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When Evo magazine’s founder and Editorial Director Harry Metcalfe says a machine is “the most amazing vehicle you’ve ever seen,” you know you’re in for a treat. After all, Metcalfe has been at the head of the British magazine since its first issue in 1998 and has owned or driven nearly every vehicle you can imagine.

The amazing machine that’s netted such admiration from Metcalfe? The Scamander, a truly all-terrain vehicle designed and built by Peter Wheeler, the man who owned British boutique automaker TVR for 23 years. With its 300-horsepower V6 engine, the Scamander is reportedly capable of hitting 60 miles per hour in about eight seconds and can hit a top speed of 120 mph.

On land, that is…

You see, there’s also a impeller out back, meaning this crazy floating contraption can also take to the water. Sadly, Wheeler died before seeing this project to completion, but his wife and a team of engineers made sure that the Scamander finally saw the light of day in fully finished form. Scroll down below to see Metcalfe take the Scamander over land and sea.

Continue reading Scamander is the go-anywhere, swim-across-anything RV from England

Scamander is the go-anywhere, swim-across-anything RV from England

The passing of automotive legend Carroll Shelby has led to an outpouring of support, including a replay of a toe-tapping melody from country music great Mac Davis. Davis has enjoyed a long and successful career as both a performer and songwriter, with several number one songs including three written for Elvis Presley.

If you watch Mac’s tribute to the one and only Carroll Shelby, you’ll see his talent on display. Davis took the time to sing his Shelby song that he’d written years before, and you can view it yourself by scrolling below. The lyrics are pretty amazing, and they can be a bit of an elaborated history lesson for enthusiasts who thought Shelby’s fame is relegated to a few Mustang GT500 models.

Continue reading Watch country music’s Mac Davis sing a Carroll Shelby tribute

Watch country music’s Mac Davis sing a Carroll Shelby tribute

38 Special

2,500 rpm in a family sedan generally isn’t a whole lot to get excited about. In fact, it’s traditionally closer to idle speed than anything offering the possibility of real entertainment. But each and every one of those 2,500 revolutions in this 2013 Nissan Altima offers a frisson of excitement when whirling away in concert. Why? Because they add up to 100 mph. In a four cylinder.

Process that for a minute: 2,500 revs = 100 mph in a 2.5-liter normally aspirated four-door kinshlepper. This, friends, is impressive. We first verified the figure for ourselves during a prototype drive at Nissan’s Arizona proving grounds back in March. More real-world numbers include 2,000 rpm at 80 mph and just 1,450 rpm at 60 mph. Credit the Altima’s Continuously Variable Transmission, which has been extensively reworked for this new model. Seventy percent of the transmission’s parts are new, and internal friction has been reduced by up to 40 percent through a battery of small tricks including redesigned internals swimming in lower viscosity oil. The transmission has a super-wide 7.0 gear ratio spread and reprogrammed control logic to help the keep all four pots on boil as necessary.

Of course, it’s still a CVT, which is to driving enthusiasts what Mark Zuckerberg is to the Amish. But Nissan’s Xtronic unit at least makes a good go of it, thanks to a sport mode that introduces shift points to create a physical and auditory experience similar to that of a traditional torque converter automatic. To be fair, the revs don’t plunge quite as far as they would in a slushbox, but it keeps the engine in the meat of its powerband and still delivers a pretty convincing performance, even when subjected to aggressive throttle openings. Either way, those awkward “stretched rubberband” CVT moments are kept to the bare minimum, only rearing their head when the accelerator is buried in the carpet, and just for a moment. Under most circumstances, we imagine most Altima drivers probably won’t even notice they own a CVT.

Continue reading 2013 Nissan Altima

2013 Nissan Altima

Nissan has already tipped its hand, revealing that it will introduce five new models over the next 15 months. Those five models include the Altima, Pathfinder, Sentra, Versa hatchback and Rogue. Of those, we’ve already spent some time with the Altima, and its improved performance, upscale interior and slightly larger dimensions once again had us wondering if there was still a need in Nissan’s portfolio for the pricier Maxima.

