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Sunday, January 4, 2009
It is not a fantasy or science fiction.It is real!Now an eight wheel car has arrive as its attempt at ridiculous speeds using alternative energy. An automative team from Japan engineers have built this eight wheeled electric monster you see here and proved along the way that an eight wheeled car is twice the car a normal one is.
Using a lithium-ion batteries to operate, the appropriately named Eliica is capable of a top speed of 402km/h and a contra
dictory range of 321km. What a very fast speed using the alternative energy.It achieves this speed using electric motors that power all eight wheels individually and each of the electric motor will produces around 80hp, and by now you should be able to understand how the Eliica achieves its speed and 0-100 time of under four seconds.
The project start developed in 2003, two examples of the four-s
eater hypercar currently exist but the team is working overtime to raise sponsorship to build more. According to our source, the team may just get its break as the Japanese government’s interest in electric vehicles grow. If and when that happens, 200 units will be made for a price of around USD$255,000.
Toyota Racing Development have created the TRD Tundra Street Concept, a vehicle which has been lowered, charged, restyled and most importantly significantly customised to satisfy SEMA 2008's performance-seeking crowds.
Based on 2007's Toyota Tundra and featuring the stock 5.7-litre DOHC VVTi V8 engine, the Street Concept hosts a range of supporting technical and styling upgrades, namely starting with the supercharging and intercooling of its V8 powerplant. The Eaton Roots-type supercharger features integrated air-to-liquid intercooling, while a TRD cold air intake system provides the necessary air flow improvements. A stainless dual exhaust and uprated TRD brake system also join the technical upgrades.
Modified suspension arrives hand-in-hand with a stance-enhancing lowered ride height and is joined by a revised front grille and front fascia, restyled bumper arrangement, new bed cover and integrated spoiler in creating a more aggressive look. A custom red paint job and 16-inch forged alloys complete the restyle. Inside and leather touches adorn central console and inner door, while seat fabrics also get the custom touch.
Labels: Toyota
Friday, January 2, 2009
Number 1:Volkswagen GTI W12 650 Concept
VW Golf GTI W12 with the rear seats ripped out and replaced by a twin-turbo, six-liter W12, driving a whopping 650 horsepower and 530 lb-ft of torque through a faux-paddle-shifted six-speed automatic to the rear wheels.
Number 2:Metro 6R4 Group B rally car
Developed by Williams Grand Prix Engineering, the Metro 6R4 bore only a passing resemblance to the staid budget hatch on which it was ostensibly based. It alternatively wore Austin, Rover or MG badges under the British Leyland umbrella, and drove up to 380 horsepower from its mid-mounted 3-liter DOHC quattrovalve V6 to all four wheels. The engine was so advanced that it ended up, in twin-turbo form, powering the Jaguar XJ220 supercar
Number 3: Renault Clio V6
The 3-liter V6 drove 252hp to the rear wheels, which propelled the Clio V6 to sixty in 5.9 seconds. Poor power-to-weight meant that the mid-engined version wasn't much faster than the more conventional Clio 172 Cup on which it was based, but the bottom line is that the Clio V6 is the only one here that was actually offered commercially. And that's why we love it.
Number 4:Sbarro Ferrari Super 8
Sbarro started with a Ferrari 308 GTB, with a shortened frame and custom bodywork. The standard 3-liter 260hp V8 drove through a five-speed manual to...you guessed it...the rear wheels. Only one example was said to have been built, in follow up to the Super Twelve that was powered by two Kawasaki 6-cylinder motorbike engines
Number 5: Ford Festiva Shogun
The perfect car, then, to turn into an exotic, and hot-rodders Chuck Beck and Rick Titus did exactly that. Replacing the standard four-banger, Beck and Titus took the Yamaha-developed 3-liter V6 from the Ford Taurus SHO and dropped it behind the front seats. The requisite chassis mods followed, and hilarity ensued. The car could hit 60 in 4.6 seconds, cover the quarter mile in 12.9 and reach 1g of lateral acceleration. Only seven examples were made, each of them in a different color.
Number 6:Renault Megane Trophy Concept
The French automaker, indisputable king of the mid-engined hatch, said the car was capable of lapping the track about as fast as a Porsche 911 GT3, which is quite a benchmark. Based on the new Megane III, the Trophy featured a 3.5-liter Nissan-sourced V6 driving 360 horsepower to the rear wheels through a six-speed sequential.
Number 7:Nissan Micra R
Nissan picked up the torch in 2004 with the Micra R concept, packing a 265hp race-spec engine in the trunk that could propel the one-off to sixty mph in under five seconds and on to a top speed in excess of 150 mph
Number 8:Toyota Aygo Crazy
The car essentially crossed a micro-hatch with an MR2, placing a turbocharged 1.8-liter four in the back, surrounded by a roll cage, but no power brakes, power steering, traction control or ABS. 197 horsepower in a 1000kg package was good enough for a spring to sixty in less than six seconds
Number 9:MTM Audi TT Bimoto
Audi was built by an aftermarket tuner. And instead of moving the front engine on the standard model to the back, MTM opted to supplement it with a second engine. The pair of 1.8-liter turbo fours drove 505 horsepower through a pair of six-speed manuals to all four wheels, propelling the special TT to a Nardo speed record of 245 mph, hitting sixty in 3.1 seconds along the way.
