Speed

Here at TopSpeed, we’ve got a closely guarded secret, but we’ve finally decided to spill the beans. See, for the last 10 years, we’ve been on Santa’s advisory board and are tasked with helping him plan his annual trip around the world. Usually, we advise him of what new vehicles are best for transporting presents and help him plan out his trip. However, this year, he asked us to kick it up a notch and help him design an all-new sleigh that will not only give Rudolph and the rest of the gang a much-needed rest but will also get him around the world in style and luxury. It took us four months just to decided which model to start out with, but in the end, we developed the GTC4Lusso Sleigh 2.0.

Santa is more than happy with the sleigh we’ve come up with, and it’s already been through extensive testing in preparation for the big day. Based on the 2016 Ferrari GTC4Lusso, you know the big man is traveling in luxuriousness, and he can obviously get there quickly too. But, there’s a lot more than what meets the eye. See; this isn’t your everyday GTC4Lusso – this baby is loaded to the gills with the type of magic that only Santa can make possible. So, this thing carries a considerable amount of power over the standard 6.3-liter V-12 and, despite appearing small, has enough cargo room to haul enough presents to hit half of the world in one trip.

But, before I get too far ahead of myself, Santa’s already hard at work navigating his way to the homes of kids all over the world. So, let’s dive on in a take a look at the GTC4Lusso Sleigh 2.0.

Besides being as American as hot dogs, the 2020 Chevrolet Corvette C8 and the 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 sit at the very top of their respective makers performance pyramid. Sure, the Blue Oval also has the Ford GT muscle to flex, but for now, we’ll focus on the two, specifically how quick ar they to 60 miles per hour from a dead stop. Turns out, the mid-engined C8 is the nimbler of the two, despite holding an obvious power disadvantage. How’s that possible? Bear with us to find out.

An additional workforce of 400 workers could have some severe ramifications on the production output of the Corvette C8 at its Bowling Green plan. Now with 1,300 workers in total, the plant is ready to achieve record production numbers and enable the Corvette C8 to make record-breaking sales. I will remind you that back in 2014, GM flipped more than 34,000 units of the Corvette C7. With the mid-engine layout, and, I hold my hopes, an affordable price, the C8 could topple that easily. To show you the sheer importance of the new Corvette C8, I will tell you how its production stack up compared to the most significant mid-engine cars in the world.

The year was 1969. The “Skyline” name had already been introduced 12 years prior, first by Prince Motor Company, and then by Nissan in 1967 after the two companies merged. Two years after the merger, Nissan introduced a sports car based on the Skyline, and, among other things, it carried a three-letter nomenclature that has arguably become one of the most famous names in the entire industry: the GT-R. Fifty years later, the GT-R is still used today as the name of Nissan’s all-conquering supercar. It’s fitting then that the Japanese automaker that created the line of performance cars wearing the GT-R name is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the model with a special edition version, appropriately called the Nissan GT-R 50th Anniversary Edition. In line with its stature, Nissan debuted the GT-R 50th Anniversary Edition at the 2019 New York Auto Show.

Pretty much every rally highlight video in existence includes some hero pinning it over a crest, engine bouncing off the rev limiter, all four wheels spinning through the atmosphere. It doesn’t get much more dramatic than jumping a car, but as Team O’Neil explains in this 6-minute video, there’s a bit more to it than planting your foot and death-gripping the steering wheel.

Chevrolet recently confirmed that the much-speculated and awaited mid-engine avatar of the Corvette is not a myth. The Chevrolet C8 will officially debut on July 18th. Since then, people have kept a keen eye on the proceedings of the C8. Now, Chevrolet has announced that it will add a second shift of workers, more than 400 hourly jobs, to its factory in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Although GM has added the additional workforce by speculating an unprecedented demand for the C8, will this strength be restricted to the C8 only?

Style, speed, power, beauty - these are the words often associated with the Prancing Horse badge. For more than seven decades, Ferrari has been a guiding light in the performance segment, bringing race-derived innovation to the street and drool-worthy posters to bedroom walls. Few marques bring the same level of respect as Ferrari, and to celebrate, Budget Direct put together the following 4-minute, 25-second video chronicling its evolution. As an added bonus, we’ve also included four images that perfectly capture Ferrari’s history in poster form.

Aston Martin just unveiled the 2020 DBS Superleggera Volante! Framed as the convertible version of the brand’s hugely desirable DBS Superleggera coupe, the Volante pairs all the usual grand touring awesomeness with endless drop-top fun.