Apparently, there is. Despite the Max sharing the Altima’s basic platform and powertrains for some time now, Nissan says its most expensive sedan is viewed differently by consumers. Officials we spoke with at the Altima’s launch in Tennessee this week noted that the company sold about 59,000 examples last year, of which some 51,000 went to actual retail customers. For those keeping track of such things, Nissan says that actually makes Maxima America’s top retailing non-luxury V6 sedan, Number One in a catch-all segment that includes everything from the Buick LaCrosse to the Ford Taurus, Hyundai Azera, Toyota Avalon and Volkswagen CC (not to mention six-cylinder versions of cars like the Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger and Hyundai Genesis). The current Maxima has been on sale since 2008 and received a very minor facelift for 2012.

According to J.D. Power and its Power Information Network data, those purchases transacted at around $30,000, well above the Altima’s $24,000 sales sweet spot.

Add all this up, and you get a solid business case for the next-gen Maxima, on which work has just kicked off in earnest now that the company’s decks have been cleared of the Altima. Officials declined to nail down a timeframe for us, but given what we know about Nissan’s product cadence over the next 12 months or so, we suspect the eighth-generation Maxima will arrive for 2015. Given the current car’s quiet sales success, we don’t expect the next Maxima to radically change the formula, so exorcise any thoughts you have about a shift to rear- or all-wheel-drive architecture. The original Maxima arrived in 1980 as a RWD sedan but made the shift to FWD in 1984 and hasn’t looked back since.

Nissan begins work on next-generation Maxima

Renault has officially released details on its Alpine A110-50 Concept. Designed to pay homage to the original Alpine A110, the machine wears a body crafted from carbon fiber and dipped in a shade of the same iconic Alpine Blue we all know and love. Up front, designers worked in a set of half-ring yellow LED lights reminiscent of the hood-mounted fog lights found on the original. That’s pretty much where the similarities end, however. Based loosely on the crushingly-sexy Renault Dezir Concept, the new machine boasts proud fender arches, a wild split-wing rear spoiler and scissor doors.

As we’d heard before, the A110-50 Concept rolls on the same chassis as the Megane Trophy, complete with adjustable Sachs dampers, 21-inch wheels and the notable absences of on-board nannies like ABS or traction control. Hefty 14-inch front brake discs are pressed by six-piston calipers, while the 13-inch discs out back make due with four-piston units.

Renault placed a 3.5-liter V6 mid-ship with a full 400 horsepower on hand. A roof mounted-intake funnels air from outside the engine bay into the machine’s carbon-fiber intake. Meanwhile, a dual-clutch six-speed gearbox allows the driver the choice of disengaging the transmission via a floor-mounted clutch pedal or shifting via steering-wheel mounted paddles.

Scroll down to check out the full press release as well as a couple videos.

Continue reading Renault Alpine A110-50 concept does its papa proud

Renault Alpine A110-50 concept does its papa proud

Used to be if Renault wanted to celebrate a Formula One team with special edition, it would celebrate its own. But having sold the bulk of its own team to Lotus and Genii Capital in favor of supplying engines to a greater variety of independent teams, its latest commemorative hot hatches honor the (current) king of them all: Red Bull Racing.

Just a couple of months ago, Renaultsport rolled out the special RBR edition Clio, and is now following up with a similar treatment applied to the smaller Twingo (with a special edition Megane to follow). Celebrating the team’s 2011 constructors’ title and the Renault-powered car that got them there, the Twingo RS Red Bull Racing RB7 features a black and yellow livery (though we don’t know what the color scheme has to do with the team that races in dark blue with red), the otherwise optional Cup suspension, blacked-out 17-inch alloys and the RS Monitor onboard telemetry system.

Order books are opening in June across nine markets in Europe and in Japan. But even if you’re not in one of them, you can still scroll on down for the full press release and scope out the images in the high-resolution image gallery above.

