To review a century of history in just 1 minute can be pretty difficult, especially if you want to highlight those special moments that made you famous. Somehow, however, Audi did it with the release of a video that tells the story of over 100 years of Audi innovation in just 60 ticks of a the second hand.
According to Audi, the video tells the story of "doing things that have never been done before. And doing them until they’re perfect." It starts with the first Audi built, then continues with the Audi 100 and all the way up to the quattro all-wheel drive, ASF space frame technology, the iconic TT, motorsports and all the great things Audi has offered and continues to offer.
In developing the story behind the video, Audi was inspired by the words from the poem, "It Couldn’t be Done" written by the late poet Edgar Albert Guest: "He started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn’t be done, and he did it.”
Check out the above video to see all Audi’s 100-year summary.
A few days ago, BMW was positively beaming in reporting about its latest achievement. No, Bimmer didn’t introduce a new car or win any races. What it did was set a new world record and a pretty impressive one at that.
Actually, the record for longest drift was set back in February by Johan Scwartz while piloting a BMW M5 and covering a ground of 47.71 miles. Well, it didn’t take long for Schwartz to break his own mark, besting it over the weekend at the BMW Performance Center near Greenville, South Carolina.
This time around, Schwartz, using the same BMW M5, managed to run a total of 322.5 laps around a circumference of 841 foot circle. All told, he was able to travel a distance of 51.278 miles - while drifting.
When news of the record-setting mark first hit our news feed, BMW kept a video of the attempt under the covers. But now, Bimmer has finally released it and you can enjoy the whole show when you click past the jump.
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Sony is celebrating Gran Turismo’s 15th anniversary with the announcement of the sixth installment of the series. Gran Turismo 6 was announced today by legendary Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi and will be released later this year. Sony’s exact wording in the press release was “Holiday, 2013,” but we are unsure if that is a typo or if it means Christmas of another holiday. We are awaiting a reply from Sony on an exact release date.
Gran Turismo 6 will bring a total of 1,200 cars; it will retain the models from Gran Turismo 5 and will add new ones, including historic, road and race cars. The game will also offer a stunning new tracks and cars, and a revised user interface.
The new GT6 will also add 33 locations - including seven all-new ones, with 71 different layouts available; 19 of the layouts are brand new. There will also be regular additions of new tracks available online.
The celebration of 15 years of Gran Turismo event at Silverstone included a demo of GT6, featuring the famous Silverstone circuit itself. Guests were able to play the game in the familiar circular Gran Turismo race pods before having a chance to take to the real track in cars provided by Audi, Ford, Jaguar, KTM, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Toyota.
Click past the jump to learn more about the new Gran Turismo 6 features.
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Now this is a ride we have been waiting to see for a very long time!
Chris Harris - our favorite presenters when it comes to reviewing performance cars - was invited by Porsche to test a pre-production version of the 918 Spyder. Of course, when you receive an invitation like this, you forget the fact that you are not testing the finished car, that there is no time to prepare and that you only get three laps in the driver’s seat; you just take the first plane and go for the quick spin.
So, what do you think, was Harris impressed by the upcoming 918 Spyder? We bet he was, after all the 918 Spyder is powered by a V-8 engine combined with a pair of electric engines, one powering the front axle and one on the rear.
This system delivers a total of 887 horsepower and 920 pound-feet of torque and sprints the car from 0 to 60 mph in just 2.8 seconds and up to a top speed of 202 mph.
One of our favorite parts was watching the Porsche rep in the passenger’s seat as Harris whipped the crap out of the Automaker’s £20 million project. It looked like he was on the verge of tears at certain points.
One of the most hyped parts of Lamborghini’s 50th anniversary is the Grande Giro parade, a four-day grand tour that will feature over 350 Lamborghini supercars, all of which began their tour at Lombardia, Italy before it finished off at Bologna on the 10th of May. From there, another day of driving ensued before the parade of Lambos reached their destination at company headquarters in Sant’Agata Bolognese on the 11th.
Needless to say, the whole parade was chronicled by Lamborghini itself. That’s what happens when you celebrate your 50th birthday. You take the time to make it as special as it can be.
In addition to all the special-edition supercars that Lamborghini has unveiled as part of its celebration, including the absolutely bonkers Egoista, the Grande Giro parade has to be considered one of the finest ways to blow out the candles on Lamborghini’s 50th birthday.
