Rarely is something both the slowest and the hardest at the same time, but that all goes out the window when you’re talking about the Grand Prix at Monaco. For the majority of the F1 season, the drivers get to open up their cars a good bit. At Monaco, those chances to go wide open are limited to about three, as there are only a three extended straightaways on the track.
Besides those three straights, drivers get to deal with a plethora of intense twists and blind turns that require great care to negotiate correctly. These tight turns all amount to Monaco being the lowest average speed course on the F1 circuit, and arguably the hardest one on the circuit.
Well, the 70th running of this ultra-technical road course is due to start on May 27, 2012 and we’re going to provide a quick preview of what’s to come.
Click past the jump to read all about the Grand Prix at Monaco
Just recently we showed you how Peugeot was using a painfully limber dancer to help sell its newest vehicle, the 208. Peugeot has now released that there has been a new model of the 208 that has been in production since it became a concept. This new model is the 208 R2 Rally Car.
What’s better is that Peugeot is not only using this model as the replacement for the 207 Super 2000, but the French automaker is also offering this FIA-approved rally car for sale to the general public. That’s right, if you are looking to get into rally racing, you can walk into a Peugeot dealership, actually the Peugeot Sport Racing Shop, lay down a large sum of money and walk out owning a “rally ready” hatchback.
With some certainty we can say that the chances of the 2013 208 R2 Rally Car having the exact same specifications as Peugeot’s actual rally model are very low. Having said that, this model comes already certified and you can jump into lower level rally races and possibly take home some cash prizes.
The Rondeau-built M378 Le Mans GTP Racing Car is a true piece of Le Mans history, as it currently holds the title for most starts at Le Mans (10). With the amount of stress put on Le Mans cars today, this record is likely to stand for quite some time.
The M378 Le Mans GTP Racing Car made its debut in 1978 in the GTP class of the Le Mans 24 Hours race with two drivers, Bernard Darniche and Jack Haran. In its debut race, the Rondeau M378, or “Old Number 1” as it was nicknamed, took a somewhat disappointing 9th place. The following year, Old Number 1 was tweaked to M379 specifications and wound up pulling in 3rd overall and 1st in the GTP class.
The Rondeau M378 Le Mans GTP Racing Car saw plenty of success through the 1970s, but the 1980s were far less kind to it. As technology continued advancing, the Rondeau M378 Le Mans GTP Racing Car just couldn’t keep up. It all bottomed out in this record holder’s final race, as it ran in and finished the 1988 Le Mans 24 Hours race, but was not classified.
Shortly after its last race, the Rondeau M378 Le Mans GTP Racing Car went on to be sold off to an American collector, who raced it in the 1998 Monterey Historics race.
If you are looking to own a piece of Le Mans history, few stack up to this car’s legacy, but is this a good item to look into purchasing when it goes to auction on May 11th through 12th?
For the most part, most of today’s supercars call the European continent their home. The growing trend of these high-powered machines has stretched far and wide in the continent with established countries like Germany, Italy, and the UK being joined in the supercar arms race by Sweden, Denmark, and Spain, among other countries.
Now you can add Poland to the mix.
The country best known for their polish sausages is set to introduce their very first supercar courtesy of Arrinera Automotive. The name for this Lamborghini-inspired beast hasn’t been announced yet, but Arrinera has nonetheless released a number of renderings to give us a first look on what to expect when this Polish hammer hits the streets in the future.
UPDATE 02/10/12: Arrinera has unveiled a new video that takes us behind the scenes of the official video previously unveiled. The video depicts the enormous effort made by the producer Lazniak.com as well as the Arrinera team. Hit the jump to watch the video.
UPDATE 05/02/12: Arrinera has officially released the final specs of the Venocara Supercar, as well as the pricing details for it. Find out how powerful this Polish supercar really is and how big of a hole it’s going to have on your pockets after the jump!
This review has been updated with official details of the Arrinera Supercar
The Lamborghini Aventador’s newest rival will hail from...
We’ll give you a few seconds to mull this one over. Could it be Italy? Maybe Japan? China, India, Germany? Heck, maybe even Korea? Nope, this new beast will hail from all 7,827 square miles of the Republika Slovenjia, Slovenia to us English speakers.
