Rubens Barrichello may be down, but he most definitely is not out.
The Brazilian driver – a longtime teammate of Michael Schumacher in the glory days – has been on the Formula One grid since his fallen countryman Ayrton Senna was still with us, but in the end, he was replaced at Williams by Ayrton’s nephew Bruno, effectively ending his F1 career. But while his grand prix racing days may be behind him, Rubinho still has too much talent to simply vanish into retirement.
So where is he going? To IndyCar, following a similar path taken by former masters like Mansell, Fittipaldi and Andretti, but also by contemporary pilots Takuma Sato, Sebastien Bourdais and Jean Alesi. We’ve been the move since January when Barrichello was lining up for a test drive with KV Racing, and now the two racing stalwarts have reportedly sealed the deal.
While Rubens had previously considered racing just the road course and street circuit races on the Indy calendar in deference to his wife’s reported concerns over oval-track safety, he will, in the end, contest all sixteen races this year, including the Indianapolis 500 and the four other speedways on what was once a calendar dominated by oval racing.
The signing of a multiple grand prix winner like Barrichello stands as a coup for American open-wheel racing, which has been clawing its way back into relevance after the rift between CART and Indy was repaired, attracting more automakers to supply engines for a new Dallara chassis. Rubens will be partnered at KV Racing – the team owned by former Champ Car chief Kevin Kalkhoven and former Indy champion Jimmy Vasser – by longtime friend and race winner Tony Kanaan (with whom he is pictured above at the press conference) and Venezuelan driver EJ Viso. for the official announcement.
As you might remember, we were left unfulfilled by the 2012 GS. , which is why when we read about the possibility of a tuner version of the GS from SLP Performance Parts on Inside Line, we got on the phone posthaste.
SLP is best known for building the Firehawk and SS versions of fourth-generation F-body Firebirds and Camaros for General Motors, and owning the “ZL” trademark that both it and GM have used on the current-gen . But the company is also the rights holder of fabled monikers “Grand National” and “GNX,” names that it intends to put back into play.
An SLP spokesman confirmed the report that a 300-plus-horsepower Buick GNX based on the GS is in development, saying that it should have a final mock-up based on the above sketch by the middle of this month. But SLP also told us that it has plans to revive the Grand National name, which would presumably fall somewhere between the GS and the GNX on the performance scale.
But before we get too lathered up about this, remember that SLP has dipped its toes in the performance Buick game before, with middling results. The company rolled out a Buick GSX back in the early part of last decade, based on the supercharged, 3800 V6-powered Regal GS. This dealer-installed kit was a good idea applied to the wrong car, as the front-drive, fourth-generation Regal just wasn’t enough of a performance machine out of the box to bother with.
The current GS, on the other hand, offers a much more intriguing proposition for a little bit of aftermarket improvement. As long as SLP does the full-blackout treatment that was a hallmark of the original GNX, we’d be willing to take it for a spin.
What do you do when you want to cast your cute little city car as a truly bad ass performance machine? How about hiring an infamous drug enthusiast actor, a guy who insists he has “tiger blood” flowing through his veins?
Yes, that’s right, has enlisted none other than Charlie Sheen to promote its here in the States. Sheen’s appearance in the commercial is brief, portraying himself hot-shoeing the small car around a palatial home – indoors, during a party, mind you – while under “house arrest.” Sheen, of course, is the former star of Two and a Half Men, who was reportedly the highest-paid actor on television before being fired for badmouthing the show’s creator last year. Sheen’s antics also included demanding a 50 percent raise and threatening a lawsuit against his employers, despite being hospitalized for substance abuse-related issues at least three times.
The Abarth goes on sale this spring, while Sheen’s new FX series, Anger Management, premieres on Thursday, June 28 at 9 p.m.
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.
is, among other things, a cult of personalities. It just tries to keep those personalities to a manageable number to include its founder Enzo Ferrari, his successor and longtime chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo and whatever two talents happen to be filling the seats of its F1 cars – Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa… You don’t tend to hear the names of any of the thousands of others who make the company what it is, but today Marco Mattiacci takes a well-deserved curtain call.
Head of Ferrari’s operations in North America – as well as those in Central and South America – for little over two years now, Mattiacci is credited with increasing the brand’s market share on this side of the Atlantic by some 20 percent. And due to that success, he has been named 2012 Automotive Executive of the Year.