Mounted in that shapely frontend is the same engine as the hardtop DBS Superleggera, namely a turbocharged 5.2-liter V-12 producing 715 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque. Routing the power to the rear axle is an eight-speed automatic transmission from ZF.

Top speed clocks in at 211 mph, while the sprint to 62 mph takes 3.6 seconds. Keep your foot down, and the Volante will go from 0 to 100 mph in 6.7 seconds.

You’ll have eight body colors to choose from, as well as six headliner colors. Quad exhaust pipes are in the rear, while up front, the reworked aero blasts the brakes with cold air, while also reducing lift and enhancing stability. Interestingly, the new bodyworks produces up to 390 pounds of downforce at speed, just 6.6 pounds less than what you get with the coupe model.

The fabric roof takes 14 seconds to open and 16 seconds to close, but we’d recommend keeping it open to make it easier to hear that V-12 wail. Leather, carbon fiber, and metal accents make it nice inside the cabin.

Pricing for the 2020 Aston Martin DBS Superleggera Volante starts at $329,100. Look for deliveries to kick off in the third quarter of the year.

It’s no easy feat to stand out in the high-dollar world of custom Ferraris, but the P80/C manages exactly that with a unique style that has us staring. Mixing old-school inspiration with cutting-edge go-fast technology, the P80/C manages to shuck the constraints of both competition homologation and street legality, and the result is bold and gorgeous.

The Lamborghini Huracán was introduced in 2014 as the Italian supercar maker’s next-gen entry-level model, following in the footsteps of the ever-popular Lamborghini Gallardo. In January of 2019, Lamborghini revealed the second-generation Huracán EVO Coupé, and now the Raging Bull is dropping the top with the Huracán EVO Spyder at the 2019 Geneva International Motor Show. Slotting in as the second entry in Lambo’s modern V-10 stable, the Huracán EVO Spyder is equipped with the same go-stuff as the hardtop, including a naturally aspirated 5.2-liter powerplant, adaptive suspension components, and eye-popping aerodynamics. However, as an added bonus, the Huracán EVO Spyder adds in unlimited headroom, all without compromising the Huracán EVO’s impressive performance capabilities.

Update 03/15/2019: We’ve updated this review with fresh images of the 2019 Lamborghini Huracan EVO Spyder that were taken during the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. Check them out in the gallery at the bottom of this page!

The 2019 Geneva Motor Show is coming to a close, and as the dust settles, it’s time to take a moment and reflect on all the big debuts that swept across the Palexpo convention center. Unsurprisingly, sports cars and all-electric powertrains occupied a good deal of available real estate this year, and Piëch Automotive’s Mark Zero stood out as a fantastic example of how to combine the two into a single niche vehicle.

Koenigsegg dropped a bombshell at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show when the Swedish automaker unveiled the Jesko hypercar, the follow-up model to the record-breaking Agera. All eyes naturally gravitated towards the beautiful exotic, but just as company CEO Christian von Koenigsegg started talking shop about the Jesko and it’s all-conquering capabilities, he made mention of a “sister car” that prioritizes performance over downforce. There’s no official name to that model yet, but for now, von Koenigsegg calls it the “Jesko 300.” If you need to ask what the “300” in the name signifies, then you need to start paying more attention to the real-world stakes in the auto industry’s hypercar segment.

The McLaren 720S Spider is the roofless version of one of the most revered models in McLaren’s Super Series. McLaren’s Special Operations division (MSO) brought a one-off 720S Spider to the Geneva Motor Show to show off the kind of modifications possible with a run-of-the-mill 720S Spider. The result is a tri-color beast with tons of exposed carbon fiber.

Are we getting to the point when personalization has gone too far? Henry Ford used to say that you could have any color on your Ford Model T as long as the color was black. Now, every luxury manufacturer brags about its "nearly infinite" choices, and depending on how deep are your pockets, each is willing to open before you a whole world of options. The MSO division offers multiple worlds, one for each of McLaren’s models, and the 720S Spider has just joined this exclusive group at the Geneva Motor Show.

I’d wager most folks reading this would agree that, by and large, Ferrari knows how to make a good-looking car. That much is obvious with the 2020 Ferrari F8 Tributo, which arrived at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show looking like a heaping slab of tasty speed machine slathered in shiny blue frosting. All told, the F8 Tributo has us quite optimistic when it comes to the Prancing Horse’s styling future.

