The Auto Blog .ru

Without a doubt, the highlight of this past weekend’s Ferrari Racing Days at Laguna Seca was the F1 Cliente. Ferrari started the program in 2003 to allow their most significant and wealthiest customers to own and operate old Formula 1 cars at some of the world’s best racing circuits under the guidance and supervision of a dedicated team of Ferrari’s own mechanics and engineers. Participants in the program need only to show up – Ferrari takes care of the maintenance, care and transportation of the cars. The crew will even bring the owner’s racing suit to each of the events.

For the event at Laguna Seca, a total of six F1 cars were in attendance, ranging from a 1972 312 B2 driven by Jacky Ickx to an F2007 test car driven by Michael Schumacher. Two other Schumacher race cars from 2001 and 2004, an F2003-GA driven by Rubens Barrichello, and a Berger/Mansell F1-89 filled out the rest of the lineup.

The best part about the F1 Clienti is that Ferrari allows a relatively good amount of access to see the cars up close. Just try walking into the Ferrari garage at an actual Formula 1 race. To see and hear the cars in person is also an entirely different experience than watching on television. The zoom lenses of the television cameras betray the actual speed at which an F1 car can travel. The 599XX and FXX actually seemed slow in comparison.

You can watch the Ferrari F1 Clienti at Laguna Seca for yourself in the video after the jump, or check out our photos from the event in the gallery below.

Continue reading Ferrari Racing Days at Laguna Seca: F1 Clienti bring the Formula 1 experience closer to the masses (w/video)

Ferrari Racing Days at Laguna Seca: F1 Clienti bring the Formula 1 experience closer to the masses (w/video)

While at this year’s Concorso d’Eleganza at Villa d’Este (yeah, we’re roughing it here) we grabbed BMW Group chief of design Adrian von Hooydonk for an interview about his team’s latest two-person open-top concept car, the 328 Hommage.

The 328 Hommage marks 75 years since the launch of the gorgeous 1930s icon, the 328, and carries on the tradition of that car in its lightness. While the 328 six-cylinder was underpowered on paper in its day, it kicked butt on the race circuit due to its very light weight and superior dynamics.

The 328 Hommage frankly looks more like an homage to the 1950s sex-tastic 507, but at least the concept gets the open sides, leather straps, and wingnut wheels fairly correct. And we like that the tall kidneys on the grille make a modern return.

Von Hooydonk admits that the 328 Hommage isn’t proportionally much like the 328 of old, but, he says, “Any sports car today needs to be wider and lower anyway.” We, however, harken back to the 2006 Mille Miglia coupe concept, which simply blew one and all away. That car also went directly from its public unveiling into the BMW museum in Munich, never to be seriously driven.

Click through to the jump to continue reading and to watch the video.

Continue reading BMW Group design boss von Hooydonk talks 328 Hommage [w/video]

BMW Group design boss von Hooydonk talks 328 Hommage [w/video]

First Drive: 2012 Toyota Prius V

The thought is that a few simple variations on the company’s successful battery-powered recipe will offer buyers solutions that the conventional Prius simply couldn’t match. The only question is whether or not the will respond to what is effectively a few clever re-body jobs. If the Prius V is any indication, the answer is a resounding yes.

Exclusive: Mercedes-Benz studying Vito van for U.S.

Mercedes-Benz has been sufficiently pleased with the performance of its Sprinter van that it is now seriously considering importing a smaller sibling for its full-size load lugger.

Spy Shots: 2012 BMW M5 inches closer to production in a stunning shade of brown

The BMW M5 that debuted at this year’s Shanghai Motor Show may have technically been a concept car, but it comes as no surprise to see that the near-production models the German automaker is testing look exactly like the car we saw on stage.

Also of interest:

• Report: Angry dealers sue Mahindra
• Official: Spyker to be renamed Swedish Automobile N.V. as Pang Da talks with Chinese gov’t.
• Video: Obama’s limo gets banged up in Ireland
• Report: BMW 5GT sales disappointing, has execs rethinking 5 Series wagon
• Followup: Mini Cooper Goodwood to get maximal sticker shock

Browse our archive of Daily U-Turn posts or subscribe to the RSS feed

What you missed on 5.23.11

How focused do you want your sports car? While you can go out and twist the track-ready dial to 11, some folks only want a dash more punch than the next guy. A daily-drivable hoon machine is what’s required, and Fifth Gear lined up two of them to battle it out at the Dutch TT Circuit Assen.

