1968 Porsche 907 Longtail This is the Daytona 1968 winner himself. He is quite breathtaking in person — with me doing so many slow laps taking photos… that I think we started getting some looks from the other guests. Oh well. It was worth it. Extraordinary barely begins to describe this car’s in-person impact. These are relatively un-edited so far, but more articles on the Porsche Motorsport legacy coming soon.
2014 Volkswagen T-ROC Concept I like the T-ROC even more in the official images versus the sketches from last week’s preview article here. The T-ROC is still firmly a concept — but here is what we predict: this exact car, with streetable tires, coming soon to VW dealers nationwide. Based on the MQB architecture, the T-ROC will hopefully be more affordable than the Tiguan, but more feature-rich than the Taigun. The night-vision, terrain cameras and blackout functions of a military vehicle headlight are present on the T-ROC’s foglight (above). Examples of this tech shown here: Very cool. Keeping the two-door …
Design Analysis – 2014 Alfieri Maserati Concept Only the short-sighted have ever underestimated Maserati. One man named Enzo found the Trident such a threat that he spent more than a few years trying to bury his cross-town rival in the 1960s and 1970s. Over Maserati’s supernaturally-blessed, but tumultuous, 100-year history so far: the Trident has adorned many far-flung concepts and racers that were each at least 20 years ahead of their time. In an era when Ferrari and Lamborghini were bringing key auto design functions back in-house, the wildest cards in Italy frequently found an eager audience with Maserati. It …
2014 Rolls-Royce GHOST Series II Early bird gets the worm! This applies in elementary school as much as it does in Warren Buffet’s Berkshire compounds — with one of Buffet’s companies recently snubbing high-frequency traders’ access to market-moving news releases. As we know, Geneva is seven hours ahead of eastern time in the United States. Therefore, as I type this at 5:58am, the Ghost Series II has already blown the doors off this Swiss expo hall. But wait, I hear you say: “The car does not look all that new?” That is the Rolls-Royce way. Huge progress without boastfulness. Continuity …
2014 Nissan ZEOD RC LeMans Ask and ye shall receive? Only last week, we lamented the lack of angles of the ZEOD RC versus the flawless 29 angles of the car’s potent 1.5-liter, 400HP turbo triple, which both propels the car and charges the batteries (we think.) Well, the strip-tease continues for the ZEOD RC. The latest batch of info from Nissan’s UK-based Le Mans operation shows the real-life racer in much more detail. (Just kidding — looks like we just did not look hard enough for images. This release is tagged October 21st, 2013.) Nissan’s hybrid-electric Garage56 experimental entry …
Concept to Reality – 2006 SAAB Aero-X to 2013 SAAB 9-5 Need a reason to save SAAB? Here it is: the 2006 Aero-X concept — which presented a number of jaw-dropping ideas for a potential Swedish GT supercar. This template and aesthetic was the guiding light for the production 9-5 that never quite made it to volume production. So how close is the Aero-X to the doomed 9-5? You be the judge — but we’d say: very, very close. Front Angles Front Three-Quarter Angles Side Profiles INTERIORS Rear Three-Quarter Angles Rear Angles Â
Skoda is becoming a real asset for the Volkswagen Group. Bought for a song as the Czech firm was failing in the 1980s — Skoda now commands a quite sizable market share in Europe’s most profitable markets. Skoda’s core selling points have really been popular among anti-fashion consumers. People who (claim to) value a vehicle for its merits, value and durability versus a fleeting style. Skoda is also a surprise, run-away success story in China. The latest cars from Skoda seem to take the next step in the brand’s evolution: a cheaper, more avant-garde ethos than even Audi can manage …
Published on: Jan 30, 2014 @ 6:00 I got some great drives during a recent trip to Colorado, including the legendary Pikes Peak hillclimb route. After a week in the area, I discovered that the really fun roads are the smooth but unpaved mountain roads in the region. Included in the first Travel Adventure Series, here are descriptions, maps and video of a 22-mile stretch of rally-style gravel heaven called the Phantom Canyon Road in Adelaide, Colorado. My criteria for off-roading trails are pretty wimpy. My car, a 2005 Subaru Legacy GT, is all-wheel-drive but very, VERY low. I know …
Yes! the Scuderia is back on boost. As the F40’s twin-turbocharged V8 still proudly displays to anyone with the balls and cash — Maranello has always loved forced induction. Time to lower the fences – these stallions want to run wild! 2015 Ferrari California T The 458 Speciale also debuted in Sepang this weekend. A few more of the Seabrook stallions.