Continue reading Renault fetes Red Bull Racing with special edition Twingo

Renault fetes Red Bull Racing with special edition Twingo

The Middle East is an enormously vital market for McLaren, and not just because its oil barons have the cash to buy as many MP4-12C supercars as they and every member of their family could possibly want. While the team has only won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix once and has yet to do the same at the Bahrain Grand Prix – the only two in the region (discounting Turkey), the company is part owned by Saudi businessman Mansour Ojjeh, and another part by the royal family of Bahrain.

Little wonder, then, that the upstart McLaren Automotive is setting up no fewer than six dealerships in the Middle East, the first of which has just opened its doors. To mark the occasion, McLaren took its new MP4-12C to the dunes of Abu Dhabi and around the Yas Island Marina Circuit and brought a camera crew – armed with a RED video camera and Canon’s new 1DX – along for the ride. The resulting high-resolution images and footage are worth a glance, so check ‘em out in the gallery below, the video below that and the press release below them both.

Continue reading Watch the McLaren MP4-12C hit the dunes of Abu Dhabi

Watch the McLaren MP4-12C hit the dunes of Abu Dhabi

Nissan is moving to make its Easy Fill Tire Alert system standard equipment on its 2013 model year vehicles. Taking the federally mandated tire pressure monitoring system to the next logical step, the Nissan system honks the car’s horn when you’ve inflated your tires to the correct pressure. No more reading the tire pressure placard on the door jamb and hunting around in the glovebox for a pressure gauge.

While Nissan actually introduced this feature beginning with the 2011 Quest minivan, its proliferation throughout the lineup makes sense. After all, it’s a good idea, and most motorists can’t be bothered to care about tire pressure, despite its importance for both fuel economy and on-road safety. If Nissan’s system can actually encourage a few of those disinterested drivers to maintain proper tire inflation pressures, it’s a win for all.

Scroll down to watch a Nissan-produced video demonstrating the feature on the company’s 2013 Altima and read the press release.

Continue reading Nissan’s Easy Fill idiot-proofs tire inflation

Nissan’s Easy Fill idiot-proofs tire inflation

The engorged dimensions of the BMW 3 Series have been a source of enthusiasts’ ire for years now. The 3er’s growth isn’t all that shy, especially of late: the sedan is 10.6 inches longer and 8.3 inches wider than it was in 1975, or for a more modern perspective, the brand new 3 Series is 6.5 inches longer than it was in 2002. It took 27 years to gain 4.1 inches, but only 10 years to stretch another 6.5. To address the size and heft, a report in Autocar says BMW is planning a rear-wheel-drive 1 Series sedan to be “the spiritual successor to the E30-generation 3 Series four-door.”

Talk of 1 Series models being spiritual successors to 3 Series models isn’t new – part of the clamor around the 1 Series M was that it channeled the light flickability of the first M3s. A 1 Series sedan would serve three purposes: get a light, small, RWD model back in the lineup, give the company a clear competitor to the upcoming Audi A3 sedan and Mercedes-Benz CLA, and help BMW get closer to its sales target of two million cars in 2020.

The sedan would sit on a derivative of the platform used in the current 3 Series, and be different from the front-wheel-drive platform underpinning the forthcoming 1 Series GT. Four- and six-cylinder engines and BMWs xDrive AWD system are in the planning mix, as is an electric version. Autocar says 2015 is a potential sale date for the sedan, which would put it one year after the next-generation coupe and convertible officially bow.

BMW 1 Series sedan detailed

If you’re wondering what the 2013 Ford Fusion has to do with techno music… well, join the club – we have no idea. We’ll defer to an expert, musician Joshua Harrison:

“Techno music, by its nature, is very similar to the makeup of a car… In both cases, there are lots of little pieces mechanically put together. Just like a car, a Techno song has many elements that serve their own small purpose, and the masters of the craft are those who can put it all together and make everything work as one solid piece.”

Who are we to argue?

In any case, Ford has used an old trick in a somewhat new way in conscripting artists to create techno tracks using sounds made by its Fusion, in this case a 2.0-liter Hybrid model. Listen to the three resulting tracks, then scroll down below to watch a video explaining the process and showing the musicians working their magic.

