Automation, the game that allows players to build their own car company from the ground up, has made a big step forward by releasing a engine-builder demo. Those who have already pre-ordered the game can download a preview of the designer right now by heading over to the , while the rest of the world gets to wait until April 22. So far, the glimpse is limited to four-cylinder applications, though players can tweak nearly every aspect of the four-pot’s design. Block, crank and head material are all up for grabs as are intake, exhaust and fuel design and cam profile.
The company was kind enough to slide us an early copy of the demo filled with tutorial videos explaining the intricacies of each engine system. While incredibly involved, the program seems to be a great way to expand one’s knowledge by eeking ever-better horsepower out of an engine. Though all of the options can be a bit overwhelming, even for those of us with grease under our fingernails, Automation offers clear explanations on each variable. for a quick video and the press release, and be sure to check out the game’s on the 22nd for your own free demo.
The doesn’t have the kind of power that results in jaw-dropping dyno numbers, but any naturally aspirated 2.0-liter four cylinder that promises 200 horsepower and 151 pound-feet of torque needs to be vetted out.
The good people at Edmunds did the vetting, and the hotly anticipated model performed, well, predictably. The FR-S delivered what Edmunds called “the most repeatable runs on the dyno of any car in recent memory,” with peak wheel power measuring 173 horsepower at 7,000 RPM and 143 pound-feet of torque at 2,500 revolutions. Keep in mind that these numbers are at the wheels, not at the crankshaft where factory numbers are recorded.
One interesting stat that showed up on the line graph was a 14-percent drop in torque between 3,200 and 4,500 RPM. This was reportedly done by engineers on purpose to increase driving pleasure lower in the rev range, which sounds like a solid compromise to us. to watch the video, and make sure to turn up your speakers for optimal boxer four enjoyment.
We don’t envy local law enforcement, especially in a city like Richmond, Virginia. Charged with keeping the public safe from a variety of ill forces, the job is about as thankless as they come. Recently, the RPD has adopted a new initiative in an attempt to curb vehicle break-ins. Officers on the night shift now check vehicles for valuables left in plain sight, and when they find them, the police stop by the vehicle’s owner’s home for a little chat. All of these “wake up calls” are most likely to occur between midnight and 4:00 a.m. in order to teach car owners a lesson about protecting themselves from crime.
While removing or stashing high-dollar electronics before leaving your car parked overnight may seem like simple common sense, critics of the plan suggest that punishing those who refuse or forget to do so with a late-night wake-up call is beyond the scope of law enforcement – particularly as it applies to vehicles parked on private property. Watch the WBBC 12 NBC local news report on the initiative by , then voice your opinion in our poll and in Comments.
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.
If you were confused when we chose the as the (behind the itself) at the , then maybe you’re not familiar with the Viper’s racing pedigree. Fortunately, the American Le Mans Series has produced this excellent mini documentary that helps explain why the Viper’s return to racing is a very big deal.
While the Viper had been racing in various series both domestic and international before entering the inaugural season of ALMS in 1999, it began a streak in this fledgeling North American motorsport that was, in a word, dominant. During the 1999 season, Team Oreca won six ALMS races in a row in the GTS class with their Viper GTS-R racecar. The only reason the team didn’t sweep the eight-race season is because they missed the first two races. Team Oreca and the original Viper GTS-R came close to sweeping the 2000 season, though, winning eight of ten races, only falling twice to their arch rivals from Corvette Racing. Their winning streak spanned two seasons and 12 consecutive races. They also won their class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1998, 1999 and 2000.
Unfortunately, factory support for the program ended in 2001 and the Viper’s dominance quickly evaporated as private teams could not match Team Oreca’s OEM-backed success. Still, under the wing of Team Oreca and backed by Dodge, the Viper GTS-R amassed an impressive record of 16 race wins in 18 starts. And that’s why the car’s return to ALMS’ GT class is a very big deal. Check out the video .
The production crew for recently stopped by the Nürburgring to recreate Niki Lauda’s infamous Formula One crash during the 1976 Nürburgring GP. Lauda’s car suffered a catastrophic failure on the second lap, launching him into the guardrail and placing his crumpled machine in the path of Brett Lunger’s Surtees-Ford. The two collided and it wasn’t long before Lauda was trapped in burning wreckage. Lunger and a handful of other racers fought to pull Lauda from the flames. Those on hand succeeded in rescuing the Austrian, and while he lapsed into a coma and suffered disfiguring burns, he was back in the cockpit within two months.
Just before the race, Lauda had pressed for a boycott of the dangerous race. The area in which the crash occurred is now known as Lauda Links.
Rush will follow the volatile 1976 F1 season and two of the primary characters that defined the year: Lauda and James Hunt. to see bystander video of the stuntmen in action.