Those Alpha and Beta nametags on some articles? They are … not a joke. The ‘alpha‘ usually means I have zero clue if something will work properly, or even show up at all on my v.dynamic website! Beta means I am pretty sure something I’ve created and coded will display. If it works, the Beta tag goes West. If not, it stays in Beta jail… forever =] Alas, my dream of a lightboxed Facebook.com/CarRevsDaily photo experience… managed entirely on Facebook’s end… was too-good-to-be true. And you know the saying, “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.” …
 W Motors Lykan HyperSport Hopefully the animations are a helpful and fun part of CarRevsDaily. I love them because they are auto-play, relatively small download-able GIF files, and cross-platform friendly. They are new. I have not seen anything like what CarRevsDaily offers – outside this site that is. There is a real art to creating — often from lousy images — flawless spinning turntables, dynamic motion simulations and all the others. It is really difficult, and a matter of major trial/error over a years-long learning process. Sometimes, though… when the moon is just right… There is some real …
Initial thoughts from first in-person sighting of an F-type? It looks stellar. The lights look great. Crisp LEDs front and back. The lower indicators do not disable the DRLs in a switchback fashion, which is great news. Switchback LED lighting is not very appealing and can be visually jarring to other road users.
How about this for all-new, extremely fresh car news? The new Lincoln MKC promises huge growth for Lincoln by appealing to far more fashion customers than ever before. ‘Fashion’ is a bit of a code word for TheLaydaies!!! And pretty girls love to spin around to a great Kylie Minogue dance track. So leave this video playing while watching the MKC dance in seven colors. (The base images are huge, multi-angle photo collages available on Lincoln.com as the right-click view background image) Next challenge for me? Somehow syncing the beat of music to the animations. Cue to Tom Burkart scratching …
Tires are by far the dirtiest and most soiled part of any car. This makes sense — they touch all the ickiest parts of the road and rubber traps dirt far more deeply than painted finishes of any kind. Black Magic Tire Wet Foam is my preferred option for a touchless shine on any tire. Note: the tires can be wet or dry when you apply, but generally this should go on after a car wash has cleaned the tires as best it can. No endless pumping of a washer handle is needed with this aerosol, nor is there any …
The Corvette Museum is fantastic. So much so that reviewing my visit’s 350+ photos is a bit mind-boggling. Organizing the coverage into topic chunks seems most logical versus one massive article. The below video highlights these Astro concepts briefly… before my iPhone conked out of battery life mid-filming. Good times. Let’s dive in to these exceptional concept Corvettes in the Engineering and Prototype room. The Astro and Astro II are both from 1968, and show the deep divide over where to take the Corvette C3 in its 1970’s iteration. They show a wild expression of streamlined principles across the board, …
Kahn styling can really turn a standard LR4 Discovery into a very sexy and butch truck. Here are a few full vehicles Kahn is selling in their UK home market. They show the potential in bringing many 2005-current Land Rovers and Range Rover Sports up-to-date with the latest high street fashion. Here are some of the awesome results from KAHN upgrades to the Discovery and previous RRS. Land Rover Discovery 3.0 TDV6 Twin Turbo XS – RS300 Â Land Rover Range Rover Sport 3.0 TDV6 – RS300 Cosworth
There are a few must-have items when traveling up from Denver to the main ski resorts of Colorado: – 4wd or lockable AWD – ground clearance encouraged – huge surplus of power for high-grade passing needs – great road-holding and high-speed stability — especially on the descent. The XC Coupe looks ready for all that and more. Time for afternoon cookies at Beaver Creek! The XC will look right at home in the resort’s famous enclosed valet parking… snow or shine. Live Reveal Official Images Galleries