The 2019 Geneva Motor Show certainly has no shortage of ultra-fast, ultra-expensive machinery on display, but British-based boutique automaker Ginetta hopes to rise to the top with the public debut of the 2020 Akula supercar. Mating Le Mans-derived go-fast equipment, low-weight carbon-intensive construction, and a legit street-worthy cabin, the Akula looks tempting. But can it steal the spotlight at an event popping at the seams with excessive horsepower?

It’s no secret that consumers are flocking to the high-performance SUV segment, gobbling up any and all tall-riding, corner-carving, hard-accelerating ‘ute along the way. BMW is well-versed in this space, and now the Bavarians are taking advantage with the new 2020 X3 M and X4 M. Sporting turbocharged six-cylinders, tons of rubber, and just about every physics-defying tech-trick in the book, these machines looks poised to bring some serious heat to the segment.

The Toyota Supra has been dissected and prodded over in recent days like no debuting car in recent memory. It’s fitting, then, that the sports coupe is still generating headlines, this time regarding the possibility of a Nurburgring lap time and Toyota’s expectations on what time it can clock if it ended up doing a lap around the famous race track. Apparently, the Japanese automaker believes that the Supra could turn in a lap time of 7:40, even if it ends up running into its speed limiter on the track’s long straight. Whether Toyota actually has plans to bring the Supra to the ‘Ring is still unclear, but if it did, it should be a spectacle in it of itself, even if the incentives of actually running a lap aren’t that great.

Following the debut of the 2020 Porsche 911 at the 2018 Los Angeles Auto Show, Stuttgart is dropping the top with the new 2020 911 Cabriolet, and it’s bringing all the good stuff as the hardtop, plus a few unique features to help you better enjoy the extra headroom.

The little town known as Acquetico in Italy recorded a mind-boggling 58,568 speeding violations in just two weeks! After residents, largely comprising of senior citizens, complained about speeding vehicles on a certain stretch of road, the Mayor decided to install speed cameras that may now become permanent fixtures thanks to the results.

Are you of the opinion that there’s entirely too much young blood in motorsport? Are you tired of seeing 16-year-olds drive with audacious precision, incredible consistency and pace and humiliate the old and experienced? Well, now, the old have a place of their own: the Series Elite one-make championship for drivers over 50 years of age.

Jaguar is barely getting the I-Pace eTrophy series off the ground, one that’s supposed to give Formula E race-goers a little more bang for their buck. At the same time, a private initiative called Series Elite is trying to increase Jaguar’s footprint in racing by launching its own championship using Jaguar XE SV Project 8 cars. It’s supposed to be a series centered around wealthy gentleman drivers who are at least 50 years old and want to bang door handles in Jaguar’s most extreme sedan to date.

Series Elite expects to have a grid of 20 "mature drivers", as they put it, by the time the series kicks off next May. The 20 XE SV Project 8s that will be put to work by the 20 well-to-be adrenaline junkies are set to be slightly modified for track use but Series Elite stated that they can be turned back to the road legal specification quite quickly.

Subaru is one of the most revered names in rallying history and, along with archrival Mitsubishi, has been absent from top-level WRC competition for a decade. Now, however, Japanese sources point to a possible resurgence of the Subaru WRC program.

Subaru built its reputation in rallying over a relatively short period of time. the Subaru World Rally Team was formed in 1989 and was active for less than two decades from that point on. But, in those two decades, Subaru put forth some of the most amazing machines ever seen on the WRC scene and promoted some of the sport’s most beloved drivers with names like Colin McRae, Richard Burns and Petter Solberg immediately springing to mind.

Sadly, Subaru isn’t part of the WRC anymore, although a no-limit rally car based on the Impreza has been seen competing to this day, however, it’s mainly racing in Asia and the Rally U.S.A. series, not in Europe. This is all about to change if rumors regarding a return of the Subaru World Rally Team in 2020 turn out to be legitimate.

One of the coolest advantages of electric powertrains over internal combustion engines is that power and torque are available instantly. And this is one of the reasons why the Tesla Model S is the quickest production car with a 0-to-60 benchmark of only 2.5 seconds. Now, Tesla wants to put the Model 3’s instant torque to good use on the race track through a new driving mode. It’s called Track Mode and turns the compact sedan into a drift machine.