The Lotus Evora S squares off against the Porsche 911, and Fifth Gear’s Vicki Butler-Henderson pushes both coupes around the course. Is Germany’s icon quicker than this blue British bomber? Click past the jump to find out.

Continue reading Fifth Gear tracks Porsche 911 Carrera against Lotus Evora S

Fifth Gear tracks Porsche 911 Carrera against Lotus Evora S

We’ve seen some pretty amazing things happen when talent mixes with the proper medium, but this takes the cake. Top Gear Philippines magazine is featuring a story on Franco Cagayat, an autistic 21-year-old sculptor who specializes in carving detailed vehicle models from a single block of wood. Complete with doors that open and close, full interiors and complete engine bays, the vehicles are unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Cagayat says he got started by drawing every vehicle he saw and eventually learned to translate that talent into sculpting.

The artist first became a fan of Top Gear when a classmate offered to trade him a copy of the magazine for a wooden Ferrari Testarossa. We think Cagayat probably got the short end of the stick on that one, but he now uses the photos in the publication for reference when it comes time to carve the newest supercars of the world. Hit the jump to take a look at a video interview with Cagayat.

Continue reading 21-year-old Filipino carves amazing wooden car sculptures

21-year-old Filipino carves amazing wooden car sculptures

This is no ordinary limousine. Rumored to be built on a heavy-duty truck chassis, this stretched Cadillac boasts armor plating all around, window glass thick enough to stop bullets and enough high-tech communications equipment to run the entire United States from the comfort of its leather-lined back seat. You’d think it would take a nuclear bomb to halt the progress of President Obama’s black Cadillac.

Apparently, all it really takes is one particularly nasty speed bump.

Just below the break you’ll find a video shot by a casual passer-by that shows the Presidential Limousine (also known as “The Beast”) getting high-centered on the apparently oversize down-ramp that exits the parking lot of the American Embassy (in other words, on U.S. soil) in Dublin, Ireland.

Nobody can say for absolutely sure (except for the Secret Service, and they ain’t talkin’) whether POTUS was actually in this limo or not. Some are suggesting that this may have been a decoy, and, due to the quick response from the Commander in Chief’s safety crew, we can’t really say for sure how this fiasco ended up for President Obama or the First Lady, or if they were even in the car.

In any case, you should definitely check out the video after the break… if only to see – and more importantly hear – The Beast getting stuck entering Ireland. Thanks for the tip, Jay!

Continue reading Obama’s limo gets banged up in Ireland

Obama’s limo gets banged up in Ireland

The 2012 Opel Zafira Tourer has broken cover ahead of its Frankfurt Motor Show debut. Sporting what Opel calls a blend of “functionality and wellness,” Opel hopes the Zafira will land at the top of the MPV heap.

To that end, Opel has weighed the people mover down with features and made its interior extremely adaptable. According to Opel, the third-row seats still fold flat to the car’s floor, but now work in concert with second-row seats that can be folded and moved around the cabin at will. The second row now features three independent seats, as opposed to a bench, and each seat can slide back and forth over a total of 210 millimeters.

Underneath the Zafira’s sleeker, redesigned skin, the car’s wheelbase and track width have both grown by a few inches to make people hauling a more comfortable, more stable and safer operation. The suspension has been reworked, too, to be lighter and less intrusive, giving the Tourer more interior space.

Sending power through the improved chassis are three 2.0-liter CDTI diesel options. The four-cylinder diesel mills come in 110-, 130- and 165-horsepower options. If you must have a gas powerplant, the Zafira carries either a 120-hp, 1.4-liter ECOTEC four banger or a 140-hp version of the same powerplant. No matter what engine you choose, you can have either a six-speed stick or six-speed automatic. To hear all the goods straight from the horse’s mouth, check out Opel’s press release after the jump, where you’ll also find a video.