When a long-term product plan from GM was released a few years ago by a disgruntled employee to a German newspaper, the revelations about what exactly lay ahead for Opel were quickly silenced. Luckily, it was not the Guardian who received the documents. The one thing I recall before all the news … went away … was the Country Tourer name for a potential Vectra replacement wagon. Â An all-road-style option for families who not only need AWD, but need some extra ground clearance and gravel resistance on the lower panels as well. These are not some kind of “country” …
 This car defies logic. On one hand, it looks adorable and cute. So narrow and low, with the blue bodywork peeled back around the exhaust manifold and the straight-cut pipes. Watch the below… The Gordini starts to howl at about the half-way mark of this video preview. Kudos to its bold driver, who is not shy with the loud pedal. Firing up the 24S takes a prod onto an organ-stop switch – included as the fuel cutoff for racing. This very car won the Tour de France (a car race at the time…) and also traded paint with Porsche and …
Ever the tornado of creativity and speed, Ferrari was quite volatile in the early 1960s. For every race they won, it seems like a failed buyout from Ford and the epic ‘palace revolution’resulted in a big brain drain for Maranello. Competing hot-shot engineers would form nearly a dozen competing supercar marques, including Lamborghini, De Tomaso, Iso, ATS, ASA and Bizzarrini. Each led by a mastermind engineer, stylist, machinist or visionary, only Lamborghini’s brand was strong enough to make it to the 1970s and beyond. The Ferrari exodus left all these talented men with huge ideas, but less of a real …
So you like the Ford Raptor and that feeling of being unstoppable on any terrain? Try the Kamaz-4911 on for size: – 17.2-liter, mid-mounted TD V8 engine – 730 horsepower @ 2500 rpm – 1991 pound-feet of torque @ 1300 rpm – Maximum Speed – 102.5 MPH Trust me, I had to check those numbers thrice myself. A 17-liter V8 is cool, but only the start of the fun for this multi-purpose truck platform. Initially designed with six and eight-wheel options and variants, the Kamaz 4911 basically runs the engine from a tank, but in a (relatively) lightweight racing chassis. …
This Phantom Series I Rolls-Royce V12 rumbled out the factory doors in 1925, but did not add these gorgeous stream-liner panels until its coachwork was complete in 1934. There is much to learn from this Jonkheere Aerodynamique Coupe – even today. The grille treatment is remarkably swept-back, but maintains the classic proportions very artfully. It is very hard to imagine these designs being fabricated by hand, but that was the only way to achieve results like this in the early 1930s. CAD-CAM has come a long way since the Round Door Coupe – but very few of this car’s contemporaries …
What a pivot for Lotus Cars in 2013. While still reeling from ownership changes and a variety of management re-alignments, Lotus Cars shines its green and gold flags through any fog. This is a racing company at its core, and the Exige S arrives to American buyers with all the power, prestige and class of true exotic cars. While sharing a vaguely familiar silhouette with the Elise and previous-gen Exige, the looks are very modern and fresh up close. All the race-ready Exige S styling elements really work together with its ultra-low, ultra-wide footprint. Where the previous Exige …
Imagine a combination of all forms of racing – off-road to high-speed – done by one core chassis design. During the 1930s, the Mercedes-Benz Silver Arrows were storming every type of racing one could imagine: both competitively in Formula races and for world record attempts outside the circuit. This sent the Silver Arrows up hillclimb events, on ultimate Vmax runs, and even a few winter setups that included a dually rear wheel and a closed shell cockpit at one point. All these variants were highly ingenious engineering achievements around one core chassis design. The open-wheel profile of any …
ItzKirb Photography strikes again! These GT3 RS photos are dazzling, and will warm the hearts of car lovers everywhere on this chilly Monday morning. Be sure to check out ItzKirb’s Facebook page for all his latest exotic cars and exotic babes – of which he seems to have an endless supply of both! https://www.facebook.com/itzkirb There is even on of the artist himself, pondering his subject. Thanks Kirby! Tallpapers
