Racing

On the River Thames, in the heart of London, and on the deck of a 105-meter ship known as St. Helena, Alejandro Agag, Formula E Founder and CEO, announced a new electric SUV race series called the Extreme E. This is a whole new motorsport project that will take electric race cars to the most remote places on Earth. Continental Tires, the Founding Partner of Extreme E, provides full support to the project and it will, naturally, supply tires for the electric race SUVs. The outline of the Extreme E race event includes up to 12 teams, with super powerful electric off-roaders that will travel the world on a former Royal Mail ship and race at the most lonesome and secluded destinations.

It is an epic global mission that will showcase electric SUVs and their off-road proves in racing format, and, even more importantly, raise awareness of climate change with equal gist. The transport ship St. Helena will be home to electric SUVs that are at the very frontier of what the automotive world can achieve. Apart from cars and tech, St. Helena’s quarters will host teams, engineers, and crew involved with the Extreme E project. This ship will basically transport racing enthusiasts and their beloved SUVs to the most awesome racing venues where they’ll have a ton of fun. Let that sink in a bit. No pun intended.

For that fact alone, I can only say that this is, ladies and gentlemen, “the biggest adventure of our time.” Those are the same exact words that Agag proudly chanted during the Extreme E introduction.

All of this is so overwhelming that I am left speechless. And, as if this weren’t enough, the experience will be available via digital streaming service. I mean. Perfect! This is #cargasm in making.

Just one glance will confirm - Ken Block’s Hoonitruck is a combination of creativity, performance engineering, and unbridled insanity. In fact, it’s a bit like Mr. Block himself in that respect. We love picking apart all the cool little bits and pieces Ford added to this one-off smoke machine, and now we’re getting an inside look at the Hoonitruck’s unique 3D-printed intake manifold.

The IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship kicked-off in grand style with a rain-soaked 57th running of the legendary Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. Many great stories emerge from last weekend’s twice-around-the-clock enduro around the Floridian Roval, and we’re going to look at eight of the most striking.

The Daytona International Speedway, home of NASCAR’s Daytona 500, has been hosting endurance races since 1962 but, this year’s race will go down in history as one of the wettest and most riveting, with changing conditions actually ending the proceedings early, after just 23 hours and 50 minutes had elapsed. The big story, of course, was Fernando Alonso’s victory in the No. 10 Konica Minolta-sponsored Wayne Taylor Racing-entered Cadillac DPi-V.R he co-drove with Jordan Taylor, Renger van der Zande, and Kamui Kobayashi. However, the topsy-turvy event that opens IMSA’s anniversary season was action-packed in all four classes, making us already anxious for the 12 Hours of Sebring.

Besides Cadillac, we had three more class winners. BMW bagged a lucky victory with their larger-than-life M8 GTE in the GTLM category, Lamborghini won back-to-back in GTD with the Grasser Racing Team that also scored the victory 12 months ago, and Elton Julian’s DragonSpeed operation won in LMP2 despite both of the cars suffering a number of accidents and the leader actually crashing out moments before the second red flag.

What you’re now looking it at is a 1/8 scale display model of one of the prettiest F1 cars ever, the 1991 Jordan-Ford 191. It’s the exact car in which Michael Schumacher made his F1 debut at Spa-Francorchamps 28 years ago, and it will set you back about as much as a running and driving BMW X5 from 2005.

Model cars are the best way to own the cars of your dreams if said cars are million-dollar exotics or rare racing cars. The Jordan 191 is such a car and, while any Schumacher fan would be glad to park one in his or her garage, you’ll need to locate one of the very few chassis built for the ’91 season and then proceed to piece together a full-blown racing team with enough mechanics and engineers onboard to make the thing run again. As such, it’s much cheaper to buy this model car that’s eight times smaller than the original, so you can forget about occupying a whole garage spot with it.

At this time of the year, F1 teams are generally working on making the perfect car for upcoming races. But McLaren F1’s sister, McLaren Applied Technologies, has imagined what F1 in 2050 would look like and has already developed a concept. Talk about being visionaries! Moniker’d the MCLExtreme, this concept looks very interesting, and we are already hyped up about it. For starters, the cars will be all-electric and ripping the tracks with speeds up to 310 miles per hour!

