One thing that Tiff left out of the instructions was how to handle a jump. The driver of this Subaru Impreza looked like a pro flying through the air at over 100 MPH. It’s a shame that the Japanese automaker withdrew from WRC competition; they definitely established themselves as a serious automotive competitor through the all terrain racing series. Hopefully through their partnership with Toyota, the upcoming rear wheel drive sport compact will add a little more of that bad boy attitude back into their lineup.
Certain automotive enthusiasts have a particular lust for certain makes and models that can lead them to do crazy things. Some spend ridiculous amounts of money, some dedicate a little too much elbow grease and other do both. Their quest to obtain the vehicle of their dreams often ends with half built cars, clutter garages and broken marriages; but for some reason they strive on. Fortunately there are a few instances where all of the benefits can be had with none of the nasty drawbacks. One suck lucky car builder is Coen Donkers from Holland. Donkers was a fan of a particular Audi race car, but being that the real thing is over twenty years old and in limited supply, Coen decided to build himself an Audi Sport Quattro.
When Donkers picked up the car that would eventually become what you see before you, it was a wrecked shell of its current self, but luckily for Coen, he runs an Audi parts shop in Veghel, Holland. So he already had garage space for the project and a team of mechanics that could work on it in their down time. Coen decided to keep things simple, replacing the bent bodywork and work out pieces with all new OEM parts. Despite the Audi Sport Quattro replica’s wild appearance, the exterior is stock, it is just covered in graphics inspired by the rally car from the 1980s that make it look so radical.
Ken Block is back with an all new Subaru and plenty of BFGs in the highly anticipated sequel to the original Gymkhana video starring the DC Shoes owner behind the wheel. This time Ken is sliding around in a rally inspired2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI built by Crawford performance. In order to top the Segway circling antics of the first Gymkhana video, Ken had to call in few friends to help out. Like MTV’s Rob Dyrdek and satelite radio’s Jason Ellis; the crew at Mad Media also brought along a big bag of props to take Gymkhana 2: The infomercial to the next level.
Here to help you get through the beginning of the work week and just in time for a lunch break, we here at Top Speed bring you the award winning short film, Climb Dance. The video features rally legend Ari Vatanen in the Peugeot 405 T16 climbing Pikes Peak in a way that you have never seen before. Enjoy!
Even if the Ford Fiesta hasn’t been properly introduced to the American market, the blue oval brand is planning on sending a few of its rally based machines to compete in the classic American test of man and machine, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Taking place in Colorado on July 19th, completing the Race to the Clouds is just as much of an accomplishment as setting a record around the Nurburgring, and just as difficult.
In order to reach the summit, drivers must negotiate 12.42 miles of winding mountain road, there is imminent danger awaiting just around each one of the course’s 156 turns and while rising the 4,721 feet to the peak, drivers will have to adapt to everything from paved highways surrounded by pines to loose gravel surrounded by nothing more than wide open blue Colorado skies.
The vehicles will be heavily modified rally cars based on the Fiesta hatchback, and will be powered by 2.0 Liter Duratec Ford four cylinder engines, capable of putting out over 800 HP each. Ford will bring Swedish Rally Champion Andreas Eriksson and World Rally legend Marcus Grönholm to try and conquer the mountain.
Yesterday we were pretty bummed out to report that the Focus RS was definitely not coming to the U.S. However, after seeing this video from Ford showing the rally version of their new Fiesta in action, things are going a little better. The rally inspired Fiesta is called the R2. Although there are no turbos under the hood of this sporty little subcompact, the naturally aspired, 2.0 Liter engine looks like more than enough to make a party out of the Fiesta.
Let’s just hope that Ford doesn’t decide to make it another one of those Europe only deals.
ESPN and Disney are teaming up to bring the action sports excitement of the X-games to the big screen to provide a full 3-D experience. Although the film will feature other athletes like Olympic Snowboarding Gold Medalist Shaun White and skateboarding legends like Bob Burnquist and Danny Way, we here at Top Speed are most excited about the inclusion of Subaru pro driver Travis Pastrana.
Pastrana has made history earning 9 Gold Medals at the X-games. He started out his racing career straddling a two stroke and was the first person to execute a back flip on a motocross bike, an act that jumpstarted the entire freestyle motocross scene. But it doesn’t end there, just last year he did the unthinkable, a double back flip. He also competed in Supermoto, an event that combines off road and track racing and of course Rally behind the wheel of his World Rally Blue WRX.
Everybody’s favorite Group B contender, the Audi Sport Quattro, could be making a comeback in four ringed showrooms as early as 2012. The Audi Quattro, also known as the Ur-Quattro was a milestone of automotive engineering. When others said that 4 wheel drive was too heavy to be competitive Audi laughed. Mating their now infamous quattro all wheel drive system to a turbocharged 5 cylinder engine made them a force to be reckoned with from the European FIA rally stages to the American Pikes Peak Hill Climb, the Quattro dominated them all. So it is no wonder that the Volkswagen brand will bring back the championship winning name.
The new Quattro will be based on the A5 chasis and include a 425 HP turbocharged V6, an R8 inspired front end and thanks to Audi’s aluminum construction the vehicle should weigh in at less than 3000 pounds. Priced at around €70,000 (almost $90,000) the new iteration of the classic Audi is sure to become a collector’s item.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Group B car, or just want to see it in action again, check out the videos after the jump.
Ken Block is an interesting individual. He has already established himself with Subaru as a rally racer. Now he is reinventing himself, and his car, to promote this unique motor sport. Gymkhana is a type of auto cross where participants must drive around cones in a specific pattern as opposed to driving through sets of gates. This time Ken has replaced the cones with some rather large man made obstacles.
Proton’s cars usually don’t get much time on TopSpeed because they have traditionally been, well, boring. But the economy carmaker has always had an ace up its sleeve: it owns Lotus. Now it may be using the British brand to help it dominate the rally car circuit.
It seems there is a perfect storm brewing. Subaru is dropping out of the World Rally Championship, which is leaving a big hole for a new competitor to fill. Proton has already got a racer called the Satria Neo S2000 (based on the Lotus-tuned R3 Satria). What can really bring this all together is the driver, and ex-Subie champion Petter Solberg is rumored to fill that role for Proton.
If Proton were to go through with plans to compete in the WRC, it could possibly finally get the brand some worldwide respect. After all, rallying took Subaru from its “cheap and ugly” days and gave it bedroom poster status.
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