At one point in every automotive buff’s life, he has a dream about driving a supercar down a racetrack. Then he wakes up, looks out the window and his 1993 Metro is staring him in the face. Well, you can hop into that Metro, drive to New York and live your dream for $99. Yup, an exotic car rental company that typically rents Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Mercedes, and other high-end cars for thousands of dollars per day is allowing people to take these monsters around a racetrack.
Gotham Dream Cars has taken its Dream Car Sprint program to the New York Auto Show, which opened up to the public today. The Dream Car Sprint program typically charges $249 for three laps around their parking lot-based racetrack, but at the New York International Auto Show they have brought along a Ferrari F430 and a Lamborghini Gallardo], and have discounted the three-lap price to just $99 + tax.
The track is roughly one-mile long and you have to drag an instructor along with you. This pretty much means that you can’t really have any fun in these supercars, but just to be behind the wheel is enough to make us happy.
As the auto show progresses, the Gotham Dream cars might add other vehicles to this program, but for now we only know of the Ferrari and Lamborghini. So, if you are over 21, have a valid driver’s license and car insurance, plus a spare $105.93, you can hop in one of these and see just how far the push these cars until the ride-along instructor stops you. We bet one of us could end that drive in about 15 seconds…
There are some “versus” videos that we come across that once we read the titles we simply just keep moving. Things like “Dodge Viper vs. Tomahawk Superbike” come to mind. C’mon, same engine but the bike weighs over 1,000 pounds less. Yeah, no need to watch that one. Other times titles are so intriguing we cannot pass them up, regardless of how obvious they seem.
In a day’s work, we came across this gem titled “Aston Martin vs. Inline Skater” and thought “what the…” Thinking it was going to be some sort of goofy prank, we almost skimmed right past it, but figured watching it wouldn’t hurt.
To our surprise this is a legit video of a German man racing an Aston Martin Vantage, from what we can tell. You may be wondering how the man on the skates plans to keep up with the Aston Martin, which has about 400+ horsepower. Well, he specially fitted three miniature jet engines, which produce 300 horsepower, onto a suit and used them to propel him down a 1/4-mile straight. According to the driver of the car, the skater claims that he has reached upwards of 120 mph and had no objections after finding out the Aston Martin could clear a 1/4-mile in 13 seconds.
You might still think there’s no chance for the inline skater, but you may be shocked to see just how fast those inline skates will go. Plus you can get a good laugh at the driver of the Aston Martin as he is more impressed with the speed of the skater than trying to win the race.
Sit back and enjoy the video above. Oops, we almost forgot, don’t try this at home.
So call us a bunch of little kids, but the sound of a supercar accelerating hard simply makes us giggle a little. Though they are not necessarily my favorite of supercars, Lamborghini is definitely in the top-5 of mass produced supercars. At the peak of Lamborghini’s lineup sits the 700-horsepower, V-12-powered 2012 Aventador.
Let’s do the math here; the best car in a top-5 supercar lineup, that definitely equals a lot of smiles, even if it is indirectly. Above is a video that is certain to bring a grin and maybe even a little drool to the face of any car nut. A 2012 Aventador tackling the famous Goodwood hillclimb track.
Not only do you get to see this bright orange beast launch from the starting line, as if it were shot from a slingshot, but also get to hear that piece of beautiful V-12 running through its rpm range. It’s nice to see someone actually driving one of these things like it was built to be. So many people get these cars and do one of two things with them. The vast majority of people put it in a garage and visit it every week. Maybe once or twice a month they’ll take it out for a leisurely spin. The other group will take it flying down the interstate at 180 mph and vaporize it into the rear of a semi-truck.
Then you have the small group of people like this that take it to the track and stretch out its legs occasionally. Nothing like pushing this machine to its limits in a safe environment. So go ahead and enjoy the video. And for Pete’s sake, try not to drool all over the keyboard… That’s disgusting.
You can have your Indy cars, NASCAR, and drag racing, but none of those get our hearts thumping and the hair on our necks standing more than a good old rally race. Nothing like seeing a car pushed to extreme levels on loose dirt, muddy water, and tarmac.
A few weeks ago, we teased everyone with an article about Dodge entering the love-it-or-hate-it 2013 Dart into the Global RallyCross Circuit. This definitely opened up a small area in our hearts, somewhere near the left ventricle, for this Alfa Romeo in Dodge garb.
