Watching a high horsepower dragster tearing up the strip isn’t exactly groundbreaking material—even if it is pretty awesome. That is of course unless the straight line racer in question is powered by a diesel engine you’d normally find in a school bus or a delivery truck with three turbos approximately the size of a human head attached to it. More » Read more here: Watch a High Horsepower Diesel Drag Car Hit The Strip [Video] The rest is here: Watch a High Horsepower Diesel Drag Car Hit The Strip [Video]

The very spirit of hot rodding is this: take what you have, and make it faster. When you’re done, drive it like you stole it, preferably in competition against other similarly-built cars. That formula has been the basis of street racing for nearly 100 years; what’s changed in recent years is that hot rodding, at least with big American cars, has become respectable. Instead of running light-to-light on the street, endangering both your license and other drivers, events like the American Street Car Series’ Run To The Coast allow builders to run their cars in a series of events, ranging from autocross to drag race to road course competition. The variety of cars entered is impressive, and Big Muscle host Mike Musto points out everything from a Sunbeam Tiger through a vintage Ford pickup built up from a wrecked Mercury Marauder. Musto knows a thing or two about driving, as well. He drove his own “Mr. Angry” 1968 Dodge Charger, the same car used to run One Lap Of America, in this year’s Run To The Coast. While a eighteen-foot long, two-ton car may not be nimble enough to do well in the autocross, it is capable of impressive burnouts.   See the original post: Big Muscle Runs To The Coast: Video Excerpt from:  Big Muscle Runs To The Coast: Video

When it comes to an American muscle car icon, the Dodge Challenger aspires to bring its original styling to the forefront in an easily recognizable new retro skin. The excitement does not stop there. The new 2012 Challenger SRT8 touts a serious punch in the form of a 470 horsepower 470 ft. lbs. of torque 392 HEMI V8 engine. For model year 2012, the new Challenger SRT8 gets just a few changes such as a new Sport mode and flat-bottom sports steering wheel. Just like the other 2012 SRT vehicles, the Street and Race Technology division incorporates new adjustable dampers to turn the husky chassis into a more-capable GT sports car on the lateral acceleration charts. Having tested the 2011 Challenger SRT8 392 last year with a 6-speed manual transmission, I became familiar with the monstrous proportions of power that this vehicle is capable of. For this year, the 2012 Challenger SRT8 392 with a 5-speed automatic transmission found its way into my garage.  To my surprise, there is not much of a contrast between the two. Other than different gear ratios and the obvious torque converter sapping what seemed to be only a miniscule amount of power to the rear wheels, things are kept virtually the same. The 2012 Dodge Challenger SRT8 392 in a slush-box (auto transmission) flavor may just be the choice for the light-hearted enthusiast. Considering how technology is out-driving the purist these days, it is no wonder that automakers of the finest sports cars have just about eliminated manual transmissions in their lineup. Dodge uses their proven 5-speed auto tranny, which is plenty capable of handling the massive HEMI power. The same unit is found in the 2012 Chrysler 300 SRT8 and Charger SRT8, which I had the pleasure of reviewing late last year. The manual shift paddles mounted on the steering wheel prove to be useful when you want to get the full grunt out of the HEMI at low RPMs. However, there is a slight delay in shifts at times especially when you reach near redline. In other words, it is best to let the computer handle the shifts when stretching the extremely tall gear cogs. The gearing is even tall enough to run 2 nd gear all the way up to 75 mph… perfectly fine because the HEMI V8 has a wide power band. The new sport mode feature, one of the few changes for the 2012...

If you’re a fan of Lamborghini, you know the name Valentino Balboni. Best known as Lamborghini’s test driver, Balboni’s history with the company dates back to 1968 and a chance meeting with Ferruccio Lamborghini himself. The story is best told in Balboni’s own words, but here’s the two minute drill: in today’s process-obsessed world, there can never be another Valentino Balboni. Balboni was trained by Lamborghini to become a test driver, and had no prior racing background. Instead, Balboni had a passion for cars, and learned early on to “listen” to what a car was trying to communicate. That’s easily lost with today’s technology-filled supercars, but in the early 1970s “listening” to cars like the Lamborghini Muira or Countach was an important part of self-preservation. While we’d have liked to see more time with Balboni and less time with Musial touring the Italian countryside in a Gallardo Spyder, the video is worth watching. We’re not the fashion police, but we’ll still offer some free advice to Musial: when you’re going to meet one of the automotive world’s iconic figures, wearing a hoodie over a t-shirt is a bit inappropriate. Next time, buck up for a polo shirt, OK?   View post: J.F. Musial Meets Lamborghini’s Valentino Balboni: Video More:  J.F. Musial Meets Lamborghini’s Valentino Balboni: Video

