German tuner, AC Schnitzer, has blown our minds yet again with another speedy creation based off of a cool, yet uninspiring in power, model. Their new Raptor Concept is based on the MINI John Cooper Works Coupe and has just officially become the fastest Mini on the world famous Grand Prix circuit in Hockenheim. With a lap time of 1:10.87 minutes, the new Raptor has catapulted itself into the premier league of real sports cars, making it faster than the previous AC Schnitzer Eagle by about 1.11 seconds.
In order to obtain this impressive result, AC Schnitzer had to optimize all areas of the vehicle. The job started with the engine where the output was increased from 211 HP to 300 HP. A new exhaust system was added and the total weight was reduced by 220 lbs. The tuner also added a sport chassis with adjustable height and, of course, a new set of 18" lightweight metal rims.
Check out the video to see the Mini John Cooper Works Coupe Raptor by AC Schnitzer in action!
The history of the Vauxhall Victor began back in 1957 when General Motors first unveiled it to the British market. It was a large family car with 55 HP that was built to take families from point A to point B. You don’t need to be a genius to understood that this car had nothing to do with impressive performance level. That being said, we are 100% sure that when Vauxhall brought the Victor onto the market, they never believed that it would become the world’s fastest road-legal drag racing car. With some "minor" modifications to its power source, of course.
In fact, here at TopSpeed, we first reported about the Red Victor 3 back in 2010, when this project was in its early development stages. Now, since it turned out not to be just some guy’s trifle, we decided it was time to offer up a little more information on it.
The Red Victor 3 is based on a 1967 Victor FD - the fourth generation Victor - and is the result of a collaboration between VXR and the Red Victor team. You can only image the hard work the team put in to take the car from the standard 88 HP (the amount of power developed by the FD) to the impressive 3000 HP it currently pushes out. Yeah, you read that right; a whopping 3,000 HP!
Hit the jump to read all about the Vauxhall Red Victor 3, including its stats achieved at the 2012 FIA Main Event at Santa Pod. At this event, the Red Victor 3 became the world’s fastest street legal car, achieving an astounding 6.59 seconds at 220 mph.
We understand if you’re a little bewildered by what the title states. Trust us, when we found out about it, we shared the exact same sentiments.
We know that there are some unusual world records out there, but to be honest, we had no idea that there’s now one that involves the farthest distance you can catch a golf ball in a moving car.
How come we’ve never tried that before?
In any case, F1 legend and AMG brand ambassador David Coulthard used a 2012 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster to accomplish the feat, a record that is now in the process of being entered into the Guinness Book of World Records.
For the record-setting attempt, Coulthard was joined by pro golfer Jake Shepherd with the latter being responsible for driving the golf ball as Coulthard blasted his SLS AMG Roadster. From 900 feet where the ball was struck - at a speed of 178 mph, no less - Coulthard managed to catch the ball while driving at a speed of 120 mph.
And the best part of this record-setting attempt? It only took two tries for David to catch the ball with the supercar.
Nevertheless, the unusual nature of the entire activity wasn’t lost on the F1 icon. “This world record attempt is definitely one of the most unusual things I’ve ever been asked to do with a car," Coulthard said.
"Jake Shepherd was great to work with and the performance of the SLS AMG Roadster made driving to catch a mid-air golf ball even more exciting. I am honored to have received the Guinness World Record for the furthest golf shot caught in a car.”
The video of the stunt will be released next month. So for now, check out the photos released by AMG of how it all went down.
It’s a mundane and tedious task that no one likes to do and everyone avoids like the plague, regardless of the fact that we all had to learn it before getting our driver’s license. That’s right; we’re talking about the squeezing your car between the front bumper of one car and the rear bumper of the other, also known as parallel parking.
Some people are really good at this task, especially those that live in larger cities that have primarily street parking (see: New York City) and some of them are really bad. The guys in the above video are definitely in the former category, as they set the Guinness Books record for the tightest parallel parking job multiple times, constantly one-upping each other.
The first driver of the red Mini Cooper manages to perfectly drift this sub-compact ride into a space that is just 21 cm (8.3 inches) longer than his car, which sets the record. He then gets beaten by a second driver that hits 20 cm (7.9-inches). The back and forth continues until the record is finally set in stone at 15 cm (5.9 inches).
Guinness uses the term “parallel parking” pretty loosely in this sense, as there is no attempt to pull the car out of the tight space, which is a part of parallel parking. We definitely think that the record should be set by the person that can get the car into the tightest space then out of it without contacting another car, but we are sticklers for reality.
Enjoy the video as these high-performance parkers slide their way into curb-side-parking fame.
As most already know, this past weekend, the Laguna Seca circuit was home to the Ferrari Racing Days, a great event that gives owners involved in the XX and F1 program the opportunity to show off what they’re working with. The Laguna Seca Raceway is one of the most challenging circuits in the world, so any achievement should be considered newsworthy, but Ferrari took the cake at their won event by setting a new, albeit unofficial, record.
