There will come a time in your life when you will have to think twice before getting behind the wheel of a car. We’re not just talking about when you’ve had one drink too many - even though that is a viable reason to refrain from driving - but when your body just can’t handle the drive anymore. Apparently, this 60 year-young lady is nowhere near that stage in her life because she hasn’t given any impression that she’s gonna quit drag racing anytime soon! Yep, we said drag racing!
YouTube member, 1320video, was recently at the TX2K12 when he saw this 60-year-old woman in her modified, 11-second Mercedes-Benz C 63 AMG. She was quick to share a number of details about her car before showing off her amazing driving skills and joining her husband in his Dodge Viper! Now that’s a pretty passionate family! We certainly have to admire that! Enjoy the video and let us know what you think in the comments section below!
In what can only be described as a truly incredible and informative review, Chris Harris recently pitted the BMW M3 GTS, Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Black Series, and Porsche 911 GT3 RS 4.0 against each other for the Drive network and has delivered yet another piece of automotive art.
All three cars, particularly the BMW and Mercedes-Benz are aimed at a very small, niche segment of the market where prospecting buyers want cars which can perform equally well on the track as they do on the road. The 911 on the other hand, is for all intents and purposes, a full-on race car converted for road use and carries much greater expectations.
This may surprise some, but all of the aforementioned cars were priced fairly similarly when they first hit the market and even though the BMW M3 GTS is no longer produced, it’s as relevant as it was back in 2010 immediately after its launch.
Sure, more fun can be had in other cars than in these three, with Harris highlighting the fact that an Ariel Atom could be purchased for the same money but that of course, doesn’t work on the road like a truly incredible car should. As a result, Harris assembled these three cars to test both their on-track and off-track capabilities while also seeing which promotes the greatest amount of hooliganism.
We won’t spoil the end result for you, but needless to say, this is one of the very best ways to spend 25 minutes.
The last thing any automaker wants to do at this point in time is insult the fastest growing automotive market in the world, but this is exactly what Ferrari has achieved when it took its 458 Italia China Edition for a little joyride in China.
You see, China is now a local distributor for the Italian firm, so Ferrari paid $12,000 for permission to drive the 458 Italia China Edition on the Zhonghua Gate Tower in Nanjing, a 600-year-old historical site. This would have been acceptable, except for the fact that a dealer employee - not a Ferrari official - was caught doing ’doughnuts’ and wheel spinning on the ramparts during the night. And it was filmed.
China takes its culture and tradition very seriously, so these acts were entirely unacceptable on such a monument. Ferrari was quick to apologize for this daring and disrespectful act, and the culprit was disciplined by the dealership. Ferrari even took it a step further by promising to work with authorities and local officials to repair any damage.
"Ferrari is fully at the disposal of the local authority to solve the situation. At the same time Ferrari has asked the dealer to take immediate action with the employee who had such regrettable behavior," said the company.
Hit the jump to see the car doing the dirty deed in China.
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Any Formula One fanatic out there will know that driving an F1 car is much harder than it seems. Not only do drivers have to survive constant pressures on their necks and all the other major muscles in the body because of the massive g-forces achieved, they also have the ability to change almost every setting imaginable from the advanced steering wheel all while practically lying down in the car, as Nico Rosberg explains in the following video.
While watching on from the outside, it’s obvious that F1 drivers sit in a very unconventional position, but Rosberg’s true driving position may surprise many. In order to fit comfortably in the car, the driver’s feet are actually placed higher up in the car than their helmets, and this obviously hampers blood flow to their feet.
During the video, Rosberg also explains how the teams go about forming and constructing the carbon-fiber seats and even goes on to state that individual pieces of foam are often used to help soften the rigid seats, with Rosberg mentioning that only limited amounts of foam can be used because in the world of Formula One, “foam is very heavy.”
Just days after we brought you news of a 2013 BMW M5 crashing on the autobahn, we have yet more bad news from what seems to be a haunted-stretch of road. Not only has one supercar crashed on the Autobahn in recent days, four high supercars were actually totaled on the same stretch of German highway in just a few days.
This horrific chain of events all started last week when a luxurious, silver Maserati GranTurismo crashed on Wednesday while in the hands of its brand new owner. Arguably the most expensive car to crash out of the lot was a grey McLaren MP4-12C] which was wiped out on Friday, after its 27-year-old owner lost control but fortunately managed to escape the incident uninjured.
The following day, the two remaining supercars were involved in separate incidents with the first car of the two to be written-off being an extremely exotic Dodge Viper ACR which had only been rented for the weekend with the renter having only been in possession of the 612 horsepower behemoth for just three hours. Unless the car was insured from the rental facility, the driver could be looking at an extremely hefty bill.
And finally, the forth supercar to crash along the same stretch of Autobahn was a silver Chevrolet Corvette Z06, which met its untimely demise by sliding off into an embankment.
Thus far, only the McLaren has been confirmed as a write-off while the Dodge Viper ACR and GranTurismo aren’t far off needing entire re-builds. It’s currently unclear if the German police are investigating these incidents and possibly looking into any faults in the road surface which may have played parts in each of the crashes.
Ben Collins rose to what some may call infamy last year when he exposed himself as "The Stig" from the famous Top Gear show. Shortly after his reveal, Collins got fired, but unemployment was never an avenue we thought he would take. Turns out we were right, and he is doing rather well and currently working as a stuntman on the set of the new James Bond movie "Skyfall."