For all of its bucket-list conceit, the act of driving a Lamborghini in Italy is the kind of thing I’d expect to go horribly wrong. It’s far too loaded an event to meet expectations — like New Year’s Eve in Sydney. But what do I know? I’m a cynic. More » Excerpt from: How To Get A Job Test-Driving Lamborghinis [Video] Read the original: How To Get A Job Test-Driving Lamborghinis [Video]

Filed under: Latest News We say ‘inspired’, but there’s inspired and then there’s inspired . Thankfully the MG Icon is only a concept sketch at the moment, so there’s plenty of time to avoid a lawsuit from Nissan’s design department. The Icon is presumably designed to show that MG really is on the up – so on the up that it’s thinking about making something as cool as a B-segment SUV. There aren’t many of them at the moment – just the one, in fact – but it’s a segment that looks like it’ll explode into life shortly. Ford is bringing one out soon, called the EcoSport , as is Hyundai – and no doubt more will follow. The Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, which owns MG, is looking to establish MG as a mass manufacturer with a unique identity, shedding the re-badged Rover image of the past. Whether this concept is in any way unique is debatable, but the front end is visually linked to the 1965 MGB GT sports car, with a thin horizontal grille and relatively high set circular lights. It’s very similar in size to Juke, with four individual seats in the cabin, the rear pair able to be folded down into the floor for a decent load space. It has ’suicide’ rear doors for easy access onto the cabin, like a Ford B-Max. It’s far too early to talk production, but it’s thought that a car similar in size and principle to this will hit China in 2014, which means it’ll probably come to the UK the following year.   Continued here: MG shows Icon concept ‘inspired’ by Nissan Juke Read more from the original source: MG shows Icon concept ‘inspired’ by Nissan Juke

Filed under: Videos A brand new Lamborghini Aventador was out on a test drive when it suddenly burst into flames, engulfing it completely. The aftermath was caught on at least six different cameras, with a small assembly of gawkers all pointing their phones at the blazing Lambo, as shown in the video below. And there isn’t much sympathy among the gathering, as you’ll be able to hear. (Watch out for a little NSFW language, though.) It happened just near junction 4 of Schadenfreude Highway. Not really. The Aventador actually caught fire on Highway 73 in Southern California, near the San Joaquin Hills, while reportedly being test driven by a dot.com millionaire. Fortunately he was able to get out of the car almost immediately after looking in the rear view mirror and seeing flames, so he was unhurt. As you can see, the fire destroyed the £242,000 hypercar, losing Lambo a sale and no doubt sending one more buyer towards a Ferrari dealership.   Read more here: Video: Lamborghini Aventador bursts into flames during test drive See more here:  Video: Lamborghini Aventador bursts into flames during test drive

The Women’s World Car of the Year (WWCOTY) has been announced: the Range Rover Evoque. No surprise there, really – the Land Rover WAG-wagon is just like a regular Range Rover, but it’s easier to reverse and less likely to hit other objects in the hands of a woman, because it’s smaller. Before you write in, we are, of course, joking. But if you’re wondering what Women’s World Car of the Year is, it was set up in 2009 to create an award specific to “the fastest growing consumer segment in the world and arguably the most influential.” That’s women. A more detailed explanation can be found here , but the all-female WWCOTY judging panel evaluates the cars differently to the main World Car of the Year panel, looking specifically at ‘female’ values. They are: safety, value-for-money, aesthetic appearance, storage space, child-friendliness, ease-of-driving, colour, sex appeal and environmental footprint. So, the car that best satiates a woman’s desire for all those things in 2012 is the Evoque – a car that could only muster a design award in the official World Car of the Year contest, which was won overall by the VW Up. Here are the WWCOTY winners in full, including the runners up in each category: Women’s World Car of the Year, supreme winner 2012 Range Rover Evoque BMW 3-series Audi Q3 Family car BMW 3-series Audi Q3 Ford Focus Luxury car Range Rover Evoque Jaguar XJ Audi A6 Sports car Porsche 911 Jaguar XKR Mercedes Benz SLK Economy car Honda Civic VW Up! Ford Fiesta   Continued here: Range Rover Evoque voted Women’s World Car of the Year Continued here:  Range Rover Evoque voted Women’s World Car of the Year