Continue reading Opel reveals production Zafira Tourer [w/video]

Opel reveals production Zafira Tourer [w/video]

This compilation of racing crashes in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s is a jarring reminder of when auto racing really was a life-or-death venture. Put simply, if you drove a race car during this period, you were as likely to be killed as you were to retire.

Thanks to ever-increasing speeds and no regard for driver and spectator safety, it was common for races to turn deadly. Because of the sacrifices these drivers made, racers, teams and sanctioning bodies have since come together to make racing safer than ever.

If “Killed Myself When I Was Young” interests you, check out the hour-long YouTube video “Grand Prix: The Killer Years,” detailing the fight for even basic safety measures in Formula 1. Be advised that neither video is for the faint of heart; both are embedded after the jump.

Continue reading Vintage crash compilation shows how far racing has come

Vintage crash compilation shows how far racing has come

The ramp designed to propel Hot Wheels’ mystery driver to world record glory at the 100th Indianapolis 500 is starting to take shape. The ramp doesn’t look quite like it did in Hot Wheels’ original rendering, but it’s still an enormous and terrifying structure. Don’t believe us? Check out a full gallery of the ramp on the speedway’s Flickr page.

Hot Wheels’ goal is to propel a winged off-road truck 302 feet through the air, which would clinch the world record for distance. The death-defying stunt will kick off the excitement at next weekend’s Indy 500.

Hot Wheels world record jump at Indy 500 starting to take shape

It’s a real shame that Ferrari is only building one Superamerica 45, because the car is gorgeous. Besides the lovely Blu Antille paint, the flying buttresses that mold the roof structure into the rear bodywork, and the body-colored wheels, this thing has one of the slickest roof mechanisms out there.

Hit a button, and the lid on the 599 GTB Fiorano-based roadster does a full backflip, executing a perfect landing on the car’s rear deck. It’s quick and sleek, and really helps sell the entire package. Like we said earlier, the Superamerica 45 is a one-off, built especially for collector Peter Kalikow.

Kalikow commissioned the car to be a modern version of the 1961 Ferrari Superamerica 400 that graces his collection. Color us envious. Check out the video after the jump.

Continue reading Watch the Ferrari Superamerica 45 flip its lid

Watch the Ferrari Superamerica 45 flip its lid

You’d think designing a car horn would be easy. Press the wheel, make it beep, and call it a day. It’s more complicated than that, as Ford’s Patricia Seashore can explain.

Ford adapts its horns to suit the needs of drivers around the world. Different cultures use the horn in different ways . As a result, vehicle horns must be tuned for the amount of use they’ll receive, as well as the tone they produce.

In North America, the horn is used less for warning others (”Hey, watch it, pal!”) than it is for friendlier communication (”Hey, I’m outside to pick you up!”). Ford tunes our horns to emit richer, more pleasing tones than past horns, but they’re still designed to get your attention. South American drivers, on the other hand, get a horn tuned for short, rapid bursts of sound. In India, Ford installs disc horns that have a longer life than our trumpet horns, which is necessitated by Indian drivers’ heavy horn usage.

Beyond cultural differences, Seashore’s team also studies different environments and how they’ll affect horn performance. Chinese drivers are serious horn users, so horn longevity is important. Chinese cars also need horns that can handle extreme heat and cold, plus a wide range of altitudes. Seashore says, “Altitude and temperatures affect the way sound waves travel – that’s just physics.”

Like we said, a lot of thought goes into your car’s horn. Click past the jump for a short car horn quiz and some b-roll of horn engineers at work.

Continue reading Do I make you horny? Ford says, “not so much” if you live in the U.S.

Do I make you horny? Ford says, “not so much” if you live in the U.S.

Hey hypercar fans, are you in the mood for some Pagani porn? Well, close the shades and turn the lights down low because we’ve got footage of the Huayra playing nice with the camera. In the Veneto region of northern Italy lies the Adria International Raceway, and it hosted Pagani’s engineers as they played around with their new toy.

Click past the jump for footage of the Pagani Huayra posing for close-ups, revving its AMG-built 6.0-liter twin-turbo V12, and running down the track. You might not be able to pronounce the car’s name, but it sure looks good when it flies by.