Once the man behind the white helmet, Collins is now the man doing all of the dirty work for Daniel Craig. Collins has been in the driver seat in some of the most daring chase sequences filmed in Istanbul and Turkey. His recent job was to crash a grey Land Rover into the side of a black Audi, almost destroying it. However, this is not the only Audi crashed in the movie: a total of 15 cars found their death during filming, including six during pre-filming tests.
Collins has done stunts for James Bond before in Quantum Of Solace and Casino Royale. The job seems to be pretty easy for him, but it’s actually a tough job and an expensive one: just one scene can cost up to $1 million.
The Japanese really love their sports cars, so much so in fact, that there are literally hundreds of videos on YouTube with Japanese journos testing the latest Japan has to offer, but unfortunately, the overwhelming majority are in Japanese and as a result, we have no idea what’s happening half the time. However, that’s not the case with the following video.
While it may be in Japanese, the aim of the video is clear as the testers put the pedal to the metal in the new Subaru BRZ, Toyota GT 86 around one of Japan’s various race circuits. The Mazda is being piloted by Takayuki Kinoshita, the BRZ handled by Naoki Hattori, while the Toyota was driven by Le Mans-class winner Keiichi Tsuchiya, all of whom have copious amounts of racing experience.
In order to make the 3-lap race as even as possible, the 167HP Mazda MX-5 is given a head start of around 3 grid places, while the 200HP BRZ and GT 86 set off behind. All three cars tested have manual transmissions so this is just a test about which car is faster, rather than which shifting-mechanism trumps the other.
We won’t spoil the result for you, but the video does display just how tail-happy the GT 86 is while the BRZ and MX-5 seem to have much more grip. Whether that’s down to different driving styles, or the Toyota’s lack of traction is not yet known, but all three cars certainly look the part!
Many years ago, you may recall hopping in grandpap’s Eldorado, Fleetwood, or Deville and taking a nice cushiony ride on the highway. When the Northstar engine came about in the mid-1990s we all started to see Cadillacs actually putting out some respectable performance numbers to go along with their couch-like ride. The lid started coming off of the Cadillac performance sedans in 2003, when the automaker released the CTS. In 2004, when the 400-horsepower CTS-V came out, all hell broke loose.
By the 2012 model year, the CTS-V had morphed into a 556-horsepower, supercharged sub-supercar. For some people, however, 556 horsepower just isn’t quite enough. This is where the Cadillac tuners at D3 come into play, literally. They took two CTS-Vs and converted them into 1,500-horsepower supercars that are primed to bring havoc upon any road they are on.
So what does D3 do? They hand the keys to INDY Car driver J.R. Hildebrand and Formula D driver Tyler McQuarrie, of course! These two racers took these 1,500 horsepower luxury cars down to the Long Beach street circuit and stretched out these Caddy’s legs a little.
By stretching their legs we mean smoldering the tires to oblivion and getting it on video (above). The tire smoldering and supercharger whining is aplenty in these videos, but there is one thing that is slightly more impressive. An amateur video was also released that showed the cameramen filming these two Caddys and watching these dudes put their bodies at risk just to get a good shot. That takes a rather big brass set, if you ask us; an even bigger set than playing with a few CTS-Vs on ‘roids.
Click past the jump to see the amateur video of the cameramen.
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Last week, we announced the debut of Behind The Smoke Season 2, as we watched Dai and the Falken team get ready for the upcoming Formula D season, after Dai took home the championship last year. Episode 2 just hit the web over at GT Channel and we have the video (above) here for you.
In this episode, Dai is getting ready to take on qualifying for the first race of the season at the Streets of Long Beach circuit. His first run, netted Dai about an 81, which was where he wanted to be. On the second run, Dai pulled out a 90.5, which allowed him to qualify 6th for the upcoming race.
In all, this episode is chock-full of all types of sideways action with tons of beautiful tire smoke. What’s really sweet is these guys put a camera inside the car, facing the front, so you can really see what Dai sees as he whips his 240SX around the track. You get some real kick-ass audio of the engine working away in those shots too. We also found out that even the reigning champ of Formula D gets scared sometimes.
While you’re watching, keep an eye out for three quick cameos by the bearded and fearless drift fan, Bil Baldwin. Let us know in the comments if you see him and the times that he appears on the screen.
Crank up those speakers and click "Play" on the above video. It’s 11 minutes of smoke and squeals that you won’t regret seeing!
We know there are some people out there that firmly believe drag racing is relatively safe. After all, it only involves flooring the throttle and keeping the car in a straight line, but don’t be confused, drag racing is one of the most dangerous sports in the world. Not only is the risk of literally getting airborne during a race always present, but some cars are just so fast and so extreme that they literally blow up, as happened at last weekend’s qualifying session at the zMAX Dragway.
With the exception of jet powered cars, NHRA funny cars are pretty much as fast as they come and in a good run they can complete the quarter-mile in less than 5 seconds. No, really, your eyes are not deceiving you, that is more than twice as fast as the incredible Bugatti Veyron, so hopefully you now have an understanding of how dangerous the sport is.
As you’ll see from the accompanying video, the car being piloted by Matt Hagan was in the lead but just milliseconds away from winning the session, his car literally blew up sending debris across the track and effectively ending the life of one very expensive drag car.
It’s currently unclear how the explosion occurred, but it seems to have originated in the engine bay, just in front of Hagan. Amazingly however, Hagan was able to walk away from the incident with no injuries except those to his pride, as this is the third consecutive year one of his cars has decided to spit the dummy.
