ornately turned-out coupes like the Austin-Swallow, Wolseley-Swallow and the prewar speedster known as the SS-100, the SS standing for Standard-Swallow. It wasn’t until after the war that company head William Lyons would, for obvious reasons, swap the SS tag for Jaguar.
This year is the 90th anniversary of the Swallow Sidecar company, so the Jaguar Heritage Trust is hosting a circuitous Swallow to Jaguar 90th Anniversary driving tour from Coventry to Blackpool. The eight-day jaunt begins September 2, 2012 and is open to any of the marques under the historic Jaguar umbrella, including Swallow, SS, Lanchester, Daimler and Jaguar.
There’s a press release with all the details. And for those who have wondered about the this September, we just spent two days in Coventry walking through the whole collection and we’ll have a report with good news shortly.
and its commitment to maximizing the potential of every model continues with the 2012 640d xDrive. It’s the first time the has used a diesel engine, and it sound like it won’t disappoint if ’sporty’ and ‘oil-burning’ are your prerogatives: the 3.0-liter inline six with TwinPower turbos throws off 313 horsepower and 465 pound-feet, with all that twist available from around 2,000 rpm. Working through the standard eight-speed automatic will get you from 0 to 60 in five seconds, and the coupe will return an estimated 40 U.S. mpg.
This is also the first 6er to be fitted with Intelligent xDrive, which routes 60 percent of the power to the rear and 40 percent to the front in normal conditions. However, it can shuttle power from front to back and side to side depending on traction and the sporting intensity of your cornering. It will be available in convertible form as well, though we don’t expect either to show up in U.S. showrooms any time soon.
A press release breaks things down in typical Bavarian detail, or there’s a huge gallery of high-res photos for you visual types.
In the press anouncement for the UK-spec , there’s a note about “a third, stripped-out model” the Brits will be offered as a tunable track-day special. It isn’t exactly surprising, since the is exactly the same as the , and is offering . That model, called the RC, drops 100 pounds compared to the base coupe by omitting items like the LSD, air conditioning, radio, paint on some body parts and swapping 17-inch alloys for 16-inch steelies.
When we asked Subaru if we’d get one, too, we were told we’ll be get the Premium and the Limited, and that’s it – no stripper BRZ here in the United States. While it’s possible that Subaru simply isn’t discussing another trim for our market yet, what’s more likely is that it’s time for us to wonder, again, “Why do theyalways get everything?”
There’s a press release with a few more details on the top-spec model and Subaru’s rather generous aftercare program. Our high-res gallery of BRZ images is below for your perusal, as well.
And here we thought we everything planned to bring to the . We were wrong. The German automaker has announced that it will debut a new M135i Concept, marking the first time it has paired a gasoline-burning engine with its new moniker.
We’ll get to the powertrain in a moment, but first, take note of the three-door hatchback body. Up until now, we’ve only seen the in , and while the M135i is officially a concept, we’d expect the production version to rock this basic shape, sans the enlarged air intakes up front and the rest of the body kit.
BMW says the three-door 1 Series has “a more dynamic and elongated appearance” than its five-door sibling, pointing to details like its rising character line, frameless windows and “powerfully flared wheel arches” as unique elements. We won’t argue any of that, but we’re still not entirely sold on the new 1er’s nostrils.
Underhood lies BMW’s well-known Twin Power Turbo 3.0-liter inline six that sends “more than 300″ horsepower to the rear wheels. The suspension has been modified for M Performance duty, and the wheels have been upgraded to 18-inch M-branded alloys. We expect something along these lines to show up in production guise in relatively short order… at the very least for European buyers.
Check out the high-res image gallery above, then to read the official press release.
The Artega GT has no lack of fans in the ranks of the Autoblog editorial staff. With a shape that shows the likes of the and how things ought to be done and a 3.6-liter V6 with 300 horsepower, the Artega never fails to attract our glances when we see it on the European show stands. But this year, the small German manufacturer is tipped to have a surprise up its sleeve.
According to reports, Artega is preparing to unveil a roadster version of the shapely coupe at the fast-approaching . Mechanics are expected to stay the same, but without a roof, this highly desirable sportscar could get even more so.
Every car has its better and worse angles, but by and large we’d argue the XK is one of the most beautiful cars on the road today. Almost artistic, we’d say, and Jaguar itself seems to agree with the release of the new Artisan special edition.
Launched (for the time being at least) in Jaguar’s home market, the Artisan SE is available in either coupe or convertible and in base or supercharged trim. It’s distinguished by its polished 20-inch wheels and unique shades of black, white and silver, but what really sets it apart is its interior: Scraffito-style leather covers the seats, dash and doors, with a Poltrona Frau headliner, a Bowers & Wilkins sound system, stainless steel pedals and unique sill plates.
The Artisan SE bumps the price of any XK specified by a good £12,000 ($19,000 based on current conversion rates), making it the new king of the hill for Jaguar’s two-door range. Check it out in the press release and the high-res image gallery.
