So there’s good news and bad. First with the good: Subaru’s configurator has gone . As we’ve already reported, the base model including destination. Now with the bad: We hope you have fun with the configurator, Scooby fans, because that may be all you’ll have for quite some time. According to FT-86Club, demand for the has been so high that Japanese market deliveries have been delayed until January 2013.
While the report says it’s “unclear” whether this will affect the U.S.-market BRZ or its twin, with demand reportedly four times higher than parent Fuji Heavy Industries forecast, it’s a good bet that neither brand’s dealers will have a surfeit of cars.
Yes, many jokes can be made at the expense of , the UK-based manufacturer of odd-looking vacuums and fans, and its employees. But those hard-working engineers clearly know a thing or two about recombining common parts to find innovative solutions to every day problems.
As hard as they work, they also apparently play hard. Dyson recently held a car challenge for its engineers where the object was to make the fastest car possible using Dyson spare parts and motors from their handheld vacuums. It’s like drag racing for geeks and, true to Dyson form, some of the entrants don’t look like anything resembling a car. to watch Dyson’s engineers cut loose and compete for the quickest times.
The is a whole lotta car. Not only is the name a mouthful, but the 510-horsepower German rocket can be a handful too, well, in the wrong hands. This wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen techs or valets getting their kicks behind the wheel of a vehicle that doesn’t belong to them, but it seems some employees at one Ottawa-area dealer didn’t get the memo.
Our tipster claims that a couple rogue techs at a dealership called (formerly Carling Motors) decided to take out one of the 30 existing Black Series in Canada for a joyride. While we agree that some test drives of performance cars should be spirited to find performance-related problems, it’s pretty clear these guys just wanted some kicks behind the wheel of $115,000 Autobahn assassin.
For over eight minutes they negotiate the streets of Ottawa near the Hunt Club Road dealership, breaking all kinds of laws, risking property and injury in the process. The police would gladly impound this Black Series for some of these speeds, and MB enthusiasts would gladly slap these guys in the face for redlining the motor for so long.
Why any tech would post this on YouTube is beyond us, as they’re are only asking to be fired. The Internet has moved in for some e-justice and has been set ablaze with nasty comments on the matter. Not only did they identify the location of the dealership, they have also sent the video, the original of which was removed from YouTube but then re-uploaded by a forum member, to Mercedes-Benz Canada HQ and are hard at work trying to find the possible owner to show him what’s been done to his car pre-delivery. Check out the video by .
techs taking C63 AMG Coupe Black Series for joyride caught on video
Occasionally, we get the impression Jeremy Clarkson is simply screwing with the rest of the world. Either that, or he has no bodily control over over the way his lips, tongue and vocal chords move.
In the past, the “Top Gear” presenter has been notoriously belligerent toward any form of transportation that doesn’t involve the burning of hydrocarbons, bicycles included. After famously railing that bikes and cars have entered into an undeclared war in London, Clarkson has come out in support of Copenhagen’s bicycle culture, calling it “fan-bleeding-tastic.” If that’s not strange enough, he claims he would live in the city in a heartbeat.
Confused? According to Clarkson, the difference is that, while bikes are forced to co-exist with cars in London, Copenhagen cyclists simply have to contend with one another. As a result, there’s no weird high-visibility clothing required and significantly less hostility toward your fellow man.
Makes sense to us, though we have a hard time envisioning Clarkson on a bike. The last time the personality took to something with less than four wheels, .
Production of the upcoming Maserati Kubang may be set for the Jefferson North plant where builds the on which the high-riding will be based, but that doesn’t mean that the Trident marque is giving up on production in its home country of Italy anytime soon.
According to statements made by union officials, Maserati is gearing up to produce a new four-door sedan at a facility on the outskirts of Turin – although whether that is the larger replacement for the or its upcoming baby brother remains unclear – but that’s not all. Maserati, according to reports, has also been tasked with building the 4C sportscar for sister-brand Alfa Romeo, much like it had with the higher-end 8C Competizione that came before.
Between the two new sedans, the SUV, the ongoing production of the line and the Alfa 4C, Maserati sure seems to have its hands full – with a little game of musical factories – for a brand currently represented by two model lines.
In as male-dominated a sport as motor racing, women drivers are still a rarity – but not without their exceptions. Danica Patrick has become a household name in IndyCar and NASCAR, Vanina Ickx (daughter of legendary F1 driver Jacky) has contested Le Mans seven times, Sabine Schmitz is rightly known as the Queen of the Ring, and has made a name for herself in Formula 3 and GT racing. But the latest announcement revolves around one Susie Wolff.