Even if you don’t like techno, it’s at least interesting to hear how each track is so wildly different from the other two. And if you do like what you hear, maybe you should consider attending the Movement Electronic Festival in Detroit, May 26-28.

Sounds of Fusion Track 1 by Joshua Harrison by fordfusion
Sounds of Fusion Track 2 by Keith Kemp by fordfusion
Sounds of Fusion Track 3 by Tom Newman by fordfusion

Continue reading 2013 Ford Fusion does the techno sound collage music thing

2013 Ford Fusion does the techno sound collage music thing

As much as it pains us to say it, the current core range from Aston Martin has grown a little stale. But fret not: a new model is just around the corner.

Snapped undergoing testing at the Nürburgring in this latest batch of spy shots is what looks to be a new and nearly complete V12 GT from Gaydon. Code-named AM 310, it could be a successor to either the DB9 or DBS – or could carry a different nameplate altogether and replace them both.

While the engine and platform carry over as modified versions of the existing building blocks, sources anticipate just about everything else in the new sportscar will be new. The bodywork – styled as something of a blend between the current DBS and the top-of-the-line One-77 – is tipped to be made up almost entirely of aluminum and carbon fiber, reducing the weight for the 6.0-liter V12 engine – anticipated to come with a 55-horse boost over the current DBS for a solid 565 horsepower. That ought to be sufficient to propel the rakish coupe to highway speeds in under four seconds.

An even lighter version clothed entirely in carbon fiber is also said to be in the works, but we may not have to wait that long, as the AM 310 may debut as soon as this weekend at the prestigious and glamorous Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este.

Aston Martin DBS/DB9 successor caught at the Ring preparing for Villa d’Este debut

The all-but-lifeless corpse of Saab continues to stagger forward in hopes of finding a juicy investor to sink its teeth into. Autocar reports that National Electric Vehicle Sweden is currently close to buying the brand’s remaining assets. The freshly minted electric car consortium is helmed by none other than Karl-Erling Trogen, the former head of Volvo Trucks. Beyond that, few details are known about the company or its plans for Saab. National Electric Sweden is owned by two bodies, Sun Investment and Mikael Kubu, the president of law firm Ac-Gruppen.

We can only speculate about what the consortium wants with Saab, though fan site SaabsUnited reports the company may have its eyes on an electric rear axle program developed with in conjunction with eAAM. Whether that means we’ll see electric or hybrid Saab models whirring around in the future is still uncertain. If we did, it would probably take quite a while. As SaabsUnited notes, “Saab, the company, right now has nothing in it, no dealership network, no finance structure, no personnel-structure, no communications network, nothing… everything needs to be completely rebuilt from scratch, which will take a huge amount of time.”

At this point, we’ll just be pleasantly surprised if the Griffin brand gets a new owner at all.

Saab to be saved by mystery Swedish electric car company

We love four-door convertibles, reciprocating saws and watching other people make bad decisions, so the video seen here is a bit like our perfect YouTube cocktail. In it, the owner of a slammed Lexus LS decides he’s had enough of living under the oppressive shadow of his sedan’s roof. While at StanceWars Belgium 2012, he decides to fire up a generator, plug in his trusty sawzall and go to town. Not surprisingly, the sheetmetal on the roof gives up quickly, and the whole extraction takes less than eight minutes from start to finish.

Hilariously enough, it starts raining just as the owner makes the final cut. How’s that for a sign from the universe? Scroll down to check out the carnage… just be prepared for the painful sound of shredded metal.

Continue reading Man creates DIY Lexus LS 400 convertible with Sawzall

Man creates DIY Lexus LS 400 convertible with Sawzall

If you’ve ever sunk a Saturday afternoon watching a Wheeler Dealers marathon on BBC America, we don’t need to tell you the show is plenty addictive. A tag team salesman and mechanic snag slightly run-down cars and SUVs, fix a few simple problems and flip them for a profit in the UK.

