There’s no doubt in anybody’s mind that Ferrari is one of the most recognizable brands in the world.
In today’s world of social media, the Italian automaker has taken advantage of its worldwide popularity to draw in a ridiculous amount of fans on its Facebook page, proving without question that pretty much everybody and their mothers know what the Prancing Horse badge is.
Recently, Ferrari celebrated a pretty significant Facebook milestone after earning 8 million fans on Facebook. So what did they do to earmark this occasion?
They decided to bring a Ferrari 458 Italia to an empty road and let the mighty Ferrari supercar drift to its heart’s content. But more than just the burning rubber and the smoking tires, the drift stunt itself carried its own significant message, one that will be revealed at the tail end of the video?
What exactly is this message? Well, stop waiting for answers and just watch the video.
Last week, we announced the debut of Behind The Smoke Season 2, as we watched Dai and the Falken team get ready for the upcoming Formula D season, after Dai took home the championship last year. Episode 2 just hit the web over at GT Channel and we have the video (above) here for you.
In this episode, Dai is getting ready to take on qualifying for the first race of the season at the Streets of Long Beach circuit. His first run, netted Dai about an 81, which was where he wanted to be. On the second run, Dai pulled out a 90.5, which allowed him to qualify 6th for the upcoming race.
In all, this episode is chock-full of all types of sideways action with tons of beautiful tire smoke. What’s really sweet is these guys put a camera inside the car, facing the front, so you can really see what Dai sees as he whips his 240SX around the track. You get some real kick-ass audio of the engine working away in those shots too. We also found out that even the reigning champ of Formula D gets scared sometimes.
While you’re watching, keep an eye out for three quick cameos by the bearded and fearless drift fan, Bil Baldwin. Let us know in the comments if you see him and the times that he appears on the screen.
Crank up those speakers and click "Play" on the above video. It’s 11 minutes of smoke and squeals that you won’t regret seeing!
When we start digging into racing, drifting in particular, the fans really don’t garner much of our attention. That is until we meet the Santa Claus of drift fans that has both an awesome white beard and a brass set of ball bearings.
This bearded fellow, named Bil Baldwin, has made quite a name for himself at Long Beach Formula DRIFT events. He is not famous for running onto the track in just his Fruit of the Looms or anything like that. He’s famous for not fearing these speeding drifters, regardless of the fact that they are sliding just inches from his legs.
Yup, this long-bearded fellow stands at the edge of the wall coming out of a turn and allows the cars to get within six inches of his legs. Sometimes, as you can see in the above video, the cars even smash into the wall just before they reach him, sending debris flying toward this brave man. Like a well-trained boxer, Bil bobs and weaves out of the way of the soaring debris, then quickly looks back to the track so he doesn’t miss a second of the action.
He clearly is a brave soul and Formula D seems to be accommodating to his fame, allowing him to continue standing in this dangerous position, regardless of the safety issue. We all love racing and we are particularly enthusiastic about drifting, but none of us would put ourselves there.
So here’s to Mr. Baldwin and his white beard and overall jeans flowing in the draft from passing drifters. It’s only a matter of time before Formula D decides that it’s a little too dangerous for him to be there. Until then, enjoy the hell out of it, Bil.
A little while ago, we informed you that the Mustang will likely be heading overseas officially. That’s not to say that the Mustang hasn’t made it anywhere outside of the U.S., as savvy importers have always found ways to get these muscle cars into their countries.
Last year, The Mustang Club of Poland made a sweet video about their collection of `Stangs, proving that these muscle cars do make it to other countries and thrive. Now Brazil has gotten into the video fun by releasing a video of its own, commemorating the 11th anniversary of The Mustang Club of Paranà’s founding. Kind of a strange anniversary to celebrate, but so be it.
The video is pretty awesome, featuring Mustangs from multiple eras. The most shocking of the bunch was to see two, yes TWO, Mustang IIs in the film. It’s funny though, as all of the other `Stangs are burning up pavement, doing donuts, and burning the rear tires to a molten pile of rubber, the Mustang Pintos, err, `Stang IIs sit on the sidelines or drive leisurely down the road. We’ve gotta give them some credit for not being afraid to include the deuces in the film.
In all honesty this video was cool, but the Polish video was far more kick ass. Yeah, the Polish club’s video started off slowly, but severe tire roasting commenced about three minutes in and never stopped. Add in the fact that the Polish video was better edited and had cooler shots, it beats out the Brazilians.
Enough with the comparisons, you can judge for yourself. The Brazilian club’s video is above and you can see the Polish club’s video here.
The 2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 is considered the most powerful Camaro in the world, one that comes packed with a 6.2-liter supercharged V8 engine that produces 580 horsepower. On its own, the Camaro ZL1 is already a pretty impressive piece of muscle.
But whereas some may be perfectly happy with its stock configuration, others still seek something more powerful.
That’s where Redline Motorsports comes into the picture. The Florida-based tuning company took a Camaro ZL1, added a high-capacity cold air intake, Redline Motorsports’ proprietary camshaft, upper and lower pulleys, headers, improved heat exchanger, performance torque converter, and Mickey Thompson drag radials. All these modifications not only gives the Camaro ZL1 a hell of a lot more bite, but also an increased output of 750 horsepower and 700 lb/ft of torque. These numbers are good enough to allow the Camaro ZL1 a record quarter-mile time of just 10.34 seconds with a top speed of 134.79 mph.