Driving for in the DTM touring car series for the past several years, Susie has now been hired as a development driver for the Williams F1 team. In her new capacity, she’ll be helping the team work out kinks in their simulator, the aerodynamics of the FW34 chassis and even undertake a full track test at an upcoming grand prix.
Now if you’re thinking “Wolff and Williams – why do those names sound familiar together,” you’ve got a keen memory. Toto Wolff is a board member and part owner of the team – and just also happens to be her husband. for the official announcement.
It was only a matter of time before pushed the out of the American nest and into the global market. According to PopularHotRodding.com and Auto-Motor-Und-Sport.de, that time has come. The German site quotes Barb Samardzich, head of development for Ford Europe, as saying the next-generation Mustang is being designed to meet European Union pedestrian safety regulations, despite the fact that no formal decision has been made on whether or not buyers in the EU will be able to get their hands on the Pony.
Then there’s Popular Hot Rodding, which has gathered news from far and wide into a lengthy composite of what the future may bring for the Mustang. Tucked among sourceless whispers of a hybrid drivetrain, an independent rear suspension and a whole new design language is the indication that the performance coupe is being prepped for sale in the UK, Australia and even Japan.
That’s good news for buyers who have been forced to content themselves with grey-market imports until now. Popular Hot Rodding also indicates the new model may shave as much as 300 pounds to increase performance while maintaining today’s power levels. How much of this is true? We’ll find out when the 2015 Ford Mustang debuts in 2014.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced plans to update the agency’s current vehicle safety standards. In order to protect drivers in the event they depress both the accelerator and the brake pedal at the same time, automakers will be required to install a bake-throttle override on new vehicles moving forward. The hope is that the systems will curb instances of unintended acceleration. The new standards will apply on all cars, trucks and buses regardless of weight. NHTSA says many manufacturers are already including similar systems on their products.
The update will replace Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 124, Accelerator Control Systems. The public has 60 days to comment on the proposed change, which may be viewed in full PDF form .
Early last year, NASA engineers found no electronic cause for the claims of unintended acceleration levied at . The report prompted Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to blame the cases on “pedal misapplication.” for the full press release.
No, that is not the world’s most awesome Michigan Wolverines beer pong table. It’s a million-dollar race car that’s powered by the sun, and in the most recent epsiode of Translogic, our sister site visits the University of Michigan Solar Car Team to learn all about it.
The Wolverines have been racing in international solar car competitions since 1989, having built 11 cars in the past 23 years. They’ve won the North American Solar Challenge six times, including the last three in a row, and will be defending their title this July. The team finished third in the last year in Australia, and is currently working on a new car design for the 2013 event.
The car itself, dubbed Quantum, is a poem to minimalism, light weight and efficiency. It can run at over 100 miles per hour, thanks to its ultra-efficient, 12-horsepower, in-hub electric motor and a low curb weight of just 320 pounds.
to watch the full episode and see the U of M team in action.
It may be a bit of stretch to call a McLaren F1 “priceless”, but finding an owner willing to part with his can be a challenge for even the most determined (and cash-rich) collector. But just such an opportunity is coming around the corner at Bonhams’ upcoming auction at the Quail Lodge in August. While every McLaren F1 is a rare bird indeed, this one is even more so.
Even more extreme than the road-going supercar on which it was based, the McLaren F1 GTR emerged as a dominant force in endurance racing in the late 1990s. The F1 GTR proved so successful, in fact, that despite being categorized in the GT classes of production-based racers, it eclipsed the purpose-built prototypes to claim overall victory at the 2005 24 Hours of Le Mans.
All told, McLaren only built 28 examples of the F1 GTR – of which only ten were the aerodynamically-optimized Longtail versions – and this was the very last of them. Built in 1997, chassis 028R contested the FIA GT Championship at the Nurburgring, the A1-Ring, Donington, Spa, Mugello, Sebring, Laguna Seca and Suzuka.
Decked out in Gulf and Davidoff race livery, it’ll go to the top bidder at The Quail, but we dare not venture a guess as to how much he or she will have to pay for the privilege – but the last time this car went up for sale, the asking price was nearly $4 million. Feel free to read more about the car in the press release .
There’s nothing at all wrong with spending a large sum of money on a nice garage. After all, you need a good, safe place to keep your two- and four-wheeled belongings, right? And, assuming you’ve got the disposable income and lots of toys, we suppose even a multi-million-dollar garage is within the boundaries of acceptability… even if that’s 25 times the average cost of a new home in America.
and you’ll find a video from HGTV’s program, hosted by Carter Oosterhouse, in which a $6 million garage is featured in all its glory. The first portion of the garage is pretty nice, housing a large collection of (sigh… mostly unridden) motorcycles, but that’s not what makes this garagemahal stand out from the crowd.