We might as well give you this disclaimer up front: we’re about cars that go fast, not about cars that look, frankly, like something that belongs in a circus. A donked-out Caprice or Crown Vic is one thing, since even in stock form the cars handled like an apartment complex on wheels. If rolling on 22s is your thing, there’s no shortage of Crown Vics to be had on used car lots from coast to coast. On the other hand, a Camaro rolling on 32s (and worse, spinner 32s), like this example caught on Inside Line , just looks ridiculous. Worse, it adds a massive amount of unsprung weight and raises the car’s center of gravity, both of which are the enemy of handling. We doubt those stretched-rubber-band tires were made for performance, either, so cornering at even posted speeds would be a challenge. We’re sure that finding tires for 32-inch wheels isn’t easy, and even made-in-China brands would have a hefty price tag due to their rarity. Since the tire’s life span (without any sidewall to speak of) would be exactly one pothole, we could see this ride being as expensive to own as a Veyron. If you have a friend who thinks this looks good, it’s time for an intervention. Friends, after all, don’t let friends mega-donk. See the rest here: Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Camaros On 32s: Video More here: Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Camaros On 32s: Video

No, this is not an action-movie stunt. This is a BMW M5 Touring dangling off the side of a Swiss bridge this past weekend (link auf Deutsch ) twenty feet above a highway after the overenthusiastic driver lost control and crashed. More » Original post: No, This Is Not An Action Movie Stunt [Car Crashes] See the rest here:  No, This Is Not An Action Movie Stunt [Car Crashes]

As defined by the most important document of the internet age , the Ten Commandments are “a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship”. This weekend we want to know what rules you hold sacred when it comes to the ethics and worship of all things automotive. More » Read the rest here: What Are Your Automotive Commandments? [Question Of The Weekend] Here is the original post:  What Are Your Automotive Commandments? [Question Of The Weekend]

On paper, at least, it sounds like a good idea. Under a new proposal (a PDF link, on which you can comment here ), the NHTSA is looking to mandate Brake-Throttle Override (BTO) systems in all new vehicles weighing less than 10,000 pounds. In the event of a stuck accelerator or fly-by-wire throttle malfunction, applying the brakes would automatically disengage the accelerator. To be honest, the NHTSA proposal is really much ado about nothing, since most manufacturers have already adopted such systems in the wake of Toyota’s unintended acceleration debacle. Will the system save lives, as the NHTSA thinks? Possibly, in the very rare instance of a stuck throttle or other mechanical problem. Most unintended acceleration accidents, however, are caused by driver confusion between the brake and accelerator pedals. A driver believes he’s applying the brakes, when in fact he’s got the accelerator matted to the floor. For those of us who actually drive cars at the limit, the system will interfere with car control. Want to dry your brake rotors in the wet by gently applying brake pressure? You can’t, unless you want your car to instantly cut the accelerator. Do you left foot brake into a corner to put a bit more weight over the front wheels? Forget about doing that, too, in BTO equipped new cars. It’s ironic, then, that cars are getting faster while drivers have less and less control over them. It’s only a matter of time, we suspect, before manufacturers won’t be allowed to use stability control systems that can be deactivated. Sooner or later, cars will sense speed limits, and then it’s only a matter of time before a car will override driver control of speed, too. We’ve seen the four-wheel future, dumbed down to meet the ability of the lowest percentile driver, and quite frankly, it scares the hell out of us.   Read more: NHTSA Wants To Mandate Brake-Throttle Override Systems See original here: NHTSA Wants To Mandate Brake-Throttle Override Systems

