We’re pretty sure that if you want to buy an American sports car this year, you may opt for the SRT Viper, and not the new Corvette Stingray. While Chevrolet failed to capture the usual Corvette allure, SRT did an amazing job in developing an awesome sports car - no slight to the Corvette, of course.
The SRT Viper is powered by a new 8.4-liter, all-aluminum V-10 overhead-valve engine that will deliver a total of 640 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque. The new engine will be mated to an improved Tremec TR6060 six-speed manual transmission.
According to Hennessey Performance, which was the latest one to dyno test the 2013 Viper, the new Viper develops a total of 558 rear wheel horsepower and 515 pound-feet of torque. So, how do we get from here to the numbers announced by SRT? Well, simply add forced induction; In fact, you will obtain almost double than SRT announced with some pressurized air flowing through the intake.
It’s no surprise to anyone that Fisker is on life support and is nearing its final breath, as it has had way too many issues over the years. Even with the company likely organizing its affairs for bankruptcy, no one could have ever anticipated seeing a Karma for sale at less than half of the sticker price.
Well, we can now see that the unexpected is a reality, as Karmas are starting to trickle onto Ebay at massive discounts. When we drove the Karma, we found that it drive like a far more expensive car than its $100K price tag and later found that it actually costs more to develop and advertise than Fisker was actually selling the model for.
As of May 17th, we found four Karmas for auction on Ebay with current bids that run from $50,000 to $79,995 with less than 10,000 miles on their odometers. In fact, the $50,000 model only has 550 miles and it is 1 of 100 Signature Editions. Business Insider actually managed to dig one up for $40,200, which adds up to 60 percent off of the MSRP.
From the looks of it, Karma owners are getting spooked by Fisker’s financial trouble and the fact that if the company goes under, there is no large backer to cover warranty and service issues. Unlike when Pontiac and Saturn closed up shop, Fisker doesn’t have GM behind it to provide post-mortem support.
A lot of automakers have taken to movie tie-ups to promote their latest line of vehicles. Audi, in particular, has done it in all the Iron Man movies.
Well, now it looks like Chevrolet is doing the same, except that instead of Iron Man, it’s tying up with Captain America.
In this video captured by YouTube user Jason Vandervliet, a black 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray was seen making an appearance in the set of Captain America: Winter Solider in Washington D.C.
The car, it appears, was being driven by Scarlet Johansson who plays Black Widow in the movie. Look a little closer and you might notice what looks like Chris Evans, who plays Captain America, coming up to the Corvette to have a little chat with his co-star.
There has been no confirmation regarding a potential marketing partnership between Marvel Studios and Chevrolet. But if there is one, they couldn’t have picked a better car to promote than the Corvette Stingray.
To review a century of history in just 1 minute can be pretty difficult, especially if you want to highlight those special moments that made you famous. Somehow, however, Audi did it with the release of a video that tells the story of over 100 years of Audi innovation in just 60 ticks of a the second hand.
According to Audi, the video tells the story of "doing things that have never been done before. And doing them until they’re perfect." It starts with the first Audi built, then continues with the Audi 100 and all the way up to the quattro all-wheel drive, ASF space frame technology, the iconic TT, motorsports and all the great things Audi has offered and continues to offer.
In developing the story behind the video, Audi was inspired by the words from the poem, "It Couldn’t be Done" written by the late poet Edgar Albert Guest: "He started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn’t be done, and he did it.”
Check out the above video to see all Audi’s 100-year summary.
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.
