The Subaru BRZ may only be a few months old and despite the fact that deliveries to owners have yet to commence, this brand new rear-wheel drive out of Japan has already proven itself to be quite the performance car, even if it did get beaten around a Japanese racetrack by its twin-brother, the Toyota GT 86 recently.
In Road & Track’s latest road test, they took the aforementioned Subaru BRZ out onto public roads to see how it would perform when pitted against its main rival, the Mazda MX-5 Miata as well as the Hyundai Genesis 2.0 Coupe.
We won’t ruin the result for you, but keep in mind the following performance specifications when watching the video.
The BRZ features a 2.0-liter four-cylinder boxer style engine which was developed in conjunction with Toyota to produce 200HP and 151lb-ft of torque, while the base Mazda MX-5 Miata produces significantly less at just 167HP but does turn out an impressive 158 lb-ft of torque. On the other hand, the Hyundai Genesis actually produces the most of the bunch with 217HP and 217lb-ft of torque; however, it does weigh significantly more than the other two due to its larger proportions.
Back in 2007, a well-planned three-way deal between Renault, Nissan and Daimler brought these three automotive powerhouses together. This deal wasn’t necessarily massive, as it only resulted in Daimler getting a 3.1 percent share of Nissan and Renault, and Nissan and Renault getting 1.55 percent of Daimler each. Basically this deal was just to allow the three automakers to freely share their technologies and testing.
It looks as if Renault is pretty close to calling on Daimler to make good on its deal, as Renault is working on a new flagship sedan that will use some Mercedes-Benz parts. This new flagship model is not all Renault is looking ahead to, as the French automaker is also debating releasing an entire lineup of luxury car with Daimler’s help.
The details are still rather sketchy, as they are still in preliminary talks and a lot of the information is from unconfirmed sources. One of the names for the new make that is being tossed around is Initiale Paris, which was once used on a 1995 Renault concept car.
Image Note: The images used are of the 1995 Initiale Paris concept car
We’re not quite sure how appropriate the name of this customized Ford Mustang Shelby really is - Widow Maker? - but hey, if that’s what they want to call it, more power to them.
Curious name notwithstanding, this heavily modified 2012 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 is the stuff where stallion dreams are made of. Tuned by the spectacular folks over at Ultimate Bad Boy, the American muscle car has been effectively ’roided up - in a good way! - to deliver a staggering 1,100-horsepower output and 850 lb/ft of torque from its 5.4-liter supercharged V8 engine.
How exactly did Ultimate Bad Boy accomplish that?
Well, for starters, the US tuner added 1,000cc fuel injectors, twin cooling fans, advanced traction control, and voice control just to spice things up. Ultimate Bad Boy also gave the muscle car a full UBB carbon body kit, a 200-mph speedo, suspension coil-overs, a new set of 19" split alloy rims, Brembo brakes, Recareo seats, a glass roof, laser jammers, and window tint.
For the thrill of being one of the few to own this ridiculous piece of work, Ultimate Bad Boy will make your dreams come true for a princely sum of $135,000, including the car itself. Expected delivery time is around 12 weeks.
Let’s see: $135,000 for a car that has 1,100 angry thoroughbreds under its hood?
Sounds like a deal to us - even if the aforementioned name of the program sounds a little foreboding.
Our spy photographers have already caught the facelift version of the Porsche Panamera testing a few times, but until we believed that the luxury sedan will only be modified on the exterior. However, the British magazine Car reports that important changes will also be made under the hood.
It seems that Porsche decided to drop the V8 engine found in the Panamera 4s in favor of a new, high-performance 3.0-litre V6. This new engine will come with twin-turbo capacity and will deliver an impressive 420 HP - a 20 HP increase over the current model.
The new Panamera will also get Audi’s new V8 TDI diesel engine. This decision should not be such a surprise considering the Panamera is quite a hit on the European market.
The new Panamera facelift will arrive in April 2013 and prepares the path for the second generation Panamera that will arrive in 2015 at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
If you’re trying to rack your brains trying to figure out where you’ve heard the name ’Ugur Sahin’ before, we’ll save you the trouble and tell you that this dude is the same guy behind the design of the Soleil Anadi.
Recently, Sahin’s design house unveiled a new design project, this time based on the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione, called the C12 GTS Concept.
We don’t need to remind anyone about the design skills of Ugur Sahin Design because their works already do that for them. With the C12 GTS Concept, the objective was to build a project car that not only pays tribute to Alfa Romeo’s famous design characteristics, but do so with a fresh perspective and a sharp eye towards building on the Italian automaker’s appeal.
In terms of its design, the C12 GTS Concept carries Alfa Romeo’s distinctive ’inverted triangle’ grille, a characteristic that underscores the design heritage of the car. The addition of swooping lines, tactically-placed curves, and balanced proportions further enhances the car’s aggressive and sporty appeal. All told, the C12 GTS Concept is being pegged as a bigger 8C Competizione that comes with the looks of a real, head-turning Italian masterpiece.