That would be the massive hydraulic elevator used to access the garage’s lower portion. We’ll let you all decide whether or not this garage is worth its cost, or whether or not it’s filled with a properly exotic batch of vehicles. All you gotta do is watch the video , then let us know what you think in the Comments.
One of the great insufferable truths of adulthood is that toys are always cooler when you’re too old to acceptably play with them. Take this custom-built baby stroller, for example. A scale model of the iconic ‘60, the stroller features underbody lighting, sweet whitewall tires, unique pin striping and a slick red interior. Of course, that’s just what’s on the surface. Doting parents may also press a button to make the stroller shoot flames. That’s right: shoot flames. We’re in love.
If you’re as smitten as we are and happen to have a rug rat on the way, you can actually purchase fiberglass pedal-car shells for just $199.99 from eBay. Of course, you’ll need to throw your own blood, sweat and tears into the mix to create a final product on par with the the one in the video after the jump. Not a Cadillac fan? No problem. You can also snap up everything from ‘32 roadsters to ‘51 Mercury convertibles and even ‘41 Willys Truck shells as well. You can find them . In the mean time, for a little video inspiration.
“Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht,” goes the old Yiddish proverb. Man plans, God laughs. And that certainly applies to motor racing, where engineers, mechanics, strategists… entire teams spend day and night over the course of months preparing to campaign their new race car, only for it all to go horrible wrong at the last minute. And that’s what the folks at Motorsport GmbH in Cologne, Germany, are apparently facing now.
After having their Formula One program shut down a couple of years ago by corporate headquarters, Toyota Motorsport has been hunting for a new project ever since. That new project turned out to be the TS030 Hybrid, an advanced Le Mans prototype which they’ve been gearing up to campaign in the new FIA World Endurance Championship and its headline event, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Only those plans were set back some – if not ground to a halt – last Wednesday when the only working example of the TS030 crashed while undergoing testing at the Paul Ricard circuit in the South of France.
In the statement , Toyota doesn’t specify exactly what happened or who was driving at the time, but you can be sure he’s feeling pretty morose right now, because the chassis was damaged so extensively that the team won’t be able to repair it in time for the Six Hours of Spa where the car was supposed to make its race debut on May 5. Toyota does, however, expect to be up and running again in time for Le Mans in June, although whether that will leave the team with enough time to build the two cars it was expecting to field there or have to revert to a single entrant remains to be seen.
If wants to test out a new vehicle at speed – and you can usually bet that at any given time Porsche will be testing a new vehicle at speed – it’s got miles and miles of Autobahn at which to do it. Not enough? There’s the Nürburgring and all of its myriad turns and changes in surface. It’s also got at its disposal. But considering the quantity (and, for fans of the company’s products, quality) of Porsche’s vehicles, even that’s not enough. So what’s a sportscar manufacturer to do? Get a track in Italy, of course. And that’s just what Porsche has done.
Announced just today, Porsche has acquired the Nardo Technical Centre from Prototipo SpA, the Italian firm owned by Gian Mario Rossignolo (who has been hard at work reviving the De Tomaso marque). Now if the name Nardo rings a bell, that’s because it’s known for its 7.8-mile banked oval capable of handling high-speed runs in excess of 200 mph. But it also has a 3.8-mile handling circuit where a variety of automakers and tuners like to test out their prototypes.
And starting next month, they’ll need to rent space from Porsche (whose 918 Spyder prototype is pictured above undergoing testing at Nardo) to do so, assuming Porsche is willing to rent out the space. Something tells us that sister brands under the umbrella like and won’t have too much trouble getting some track time, though. Sroll down for the official announcement.
If you’ve looked into purchasing a new car recently, we likely don’t need to tell you prices are plenty lofty. According to TrueCar.com’s data, the average selling price of a new car sold here in the U.S. last month was $30,748, marking an all-time record (last year’s figure was just $28,771). While buyers are currently looking toward smaller, less expensive and more fuel-efficient models, overall vehicle sales have jumped ahead of the rest of the slowly recovering economy. In addition, manufacturers are keeping production more in line with demand, resulting in significantly scaled-back incentives.
As a result, the average transaction price has inched skyward even in the face of an uncertain economy and escalating fuel prices. In addition, small cars now carry significantly more content than before and prices to match, and crossovers just keep getting more and more popular. Buyers have proven none too wary of optioning B and C-segment vehicles well above MSRPs typically seen on mid-sized fare, and used car fleets are thin, raising prices and pushing buyers toward new cars instead. According to CNW Marketing, consumers now routinely option a vehicle to within 86 percent of the fully loaded cost.
