Just yesterday, we reported that the upcoming Gran Turismo 6 will feature a total of 1,200 cars. Today, Mercedes announced that three of these model will come from AMG and include: the SLS AMG GT3, E63 AMG and A45 AMG. These models will join the current lineup already offered by Mercedes in the GT5 which includes a total of 21 vehicles.
The three AMG models deliver a combined output of more than 1,400 horsepower: 500 from the SLS, 557 from the E63 and 360 from the A45 AMG.
The new Gran Turismo 6 will be released just in time for the holiday season, so this might be a good gift idea if you’re drawing a blank for the car lover in your family. The new GT6 will be initially available for the Play Station 3 platform, but it will be offered for the PS4 at a later date.
Click past the jump to read more about the three AMG models.
The 2014 P1 just dropped onto the market and McLaren officials are already talking about a successor for the supercar. McLaren sales and marketing boss Greg Levine confirmed in an interview with AutoCar that the company is planning a successor for the P1 but not for "at least ten years."
He confirmed that while developing the P1 project, McLaren wanted to develop "the best super sports car the world has ever seen until a successor is built." And, in order to remain exclusive, the P1 needs to stay on sale for a short while and after that the company "needs to step back from the market for a few years."
Talking about the P1, he said that the company sold about three-quarters from the 375 units that McLaren plans to build. Also, it looks like there are customers who have ordered two P1 units and that more than 30 cars have been fully customized by customers.
Click past the jump to read more about the McLaren P1.
A few days ago, BMW was positively beaming in reporting about its latest achievement. No, Bimmer didn’t introduce a new car or win any races. What it did was set a new world record and a pretty impressive one at that.
Actually, the record for longest drift was set back in February by Johan Scwartz while piloting a BMW M5 and covering a ground of 47.71 miles. Well, it didn’t take long for Schwartz to break his own mark, besting it over the weekend at the BMW Performance Center near Greenville, South Carolina.
This time around, Schwartz, using the same BMW M5, managed to run a total of 322.5 laps around a circumference of 841 foot circle. All told, he was able to travel a distance of 51.278 miles - while drifting.
When news of the record-setting mark first hit our news feed, BMW kept a video of the attempt under the covers. But now, Bimmer has finally released it and you can enjoy the whole show when you click past the jump.
Later today, Mercedes will drop the official details on the new S-Class sedan, but our spy photographers were busy too. They managed to catch the S-Class Coupe testing in Hamburg, Germany.
Even though the prototype caught testing was heavily camouflaged, it is easy to see the coupe version will be almost identical to the four-door model. It will get a more prominent front grille, new headlamps, and sportier and more elegant lines than last year’s model. Of course, the coupe version will look a little bit sportier, thanks to the lack of the rear doors.
Under the hood, we anticipate seeing the same lineup found in the sedan, including: a 3.0-liter V-6 turbo-diesel engine that delivers 255 horsepower; a 4.7-liter turbocharged gasoline V-8 with 449 horsepower; and a hybrid version that will combine a 3.5-liter gasoline V-6 and an electric motor for a total output of 302 horsepower.
Click past the jump to read more about the Mercedes S-Class Coupe.
Sony is celebrating Gran Turismo’s 15th anniversary with the announcement of the sixth installment of the series. Gran Turismo 6 was announced today by legendary Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi and will be released later this year. Sony’s exact wording in the press release was “Holiday, 2013,” but we are unsure if that is a typo or if it means Christmas of another holiday. We are awaiting a reply from Sony on an exact release date.
Gran Turismo 6 will bring a total of 1,200 cars; it will retain the models from Gran Turismo 5 and will add new ones, including historic, road and race cars. The game will also offer a stunning new tracks and cars, and a revised user interface.
The new GT6 will also add 33 locations - including seven all-new ones, with 71 different layouts available; 19 of the layouts are brand new. There will also be regular additions of new tracks available online.
The celebration of 15 years of Gran Turismo event at Silverstone included a demo of GT6, featuring the famous Silverstone circuit itself. Guests were able to play the game in the familiar circular Gran Turismo race pods before having a chance to take to the real track in cars provided by Audi, Ford, Jaguar, KTM, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Toyota.
Click past the jump to learn more about the new Gran Turismo 6 features.
Now this is a ride we have been waiting to see for a very long time!
Chris Harris - our favorite presenters when it comes to reviewing performance cars - was invited by Porsche to test a pre-production version of the 918 Spyder. Of course, when you receive an invitation like this, you forget the fact that you are not testing the finished car, that there is no time to prepare and that you only get three laps in the driver’s seat; you just take the first plane and go for the quick spin.