Long, long ago, when we first put our grubby hands on a driver’s license, someone passed on a bit of sage wisdom: in the wrong hands, a car can be more dangerous than any gun. The video after the jump is a keen reminder of this fact. Autoblog reader Vasiliy tells us the individual in the kamikaze SUV seen here allegedly brought his new purchase back to the dealership to have a faulty shock replaced. When the dealer refused to do the work, the man decided to take the issue into his own hands by ramming his through the front glass and into multiple vehicles parked in the showroom.
While we would never condone property damage or putting innocent bystanders in danger, we suspect replacing the shock would have been significantly cheaper for all parties involved. There’s no word on any injuries or damage estimates – or what happened to our intrepid show room demolisher once the local law enforcement caught up with him, but we’re guessing a poor-handling is now the least of his concerns. to watch the security camera footage for yourself.
Early reports are filtering in this morning of an explosion at a General Motors Technical Center battery research lab in Warren, Michigan. According to The Detroit News, a battery exploded injuring one or two people.
According to the report, Warren’s fire department received a call at around 9AM this morning, only to find two injured and “a small fire” stemming from the explosion. A General Motors spokesman apparently put the number of injured parties at one, so there is still some confusion about the number of people affected by the incident at this point.
A HAZMAT team was dispatched to the Tech Center and the building has been evacuated, with all employees accounted for. Detroit NBC affiliate WXYZ is on the scene with a live feed that you can . The extent of the injuries and damage, along with what caused the explosion, are not immediately clear, but we will have more details as they become available, so stay tuned.
*UPDATE:Video added . ** UPDATE: In a statement added after the jump, GM now says the explosion was caused by “extreme testing of a prototype battery” that is “unrelated to the or any other production vehicle.”
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.
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.
If you’re anything like us, you likely have more than a few remote controlled cars collecting dust in the basement. Instructables.com has taken the time to show us just what can be accomplished with a little time and motivation using those machines and some low-buck electronics. Namely, your own battery-powered autonomous machine.
Randy Sarafan has worked up a step-by step instruction manual for creating a basic robot capable of sensing and avoiding obstacles of its own accord. While basic, the platform allows for greater customization, including more complex logic and the addition of an array of sensors.
Sounds like a good time to us. You can click to check out a video of Sarafan’s machine or head over to for the full briefing. If you get crazy with your own R/C collection, be sure to drop us a line and show us what you came up with.
There are lots of automotive videogames, from realistic racing games like Gran Turismo and Forza to fun driving games like Mario Kart to social games like Disc Drivin’ for iOS. But there is only one Grand Theft Auto.
No other video game brings the dark humor inherent in mayhem like the GTA franchise, and it looks like a new installment will be here in a scant six months. According to a report on Joystiq, a Linked In resume for an animator and employee at game developer Rockstar was spotted listing Grand Theft Auto V with a shipping date of October 2012. Since then, the resume has been removed from the site and Rockstar is not commenting, according to the report.
Of course, the video game industry is as notorious for slipping shipping dates as it is for rumor mongering, so while you might want to place your preorder on Amazon, don’t be surprised if you’re still waiting come Christmas. Joystiq is skeptical about an October shipping date, pointing out that Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive, has already announced BioShock Infinite for an October launch, which would put the two titles in unnecessary competition.
Until then, we still have the , which you can see if you scroll down.
While we’ve already reported that BMW’s from is , this footage all but confirms it. Britain’s Car magazine has over a minute of video showing a rather sporting three-door testing at the Nürburgring.
Of course, this latest bit of news only for us North American lovers. We’ve yet to see a 1 Series hatchback of any sort for sale on our shores, and whether the new F20 hatch is headed our way is entirely up in the air. Outside of the bizarre , BMW has been reticent to sell a hatch here since the E36 318ti, which has been out of production for a solid decade now.
While we loved the , now that its one-and-done model year is over, it would be dandy if BMW would throw us a bone and ship the M135i here. With rumors of all-wheel-drive availability and 300-plus horsepower coming from BMW’s TwinTurbo, three-liter inline-six, it looks to be one heck of a car.
While we normally don’t care whether or not Justin Beiber wakes up and takes a breath each morning, it is unfortunate news when the teen pop idol is produced by one of the world’s best designers, and then proceeds to wrap it in chrome, stick on some fuscia LEDs and drive it around on giant black wheels.
Celebrity-stalking site TMZ caught the Beiber taking his one true love, the also-famous-for-reasons-beyond-our-comprehension Selena Gomez, to Chick-fil-A in the reflective Karma. The editors at TMZ seem to agree with us that Bieber’s treatment of his Karma is criminal, but were surprised to discover that chroming one’s car is well within the rule of law.
That doesn’t mean the Bieb’s daily driver is entirely copacetic, as the tiny strip of fuscia LEDs installed under the front grille violate California law. It also violates the laws of good taste, but that’s just our opinion.
How’d you like to go see Metallica at this summer’s Orion music fest? Sounds good to us, but this makes it even better; the cost: Free.