There have been plenty of rumors surrounding the fate of and its relationship with its longtime parent company, Proton. Some are saying that Dany Bahar has been axed as CEO, that the company is undergoing bankruptcy protection, and that its involvement in Formula One has drawn to a close. Lotus itself is hard at work quashing those rumors – attributing most to the people at Caterham – but among them we have some juicy tidbits of information regarding its arrangement with the Formula One team formerly known as Renault.
Having sold most of its stake in its team to Genii Capital, Renault reverted to an engine supplier role the year before last, and Group Lotus stepped in as title sponsor, which is an interesting relationship for an automaker to have with an F1 team that it does not own or run itself – and not dissimilar to the sponsorship arrangement has with Red Bull Racing. The deal has Lotus holding branding rights, merchandising license and title sponsorship with the team.
As part of the arrangement, however, Proton granted Genii a £30 million ($48 million) loan against which Genii leveraged the team’s entire assets. So in addition to the 10 percent of the team which Proton has the right to buy at any time, it could take another 10 percent if Genii defaults on the repayment of its loan. But if Genii proves incapable of paying back Proton altogether, the Malaysian automaker could find itself in entire possession of a leading F1 team. Just what they’d do with it if it no longer owned Group Lotus, however, would remain to be seen. for the full statement.
According to a report from Car and Driver, documents submitted to the California Air Resources Board and to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration both point to a new arrival in the line: a turbocharged hatch called the 500T Sport. The NHTSA document was a key for decoding a car’s VIN, the “500T Sport” moniker appearing in the Series classification. The CARB paperwork approved California’s certification of a boosted 1.4-liter engine for an unnamed product, along with the the Dodge Dart and , which use the same engine.
There is currently a 59-horsepower spread between the 500 and the 500 Abarth, as well as a $6,500 difference in MSRP, which is a chasm offering plenty of space to mine a middle model.
C/D figures the 500T Sport will put out something around 130 hp and debut sometime over the next year, and a fan site, Fiat500USA, has found the car we’ll get.
History has a way of aggrandizing the fallen, but few drivers have been as dearly missed as Gilles Villeneuve. Renowned for his ability to wrestle blistering lap times – often sideways – out of some of the most difficult cars to handle, the French Canadian driver remains a fan favorite to legions of Formula 1 fans and tifosi the world over.
Tragically, Gilles died in a crash while qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix in 1982. With the thirtieth anniversary of his death coming up, is planning a tribute event at its Fiorano test track in Maranello that will reunite the Villeneuve name with the Scuderia to which he gave his life.
On May 8, Gilles’ son Jacques Villeneuve will pilot the Ferrari 312 T4 that his father drove to three victories and four second-place finishes to help Ferrari secure the constructors’ title and his teammate Jody Scheckter the drivers’ title.
It may prove the first time in Jacques’ career that he’ll drive a Ferrari F1 car. A former world champion himself, Jacques had reportedly been offered a seat at Ferrari after winning the title in 1997, but turned it down to pursue the opportunity to build up the British American Racing team that would later be taken over by , win the title as Brawn GP and rebrand itself under the banner under which it races today.
has a knack for creating some of the concept world’s most lustworthy creations, and they are made all the more desirable by their functionality. This year, the star of the Easter Jeep Safari was the company’s Mighty FC Concept. Penned as tribute to the old Willys Forward Controls of yore, the Mighty FC boasts high-dollar portal axles and a cab-forward design.
Motor Trend caught up with the big blue machine as it lumbered around the desert this year with Mark Allen, head of Jeep design, behind the wheel. Allen took the time to explain some of the challenges behind bringing the Mighty FC to life as well as the origins of some of the components on board.
As it turns out, Jeep used a snowboard bag for the seat inserts and arm rests. With a cab lifted straight from a standard Wrangler, engineers had to come up with some steering trickery to make sure the vehicle drove like a standard SUV instead of a school bus.
MT even found an old-school Forward Control to bomb around in for a spell as well. Very cool. to see the video for yourself.
The is due for a major update, having last been redesigned for the 2006 model year. Yes, it’s gotten some tweaks since that time, but the compact crossover market is an ever-evolving place filled with tough competition from around the globe, and needs the RAV4 to maintain its hard-fought market share.
According to our spy photographers, the RAV4’s next redesign is right around the corner. Judging from these photos, it would appear that Toyota is keeping its little ‘ute to the confines of pavement – a wise decision, as vehicles of this ilk never venture very far off the beaten path. That said, the sharply angular lines of this new model’s head and taillamps bring its styling more in line with the latest Camry and Avalon sedans while still putting its occupants over the heads of shorter machinery.
Rumors suggest that the 2013 RAV4 will enter production in the fall of ‘12, powered by a range of four-cylinder engines and possibly a hybrid. We’d be a bit surprised if the automaker’s 3.5-liter V6 weren’t available, as well. See the spy shots for yourself in our high-res image gallery above.
