The staff of summer inters at TopGear America pulled a fast one on us. Remember the very strange looking Porsche Cayman shooting brake test car that was shot with a camera phone in some Italian back street? Well it was actually shot in an alley in Brooklyn, the car was a computer generated image that was created with Maya 3D drawing software, stitched together with Photoshop and then edited on Final Cut Pro to look like video from a mobile phone. They even went as far as to include a little hint that apparently no one caught on to, a Stig helmet tucked back behind the rear window.
There were three main masterminds behind the scheme. First was former TopGear.com America editor, Jared Holstein along with the renderings of Matt DuVall, a digital arts student at Savannah College of Art and Design and left to manipulate the media was Jon Masters, a master’s student in media studies at the New School in New York City. Holstein guided DuVall through some very meticulous details, like official Porsche development wheels, a front bumper that mimics the Porsche mule car as well as the same license plate number that the German automaker uses.
Once the digitally enhanced video was produced, Holstein planted it on the TopGear.com America web site while summer intern, Jon Masters, began to post links in various Porsche enthusiast sites as well as the major Automotive online media. Masters then went so far as to create a fake screen shot from Forza 3 and then linked that to other videogame websites, “It was originally posted on a Czech Forza fan site — in Czech to add a layer of deception and plausibility,” Mr. Holstein said. The group claim to have been testing the abilities of digital media as a way to introduce new designs and get a public reaction to a new figure that would traditionally take an automaker a lot of time, money and research to figure out. We’re still saying that they were trying to pull a fast one on us.
We still haven’t recovered from oogling over the photos of Tesla’s new Roadster Sport when the electric car makers decided to satiate our appetites even more by releasing all-new photos of its other ‘new’ car – the Tesla Model S.
Normally, we’d have to pause and catch our breaths after seeing such stunning photos like those of the Roadster Sport but in this case, it’s like getting desert one after another. And knowing us, we’ll never turn our backs on mouth-watering treats.
So here are the new photos of the Model S, which is being tested by no other than Franz Von Holzhausen, the man who designed this car in the first place.
Unfortunately for a lot us, this is the closest we’ll come to seeing a Model S out on the road until 2011, the date where the car is set to roll out of the lots. In the meantime, the two-year wait should be excruciatingly long, especially after seeing these photos that only makes us a little bit more eager to see the car out on the road.
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The all new 2012 SLS AMG Convertible was recently spotted in what appeared to be another round of testing under the scorching hot Arizona sun. From the images we can see that unfortunately without a fixed roof the MB engineers were unable to find a suitable mounting point for the hard top’s gull wing doors so SLS convertible owners will have to get in and out of their super cars just like most drivers. Despite losing its top, AMG shouldn’t downgrade the output of the SLS convertible’s hand built V8 engine, and make 563 HP from the 6.2 Liter motor just like the SLS AMG super car and that is a good thing, because adding in all those moving hydraulic and mechanical parts, not to mention the rag top itself, will add a considerable amount of weight to the SLS over the standard version. So hopefully the SLS convertible will be able to complete the 0 to 60 MPH sprint in about 4 seconds and reach a very super car like top speed of 200 MPH.
The only thing that we haven’t heard about the SLS Convertible is the extent to which the chassis’ structural rigidity will be compromised by going topless, however we are pretty sure that the automotive engineers at AMG have already thought of that one. When the SLS finally goes on sale it should be wearing a price tag of around $200,000 and it is almost certain that the convertible version will bring a premium over that. However the last question we would like to ask is, how come someone is always seen pushing the SLS in these spy photos?
Despite their current economic problems, General Motors has no plans to cancel America’s favorite sports car and will continue development on the seventh generation Chevrolet Corvette. The C7 will go into production in April of 2012 and then go on sale in the 2013 model year. We must remind you that previous reports have said that the seventh generation of the sports car was put on hold until 2014. Thankfully that is no longer the case.
Overall, the C7 Corvette will be smaller than the current version in hopes of reducing the vehicle’s weight in order to create a more efficient, better performing sports car. The materials will also be upgraded for more advances composites, think carbon fiber instead of fiber glass as well as a few high tech metals like magnesium and aluminum. It is possible that with the conservative minded market, the C7 will also be powered by a smaller engine, possibly with a turbocharger.
However the big question remains. Will the C7 be inspired by the Corvette Stingray concept that we saw in the Transformers 2 movie this past summer?
The automobile industry is going through a tough on a global scale, and thing have gotten especially bad here at home, severe enough that the U.S. Government has stepped in to offer incentives to new car buyers to trade in their worthless clunkers. Both Chrysler and General Motors have gone through bankruptcy hearings and are undergoing major restructurings, at the moment it looks like Ford is standing at the top of the hill. Despite the poor outlook, the General has plans for a very bright future and they involve a few changes in the Cadillac lineup.
First of all there will be a production version of the Cadillac CTS Coupe, it will first make a debut as a concept in February and go into production in May, the road going model will then be followed up with a factory tuned high performance V-Series version a few months later. The CTS Coupe will be powered by a gasoline direct injected V6 that will deliver 270 HP. The big boy CTS-V on the other hand, will be powered by a 556 HP 6.2 Liter supercharged V8, the same engine that is found in the sedan.