One thing I love about the English car mag culture is their enthusiasm for track days – and track day cars. I hope this catches on here, and am doing my part with a few ‘first-times’ under my Dunlop belt. But one thing that will always beat an Exige S or other time-attack miracles? A real, fire-breathing race car. Nothing will bring all those study hall sketches to life like this 1969 McLaren M10A currently for sale by FantasyJunction in Emeryville, California. Priced at $160,000, this car comes with a drooling list of included equipment, and stretch-folders full of …
The 1980 Ferrari Pinin concept shares much of the low-slung beauty of the 400i models, but none of their affordability. This one-off concept is being sold by Museo Ferrari for $1.2 million. Before you write off this design and its gob-smaking egg-crate grille, take a few minutes to twirl it around with 30 years perspective since its debut. Yes, the nose is messy, and the clamshell hood shows some panel fit issues in some of the photos. But Enzo Ferrari himself is also sitting in the car for some of the photos, evaluating it around Fiorano on a nice …
Classic car shopping is often like staring over a city from high atop a mountain. Once your eye sees one thing it likes, there are ten more within the same focal point. Such is Hemming’s Classifieds section. This site allows is a much broader type of browsing and car shopping, with long distance delivery of anything bought online. Generally, private sellers online come in two flavors: – extreme obsessives who are forced to part with a car they have cherished – extremely careless people charged with liquidating an asset You can guess which one you want to buy from to …
Let’s start at the beginning, my personal vantage on the Buick GNX – before and after watching Black Air: The Buick Grand National Story. Here are three things you may not know about the 1987 Buick Grand National: Engine came first, car second. What sporty body could fit this 500HP boost-monster? Housing the huge McLaren turbocharger and intercooler hardware of the 3.8-liter V6 was the hardest part. It was a very sentimental project for the company, allowing unbridled execution of the super-car engine and total styling black-out. That high-gloss, rich paint was pure fantasy at the time. The GNX was the …
W Motors is such an exciting success story – it must win the Best of 2013 Award for these achievements. From the outside world, a new hypercar from a country without automotive expertise is laughable. Even coming close to the levels set by Pagani, Ferrari, Porsche and McLaren is virtually impossible for any new company. At the very least: most of the promises from any new exotic car brand are (very) exaggerated. This spirals development costs out of control, leading to: – insolvency from lack of capital to invest – at the very least, huge delays and unhappy deposit-makers  …
Buckle up. Tighten belts. Hang on! It looks like the day has finally come: one of Ferrari’s ultra-exclusive Corse Clienti XX models is set for public sale by RM Auctions this February in Paris. Widely believed to be pushing out nearly 800 horsepower through its Enzo-plus V12 engine, all of the typical street weight is stripped out. A full carbon-fiber aero redesign nearly doubles downforce (and grip) versus the 599 road cars, and weight is a very private figure – assumed to be at least 800 pounds lighter than anything with a license plate. Type approvals and imports will be …
You remember Caparo. Their breakout T1 model from 2008 was huge news for any car lover. It takes the track-attack ethos of similar English charms like the Lotus 2-Eleven, Ariel Atom and others, then fast-forwards the technology by 100 years. While the legendary 1950s-designed Lotus Seven continues forward with even more new Caterham models for 2014, it seems that the actual future of these race cars is in a rut. A deep rut, followed by a speedbump in the road. Too low to pass over it, the Caparo T1 now appears to be stuck. Here is a mini timeline of …
Until the new M4 arrives, the BMW 6-series Gran Coupe is by far my favorite current BMW. While all brands like to tout their new cars as longer, lower and wider than before: usually the changes are fractions of an inch (or some other meaningless millimeter measurements!). The 640i GC is a full three inches lower than the 5-series, rocks almost a 117-inch wheelbase, and looks wider than a Hummer H1 on the highway. The whole car is designed to emphasize width, power and stance from all angles. The glasshouse is far more inward of the car’s shoulder-line than any …