Having all those Lamborghini owners sharing in the event only made the parade that much more special.
Click past the jump to watch the four-day Grande Giro parade through the eyes of Lamborghini
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Subaru BRZ is a nice sports car, but with quite a disappointing output for real car addicts out there. Luckily for us, where Subaru decided to stop at just 200 horsepower, Crawford Performance comes into focus and increases the output to more than double.
By adding a new turbo, replacing the standard exhaust system and doing some ECU upgrades the tuner obtained an output of 450 horsepower. There are no official detail on the peak torque, but it looks like it has been tripled, so we guess it is somewhere in the 450 pound-feet area. Now, this looks like a number more suitable for a sports car, no?
The guy over Drive took this car out for a test drive in an attempt to see how the updates improved the car’s performance and phenomenal dynamic features. According to them, this package managed to "add to the BRZ’s performance without taking away from it’s character."
Click past the jump to see Drive taking the Crawford-tuned BRZ to task and to read more on the base BRZ.
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Mercedes already announced its intention to participate in this year’s Mille Miglia road rally and today it’s Jaguar’s turn to announce its lineup for the Italian revival rally. The British company will enter the rally with three C-Type models, three XK120s and five new F-Type sports roadsters.
Jaguar has curated a unique team for its Jaguar Heritage Racing entry, including six-time Olympic cycling champion Sir Chris Hoy, Le Mans winner Andy Wallace, Sir Williams Lyons’ grandson Michael Quinn, 20th Century Fox chairman Jim Gianopulos, fashion designer Salvatore Ferragamo Jr, David Gandy and Yasmin Le Bon. All we can say is that this year’s Mille Miglia rally is shaping up to be quite an interesting race.
This video shows Jaguar Chief Development Engineer Norman Dewis joining some of the 2013 team at Goodwood Motor Circuit in an exclusive driver training session.
Mille Miglia 2013 will be held from May 16th through May 19th, 2013.
In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past month, you might have missed out on the Dubai Police’s lineup of new cars. And if you didn’t know any better, you might have guessed that this was some kind of ostentatious joke by the Middle Eastern country.
But the latest video seems to suggest otherwise, as three of the cars dressed up in the PD’s now famous white and green livery were filmed patrolling the highways of Dubai. That, or the police just wanted to show motorists - that includes you, Justin Bieber - the kind of cars that will be hunting them down should they decide to break some traffic laws.
These cars aren’t Ford Crown Victorias, fellas. These are some of the fastest and most powerful cars on the planet and if you think that you can provoke them to a car chase and get away with it, well, we don’t like your chances one bit.
Click past the jump to see more of the Dubai Police’s cop cars
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Lamborghini’s 50th anniversary is gearing up to be quite a celebration for the Italian automaker. Numerous plans have already been unveiled, including a number of special edition Lamborghinis, including the Lamborghini Aventador LP720-4 50.
From this special-edition model that’ll undoubtedly get the attention it deserves from buyers, another highlight celebration for Lamborghini is the Grande Giro.
After much hype and buzz, Lamborghini officially kicked off the Grande Giro and boy, did it do so in grand style.
Painstaking preparations were made to ensure that all the Lambo exotics participating in the long-distance run were in tip-top shape. From the classic Miuras to the modern-day Aventadors, there are no shortages of Raging Bulls participating in the event. And the video above gives us a close look at all the preparations and the start of Grande Giro.
Now that’s how you celebrate your 50th anniversary. Bravo, Lamborghini!
Click past the jump to read more about Lamborghini’s Grande Giro run as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations.
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Hennessey is far and away one of the best American tuners and this time the tuner focused its attention on a Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8. Equipped with the tuner’s HPE650 package, the model was taken to the racetrack and put to the test on the 1/4-mile.
The results were pretty impressive for the Grand Cherokee, as it ran the 1/4-mile in 12.6 seconds at a speed of 110 mph. The updated SUV sprints from 0 to 60 mph in just 3.9 seconds.
The HPE650 package includes: new ported cylinder heads; a custom air intake; a TVS2300 supercharger; stainless-steel, long-tube headers; an upgraded fuel system; and an optimized ECU. With these updates, the SRT8 delivers a total of 650 horsepower - up from the standard 470 horsepower.
Let us know in the comments section below if you like the updates offered by Hennessey for the Jeep SRT8.