Dodge just increased our slowly growing love for the new Dart by releasing a video of Travis Pastrana, the hired lunatic that will swing the Dart through the dirt at break-neck speeds, testing out his new rally machine. We must say, if this video doesn’t raise the hair on your neck and make you lean into the computer screen, you might want to check your pulse.
This is one of the few times that a maker has included music on a “sneak peak” type of video, but turned off the music when the car is moving, so you can actually hear this bad machine working hard. This video is simply awesome and the Dart seems to perform well with no one else on the track with it.
Take a look at the above video and see for yourself how the Dart handles a closed rally-style course. Yeah, some of it is a little dramatized, but overall Dodge did a good job with it and the inside shots are awesome, as you can see the driver feathering the throttle to perfection. Oh, and keep a close eye on the rear of the car at the 2:05 mark, as a large piece of the rear bumper gets torn off.
The land speed record for the GT-R was 218 mph, until AMS Performance decided to drag old Alpha Omega, the company’s monster GT-R, out to the Texas Mile to try to beat its own record.
The first run the GT-R rolls up with 24.5 pounds of boost and a tarmac-punishing 1,050 horsepower at the wheels. This run came out okay, as the Alpha Omega GT-R broke its record, hitting 221 mph. Throw the shoot, load up the car and take it home, right? Nope, not the AMS guys.
Apparently, 221 mph in a mile wasn’t good enough, so the AMS techs hopped back under the hood and cranked the boost to an insane 29.5 psi. This put the Nissan GT-R at an intense 1,250 wheel horsepower. After a mile the monster GT-R hits 233.1 and its driver Ivan reaches to pull the parachute.
Obviously the GT-R didn’t like Ivan taking the credit, so after catching a dip in the runway, the rear of the GT-R lifts up and slings itself sideways, sending its pilot into a deadly 200+ mph slide. At that point we were thinking that a farewell story to this power GT-R was in order, but somehow Ivan manages to calmly keep this monster in check and keeps it from completely spinning out of control.
We watched this video repeatedly looking for any sign of panic from the driver, but there was absolutely none. His eyes simply stayed focused, as he steered the 1,250 horsepower GT-R out of its slide. Hats off to the driver for keeping his cool and getting this car back under control. Check out the video and see if you could have kept your bowels, let alone the car, in check during the spinout.
Just because they designed it doesn’t necessarily mean they can handle it. This is what engineers found out during Ford’s “Rocket Science” series of short videos, which Ford began releasing on April 2nd.
Ford tortured nine of its top engineers by strapping them into a 2013 Taurus SHO with NASCAR driver Carl Edwards for what they thought would be a typical test drive. Unfortunately for these engineers, it was anything but typical, as Edwards decided to push this high-performance sedan about as far as it would go.
You can definitely see the fear in some of the engineers’ eyes, as they attempt to talk about the features of this new Taurus while drifting sideways and eclipsing 100 mph. Some of them manage to remain calm, but others you can just see wondering if they’re going to make it back to the office.
By far the best two videos so far are the first and the third ones, as both of those engineers get legitimately scared. The other two are well worth watching too, as those two engineers just keep on talking like they were on a leisurely Sunday drive with grandma, for the majority of the ride.
We have to admit, the Taurus has definitely come a long way since its debut and is now a legitimate performance machine. Now, if only we could get our hands on one and a little track time, we think we could scare the engineers a little more than Carl did.
So far we only have four of the nine episodes to show, but we will continue adding more episodes as Ford posts them. Certainly Ford is planning to save the best ones for last.
“Epic fail” is ultimately one of the most overused and incorrectly used phrases in the world. But, we are going to go ahead and chalk this one up as just that, an epic fail.
If you have ever watched drag races, you have likely noticed one thing in common with all of them. They are always on a straight and flat track. This is not without good reason, as drag cars, rail cars especially, are designed to simply go in a straight line really fast. If you’ve ever seen a rail car veer off the track you might notice that they rarely ever recover prior to a spectacular crash. This is because they have the turning capabilities of a fully loaded semi truck on an icy downhill slope.
Now that we’ve let you in on that secret of the dragster, what do you think would happen when a 1,000+ horsepower rail car decides to take a Sunday drive down a back country road? If you still don’t know, we’ll fill you in. It would crash at the first tiny kink in the road, much like the above video.