Little known and fairly new supercar manufacturer, Tushek Supercars, recently revealed its all new 444-horsepower, Audi-powered Renovatio T500 at the Top Marques in Monaco, but that’s not the big news. The big news is this developing supercar manufacturer’s future plans of annihilating the all-mighty Aventador.
After Tushek completes its estimated 30 Renovatio T500 production models, it will turn its focus to the Forego T700 – yeah, weird name, huh. Tushek has some fairly lofty goals for this machine, including a sub-1,000 KG (2,204 pounds) curb weight, more than 700 bhp, and a gut-checking 3.3 lateral Gs (the average human can handle just 5 Gs).
This would place this new supercar squarely in the lead, when compared to the Aventador, in the all-important pounds-per-horsepower rating, as the T700’s rating would be about 3.14 pounds per horsepower and the Lambo’s rating is 4.96 pounds per horsepower. On a small scale that looks like a tiny difference, but in the grand scheme of things, that difference is humongous.
By our rough guess-timation, the Renovatio T700 would range in the 2-second area from 0 to 60 mph, about 0.8 seconds faster than the Aventador. The most impressive stat is the 3.3 lateral Gs that this car is expected to handle, as the Aventador can only handle 1.05 Gs on the skid pad.
We tend to take this all with a big grain of salt, as this is purely speculation by a company spokesperson at Tushek. Chances are that this car, if it makes it to production, will be about on the same level as the Aventador and it will not hold 3.3 Gs. There is no way that any production car can handle that amount of force.
It is still unknown if Tushek plans to sell this model in the U.S., but we are certain that some savvy buyers can get it here somehow when it arrives in 2013.
For those that happen to not know what Sociedad Española de Automòviles de Turismo, known simply known as SEAT, is, don’t feel bad, as not many people do. This is a Mexican car manufacturer now found under the Volkswagen Group umbrella that is known for creating sporty cars tuned more toward the youthful crowd.
At Beijing, SEAT released an all-new “concept” car that is more of a certain reality than a concept, according to SEAT, but it is still technically a concept. This vehicle is a new trim level to the newly released Ibiza SC, known as the Ibiza Cupra Concept.
This isn’t just any old trim level though; this is a high-performance model that has an additional 20 percent more horsepower than the current highest output engine in the Ibiza SC. It also features some sharp styling upgrades over the SC trim level.
How does this hot hatchback compare to its bigger brothers in the Volkswagen group and other vehicles in the crowded European supermini class?
We haven’t seen a new Peugeot sold in the U.S. since the company pulled out of our market in 1991, and we will likely never see one again, despite their loose ties to Chrysler. This doesn’t mean that they don’t produce some cool cars, which they most certainly do. Another cool thing they do is take risks when it comes to marketing. This can lead to an absolute win or a complete loss.
This leads us to the all-new Peugeot 208, which is the European super-mini car that the automaker released as the XY Concept in Geneva. This isn’t your typical run-of-the-mill super-mini, however, as it features an impressively modern design that takes the super-mini class to a whole new level. But we are not here to talk about the 208 and its deceptively large cabin, and ultra-low emissions diesel engines. Nope, we are here to talk about only one thing… Dancing!
That’s right, Peugeot it pulling out all the stops in advertising the new 208 with the release of the “Let your Body Drive” ad campaign. It features Marquese “Nonstop” Scott – a dancer who gained fame from a viral video – performing some sweet moves around a parking lot.
Little homage is paid to the 208, as the video centers around Scott’s dancing. It’s kind of similar to those blue jeans commercials that have more to do with a scantily clad person than the jeans themselves. The commercial is just there to get your attention and make you remember it. Ah, isn’t marketing cool!
So kick back and crank up your speakers, then watch the above video of something that would likely injure most of us. We think this one is an absolute win for Peugeot. Have a look at the car too; it’s really pretty cool… for a super-mini.