This summer’s 2013 BMW X1 sDrive28i press loaner still makes me smile when looking at the photos. As my first week-long loan from BMW, the pressure was on to a) write a brilliant review and b) not hurt the car in any way! The X1 is a hilarious riot to drive in 28i sDrive configuration, which denotes rear-wheel-drive versus the optional xDrive. The turbo-charged engine is zingy and potent, with a broad and low torque plateau and the exceptional ZF eight-speed automatic handling changes. The test car included EcoPro mode and automatic stop/start for stoplights and traffic. EcoPro mode really …
The 2015 BMW i8 is beautiful. Make no mistake about it: this will instantly be the most-exciting car on the roads from the second half of next year. BMW i Visualizer – see this exact i8 and change the colors, wheels, leathers… It is significantly more challenging to grasp the i8’s performance potential in advance, like we can for most new sports cars and even hypercars from the big names. But while the i3 might be a bit funky, the i8 is stunning. Low roof, scorching pace, style for days: this i8 is hot. It also brings forth never-before-executed concepts …
Updated 11.10.14 The new season of GT Academy is online and watchable via the below YouTube embed! To celebrate, we’ve paired the episode with some of the coolest NISMO cars from SEMA 2014. Mostly, relaxing for me is commercial-free online television of some kind. Just stumbled upon the latest for GT Academy, and feel compelled to share this exciting series. Imagine a mix of a few shows like Toughest Soldier Challenge, TopGear, … and … America’s Next Top Model…. and you will get an idea of what GT Academy offers viewers. Instead of shooting or pouting, these guys train to …
Graphene is new on the scene but exploding with promise. It makes carbon-fiber look like a wool sweater from the 1800s. Graphene is two-dimensional sheet of honeycomb lattice molecules just one atom thick, but stronger than any other substance on earth. As a sheet, it’s carbon. As a stack, the material is graphite. The applications are tantalizingly endless, as the material is super-lightweight and even has conductive properties to relay electricity better like a circuitboard. In the car world, the 2D sheets will be layered and stacked to create 3D panels that are customizable in strength as needed. Future applications …
Eagle Low Drag GT Launches New Website Since discovering Eagle’s latest project a few months ago, the anticipation of the finished car has been palpable. After hitting the lawns of Buckingham Palace with the St James’s Concours d’Elegance in early September, it appears that the car is in finished form for the latest photos on http://www.lowdrag-gt.com/ Secrets Secrets While the pricing and the buyer for this first Eagle Low Drag GT are very private, Mr. Brace let us know that the single car has been in progress for more than the last five years. He also hinted that there is …
Iconic Classic Showcase: 1985 Porsche 959 Vorserie This start-up sequence video from RM Auctions must be the most blissful 30 seconds ever recorded. Plus, the 1988 Porsche 959 Komfort from RM Auctions Sometimes I find it helpful to look at two pristine examples of a classic masterpiece when prepping these articles. All the variations in styling, specification and lifestyle really cannot be summed up with one car. Unless it only came in Rosso Corsa red and had a twin-turbocharged V-8 mounted mod-ship, that is. The 959 has always been a beguilingly brilliant exercise in refined aerodynamics, among its other achievements. …
Iconic Classic: 1938 Dubonnet Hispano-Suiza H6C Xenia If it seems like we have an unhealthy fascination for the Mullin Automotive Museum, you might be right. The cars inside this collection just… write their own stories. I have a dozen more that I would like to feature, but we must start at the true nexus – or “Xenia” perhaps – of the art of French coach-building by Jacques Saoutchik and his contemporaries. How all these cars got to sunny California is no accident. In many cases – the cars in the collection were painstakingly built – sometimes from only drawings – …