Yes, that’s right, if you’re into the hot rod and custom scene and you want to display your car or bike there, the band will comp you two passes to the weekend’s festivities. It turns out that besides being the lead singer of Metallica, James Hetfield (that’s him in the picture above) is a big car guy. One who wants to share his automotive passion with his legions of fans, hence the Custom Car and Motorcycle Show planned as part of the two-day Orion festival, scheduled for June 23-24 in Atlantic City, NJ.
To stock the 300-plus field of cars and bikes Metallica has planned, they’re looking for entries and dangling the aforementioned free tickets as bait. Entry is restricted to 1972 and earlier American models and the deadline is May 15. (Full details are available at the Orion .) It won’t be Pebble Beach, but hey, we’re pretty sure there’s more fun to be had headbanging to “Metallica” (a.k.a. The Black Album) and “Ride The Lightning,” which the band will be performing in their entirety on consecutive nights, than standing around on a golf course in a blue blazer anyway. If Metallica isn’t your bag, the Orion festival will also feature performances from acts like the Arctic Monkeys, Avenged Sevenfold, Modest Mouse and comedian Jim Breuer.
to watch a video of Hetfield talking about his love of classic cars.
Former General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz went bicep-to-bicep with “America’s ballsiest pundit,” Stephen Colbert, last night – and came out ahead. Ostensibly, Lutz was on Colbert to talk about his new book, Car Guys Vs. Bean Counters, but as one might expect, the discussion veered into Mitt Romney vs. President Obama territory pretty quickly.
The actual car industry part of the discussion, though, revealed more potential good news for the , the car that Lutz is obviously trying to make his legacy and called “a huge success.” Sure, Colbert talked about , but Lutz responded by predicting that sales would be “about 3,000 a month from here on out.” This would not only set a new record (Volt sales for March 2012 , the highest so far) but would also put GM’s plug-in car into the 36,000-a-year range. That’s commendable, but still this year. Of course, Akerson’s 60,000 number could have included the Opel Ampera and its Vauxhall twin. In any case, things are looking up for the Volt, and that’s something Lutz is more than happy to tell Colbert or anyone else. Watch the video – including an impromptu push-up contest between the two – right now by .
The second coming is finally here, and it goes by the title of the 2013 Porsche Cayenne GTS. Porsche has put 20 more horses under the hood to bring matters to 420 horsepower, and to get more out of them it has lowered the chassis a further 20 mm and installed a lower final-drive ratio. The one unkind note: whereas the first GTS was available with a six-speed manual, this one is fitted exclusively with Porsche’s eight-speed Tiptronic S paddleshift gearbox.
In the search for improved fuel economy, stop-start is standard, and when things get underway, the extra go-fast means a 5.4-second roar from zero to 60 mph. Along with unique side skirts and wheel arches, features only on the GTS include new Peridot Metallic (as shown) and Carmine Red paint, unique 20-inch wheels and eight-way GTS seats inside. There’s an available Sport Chrono package to keep tabs on your 162-mph SUV, but that won’t be included in the $82,050 base price (which includes $975 in delivery fees).
The GTS will be revealed at the later this month, but you can find out more in the video and press release and get few choice glimpses in the gallery of high-res photos.
What is thought to be a band of thieves broke into eight cars at a park-and-ride lot in Salem, New Hampshire. Then it is thought they went next door to Cars, Inc. and stole a , a and a 2003 . The and getaway drivers reportedly went on about their business quietly. The driver, on the other hand, decided to flaunt what he got: at 2 a.m. he drove eight miles over the border to Methuen, Massachusetts, pulled into the local police station and did donuts in their front lot.
But wait, there’s more: he took off, entertained himself for two hours, then went back to the police station at 4 a.m. and whipped up a few more hot, rubbery circles. A police cruiser was on scene and gave chase, but the 911 pilot got away.
A little later in Lawrence, MA, two miles from Methuen, someone called police to report a rolled 911. The stolen wheels were recovered, the thief in question was not. We have no doubt the Methuen PD – once the screaming stops – is preparing to put that through a forensic and DNA investigation that would make CSI proud. for the news report from WHDH.
knows sound, and it wants its upcoming plug-in cars to have as distinctive a grumble as possible, just like its fossil-fuel-burning brethren. That’s why Audi engineers are working on “new sound signatures” for future models. You can tell how seriously Audi is taking this by the way it references the sounds a car makes to music and “emotional sound structures” in the press release .
The stated reason for all this e-sound work is so pedestrians will be able to hear the near-silent EVs, but you could just use any old beep to meet that requirement. Audi wants something a bit more refined, to stand out from the space-y blips that the puts out or the E-Golf’s .
to see a video of the Audi e-sound in progress. In its current form, the sound changes based on what the e-tron is doing. It comes out of a speaker blasting up to 40 watts that is attached to the bottom of the car.
Of course, the question from some blind-advocacy groups is whether having each EV make its own sound is reasonable, or if there should be one “EV sound” that all battery-powered cars are required to emit to tell those with limited sight “a car is nearby.” In the U.S., the laws governing EV sounds are not yet set, but some sort of low-speed warning requirement seems to be coming.