Since its inception midway through the 1964 model year, the “original” pony car, the Ford Mustang, has remained an America-only model. The last Ford overseas we recall seeing was the four-cylinder 1967 ‘Stang from Tokyo Drift, and we almost cried at the sight of that monstrosity of ricer meets muscle. There are now rumors floating around – mostly sparked by our friends at Popular Hot Rodding – that the Mustang is heading overseas.
We are all well aware of the fact that the Mustang is being redesigned for the 2015 model year. Apparently, a part of the releasing of the Mustang in Europe is that this redesign is turning the beloved Mustang into a car that meets the European Union pedestrian safety regulations. According to Popular Hot Rodding, this means that a redesign rivaling the Mustang II may be afoot, which is being dubbed the “Mustang III.”
This is a scary moment for Ford and it really needs to tread carefully, as the Mustang II nearly killed off the Mustang name altogether. It was to a point that the Ford Probe – yeah, remember that thing – was slated to be the replacement for the Mustang. Fortunately, the Mustang pulled through and is now thriving as a muscle car again.
This Euro-inspired redesign comes on the heels of the U.S. government possibly raising the average fuel economy requirements to an astronomical 56.2 mpg by 2025. This doesn’t mean that the Mustang needs to hit 56 mpg, but that the average of all Ford vehicles sold must be at least 56.2 mpg by 2025. This also puts the V-8 Mustangs that Ford has worked so hard on lately on the chopping block during this redesign.
Could this mean the return of a turbocharged four-cylinder to the Mustang lineup, or maybe even a transplantation of the EcoBoost 3.5-liter V-6 engine from the Taurus to the Mustang? It very well could, and that could spell disaster for the Mustang. Ford definitely needs to tread carefully with this redesign, or we could end up with the Mustang II all over again.
Despite belonging in the same market segment, the Peugeot RCZ is not in the league of the Mazda MX-5 Miata. There’s no shame in that for the French sports coupe because very few cars can match Mazda’s little speedster in terms of popularity and overall affordability.
Having said that, there’s still a pretty significant market for the RCZ, particularly in Europe. That’s why Peugeot has decided to introduce a limited edition, 150-piece RCZ that will be available in Europe.
One of the most distinctive characteristics of the RCZ Brownstone Limited Edition is its Guaranja Brown exterior paint finish. Match that to a gloss black grille, brake calipers, and a special set of 19" "Magny Cours" alloy wheels and you’ve got an exterior look that adds some spice to the RCZ’s overall design.
As for the interior, Peugeot dressed it up with an exclusive Cohiba Leather and Alcantara on the sport seats, the dash panel and door trim panels. Should you wish for add-ons, the French automaker is offering a WIP Com 3D telematic system; a Sport package that includes shorter shifter, leather sport steering wheel, and Motorsound-Generator; a comfort package that comes with front parking sensors, automatic low beam switch and a rain sensor; and a xenon package that features dynamic cornering lights and a headlamp cleaning system, all of which you can get for an extra €2500, which is around $3,300 based on current exchange rates.
We all love the BMW M lineup, and we are particularly fond of the brand new 2012 Ms, which punches 560 horsepower and 502 pound-feet of torque from a TwinPower Turbo 4.4-liter V-8 engine. According to our report in January, the 2012 M5 can hit a top speed of 190 mph, and a driver on the Autobahn decided to test this spec.
This 60-year-old man pushed his fresh-off-the-showroom-floor 2012 BMW M5 all the way up to an estimated 186 mph. As he approached a merging vehicle he swerved to avoid it, sending this machine into ping-pong ball, as it careened back and forth between the left and right guardrails. The M5 then flipped several times before coming to a rest in the grass to the side of the high-speed highway.
Miraculously, the driver, his 20-year-old passenger, and his dog all survived the crash, though severely injured. This clearly shows how advanced the BMW’s safety features are. Judging by the images (hat tip to Bimmerpost for the images) if this were any other car, the results would have been more tragic.
This just goes to show that just because you own a car that will do 190 mph and are on a section of the Bundesautobahn (Autobahn for short) that has an unregulated speed limit, does not mean you should push the car to its limits. By all means, stretch its legs when it’s safe, but don’t max the thing out. We should all use the tragic death of this brand-spankin’-new M5 as a lesson in how not to drive. Save that craziness for the racetrack.