The award is one of the oldest in the business, having started in 1964 and featuring such notable past honorees as Alan Mulally, Bill , Jr., Henry Ford II, Carroll Shelby, Rick Wagoner, Bob Lutz, Lee Iacocca, Carlos Ghosn, and Dieter Zetsche. Born in Rome, Mattiacci is cited as the first Italian to receive the award (Iacocca’s lineage apparently notwithstanding), and will officially receive the award at a ceremony on April 20 in Detroit. for the full announcement.
Two years after Consumer Reports smacked by in the wake of safety concerns, the venerable consumer products testing magazine has slipped back into its comfortable role of being one of Toyota’s biggest fans. In announcing its annual Top Picks list, CR lauded five Toyota models as best-in-class, meaning the once beleaguered brand captured fully half of the category awards.
The five triumphant Toyota models included the Hybrid (hybrid), (small SUV), V6 (family hauler), (green car), and (Family SUV). It is the first time since 2003 that a single automaker has scored five class awards. , the last automaker to do so, did not land a single vehicle on the list for the second time in three years.
Other vehicles landing a spot on the list include the (sporty car), (affordable family sedan), (sports sedan), (small car), and (pickup truck).
CR says it evaluates vehicles for their road test performance, as well as reliability and safety, requiring that winners rank at least near the top of their category on the organization’s overall road test scores while having average or better reliability on reader surveys and performing “well” on crash tests.
Think of Japan’s Super GT series and you’re likely to conjure up images of competition versions of top-spec Japanese supercars like the , and the lapping the likes of Fuji, Suzuka and Motegi, their thunderous 500-horsepower V8 engines drowning out the thunderous applause from the enthralled crowds. But that’s just the GT500 class.
Below it there’s also the GT300 class, where new challengers this season will include the , and even the , all decked out for competition duty with no more than 300 horsepower on tap. So while Nissan has dominated the GT500 class with its purpose-built GT-R racing machine, this year it’s fielding a much more production-based version in the GT300 class as well.
While the GT500-spec GT-R ditches its twin-turbo V6 in favor of a V8 – making it more akin to the production car in appearance than in substance – the GT300 challenger is closely based on the road car. It starts out with the Nismo GT3 version (pictured above), and from there applies modifications like an air restrictor to bring it under the 300-horsepower cap to comply with series regulations.
The car is being fielded by the Nissan Driver Development Program, and forms part of the global motorsport program which the Japanese automaker just announced, with participation in both classes of Super GT, Le Mans and associated series, various GT and off-road series here in North America and . for all the details and an spectacularly cheesy 80s-style montage clip.
is currently plotting the future of the next-generation . Company delegates from various world markets are currently headed to Japan to decide whether the rally bruiser will continue to be a hardcore racer straight from the factory or if it will head in a new, somewhat posher direction. According to GoAuto.com (and previous reports), the new STI will be significantly different from the base and WRX, and that difference may translate into a more upscale performance model. Think something along the lines of a M or a AMG machine.
Regardless of which direction the model takes, odds are we can expect to see a turbocharged version of the new 2.0-liter dual-overhead cam boxer four-cylinder currently found in the . Nick Senior, Subaru Australia Managing Director, has been quoted as saying the engine is compatible with forced inductions, countering earlier reports.
While Senior says he hopes the STI will continue to be a rally thoroughbred, his vote only counts for so much. Australia is the fourth-largest Subaru market behind the U.S., Japan and China.
Legends come and legends go when it comes to supercars, but few remain etched as indelibly in our hearts and minds as the McLaren F1. Still capable of trouncing 99% of the performance machinery being built today, the legendary F1 is one icon whose successor has been anticipated arguably more than any other.
Since the end of its production run in 1998, McLaren has gone on to produce the for and branch out on its own once again with the MP4-12C (pictured above in Monte Carlo). But as capable as these machines have proven, everyone’s been waiting for the F1’s true successor to come rolling out of Woking. And now, like a child anticipating Christmas, we just may have that launch date to look forward to.
According to reports, McLaren Automotive is planning to unveil the new seven-figure, 800-horsepower hyper-car not at a major auto show and not at its own dedicated event, but at no less a celebration of speed than the Monaco Grand Prix.
The 70th running of the most iconic of Formula One races, which McLaren has won no less than 15 times (more than any other team), is on the calendar for May 27, so if the rumors prove accurate, we’ve only got a few months to wait.
The is a historic rally held in the Ardennes Forest around Spa, Belgium, and it commemorates the actual Boucle de Spa rally races held for 37 years from 1953 to 1990. The drill is simple: lots of drivers plotting vintage machinery at various levels of anger through the trees.