Hit the jump to see the Chevrolet Camaro by Redline Motorsports in action!
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We know there are some people out there that firmly believe drag racing is relatively safe. After all, it only involves flooring the throttle and keeping the car in a straight line, but don’t be confused, drag racing is one of the most dangerous sports in the world. Not only is the risk of literally getting airborne during a race always present, but some cars are just so fast and so extreme that they literally blow up, as happened at last weekend’s qualifying session at the zMAX Dragway.
With the exception of jet powered cars, NHRA funny cars are pretty much as fast as they come and in a good run they can complete the quarter-mile in less than 5 seconds. No, really, your eyes are not deceiving you, that is more than twice as fast as the incredible Bugatti Veyron, so hopefully you now have an understanding of how dangerous the sport is.
As you’ll see from the accompanying video, the car being piloted by Matt Hagan was in the lead but just milliseconds away from winning the session, his car literally blew up sending debris across the track and effectively ending the life of one very expensive drag car.
It’s currently unclear how the explosion occurred, but it seems to have originated in the engine bay, just in front of Hagan. Amazingly however, Hagan was able to walk away from the incident with no injuries except those to his pride, as this is the third consecutive year one of his cars has decided to spit the dummy.
Subaru has unveiled a very cool two-part documentary presenting the development process of their 2013 BRZ sports car. This video talks about the car’s low center of gravity, the new platform, suspension, the steering and driving position and stability control.
And, as a reminder, the 2013 Subaru BRZ is powered by a 2.0-liter horizontally-opposed boxer engine that delivers a total of 200 HP. Subaru has announced a 0 to 60 mph sprint time of 7.3 seconds. On the US market prices for the BRZ start from $25,495.
"This movie explains how Subaru BRZ had been developed and engineered by Subaru with the details of the ultimate low center of gravity, the new plat form, the high engine power unit, the suspension, the steering and driving position, and the vehicle stability control. All were engineered just to realize "Pure Handling Delight".
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Crashing a regular Lotus Exige is bad enough, but crashing an Exige so customized it could pass as a completely different car is something else entirely. Frank Profera built the car pictured completely by hand over the past six years, even fitting it with both a supercharger and turbocharger to help it produce in excess of 700BHP.
As a result, Frank claimed on the video past the jump when Matt Farah drove his one-off masterpiece for the Drive channel that it was the fastest Lotus in the world, even trumping the incredible Hennessey Venom GT in the twisty roads of the Californian canyons.
Unfortunately however, the car was recently involved in an incident on California’s Route 101, where Frank claims he was rear-ended by a Porsche before sliding backwards into the median strip. In what can only be described as an all-out attack on the Porsche driver, Frank posted a comment on YouTube continually swearing at the driver and taking no responsibility for the incident himself.
Just like any other car crash, there will undoubtedly be conflicting views in how it occurred, and if Profera is to be believed, the Porsche driver didn’t stop and instead continued on their merry way. Thankfully no one was injured in the accident, and the damage only seems to be external, but it will take weeks if not months for the owner to fix all the custom body panels.
Follow the jump to see Profera’s car in action and the pictures.
Models like the Volkswagen Sirocco R and the Ford Focus RS are hits on the European market, so it’s not surprising to see them get put next to each other on the Nurburgring race track for a little competitive action. The two cars provided quite a show tooas you will see in this video which is about eight minutes long. Take a seat and enjoy!
As a reminder, the Volkswagen Scirocco R is powered by a four-cylinder 2.0 liter TSI engine that delivers 265 HP and 258 lbs-ft of torque. On the other side, the Ford Focus RS is powered by a 2.5 liter 20 V DOHC RS engine that delivers 300 hp and 325 lb-ft of torque. The Volkswagen can hit a top speed of 155 mph, while the Ford goes up to 163 mph.
Many years ago, I was a lowly sales person at a Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep dealership in Florida. As a sales person, you got to test drive nearly every new car and every trim level of every new car, as they came in. It was the only way to really get a feel for each car. There were only a few vehicles that we were forbidden to touch. Those vehicles were the Dodge Viper and the Ram 1500 SRT-10, because those were considered collectibles and the extra mileage could reduce their value – plus they knew what we would do with them.
This is pretty much standard procedure at every single car dealership, including Mercedes. The Mercedes C63 AMC Coupe Black Series is much like the Viper and SRT-10 Ram were for Dodge, simply untouchable. Apparently a few technicians at Star Motors in Ottawa, Canada did not get that memo.
They took one of the 30 models of the Black Series available in Canada out on an 8:11 joyride through Ottawa. It would be one thing if they just drove it around to look cool and brought it back to the shop safely. Nope, these techs decided to see what this AMG coupe could do on multiple occasions.
At one point, the driver mentions that in manual mode, the car does not automatically up shift. The passenger didn’t believe him, so the guy proceeds to take the car up to redline in first gear and keep it there for about five seconds. This car can certainly handle that, but as all new car techs should know, these things require a break-in period before seeing that sort of stress.
Thankfully, the snoops over at MBWorld.com recognized the dealership, and alerted officials at Mercedes-Benz Canada. Mercedes is currently attempting to track down the owner of this thrashed upon vehicle to let him or her know the scoop on the car. Whether or not Mercedes will compensate the owner with anything is not known
All we can hope is that these techs got what was coming to them by the car gods!