With Peugeot exiting stage left, it seemed like Mini and Toyota would battle it out for the victory in the 2019 Dakar Rally and, indeed, it was Toyota man, Nasser Al-Attiyah, who delivered the goods, winning in a commanding fashion as his nearest rivals faltered.

The 2019 Dakar Rally, which keeps being a mislabeled event as it’s been taking place in South America for a decade already, proved grueling although the competitors never went further than Peru. It was the first time since the inaugural edition that the Dakar didn’t travel across more than one country, but that didn’t mean it lacked in either excitement or drama.

The idea that NASCAR will one day turn to hybridization isn’t new, but this switch might happen sooner rather than later if the words of Ford Performance Global Director Mark Rushbrook are to be believed. It’s not earlier than this summer that Brad Keselowski, the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, was playing the advocate’s role for "F1-like" hybrid technology by using a KERS system to harvest energy as well as electric motors to back the gas-powered V8s. Many fans might be against electricity finding its way even in NASCAR, but there are reasons to look forward to such a change, no matter how radical it sounds.

Just as Forza Horizon 4 received the Mitsubishi Car Pack this month, Forza Motorsport 7 is getting in on the action, too, with its own car pack. Turn 10 Studios’ flagship game received its first updated of 2019 last January 15, and part of that update includes the Barrett-Jackson Car Pack. Seven vehicles are included in the car pack, and all seven fall in the category of historical collectible models, each with its own unique history. There are no modern cars included in the pack — the most recent in terms of year built is the 1975 Ford Bronco Barrett-Jackson Edition — so if you’re a fan of vintage vehicles, this is the pack for you. The Barrett-Jackson Car Pack is available as a separate purchase at a price of just $6.99. Players who own the $29.99 Forza Motorsport 7 Car Pass can get the pack for free.

The last time Subaru shone brightly in the World Rally Championship, a scarcely-believable 16 years ago to be precise, Petter Solberg drove a blob-eye Impreza covered in blue and the golden logo of the company to take the world championship home to Norway. Now, those colors are back, but only to Rally America and various Rallycross events that Subaru competes in.

It’s been a long time coming but it’s finally happening: Subaru of America announced that the works racing outfit, Subaru Motorsports will compete in 2019 proudly displaying the classic Subaru World Rally Team colors. The design has been tweaked to keep up with the changes that occurred to the Subaru badge itself but, otherwise, it’s the same livery that was rocked by the GC and GD Imprezas of old.

The Hyundai Elantra GT N Line did not come alone to the North American International Auto Show in Detroit; it has the 2019 Velostar N TCR for company. This race car from the South Korean is eligible to race in the 2019 International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) Michelin Pilot Challenge series and the 2019 Blancpain GT World Challenge. Doesn’t it feel tempting to own a car that has raced the tracks?

Poland-based rally racing outfit M-Sport has launched the Ford Fiesta R2 rally car; it’s ride-of-choice for the 2019 WRC Junior Rally Championship. The new racer is the first car to be designed and built from M-Sport’s new facility in Krakow, Poland. It’s also the first racer to be built to the latest R2 specifications. Further adding to its list of “firsts” is the distinction of being the first Ford-backed rally car built out of the new-generation Fiesta. All competitors in the 2019 WRC Junior Rally Championship will compete in this car. The winner of the series will be promoted to the WRC2 series where they will compete in a Ford Fiesta R2 in the 2020 season.

The factory-backed Mini X-Raid team returns to the Dakar rally with both the Mini All4 Racing model loosely based on the Countryman and the two-wheel-drive Transformers-esque Mini John Cooper Works Buggy. Their aim? To win. The main hurdle? Japanese manufacturer Toyota and its Hilux trucks.

Believe it or not, Mini has made quite a name for itself in the world of rally raid in the past few years. The X-Raid team that manages the BMW-funded program has won the event four years in a row between 2012 and 2015 before Peugeot’s breakthrough win in 2016 followed by a Toyota success in 2017 and a return to form for Peugeot last year.