Hundreds of cars run, some like the 308 you’d never think to choose for rallying, while others like the various Lancia, Ford and ducktail racers are just good to see on the road again. There’s over 11 minutes of high-def footage , and mercifully, the only soundtrack are the cries of exhausts that aren’t anywhere near street legal. Enjoy.
We’ve seen plenty of Back to the Future replicas pass through the halls of the internet. In that time, we’ve always assumed the original movie car was tucked away safely in a museum somewhere. As it turns out, that wasn’t the case. Of all the vehicles created for the three films, the most detailed hero car, otherwise known as the A Car, was left on display outside. The ensuing years of suffering in the elements weren’t kind to the DMC-12, and Bob Gale, co-writer for the BTTF saga, is now working to have the vehicle completely restored to its original condition.
Joe Walser, J Ryan and Terry Matalas are currently working to get the car back to its former glory, but the project needs help. The craftsmen may not need roads where they’re going, but they do need anyone with photos of the original A Car or parts from any of the movie DeLorean models to reach out via TimeMachineRestoration@gmail.com or the restoration’s . Very cool.
A top fuel dragster makes impressive use of a 500-cubic-inch engine block machined from a solid chunk of aluminum. That 10,000-horsepower engine propels a 2,300-pound car from the starting tree to 100 mph in less than a second. And it needs a lot of fuel to do it.
Some visitors to the NHRA Museum caught a dragster fuel pump in action. The red Lego-like contraption at the lower left is a fuel pump, set up to deliver more than eight gallons per minute at wide-open throttle to each of the eight cylinders. You can see what the resulting jet of nitromethane looks like in the video .
? 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.
When is a teaser no longer a teaser? When there’s no more secret left to hide.
With the emergence of leaked photos and info on the final car, Ferrari’s choreographed striptease of the new F620 GT is basically a moot point. Yes, the usual fanfare will accompany the car’s official unveiling on February 29th, but with , it’s ultimately anticlimactic.
Regardless, Ferrari soldiers on with a follow-up to its first . The new clip gives a good view of the lightweight aluminum skeleton under construction at the Ferrari factory in Maranello.
You can watch the new Ferrari F620 GT “teaser” video , and then just to see the final car in all its glory right now.
On Wednesday, Ferrari will fill in the remaining blanks.
and the company’s lawyers are nothing if not determined. After a judge smacked down the electric vehicle manufacturer’s and Top Gear for comments made about the range of the , the automaker rallied with a second, amended lawsuit. It didn’t take long for the the same judge to nix the new case, too, saying the amendment was “not capable of being defamatory at all, or, if it is, it is not capable of being a sufficiently serious defamatory meaning to constitute a real and substantial tort.”
That sound? It’s the smack of the judicial backhand.
The judge went on to say drivers know a manufacturer’s claim about range is dependent on driving conditions and habits.
The dustup, as you may recall, began when Top Gear put the Tesla Roadster through its paces on the show’s test track. While Jeremy Clarkson lauded the car’s acceleration, the segment claimed the vehicle ran out of juice after just 55 miles of abuse. That figure is far south of the 200 mile range Tesla claims for the vehicle. CEO Elon Musk called the show “completely phony” not long after the segment aired and brought out the legal guns. The rest, as they say, is history.
You may be familiar with the name Colin Furze. The gentleman has made a name for himself by crafting some of the most impressive small-displacement two-wheelers around, and his four-wheel creation – a mobility scooter – lives up to the same level of insanity. Thanks to a 125cc engine lifted from a dirt bike, the machine can whip to over 70 mph. If that isn’t terrifying enough for you, the vehicle does it using the same wheels and tires as the electric scooters you see whirring around your local loathsome neighborhood box store.
Furze recently took his death machine out for a little fun on a snow-covered stretch of tarmac and brought along a video camera for the ride. Hilarity ensues. to check out the quick clip for yourself.
Gran Canaria is a volcanic nexus of disconnected associations, a bit of everything from a bit of everywhere. Geographically and geologically, this third largest of the Canary Islands belongs to Africa. Climatologically, it belongs to the Macaronesia Ecoregion. Its name is said to have come from an ancient Mauritanian king who, according to Pliny the Elder, named it Islas Canarias – Island of the Dogs – because of the numerous canines upon it. Politically, Gran Canaria belongs to Spain, which is why the tallest mountain in Spain is on neighboring island Tenerife. Linguistically, however, the Canarios dialect can be challenging for Spanish speakers to understand.