Continue reading Pagani Huayra hits the track for shakedown runs

Pagani Huayra hits the track for shakedown runs

Lexus UK finally has its first LFA on the Queen’s home turf. Rather than take it on a glam tour by propping it up in shiny showrooms, Lexus is taking it to the track. It’s also bringing along a camera to record the sights and sounds that come along with the two-door supercar.

Recently, the LFA lined up at the Bruntingthorpe Proving Grounds alongside its sibling, the Lexus IS F and both were put through the requisite paces. Unfortunately for the IS F, however, its dulcet exhaust tone was drowned out by the banshee wail spewed forth from the tri-tipped rear of the LFA. Click past the jump to revel in the noise.

Continue reading Lexus lines up LFA against IS F on UK track

Lexus lines up LFA against IS F on UK track

The Coolest Pinewood Derby Car To Never Race

We simply lack the granular motor skills to turn our hopes and dreams into plastic and pine realities. We’re guessing that Sam Francis never had that problem.

Exclusive: Amazing Scion FR-S Soapbox car ready to roll in Red Bull race this weekend

This is a custom one-off fiberglass micro-body based on the super stylish Scion FR-S Concept unveiled at the New York Auto Show in April.

BMW 328 Hommage unveiled to celebrate 75th anniversary of original

BMW celebrates the 75th anniversary of the original 328 with this stunning concept.

Also of interest:

• Video: Scion FR-S caught on its working vacation in Germany
• Mazda 787B restored, returning to Le Mans for 20th anniversary of win
• Report: Toyota and Subaru to unveil production sport coupes in Tokyo?
• Senate votes down bill to end oil company subsidies, see how they voted and who gets oil money
• 2012 Honda Civic recalled already over potential fuel leak

Browse our archive of Daily U-Turn posts or subscribe to the RSS feed

What you missed on 5.20.11

Simona De Silvestro, a 22-year-old female Swiss racer, went airborne, flipped a few times, slid hundreds of feet upside-down and was engulfed in a massive fireball when the right rear wheel of her Dallara chassis separated itself in the middle of a turn during a practice run for the Indy 500.

Thankfully, Silvestro wasn’t seriously injured in the accident, though she did suffer second-degree burns to both hands. Track crews and safety personnel rushed to her assistance and put out the blaze. She had reportedly been clocked at speeds well over 200 miles per hour just prior to the accident.

Yes, there is video, and you can find it after the break. Here’s hoping Silvestro gets medical clearance to take part in the actual race on May 29.

Continue reading Simona De Silvestro goes airborne at Indy, suffers second-degree burns

Simona De Silvestro goes airborne at Indy, suffers second-degree burns

The 2011 Smart Fortwo, despite all its trying, is a car that needs all the help it can get. True, a big part of the car’s problem is that it just doesn’t make very much sense for the American market. That said, it’s underpowered, uninspiring to drive, terrifying on the highway, and not particularly efficient, given its size. It also features one of the worst transmissions in motoring.

Enter Vilner, a Bulgarian custom shop that has tried with some success to make the car just a little more appealing. Built for a Bulgarian businessman, the Vilner Smart Fortwo employs a design scheme the company has dubbed “square style.”

Inside and outside the car gets a square motif, which translates nicely into a completely redone interior featuring quilted upholstery. Outside, the car gets loud, oversize orange wheels and serious amounts of chrome. While Vilner takes the styling of the Smart to a new, supercar-aping level, the go bits have been left alone. Despite the lack of power adders, Vilner’s efforts have gone a long way to making the Fortwo a bit more appealing. Read the full press release and check out two videos after the jump.

Continue reading Vilner updates Smart Fortwo [w/videos]

Vilner updates Smart Fortwo [w/videos]

We have the Scion FR-S on the brain, and it’s not going away anytime soon thanks to the onslaught of new spy photos that keep rolling in. This time, however, we’ve got video instead of still photography courtesy of our friends at FT86club.com.

It’s always great to see a car in motion, and besides, now we have an idea of what the Scion sports car’s exhaust note might sound like.