Now, Mini’s assault will be massive with a total of five all-wheel-drive Minis as well as three two-wheel-drive Mini buggies all aiming for that coveted first spot in the overall classification. They’ve surely got the driving talent needed to win this bigger-than-life event with Carlos Sainz, Stephane Peterhansel and Cyril Despres all aboard, but can they dodge all the curveballs that the rally throws at its competitors? The rally starts in merely two days, and it’s crunch time!

The Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport is a track-only version of the 718 Cayman developed for customer use. It replaces GT4 Clubsport that Porsche introduced in 2015 and represents a notable update over the outgoing model. Unlike its predecessor, it’s offered in two distinct versions: Trackday and Competition. The GT4 Clubsport Trackday was built specifically for amateur racing drivers that like to spend weekends at the race track without participating in FIA events. The Competition model features a more complex suspension system, and it’s a direct replacement for the old GT4 Clubsport, as it is eligible for GT4-spec competitions in Europe, North America, and Asia. According to Porsche, the new race car features improved driveability, and it’s capable of quicker lap times.

We’ve already seen a number of videos this holiday season where companies show off their most outrageous Christmas tree carriers. GIrardo & Co., a company that specializes in the sale of rare vintage and modern machinery, tried their hand at this kind of video too. Their vehicle of choice? A 1997 WRC-spec Subaru Impreza formerly driven by the late Colin McRae.

Colin McRae was the only driver part of the Subaru World Rally Team that drove in each of the 14 rounds of the 1997 season. He won five rallies that year, including all of the last three, but ultimately fell short of winning the title, gathering 62 points to Tommi Makinen’s tally of... 63 points. The Impreza you see here is the car he piloted in the grueling Safari Rally which he and Nicky Grist won ahead of Richard Burns and six-time Kenyan Rally Championship winner Ian Duncan.

By the time its production cycle had ended, in 1992, the F40 was officially the most successful car ever built by Ferrari with over 1,300 units sold in its five-year lifespan. It’s now an icon of the Prancing Horse and, while prices tip over $1 million, you can still find one quite easily, although U.S. spec examples are rarer. Still, the street-going F40 has nothing on one of these: the ultra-rare, ultra-insane, F40 LM that was built for that famous old race in France.

Ferrari released the outrageously under-equipped F40 in 1987 to mark the company’s 40th anniversary. It was the fastest road-going car at the moment of its debut with a top speed of 201 mph, breaking that much-lamented 200 mph mark, and the last Ferrari to be given the blessing ’The Drake’ himself.

With such extreme specs, it wasn’t long before the F40 would hit the track, although Ferrari didn’t originally intend for it to happen. It first raced Stateside in the IMSA GT series before also competing in the Italian GT Championship and, more prominently, in the BPR Global GT Series of the mid-’90s, by which time the production version was relaxing in retirement for a few years already.

Revolution Racecars revealed the Revolution - a car that is to become a racing sweetheart, just like the Radical cars were in their day. I am mentioning Radical cars for a reason. The man behind Revolution Racecars, Phil Abbott, is actually one of the founders of Radical Supercars. No better man could have been tasked with the creation of an all-new sports car company.

This is the Revolution Racecars Revolution - a V-6 powered race car that will go for $130,000. A bargain for a race car and especially considering the performance it offers.

The Renault-Alpine A110 is one of the most famous rally cars of the two-wheel-drive era. It reigned supreme in the days before the WRC became a thing and this, the 1800, built to Group 4 specifications, is the swansong of the A110 and ran in 1974 and 1975.

The original Alpine A110 was launched in 1961 as the successor of the A108 which shared parts with Renault’s Dauphine. This time by, Paul Redele and his men relied on parts from the compact Renault 8 sedan. The car had a similar design to the A108, again with a rounded nose and straight-cut rear as well as bulbous headlights.

The A110, in its later versions, claimed numerous rally wins which made Alpine the 1971 champions in the International Championship for Manufacturers. This A110 was built for the 1974 season as one of only nine works-supported cars that year. It managed a best finish of second in the Tour De Corse but proved to be overwhelmed by the newly-homologated Lancia Stratos with its mid-engine configuration.

After months of teasing, it’s finally here - the tenth installment of Ken Block’s iconic Gymkhana series. This time around, the Hoonigan crew went above and beyond, cutting together a variety of cars and locations to create one seamless automotive extravaganza. This one is pretty epic, folks.