Ferrari has just announced that during their Racing Days, Marc Gene set a new lap record at the wheel of the F2003 GA Formula 1 car. During a free practice session, Gene completed a time of 1.05.78, beating out the previous record set by Sebastien Bourdais on March 10, 2007 in a Panoz DP01 Champ Car (1.05.88) and Ricardo Zonta’s time of 1.06.30, set in a Toyota TF106 F1 car on August 20, 2006.
This is still an unofficial record for now, but we’re sure Ferrari will take care of that soon enough.
The new car, which we now know as the Monster Sport E-Runner Pikes Peak Special, looks like an actual LMP1 prototype with plenty of GoPro cameras installed on it. The blue LED stripe headlights even add a mix of Batmobile and K.I.T.T from Knight Rider to it.
Having said all of that, the Monster Sport E-Runner Pikes Peak Special means serious business as Tajima is looking to set not only the electric car record, but also best his own record time in the Unlimited class. Tajima, a six-time defending champ in Pikes Peak, will most certainly be one of the top contenders this year, even if he’s going to pilot a new toy that a lot of people know little about.
From what we do know about the car, it looks like it’s been given the full-on carbon fiber treatment, complete with a pod-like driver capsule that’s encased by a full-on roll cage. Those aforementioned LED lights are also an attractive sight as are the matching set of blue rims. Meanwhile, the plethora of vents and scoops on the car’s body clearly suggests that the racer is ready to throw down at Pikes Peak next month.
Different car, same results, right?
With Monster Tajima behind the wheel, we’re not about to doubt that.
James Glickenhaus’ Ferrari P4/5 Competizione just proved one more time has just proven yet again what a fantastic machine it is. According to Jalopnik, during the 24 Hours of Nürburgring qualifying round, the supercar lapped the famous Nurburgring in just 6:51. This makes it the fastest Ferrari ever around the Nurburgring, smashing the previous record of 6:58.16 held by the Ferrari 599XX. All Glickenhaus had to say about this impressive result was: "I think it’s pretty cool!" However, he did invite Ferrari to come and challenge their supercar.
As most people already know, the Ferrari P4/5 Competizione was built on a Ferrari 430 Scuderia and, for this year’s 24 hours of Nürburgring, combined a hybrid drive system with a 4.0L V8 engine. This new hybrid system is very similar to the KERS system used in Formula 1 cars and added an extra 80 HP to the car’s total output, leaving it with an impressive 563 HP.
Back in March 2012, the Hennessey Ford GT became the fastest car at Texas Mile with an impressive top speed of 257.7 mph. Now, the supercar has set a new world record. With Sean Kennedy behind the wheel, the Hennessey GT posted a new standing half-mile record of 219.9mph in the half mile. This impressive result was achieved at the 8,000-foot runway of Ellington Airport, the Houston Half Mile.
The Hennessey Ford GT that established this impressive record was powered by an Accufab Racing V8 engine updated with two Precision Turbochargers for an impressive output of 2000 bhp. By comparison, the most powerful Hennessey Ford GT is the GT1000, a model that has a Twin-Turbo 5.4-liter supercharged V-8 engine that produces 1,000 horsepower at 6,600 rpm. The GT1000 has a 0-60 mph time of 2.8 seconds, a quarter-mile time of 10.6 seconds at 142 mph, and an increased top speed of 245 mph.
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!
A little while ago we reported that Daimler – former owner of Chrysler – was about to give up on yet another one of its brands. This time it is not the middle-class Chrysler lineup, but instead it is the extremely expensive Maybach lineup. Daimler’s not even making an attempt to sell it, it’s just axing the failing company altogether.
In light of its upcoming release, Daimler is trying to rid itself of every last one of these nearly half-million-dollar machines. It is now taking drastic measures by adding in a $100,000 rebate. We’ve heard of crazy rebates upwards of $10,000 on some high-end cars, but $100K, really?
Then again, ridding itself of the remaining $376,000 Type 57 and the $427,000 Type 62 is not going to be an easy task. Maybe cutting the price by nearly one-third and one-fourth, respectively, will do the trick. Besides, reports say that Maybach loses roughly $500,000 on every model it sells, so what’s another $100K per car?
After this whole snafu, it appears that the “Maybach” name will again remain dormant in the automotive world, which it did from 1940 to 1997, for a very long time to come. So if you want an ultra-luxury car “on the cheap,” that may soon be worth tons of money as a collectable, swing on down to Maybach, if you can find a dealer, err, “studio” anywhere, and claim your cool $100K rebate.
We’re curious to see what kind of crazy restrictions there are to getting this rebate. We all know there is some kind of catch. Missing out on a $1,000 rebate due to some weird financing requirement ticks us off enough; missing out on $100K would likely send us into a small temper tantrum.
