It seems there is new and special star among the performers- Porsche 911 Carrera, Corvette ZR1, Renault Megane R26.R on the Nurburgring circuit. For the first time to make a record in the famous race, the Nissan’s X-Trail FCV finished the 20.8km course in 11.58 minutes. The X-Trail Fuel Cell Vehicle, the fastest car of its type, gets power by own produced electricity onboard, in a hydrogen fuel cell stack. The car can reach 150km/h and has a range of 500 km, the maximum output being 120PS and a torque of 280Nm.
“I was very surprised at just how comfortable it is to drive a fuel cell car. You get in, turn the key and off you go, just like with a normal car. Although some of the uphill sections were challenging, the speed was still very impressive.” said Frank Eickholt, member of the Nissan 24 Hours Nürburgring race team.
Shelby Supercars is promising to next year unveil a SSC Aero Ev, a fully electric version of their Aero model. Powered by a 500 horsepower electric motor, the Ultimate Aero EV will have true supercar performance. Additionally, SSC is exploring the potential of a twin 500 horsepower electric power plant producing 1,000 horsepower in a 2 or 4 wheel drive configuration. This car should break all electric car speed records.
In Shelby’s press release they stated, "The drive train under development will feature a revolutionary power source allowing for extended time between charging intervals with the possibility of several years between charging." Years? Really? They have left many people scratching there heads with that statement.
"I think we can do it faster, leaner and cleaner than any other manufacturer," says SSC boss Jerod Shelby, clearly not a man given to understatement. Whatever Shelby have planed, they know it is going to be big. While these cars are not going to be in everyones garage it might make enough of a splash to make engineers start looking at batteries rather than cylinders.
Shelby Supercars are set to unveil the first prototype in February 2009, with production cars appearing at the end of next year.
NASA has been the course via which mankind has for all these ages gone into space, disembarked on the moon, and done some much-needed outer space walking and floating gymnastic feats. Its space rockets boast of several thousands of horsepower and million torques which assists them in the escape from the gravitational pull of the earth and to overcome the drag generated by the planet’s atmosphere.
So what comes about if you attempt to drive such a vehicle horizontally rather than vertically? You’ll end up having the travel of your lifetime.
In an effort to smash the existing land speed record of 763 mph, Gary Faules, NASA Mentor Director, is gearing up his ’fast’ vehicle. Hold your breath, since here’s the moment where we discuss its specifications and statistics.
Gary’s jet fighter for the road, will exercise a J-79 turbojet engine which was used in the F-4 Phantom. In addition, they say it will use a ’small’ 6,000-pound thrust liquid propellant motor to boost the speed to assist Gary, achieve the landmark of 800 mph. So, how much power then?
39,000 hp!
For a vehicle that weighs 13,000 pounds and puts forward 39,000 hp, fuel-consumption figures are hardly a consideration. However, fifty gallons for a mile (50 gpm and not 50 mpg) is what will block you from taking it out on the freeway or to the local instant-coffee place. The 70-foot blaze that emerges out the err.. big tailpipe, has the possibility of scarring living things like humans who can mistake the vehicle for a big-sized meteorite.
The automobile would cost 10 million dollars that includes developmental, engineering and non-recurring costs. The whole topspeed team wishes this brave man Gary, all the very best, and we desire that he can break the record and perhaps grant us a free test drive at a future date.
Ultima GTR has already impressive performances: 0-60mph in just 2.6 seconds, a standing quarter mile time of 9.9secs @ 143mph, 0-100mph-0 in just 9.4 seconds. And now Ultima wants their car to have a Nurburgring lap time below 6mins 55secs.
The road tired 231mph Ultima which was driven to the circuit, was on target during public testing to create history by recording a sub 7 minutes lap of the Ring thereby setting a new outright road car lap record, but unfortunately severe rain on the day that the track had been exclusively booked by Sport Auto Magazine for the record run meant that a fully verified attempt wasn’t possible.
Ring specialist and pro driver Tom Coronel was employed to pilot the car to the new record and was staggered with the pace that the Ultima GTR had to offer during his public testing of the car in dry weather conditions.
He commented: "The Ultima GTR720 is the most powerful and by far the fastest road car I have ever driven. It’s an absolute missile and a huge buzz to drive! The guys at Ultima Sports have a product which is a very special machine indeed. The Ultima is an extremely well developed and sorted package. I am confident I can set a new lap record time of below 6mins 55secs for a lap as measured by Sport Auto Magazine in this car. I can’t imagine any other road car ever being able to compete with the overall performance envelope that the Ultima has to offer."