In what looks to be some sort of dragster road racing event, these guys take a rail car about 50 feet up the road before sitting it down in a small ravine, in a less-than-desirable way. It’s absolutely hilarious to watch the driver attempt to correct the car and you can really see the minimal amount of steering these things actually have. Fortunately, the driver wasn’t hurt, but we are pretty certain the car has a couple of bucks worth of damage… Enjoy!
Audi’s auto racing influence is felt in a number of racing series all over the world. And while they don’t count themselves as part of the Formula One grid, the German automaker’s presence in the touring car series is unmistakable.
For the 2012 season, Audi is bringing a pretty snazzy race-tuned sports car to Italy’s version of touring car racing, called the Superstars Series. Similar to the UK’s British Touring Car Championship, the Superstars Series is made up of a grid that features a plethora of automakers, Audi being one of them.
Looking to return to past glory that saw them cop the 2007 Driver’s title and the 2008 Drivers and Constructors titles, Audi will be bringing a race-tuned model of the Audi RS5 back to the series. This model has been carefully fitted with an aggressive aerodynamic body - the intimidating grilles are a sight to behold - and a V8-powered engine that produces a mighty 450 horsepower.
All in all, three RS5 models will comprise the 2012 Superstars Series grid, including one from German tuner MTM, one from Audi Sport Italia, and one from Swedish team KMS.
Very few of us ever actually exceed 100 mph in our lives and even fewer ever exceed 200 mph, so there is only a small group of people that can actually explain what it feels like to drive in excess of 200 mph. One of people that can give us first-hand accounts is five-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Derek Bell. Thanks to Motor Sport Magazine’s monthly podcast, we now have an avenue to hear him speak about his high speed antics.
This entertaining interview had several high spots; the first one was his recollection of driving a Porsche 962 at an eye-popping 238 mph, in the rain. He begins by calling driving over 200 mph a surreal experience and saying it’s like being on another world. He then talks about how the rain almost turns into a solid wall of water that you simply cannot see through. He tops it all off by saying “Fortunately, you go around a kink and you can slow down… ‘Cause you’re at the end.” He then continues to chuckle and call the entire experience “awful,” “but you did it.”
When asked what his favorite circuit was, he strangely said “Spa,” referring to Circuit De Spa-Francorchamps, which once featured the feared and once boycotted Masta Kink – a hairpin turn after a long straightaway. See Bell tackle the Spa Circuit and the Masta Kink in the video above.
Bell then spoke about his scariest moment, which also occurred at Spa while driving the Gulf-sponsored Mirage. During testing, he came around the Masta Kink at 190 mph and in the middle of the track was his rookie teammate’s red Lola racecar, obviously broken down or spun out, and he had nowhere to go. He says “To this day, I don’t know what I did. I guess I hit the brakes,” and somehow the Mirage managed to correct itself. After that he pulled into the pit stop, despite having more testing time to go.
The entire podcast is a great listen, if you have an hour to spare. Check it out by clicking here!
In my lifetime, I have performed several engine swaps. Most of which were from me or my friends being stupid and grenading a stock engine, so they were mostly just stock swaps. Only one time did I swap a different engine into a car and that was pulling a four-banger from a Mustang and dropping in a V-8. That is a straightforward swap and it still took many weeks.
So where am I going with this? Well, the Toyota GT-86 hasn’t even hit the market and someone has already gotten their greasy hands on it. Seemingly in hyper speed, out came its stock four-banger engine and in came a big V-8. Yup, Manabu “Max” Orido’s team pulled out the four cylinder and dropped a 5.0-liter V-8 farmed from a Lexus IS F. There are numerous other mods, obviously, but the only other ones that are clear is a widebody kit and wide rubbers on the backside.
Let’s put this in perspective. The GT-86’s stock 2.0-liter pumps out a respectable 200, but has received mixed reviews in terms of actual performance. The Lexus IS F’s 5.0-liter engine, on the other hand, pumps out 416 horsepower and launches its 3,780-pound body to 60 mph in just 4.9 seconds. The GT-86’s official weight hasn’t been released, but rest assured that it will barely tip the scales at 3,000 pounds, if that much. Add in the fact that Orido’s GT-86 is gutted and that the 5.0-liter engine is definitely modified, and you have one lightning fast car.
Why do all of this to a brand new car? They are preparing to run this monster in D1 Grand Prix drifting events. Recently it was caught on film testing and our initial response is summed up in one word… Wow!