Thoughts On the UKL Class Cars BMW has a goal to reach two million car sales in the near future. There is some belief that sales of two million or more vehicles will go a long way towards keeping the wolf, in the form of a buyer, away from the door. To reach that number BMW will have to move into uncharted waters (for BMW at least), small front wheel drive cars. These are the A & B class cars that appeal to an urban population, especially in population dense mega-cities. While adding sales to the BMW brand (at a premium price – and that’s important to keep in mind when thinking about why a BMW badge will be on a FWD car), it also helps reduce their fleet carbon dioxide numbers (important in Europe) and increases their fuel economy numbers (important everywhere). BMW will make use of its platform matrix architecture and build the A & B class cars using a mix of components that are shared with the 1er and 3ers. The body panels, wheelbase, width, and other dimensions will be unique to the the A7 B class cars, but BMW shares as much componentry as possible. The appeal of BMW’s platform matrix is the flexibility of the firewall location. This allows for a longitudinal or transverse engine layout depending on where the driven wheels are placed. That flexibility appears to be somewhat unique in the industry. As an example the Volkswagen MQD platform has gotten a lot of press recently, and it allows for a great deal of dimensional flexibility except for the front axle center-line and firewall distance. So it is a fixed firewall platform. And it makes sense for VW – they intend to build approximately four million vehicles a year off of it! BMW can hope that their B class offering is as effective from a sales perspective as Mercedes Benz’s B class. Mercedes Benz sell around 100,000 B class vehicles a year. Nothing to sneeze at. Mercedes-Benz Platforms A news item popped up on the iPad this week regarding Mercedes Benz consolidating to two platforms from four. (I use the news reader Zite on the iPad, which I find quite useful as it allows feedback and I can block all the strident political nonsense and Hollywood news from appearing.) Motor Authority ran an article that quoted an interview of Wolfgang Bernhard that was carried in Automotive News...

Consider this: with 1.200 horsepower and over 1,100 pound-feet of torque, the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse may well be the world’s fastest hair dryer. It will sprint from 0-62 mph in just 2.6 seconds, on its way to a top speed of 255 miles per hour. If the weather’s good, the targa-style roof panel can be removed for open-air motoring, although there’s no place to carry it on board the car. If there’s a chance of rain, the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse works just fine as a coupe. While Bugatti hasn’t officially announced U.S. sales of the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse, those with sufficient interest and sufficient funds will likely find a way to obtain one. In Europe, the asking price is around two million euros, which translates to $2.6 million. You won’t see very many of these on the road, so this Bugatti-produced video may be the best chance you’ll have to see the car up close and personal.   Go here to read the rest: Bugatti’s Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse Up Close And Personal: Video Go here to read the rest: Bugatti’s Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse Up Close And Personal: Video

Viewed from space, the storied Nardò Ring racetrack appears almost otherworldly, its seemingly flawless 7.8-mile circumference resting in stark contrast to its largely agricultural surroundings. But make no mistake, the man-made test track is very real, and has served as ground zero for countless manufacturer test-sessions and speed-record attempts for more than thirty-five years. And now, the Porsche Engineering­­ Group will oversee all future record attempts with its purchase of the facility Wednesday.  Built by Fiat in the 1970s, Nardò’s location in southern Italy was selected largely for its moderate climate and sparse population, conditions Fiat reasoned would allow for 24/7, year-round use. When the track was finished in 1975, it began attracting attention from other manufacturers and by 1978, Fiat opened Nardò’s doors to other makers for testing and record-setting attempts. One of the most relentless assaults on the record books began in 1976 when Mercedes-Benz arrived with a repurposed version of its legendary C-111 . Called the C111-IID, the diesel-powered car averaged 156.4 mph for 10,000 miles, breaking numerous 3.0-liter diesel-class records in the process. Over the next few years, Mercedes would return with the C111-III and the C111-IV, breaking speed and endurance records almost at will. Benz’s crowning achievement came on May 5, 1979, when the C111-IV clocked a lap at 250.918 mph, eclipsing the previous record of 221.160 mph set by Mark Donohue in a Porsche 917/30 at Talladega Superspeedway. In 1992, British F1 driver Martin Brundle pushed an XJ220 to 217.1 mph lap, edging out the production car record then held by a Bugatti EB110 GT. In 1999, Fiat sold the complex to Prototipo SpA, a Turin-based company that specializes in engineering and testing services for the automotive industry, which renamed it the Nardò Technical Center. Some feared the change in ownership would close the compound to outside speed attempts, but it proved not to be the case: In February 2005, Loris Bicocchi piloted a Koenigsegg CCR to a lap speed of 241.1 mph, besting the Brits by more than 25 mph. Interestingly, when Bicocchi’s record later fell two months later to the Bugatti Veyron , it would not be at Nardò, but on Volkswagen’s own track in Ehra-Lessien....