So, what do you think, was Harris impressed by the upcoming 918 Spyder? We bet he was, after all the 918 Spyder is powered by a V-8 engine combined with a pair of electric engines, one powering the front axle and one on the rear.
This system delivers a total of 887 horsepower and 920 pound-feet of torque and sprints the car from 0 to 60 mph in just 2.8 seconds and up to a top speed of 202 mph.
One of our favorite parts was watching the Porsche rep in the passenger’s seat as Harris whipped the crap out of the Automaker’s £20 million project. It looked like he was on the verge of tears at certain points.
It looks like BMW is having all the fun in the world smashing the strangest world records out there. Back in February, a BMW M5 with Johan Schwartz behind the wheel entered the Guinness World Record Book for the longest drift: 76.8 km (47.71 miles). Now, Schwartz managed to smash his own record while driving the same unmodified M5.
This time the record was established at BMW Performance Center near Greenville, South Carolina on Saturday, May 11, 2013. This time, he did a total of 322.5 laps around a circumference of 841 foot circle, providing a total distance traveled of 51.278 miles.
This event is just the first of many during a week of events leading up to the BMW Charity Pro-Am. To date, a total of $20,000 has been raised with benefits going to more than 150 charities.
Those attending the world record were invited to enjoy drives in new BMW vehicles, including the M6 Coupe or received a "hot lap" ride from one the BMW Performance Center Instructors.
Click past the jump to read more about the BMW M5.
In a recent interview with British magazine CAR, Porsche’s product manager James Eastwood offered new details on the company’s new limited-edition supercar: the 918 Spyder. According to Eastwood, the company has no plans in transforming the 918 Spyder into a competitor for models like LaFerrari or McLaren P1.
Eastwood said that the 918 Spyder is heavier at 3,747 pounds and a little less powerful, but more fuel efficient than both the other two supercars. Also, he said that in “certain conditions” the 918 Spyder will be a little bit faster than the P1 and Laferrari. It will be especially faster in and out of corners, thanks to its Torque Vectoring.
The 918 Spyder will also be offered with the same four-wheel-steering system we saw in the GT3; in fact, the system was developed for the 918 and adopted to the GT3.
The 918 Spyder is priced at about $845,000 for the base model, or $929,000 when equipped with the Weissach Package. Even with the price hike, half of the customer opted for this package because it reduces the car’s total weight by 110 pounds. Eastwood confirmed one more time that even though the model is still not sold out like the other two supercars, the company is not worried that it won’t manage to sell them all.
Click past the jump to read more about the Porsche 918 Spyder.
While other companies are trying to increase sales in any possible way, Ferrari is content maintaining exclusivity, even if this means less units built annually. In a recent interview, Luca di Montezemolo announced that Ferrari plans to remain an exclusive maker, so even though it sold a total of 1,798 road cars in the first quarter of 2013, by the end of the year production will be kept to below 7,000 units.
Talking about this year’s sales number, he said that when compared to the same period of last year, sales increased by 4 percent and revenues jumped by 8 percent up to a total of €551 million ($714 million). The company’s net profit also increased by 36.5 percent to €54.7 million ($70.9 million).
During the interview, Montezemolo said: "I want Ferrari to remain exclusive. A Ferrari is like a beautiful woman, she must be worth waiting for and desired. I base my ideas on what I learned from Enzo Ferrari, if we produce less cars, we will not flood the market and it makes our used cars more desirable too."
Click past the jump to read more about the LaFerrari - Ferrari’s latest supercar.
Mazda plans to enter the Guinness World Record Book one more time, as the company plans to organize the largest parade of Mazda cars on June 15, 2013. The event is called "IMAX-5 2013" and plans to smash the current record, which brought together a total of 459 MX-5 roadsters.
Mazda hopes to bring together a total of 800 MX-5s following a 15 km (9.32-mile) path through the fascinating Dutch polder landscape near Lelystad, Netherlands. Participants will be entertained with a series of other activities, like the opportunity to test drive Mazda’s new SKYACTIV models or test their driving skills on different race simulators. The event will end at Europe’s largest drive-in cinema.
Customers interested in participating in the event need to register online at www.imax-5.nl. The €30 ($39) admission per car (up to two people) includes a meal and two drinks per person.
Click past the jump to read more about Mazda MX-5.
