When Lee Noble decided to make a living for himself, the highly motivated Briton decided that designing, building and selling his own brand of affordable super cars would be a good idea. A handful of speed machines later, including the original Noble M12 and even an Ultima GT-R, Mr. Noble’s high performance coach builders are hard at work coming up with the next generation of every man’s super car.
Mr. Noble has just announced his all new endeavor: Fenix Automotive Limited. With the line’s first launch scheduled for the end of 2010, Lee promises an ultra powerful mid engined V8 super car that can accelerate from 0 to 100 MPH in under 7 seconds and cost less than £75,000. According to the man himself, "Our new car will offer buyers performance and dynamics that they’d normally have to spend well over £100,000 to experience, but at a far more affordable price...It will combine simplicity, strength and agility, while its two-seat, closed body will ensure sensible levels of refinement for road use." With a new plan under his belt and a more than a quarter century experience honing his craft, we wouldn’t bet on Fenix Automotive to fail anytime soon.
Lamborghini launched the Murcielago in 2001 and the Gallardo in 2003, and besides from a few other special editions the Italian company brought nothing new on the market.
Bu things are about to change as the Murcielago will be replaced next year with the all new Jota, a model built on an all-new carbon fiber chassis with carbon fiber and aluminum body and powered by a 6,0 liter V12 engine with direct injection that will deliver around 700 hp.
But besides it, Lamborghini will also bring a new supercar placed under it and most likely to be called Urus. It will be built on a modified version of the future Jota and will feature a full carbon fiber body. It will use a modified version of the V12 engine from the Jota that will now deliver up to 800 hp. With a sprint from 0 to 60 mph in under 3 second, Lamborghini will want the future Urus a serious competitor for the Ferrari FX70 (Ferrari’s replacement for the Enzo).
The Japanese luxury automaker Infiniti has a bit of a restyling in the works for their midsize lineup. With a much more pronounced front end and a new set of rollers. The more aggressive lines created by the new vents in the front bumper add a lot to the Infiniti’s appearance, taking it from a rather sporty luxury car and makes it into a strong enough figure that it could command traffic to get out of the way. Hopefully these new vents are there to flow a lot more air, perhaps for a set of GT-R like intercoolers, we can only hope. This refinement is a simple alternative to a complete model redesign and perhaps we will be seeing more of this type of treatment across the entire Infiniti lineup sometime in the near future.
It might not be the first time you hear that Mercedes has plans for a smaller SLS AMG. But its now official: it will be cheaper than the current SLS and will arrive in showrooms in 2013 as a competitor for the Porsche 911. And like its big brother the baby SLS will be offered in both coupe and roadster versions. The name will most like bring back the 1928 SSK- Super Sport Kurz.
In an interview with AutoCar, a senior official said: "Mercedes’ management has been very supportive of AMG’s efforts in developing the SLS. The feedback we’ve received since showing the car at the Frankfurt motor show has been extremely encouraging. A second model that will project a similarly exclusive image but be more accessible in terms of its pricing is already in planning."
The new model will be built on the same lightweight aluminum spaceframe and will be powered by a new 500bhp twin-turbocharged 5.4-litre V8 engine that will first be used int he next CLS55 AMG.
The Audi R8 has been one of the most sough-after supercars on the planet to day so you can say that the when the its time ends, the pressure is on Audi to have something that can exceed the R8’s successful run.
23-year old industrial design student Marouane Bembli recently released his own take on what Audi’s next supercar will invariably look like.
At first glance, Bembli’s take on the R10 looks like a sure winner. It doesn’t take away too much from the styling elements of the R8 with the exception of a wider and more curvaceous body. If there’s one thing that caught our attention, we felt that those doors could’ve been made a little bigger, but that’s just nit-picking on our part.
Overall, Bembli’s work is something we feel Audi should take a look at. He even outfitted it with a mid-mounted V10 engine with a dry weight of just over 1200 kilos.