Number 10:Matra Murena
The Murena featured three-across seating, the seats were arrayed in a bench with conventional offset steering and a middle seat that folded flat into an arm-rest. In an odd twist, Renault would end up building a one-off mid-engined concept based on the Espace years later with the 820hp V10 from the Williams-Renault F1 car, which warrants honorable mention at the end of our list.
Kicherer has realised the value of absolute power by putting in some outstanding work into a Mercedes-Benz CL 65 AMG. The car is Benz's finest work as far as the
For the exterior they chose a few changes, headlined by 9 and 10 x 20" Kicherer RS-X lightweight wheels, carbon fiber mirror shells, rear diffuser, front grille and front apron whose deflector is also of the black light stuff. The exhaust system is a mirror-finished affair with four tailpipes, and supposedly makes the most glorious of sounds.
Inside as expected the CL 65 receives velvet glove treatment, from the alcantara ceiling, carbon intarsia, to the nappa leather seats, and handmade hand-worked shag pile carpet for the back. And now for the numbers you want. Kicherer has managed to squeeze out 38 more stallions out of the engine to give it a well-rounded 650 hp/ 486kW and oak-pulling 1200Nm. A rear diff lock helps plant it firmly on tar. For that you get 0 - 100km/h in 4.2 seconds and a limited 320km/h for your top end.
Labels: Mercedes
Despite the problems Ford is experiencing right now, such as the utter and complete meltdown of its domestic market, it's still making the Ford Mustang just a fun car.
Ford Racing has released a slate of race-ready Mustangs and this latest is what Ford calls the FR500CJ, and what we, who prefer names rather than soul-less numbers to describe things, will know as the Cobra Jet.
This latest Cobra Jet harkens back to a better time for Ford -- a time when it held a considerable lock on its share of the US market. More specifically 1968, when Ford won the NHRA Winternationals with its then Cobra Jet and helped solidify the Mustang as a legendary American sports car. Only 50 of those original Cobra Jets were built and if you happen to have one in your garage right now, then you won't have to worry about the current global recession hitting your local economy.
Also, you can order one of these at your local Ford dealer. Which, at least, means that Ford is serious about putting these cars out there and not just up for show at SEMA.
Oddly, Ford Racing doesn't yet provide any (real) numbers on performance. But you can guess it comes with some tweaked variation on the 4.6L V8 found in the Mustang GT, which produces about 325 hp.
Labels: Mustang
There are cars, sports cars, supercars and then comes...what? Well, then comes this 599 GTB Fiorano by tuner Novitec Rosso who make this Ferrari's numbers look a lot like the Italian carmaker's F1 car.
We have 808 ph, 823 Nm of cranking capacity and a top speed of more than 340 km/h. Track times are 0-100km/h in 3.5 seconds, 0-200km/h in 9.7 and 0-300km/h in 25.5 seconds. If you're giving out numbers on your 0-300km/h time, you have confidence in what you're putting out there on the street.
The Novitec Rosso's Bi-Kompressor V12 adds 188 hp and 215 Nm of torque from the 'factory' 599 GTB (factory must come in quotes since Ferrari builds its cars by hand, not by assembly line). The price for this newly tuned engine is 46,900 euros, which comes to about 250 euros for each additional horse.
Novitec Rosso is a tuner with top engineering capabilities. This tuning work includes aerodynamic improvements and the largest street-legal brake parts with steel discs and six-piston brake calipers. The press release provides all the nitty details.
Further pricing quotes were not released but you can expect them to be astronomical for this is as exotic as tuning gets.
Labels: Ferrari
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Supercar Ford GT500 is mechanically an evolution of the previous model.Ford used the current-gen Bullitt model as the starting point for the 2010 Mustang GT, the lessons learned from developing the limited edition GT500 KR fed directly into the latest Shelby-badged variant. Output of the supercharged 5.4L V8 has now been cranked up to 540 hp and 510 lb-ft of torque, and the handling is claimed to be better than before.
Compare with the old GT500, this new supercar model gets more aggressive styling, particularly in the nose, and reprises many of the same detail elements. The horizontally mirrored trapezoidal shape of the grille in the upper and lower front fascia is meant to echo the oval shape of the Shelby Cobras of the '
60s. The upper grille is tilted forward at a steeper angle than the GT and the grille surround is separated entirely from the hood. The hood of the GT500 still has a functional air extractor allowing some of the massive heat generated by the blown V8 to escape.
The engine for this supercar is still a twin cam 5.4L V8 with a supercharger. The updates bump output from from 500 hp at 6,000 rpm to 540 hp at 6,200 rpm. Twisting fo
rce also goes from 480 lb-ft at 4,500 rpm to 510 lb-ft at the same peak speed. The iron block from the F-150 was used with the top end of the GT engine, which pushed the car's weight up over 3,900 lbs.
The top two ratios in the new GT500's gearbox have been made numerically lower. The clutch plates for supercar GT500 have been increased in diameter from 215 mm to 250 mm. All that torque flows from the Tremec 6-speed gearbox through a limited slip differential with a 3.55:1 final drive ratio. The 2010 GT500 gets 17% stiffer springs at the front axle and 7% stiffer at the rear axle.