Cadillac is also preparing a new concept car called ATS, the production version of the ATS will be available in both sedan and coupe body styles and is the General’s answer to the entry level luxury category dominating BMW 3-Series. While the larger Cadillac DTS is set to be replaced by a new model that is much sleeker, currently known as the Cadillac XTS, a model to be placed on top the Buick LaCrosse.
The more mundane next generation Chevrolet Malibu will go into production in 2012, while an all-new midsize model from Buick is scheduled to go into production in the next 24 months.
Just the other day Top Speed confirmed that the Toyota/Subaru sports car is a go Well today Akio Toyoda, the Japanese automaker’s new president announced that Toyota will develop an affordable, fun-to-drive sports car for the American market that will go on sale withing the next few years: "I am very excited about it and plan to fast-track it," he said at the Center for Automotive Research’s annual Management Briefing Seminar.
With this sports car Toyota hopes to appeal to a younger group of buyers for whom quality and reliability alone are not enough, however this doesn’t mean that the extremely reliable automaker is headed in a new direction with their lineup. On the contrary, Toyoda said that he wanted Toyota to refocus on core principles and the responsiveness to the consumer that led the company to become the world’s biggest and up until last year, the most profitable mass production car maker on the planet.
Toyoda said that the cost and technological challenges of making affordable, fuel-efficient cars will require industry players to work together. However, in a brief question-and-answer session, Toyoda said his company did not envision aligning themselves with another automakers saying that "Toyota is not the sort of company that is very good at alliances."
Back in July Top Speed reported that the German automaker Mercedes Benz has plans for an AMG Black Series version for the new E-Class Coupe. However according to sources at AMG, the car will not be built around making more power, but like the Lexus IS-F Evolution, will be all about weight-saving technologies and fine-tuning of the moving parts to make the most out of what is already there, like all the future AMG models.
However, Mercedes has no plans to develop a regular AMG version of the 2010 E-class coupe and there will also be no AMG version of the C-Class sedan. Instead the current C63 AMG will be replaced with a more powerful version because it is the least potent of all AMG models. While the current model delivers 475 HP, the future version will deliver somewhere between 500 HP to 525 HP.
Hopefully the lightweight approach will not only benefit handling and performance figures, but will also help a future C63 to get more than 10 MPG.
The English automotive journal, AutoCar has gotten their hands on a few more details about the future BMW 3-Series. The 2012 model is expected to be unveiled at the 2011 Paris Motor Show, and according to a source at BMW, the German automaker will offer class-leading aerodynamics, as well as pioneering the use of three-cylinder engines in the company’s full size premium vehicles.
The engine lineup will include a choice of turbocharged three-cylinder gas and diesel engines. Starting off with a 1.5 Liter diesel engine that will deliver around 150 HP, while the gas burning version will deliver 150 HP and 170 lb-ft of torque. One thing that is for certain is that all of the engines will be offered with BMW’s Efficient Dynamics fuel-saving technology. The car will remain a front-engined, rear-drive model, but will use some sort of hybrid electric assist coupled to the rear axle, meaning it will be able to operate in both hybrid and fully electric vehicle modes.
The engines will be mated to a standard 8-speed automatic gearbox first seen in the 7 Series, while the performance models will be offered with 7-speed DCT. BMW has also announced that the 2012 BMW 3-Series will move through the air with exceptional aerodynamics, the car’s coefficient of drag will measure only 0.24 thanks in part to something called an Air Curtain.
Infiniti is preparing to show the world what the next generation M class, full size luxury sedan will look like at Pebble Beach, and the parent company Nissan has just shaken a few trees by introducing the all electric Leaf. So the only thing left to do until coming out with a working model of the next generation Infiniti M powered exclusively by by a laminated lithium ion battery pack is to adapt a hybrid module into what they already have. So Infiniti will soon unveil a gas/electric powered version of the sedan in 2010, followed by a European launch later in 2011.
The future hybrid M will be powered by a 3.7 Liter gas burning V6 combined with a compact electric motor powered by the NEC lithium ion batteries. This technology was revealed this past March at the Geneva Motor Show with the ultra luxurious and even more efficient Essence Concept.
The forward looking concept was powered by a combination of gas and electric motors that delivered a maximum output of 592 HP. The gas burning 3.7 Liter V6 was fitted with a twin turbocharger setup that delivers 434 HP, while the electric motor, called a 3D Motor delivers an additional 158 HP into the mix.
A few new details have surfaced surrounding the future Toyota-Subaru compact sports car. Apparently the vehicle’s official debut will be made at the end of 2011, however it will be powered by a smaller engine than originally anticipated in order to reduce emissions and increase fuel efficiency.
Under the hood the automakers will keep the 2.0 Liter boxer engine, except that instead of having 200 direct injected horses on tap, at the moment it will only make 160 HP, some 40 HP less than previously anticipated. The gears will initially still be shifted by a 6 speed manual transmission with an automatic version being offered later on.
One of the future AE86’s keys to success is a lightweight fun to drive formula, so weight for the future Toyobaru sport compact is expected to be around 1200 kg. The engineers will have to keep off every unnecessary pound in order to get the most out of the detuned power plant.
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