Similar to the Anadi, Ugur Sahin Design needs an investor to get the C12 GTS Concept off the ground. It took them a few years to do so with the Anadi, but knowing how these guys operate, we’d be very surprised if it takes them the same amount of time to get somebody to build a production model of this stunning concept vehicle.
Lord knows if we had that kind of money to make it happen, we’d be on this project like white on rice.
And here we go: the count down beings! When Aston Martin launched the One-77 supercar announced a number of 77 units will be produced. Unfortunately the first one is already dead. The accident occurred this past week in Hong Kong, China.
It seems that the car involved in the accident is one of the last units to be produced, so it was brand new. There are no real details on what really happened in here, but judging by the look of this wrecked One-77 we are sure that the driver lost control at high speeds. It looks like both front an back wheels have buckled, but the interior looks intact, so hopefully no one has been injured during this sad event.
A brand new One-77 is priced at $1.4 million! And considering the car has lots of carbon fiber in it, for sure it will raise the repairing cost pretty high. So, Aston Martin One-76 anyone?
It seems that Ferrari learned nothing from the previous fire problems the 458 Italia had in the past. The new FF is being reported to have the same issues: a number of three cars recently caught fire, with the latest one being located in Poland (previous two were in Germany in November 2011 and China in February 2012).
The incident took place on the A4 highway near Krakow, Sunday at 19:23. It seems that the fire started spontaneously and according to the driver it went from the cockpit down to the pedals. Luckily he managed to get out of the car in time, but despite his efforts and the help from two fire brigade, the car was completely destroyed.
Ferrari has already recalled a number of FF models from the Chinese market built before December 2011. The problem announced for those models was excessive oil lubrication circuit-processing residues. However, we are pretty sure that a massive FF recall will happen pretty soon.
After last week’s photo of the week, we’ve decided to step things up a bit with a set of shots which will simply blow your mind, taken by Thomas van Rooij in Madrid, Spain early last year.
Feel free to check out the full gallery over at his Flickr account, but for now we’re just focusing on the above picture and the dozen-odd other ones where a sexy model is showcased on, near and around this stunning supercar.
The individual picture in question was captured out the front of the Puerta da Alcalá in Madrid, and features some incredible light streaks from passing by cars, one of which was a Ferrari F430 coupe. Add to that the monument being lite up in an incredible shade of light blue and you have one of the very best shots of the Murcielago SV we’ve ever seen.
However, we didn’t feel that was enough for this week and also gathered all of the model & supercar pictures for you guys as we can never get enough of this combination.
Despite being a couple years old, the Lamborghini Murcielago LP670-4 SV is still the second most powerful Lamborghini production car ever produced, behind the Aventador, with its 6.5-liter V12 delivering 662HP which is enough to launch the supercar to 62 mph in just 3.2 seconds and onto a top speed nearing 210mph.
Prior to his death, ex-TVR owner, Peter Wheeler, decided that despite the fact that he no longer owned TVR, he still had the fire to build wild and crazy cars. From that fire began the project that he dubbed the Scamander, which is named after the Greek river god. This amphibious machine came to life just before Wheeler’s death, but it was a very rough machine that still needed a lot of work to be perfect.
After his death, Wheeler’s wife and a group of engineers completed Wheeler’s project and made it into something that Wheeler would have been proud of. This RRV, as Wheeler called it, has a V-6 turbocharged engine that cranks out about 300 horsepower and is said to hit 60 mph in eight seconds. To boot, it has an impeller on its rear end for propulsion in the wet stuff. This impeller certainly beats the rear wheel-mounts paddles that were on the original prototype Scamander.
Image note: The images provided are of the concept version of the Scamander.
Typically the CEOs of big companies stay in the background and just keep the corporate wheels turning. Most CEOs also know that it is typically not a good thing when your name ends up in the papers just as often, if not more often, than the brand you are heading up. Well, Lotus CEO Dany Bahar must have a tough time comprehending the fact that no new is good news for a CEO.
It came to a head whenever DRB-HICOM purchased Proton, Lotus’s parent company, and inherited the Lotus money vacuum in the process. The media then took to speculating about the status of Lotus, given its new owner, and Bahar went on a teenage girl-like rampage via the worst possible medium, Facebook. That post still remains on the company’s page too.
At that point, we started speculating that Bahar’s time with Lotus may be limited, as DRB-HICOM really has no need for a moody CEO that can’t keep his company’s head above water. Apparently, we had our crystal ball working that day, as DRB-HICOM has announced that Bahar has been “temporarily suspended” following an operational review and a full investigation of Bahar’s actions will take place during his suspension. Several executives from DRB-HICOM will take Bahar’s place during his absence.
Well, I have been in the corporate world long enough to know that a “temporary suspension” during an “investigation” typically spell out “you’re fired once we find some dirt.” Rarely does a suspended employee ever return to their original position and few return at all, so we have a feeling that this will ultimately put an end to the drama of Dany Bahar. Looks like TopSpeed’s “Lotus” section is going to be dry for a while… At least until we get word that Dany is now managing a local McDonalds.