Now it looks as if the Discovery Channel is set to unleash an Americanized version of the show. Fast N’ Loud follows a shop as they seek out classic cars and trucks, customize them and work to sell them at a profit. It looks a bit like American Pickers met Pimp My Ride and Overhaulin in a bar bathroom and this is the fruit of their rendezvous.

We will, of course, tune in if for no other reason than the guys look to have gotten their hands on an early ’50s Oldsmobile Coupe. That’s one of our favorites. The show premiers on Wednesday, June 6 at 10 p.m. Eastern on the Discovery Channel. Scroll down to check out the teaser for yourself.

Continue reading Fast N’ Loud is Wheeler Dealers, American style

Fast N’ Loud is Wheeler Dealers, American style

Renault has confirmed the unveiling of an Alpine concept at this weekend’s Formula One Grand Prix de Monaco, but as we get closer there are new details alongisde new questions. Just yesterday came the leaked image of a concept called the A110-50C, heavily based on the Renault DeZir concept, that could turn out to be the thing itself or pure Photoshop fancy. French press is reporting that Renault COO Carlos Tavares has confirmed that a 400-horsepower concept will appear that “could be homologated and on the road in the future,” and it will take a lap of the Monaco course.

Another story in the French press has a picture of Sebastian Vettel sitting inside a vintage Alpine 110 racer – the car that all this hubbub is about, an example of which is pictured above. It was taken in mid-April for German GQ magazine at the Barcelona F1 circuit. Vettel and Tavares will supposedly be presenting the concept, but that report indicates the car is called the ZAR and suspects the first letter is for “zero emissions,” the second for Alpine, the third perhaps for Renault. A report in CNET France also claims the ZAR appellation for the concept, allowing that the meaning of the acronym can only be supposition for now. True, the DeZir was an all-electric concept, so either the A110-50C/ZAR has 400 electric horsepower and there isn’t any mid-mounted 3.5-liter Nissan V6, or Renault has found a way to break every single law of internal combustion… or we just don’t know what’s really in there.

We’ll should know all come Friday at 1:00 PM local time.

* UPDATE: The leaked image (inset) is the real deal. Renault has released some teaser photos and a video, and the reveal will happen on French Yahoo! Autos on Friday at 1:01 p.m. Monaco time. Scroll down to watch the teaser vid.

Continue reading Renault confirms 400-HP Alpine concept debuting on Friday *UPDATE [w/video]

Renault confirms 400-HP Alpine concept debuting on Friday *UPDATE [w/video]

Mercedes-Benz and its AMG division wanted to thank the two million viewers of its various videos, so it dropped a C63 AMG at the top of the Corkscrew at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and recorded it drifting down. The treat was wasn’t as sweet as it should have been due to an editor who got a bit too happy with the “Cut” button, and watchers said as much.

So, in a nice bit of “Here, let’s fix that,” AMG has uploaded aerial footage of the uncut drift. Now that we know AMG takes requests, feel free to leave them in the Comments section. On your way there, scroll down to check out the new vid.

Continue reading Mercedes releases even more drift-happy C63 AMG footage from Laguna Seca

Mercedes releases even more drift-happy C63 AMG footage from Laguna Seca

There’s the right way to tackle the infamous Corkscrew at Laguna Seca and then there’s the way that puts your Ferrari 458 Italia into the catch fence and on its roof. Ryan Ockey recently gave the latter option a shot during the Ferrari Challenge at Mazda Raceway with predictable results. All of the safety equipment both in the car and at the track worked as intended, however, and the driver walked away with little more than a bruised ego. There are no solid reports as to what caused the flying Ferrari, but rumor has it there may have been a brake failure.

Unfortunately, the 458 Italia had to be pulled from the gravel trap by a tow truck, which meant a long, painful slog downhill on the Italian exotic’s roof. Check out two videos of the carnage and the rescue to see what we mean. Jump forward to two minutes in on the second clip to see things go downhill for Ockey.