The island occupies just 600 square miles, but it’s otherwise all over the map. Yet it shares one crucial thing with the 2012 Cabriolet that we flew there to drive: purpose. You have to want to get to Gran Canaria – it doesn’t just happen.
Such is the case with Porsche’s latest top-dollar droptop – neither luck nor accident could have created it; the men responsible wanted this very car. The 991 Cabriolet is the sum of 30 years of 911 convertibles, and for proof of purpose, you need only know that a team of engineers has been devoted to the roof – and just the roof – on this car since 2004. For that effort they would like that their creation, and the car beneath it, earn the same the accolade bestowed on the hardtop for three months now: the best ever.
It is. But there’s more to it than a little extra fabric…
Episode #270 of the is here with Chris, Dan, and Autoblog Executive Editor Chris Paukert. Topics include the announcement of the Porsche Macan, the state of Fisker’s finances, the DOT proposal for distracted driving guidelines, and in-dash smartphone integration tech. Your questions and comments power the end of the ‘cast, and for those of you who hung with us live on our , thanks for taking the time. We’ve embedded our Q&A module for you to scroll through and follow along, too. Thanks for listening!
Autoblog Podcast #270:
In the Autoblog Garage
Hosts: , ,
Runtime: 01:18:08
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Any outfit with the cash can buy a Formula One team. Integrating it into an existing automaker, however, isn’t an overnight proposition. Both and Caterham are currently undergoing that process, but so is .
The German automaker bought out what was then the World Champion Brawn GP team (previously known as and before that, as British American Racing) a couple of years ago as a standalone racing team, and has been bringing it into the corporate fold ever since. This year, the team previously known as Mercedes GP has been rebranded as Mercedes AMG (as was the division that produces its F1 engines). To drive the point home, the company’s broadened performance arm launched two very different cars under the same banner in Barcelona this week.
The main event is W03, the new single-seater that Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg will be driving in the 2012 Formula One World Championship. Bound to the same new set of regulations as the other teams, the new Mercedes AMG W03 shares some of the same traits as the rest of the field – most notably the stepped nose section that Mercedes’ PR team cleverly calls “distinctive.” Since engine development remains frozen pending the launch of the new turbo six, the W03 is powered by the same FO108Z engine – all 2.4 liters and eight cylinders of it – as last year’s car, and for that matter the latest McLaren and Force India challengers are, too.
While Daimler was at it, though, it has taken the opportunity to show off its new for the first time. Based on the that debuted just two months ago at the , the SL63 packs AMG’s fast-becoming-ubiquitous M157 twin-turbo 5.5-liter V8 with 529 horsepower, but unburdened of 242 pounds of excess weight from the outgoing model (thanks primarily to the widespread use of aluminum and magnesium where the last model was made of steel), the new SL63 AMG can rocket from 0-62 mph in 4.3 seconds (4.2 with the optional AMG Performance Package) while returning 30 percent better fuel economy.
Check out our high-res galleries of both open-top Three-Pointed Stars and to see some videos.
With dozens of major automakers competing to separate us from our hard-earned cash in return for the newest, greatest development in motorized transportation, there are new cars making their debut just about every day. But the vast majority of them are not, of course, from . Even with four production model lines, the purveyor of exotic performance machinery doesn’t have a new model to roll out every day. But that rare occurrence is coming up, and in typical Maranello style, it’s coming up fast.
We’re talking, of course, about the F620 GT, a new front-engined, rear-drive V12 supercar designed to succeed the . We’ve brought you spy shots of the prototype undergoing testing at Fiorano and seemingly countless rumors of its composition, but soon we won’t have to squint at spy shots and speculate at details as the car’s unveiling is just around the corner.
Although the supercar’s public debut is expected to take place at the in just a couple of weeks from now, Ferrari will reveal the car it calls its most powerful to date in all its glory a little before that, on February 29. In the meantime, you’re invited to crank up the speakers, strap on a bib and for a teaser video where a camouflaged prototype clears its throat in spectacular fashion.
We’ve seen plenty of Back to the Future replicas pass through the halls of the internet. In that ![22eda 2012 porsche 911 cabriolet lead First Drive: 2012 Porsche 911 Cabriolet [w/video]](http://theautoblog.ru/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/22eda_2012-porsche-911-cabriolet-lead.jpg "First Drive: 2012 Porsche 911 Cabriolet [w/video]")