Take that GM. Toyota is one of the global leaders in the field of Automobiles. Their commitment to make fuel-efficient and clean engines has fetched them an award at the prestigious International Engine of the Year Awards this year.
But don’t assume it’s because of the Prius and veer away from the rest of this article. Toyota’s Polish-made, 1-litre three-cylinder 67bhp gasoline unit as found in the Toyota’s own Aygo, Yaris, Echo and Vitz and in the Citroën’s C1, Peugeot’s 107 and Subaru’s Justy came out successful but not without some tough competition.
In the sub-one litre category things couldn’t have been any better. The final contestants were Mitsubishi’s 84bhp 999cc three-cylinder turbo and Daimler’s 45bhp 799cc diesel unit, which is recognized as the world’s smallest direct injection diesel engine. Interestingly both those engines at present serve the Smart Fortwo city car.
But that didn’t bother our winner. The main reasons behind its success was its feather like weight, tipping the scales at 67 kg, it is no wonder this is the world’s lightest internal combustion engine.
The technology that goes into making such a light package isn’t rocket science. The use of a light weight material like aluminium to construct it helps achieve this feat. Aiding the cause futher is its extra-small cylinder bore-to-bore distance (wall thickness between bores is just 7mm), and the use of a light weight resin throttle body and fuel delivery pipe. The air intake system and engine cover is an integral piece, a design first for Toyota, a weight-saving initiative.
The panel was also impressed with its Variable Valve Timing system (VVT-i) technology, which holds responsibility for the smooth acceleration, a crucial factor that won this award for Toyota.
This engine is literally a fuel-sipper. 4L/100km on a combined cycle is as good as its gets, giving it another entry in the record books as one of the most fuel efficient engines in today’s cars. A figure of 109g/km of CO2 emissions speaks for itself and strengthens the point that this victory is a well deserved one.
For those who don’t know, Foliatec is the German car films pioneer specialized in covering all sorts of exterior parts of the cars as well as car windows. In order to break the world record in covering a car with profesional film fitter folioCar the German company used a modified Audi R8 by ABT Sportsline which was finished in exactly 2 hours, 25 minutes and 16 seconds. A good time of we consider that normally a car is covered in 2 days!
The intrepid husband and wife team drove a completely standard Peugeot 308 HDi 110 hatchback on a 25 day, 9,000 mile journey around the coast of Australia. During the record breaking journey they broke two world records by recording an unprecedented 1192 miles on just 60 litres of diesel fuel and an average fuel consumption of 90.75 mpg.
The Peugeot 308 HDi 110 hatchback now holds the World Record for both the highest average fuel consumption on a journey, a record previously held by a Peugeot 307 hatchback, and the record for the furthest distance travelled on a full tank of fuel.
John Taylor, one half of the economical driving duo explained the unusual journey: “We were very aware of the strong environmental credentials of the 308 before we set out on this journey; but we had no idea, however, that it would be such a record breaker. For us, the Peugeot 308 is the perfect family car; it can comfortably seat five adults and during our 25 day trip, the boot space proved itself too, swallowing up all of our necessary luggage.”
The Flatmobile recently entered the Guinness Book of Records as the lowest street legal car: the car is only 48 cm in hight!
The Flatmobile was built by Perry Watkins, a huge fan of the ’60s Batmobile (this is also where the name comes!) The car is powered by a jet engine fitted behind the internal combustion engine at the very rear of the car. It is a home built gas turbine jet engine based around a Holset 685 turbocharger from a Volvo FL10 lorry.
You may think that Leonid Stadnyk, 37 years old and 2.58 meters, is a very happy man. After all he was registered in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2007 as the world’s tallest man. But when you don’t have a proper car to drive then you are not that happy!
To solve his big problem he send a letter to the Ukraine’s president asking to find him a proper car. The president didn’t ignored the letter and with the help of the government they offered him a Chevrolet minivan, modified at the ZAZ plant, in Zaporizhia.
Although he doesn’t have a driving license at the moment, Stadnyk said he will solve this problem soon. Until then he will only be a passenger to the car.
Stadnyk start growing really high when he was only 14 years old, after a brain surgery.
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