We’ve been having some fun at Autoblog HQ debating exactly what’s going on under all of that swirly camouflage. Some think we may, in fact, be looking at the Subaru version of the Toyota/Subie joint venture – that wing and those wheels say STI to us. However, others point out that the wing could easily be a shout-out to the Supras of yore. Regardless, we all like what we see and can’t wait until someone pulls the wraps off this thing. Click past the jump to see the prototype in motion.

Continue reading Scion FR-S caught on its working vacation in Germany

Scion FR-S caught on its working vacation in Germany

We can never get enough of Ken Block’s Gymkhana, and we’re pretty sure that many of you feel the same way. Lucky for us, Block and Codemasters have the launch of DiRT 3 to look forward to, making a new drift video a no-brainer.

Watch Block as he hops behind the wheel of the Ford Focus Rally car at London’s Battersea Power Station, the same place he took a bikini model from Zoo Magazine for a ride. As always, Block traverses some keenly placed obstacles whilst drifting and doing donuts all the way. As a special sendoff to DiRT 3, Block also drifts through a series of stacked DiRT 3 boxes, which we hope aren’t filled with copies of the $59 game.

Hit the jump to watch the slide-master do his thing. This may not be Block’s best work, but it isn’t often that we actually enjoy being bombarded with advertising.

Continue reading Ken Block busting through boxes in DiRT 3 promo

Ken Block busting through boxes in DiRT 3 promo

Generally speaking, we’re more into the vinyl wraps than the chrome treatment. That’s because most vinyl wraps give a car a nice matte finish that contrasts nicely with the glossiness of your standard factory offering, while your average full-body chrome treatment is – more often than not – little more than an eyesore. This latest innovation from the Czech Republic, however, combines the two.

As you can see from the video after the jump, TinTek has developed a chrome-finish vinyl wrap for the full “Dubai’d out” approach, applied for demonstration to an Audi TT and a Chevrolet Camaro. While a vinyl wrap has its own costs and intricate application process, it’s surely far more cost-effective than chrome-dipping individual body panels. And while it may not be our proverbial cup of tea, who are we to stand in the way of progress, however questionable the result.

Continue reading TinTek offers the full chrome treatment in a vinyl wrap

TinTek offers the full chrome treatment in a vinyl wrap

Company: Volkswagen of America

Medium: TV

Ad Agency: Deutsch/LA

Product: 2011 Jetta TDI

Campaign: “Can I Drive”

What We Like: That VW is putting some money behind marketing its clean diesel models. VW’s sister company, Audi, has long been pushing its diesel offerings, while VW seemed to be mostly letting its enthusiast audience do word-of-mouth for the TDI line. The focus of this ad is on the fuel economy, 42 mpg on highway, which is simple, told through a brief story about a teenager who wants to take his turn driving.

What We Don’t Like: Not much at all. We see the data point on 42 mpg, which is an eye-catcher. But maybe ad agency Deutsch could have dialed in an extra graphic or data point that shows how far one can drive on a full tank.

Strategy: Clean diesel is much misunderstood by the general consuming public, as well as 99 out of 100 legislators who, it seems, would rather be caught in a New Orleans hotel room with an escort than photographed promoting diesel cars. Hybrids, electrics and even hydrogen cars we will never drive? Members of Congress flock to those photo ops faster than they do a Wall Street hedge fund manager with his checkbook open. But diesel, their campaign managers, tell them doesn’t sell. To hell with them. TDI vehicles rock, and get much better mpg than a Camry Hybrid.

This ad is squeaky clean and is as sparkly and wholesome as a hybrid ad. The 42-mpg figure is meant to get TV viewers to search on the car when they see it on TV. There, they will see several links to VW-created content before they get to a Car and Driver review of the car. They’ll have to go a lot further into Google to find carping from anti-diesel bloggers or belly-aching from the uninformed who think if they gave a diesel car they will find themselves stranded in the middle of Idaho with no way to fuel up. Good job on the search-engine-optimization VW!

Grade: A -

Watch the commercial after the jump and give it your own grade below.

View Poll

Continue reading Ad Spotting: VW Gets Serious About Pushing Diesel

Ad Spotting: VW Gets Serious About Pushing Diesel