Continue reading Ferrari 458 Italia flips at Laguna Seca

Ferrari 458 Italia flips at Laguna Seca

Struggling To Find A Reason For Being

The six basic building blocks of life are sulfur, phosphorus, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen. Arrange those in any number of ways and you can get either a single-celled paramecium or Angelina Jolie. The Mini brand works much the same way. Take the same group of engines, interior bits and exterior design elements, combine them in various ways and you get everything from a three-door hatchback to a five-door crossover.

It all started with the three-door hatchback, but Mini kept reconfiguring its basic elements to create a full range of automobiles that now includes the Convertible, Clubman wagon, Countryman CUV, a new Roadster, and this little guy: the 2012 Mini Coupe, available for our test purposes with the aggressive John Cooper Works package. All members of the Mini clan, however, share the same DNA and do little to hide their lineage.

Truth be told, just the idea of the Mini Coupe has few fans around the Autoblog offices. What point is there to a Mini that’s smaller, heavier and more expensive than the standard hatchback? It seems to some that the Coupe exists just because it’s an easy and obvious way to configure those basic Mini building blocks. But just because one can build something doesn’t always mean one should. There’s got to be a reason.

Does the Mini Coupe have a reason for being? Or is its existence owed simply to the fact that it could be made, so it was?

Continue reading 2012 Mini John Cooper Works Coupe

2012 Mini John Cooper Works Coupe

The next-generation Mazda MX-5 Miata will have a sibling, but it won’t be a Mazda, it will be an Alfa Romeo. The Japanese automaker has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Alfa parent Fiat to co-develop a roadster based on the MX-5 platform that is expected to see production in Mazda’s Hiroshima factory, with the Alfa version coming in 2015.

Pegged as “a successor to the MX-5,” the production date will push the next-gen Miata’s arrival back a bit. In 2010 it was predicted we’d see the new Miata this year, with its 2,200-pound weight target, 50/50 weight distribution and potential twin-backbone chassis structure. Obviously that isn’t happening.

Whenever the new model and its Alfa mate do come, each brand will get “differentiated, distinctly styled, iconic and brand-specific light weight roadsters featuring rear-wheel drive,” using in-house engines provided by their own brands.

The link-up is excellent news for Mazda, the small, independent company searching for just these kinds of “technology and product development alliances” to help rescue it from years of losses, and supporting CEO Takashi Yamanouchi’s assertion that it’s “partner or die.” The negotiations also include further cooperation between the two brands in Europe.

Fiat head Sergio Marchionne’s search for partnerships to provide scale is no secret, nor his desire to improve Fiat’s position in Asia, which Mazda might also be able to assist with. And the idea of a properly sporting Alfa would be welcome round the world; with the loss of the Brera GT and Brera Spider in 2010, the Alfa line is down to two hatchbacks and a long-in-the-tooth sedan, none of them particularly sporty. With the 8C Spider beyond most budgets and the 4C still living in the ether, it’s been almost 20 years since the then 33-year-old Alfa Spider represented (or was meant to, at least) the kind of purposeful, two-seater Alfa being announced here.

The final agreement should be finalized later this year, and you can scroll down to read the press release.

Continue reading Mazda and Fiat to co-develop a roadster based on next-gen MX-5 Miata

Mazda and Fiat to co-develop a roadster based on next-gen MX-5 Miata

We have to admit we’re big fans of the Storm Trooper look. Combining white paint with blacked-out trim, the treatment is one you’d typically find performed in the aftermarket. But in this case Volkswagen is offering it direct from the factory. Or so it is to European customers, anyway.

The treatment is being applied to a special edition of the CrossPolo, the soft-road version of the popular Polo hatchback. The Urban White edition combines a unique shade of white paint with 17-inch alloys painted either white or black, with black roof rails and dark tinted glass aft of the B-pillar. The interior features black and light gray sports seats in cloth and Alcantara, with black headliner and trim and silver top-stitching on the controls.

Overseas buyers can choose between four gasoline and three common-rail diesel engines, with prices starting at €18,975.

Volkswagen gives its CrossPolo the Storm Trooper look with Urban White edition