BMW’s next generation 3-Series has already taken to the road for some testing, as evidenced by a recent video shot of the car galloping around the streets of Germany in the traditional black and white camouflage. While details of the car are still sketchy, there have been reports that BMW is set to introduce a new line of inline six-cylinder engines for the brand’s new 3-Series.
The video of the 3-Series’ outdoor test run has raised some questions as to when the car will be launched. Knowing that BMW has a standard seven-year cycle with their models, 2012 should be the year when the new 3-Series is officially launched, although we wouldn’t be surprised if we see the car come out sooner than expected.
What can be smaller than the BMW 1-Series? Well apparently the 0-Series. BMW’s future baby will be a front-wheel-drive supermini, placed between Mini and 1-Series. The BMW 0-Series will debut in 2012 in both three and five-door versions as a competitor for the future Audi A1.
It will be built on the next-generation MINI platform, becoming the first-ever front-wheel-drive BMW. But besides dropping the rwd system, the 0-Series will crealy be a BMW: twin kidney grilles, front apron inspired by the 1-Series, a sweeping tailgate and subtle spoilers.
It will be offered with a wide choice of petrol and diesel engine, including a new version of the 161bhp 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbodiesel, which debuted as a range extender on the Vision EfficientDynamics Concept.
Another Japanese automobile manufacturer interested in coming up with the car of the future is Honda with their Helix designed for the 2009 L.A. Design Challenge. The Helix is made out of adaptive polymers, capable of changing everything from shape to color and even properties. Just like the DNA that makes up every living being, the Helix can adapt to three distinct driving situations: A, B and Z. The Honda Helix is capable of adapting, evolving, and conforming to the driver’s needs using insight gained from the human genome, biotechnology and environmental forecasting making it the perfect vehicle for environments ranging from the congested city streets of Japan, to the wide open highways of America.
The "A" configuration is short and wide for cities that have very tight and interwinding roads, where agility and speed allow the vehicle to easily negotiate chaotic traffic patterns. The "B" layout is long and low for the sprawling cities of the world, where the long stretches of road allow for high speed commuting. When in the "Z" configuration the Helix transforms into a tall and thin automobile for congested cities of the world, where occupants sit vertically giving the 2030 Helix the most volume per square footage of any vehicle that has come before.
The Japanese automaker Mazda is also entering the 2009 L.A. Design Challenge with the Souga, a minimalist lightweight sports coupe that is made up of experimental shapes, ornate detailing and a dramatically proportioned exterior. The Souga is the next step in Mazda’s Nagare design language with its flowing exterior and sweeping lines. The Souga is designed around VMazda, a virtual reality website that acts as a design playground for young automotive enthusiasts allowing them to experiment, build, and share their four wheeled dreams in a virtual world at no cost. The car would be sold as an affordable shell and monthly payments would be made for the electricity it consumes much like a cellular telephone bill, and because most modern digital devices have become integrated into automobiles, this eliminates the need to clutter the driver’s concentration with a host of accessories and add ons, thus simplifying the Souga driving experience.
Every year the L.A. Autoshow asks the manufacturers to envision the car of the future. This year’s Design Challenge is all about coming up with what we will be driving in 2030. The German automaker Audi is entering the competition with two very unique vehicles: the eSpira (the Aspiration) and the eOra (the Essence).
The eSpira uses next generation vehicle control logic that will take even the most minimal of body movements and gestures from the driver and interpret them to deliver the most direct driving sensation of any machine in the history of the automobile in an effort to show that the most direct, fluid form of vehicle control is only a few thoughts away.
On the other hand, the eOra is a pure sports car that has been designed to share the same control logic as the eSpira and make an extremely dynamic and efficient vehicle that is only aided by the Audi eOra’s small footprint and unmatched agility. Like a downhill skier, the eOra leans into turns and carves up the curves in the road scape with previously unseen precision. By constantly adapting to the driver’s movements and intentions, the eOra and its driver are able to move harmoniously as one, with unrivaled dexterity and superior sports car performance.
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