2018 Hyundai Elantra GT Sport 6MT – First Drive Review

Hyundai is perfecting its performance-car credentials.  The latest pack of redesigns go as hard at their tech/ style as they do at full turbo boost and fast corners. This handling skill and steering feel are creating a new impression of the brand as a whole. You need a preface like this to absorb the impressions of how sweet a drive the Elantra GT Sport was the other day.  This is Hyundai’s Scirocco rival for Europe and GTI-fighter for the USA — with a slinky low roof, five-door layout and lively powertrain.  How alive is GT?  It forms the basis for …

Keep reading

2017 Honda Civic Type R – Nurburgring Record Video & Photos

The new CIvic Type R is on full boost now.  Its US launch is two months out and production is in full swing.  This must mean the first shipment is already on a giant boat headed stateside! Excitement for the most-powerful Honda Civic of all time is palpable lately, especially with the Si  launch just last week. To prove that AWD is not necessary to take on the Focus RS and Golf R, Honda took the new Civic to break some records on track.  This is now the quickest front-driver of all time around with a 7:43:80 time.  Watch the …

Keep reading

subaru impreza 5-door concept 6

2015 Subaru Impreza 5-Door Concept, WRX S207 NBR Challenge Join Packed Tokyo Showstand

Subaru is really growing in leaps and bounds! No better evidence than a frankly packed Tokyo stand from the once-humble maker of AWD mountain cars. Joining the all-new VIZIV Future Concept on the stands is the also-new Impreza 5-Door Concept. While the new WRX still feels very fresh, it is always good to take a sneak peek at the next-gen design vision for the product. Since the WRX and Impreza lineups were formally divorced in this generation in the US, the XV Crosstrek has taken on a bit of an entry-level role in the Subaru range. But this is traditionally …

Keep reading

2.8s, 450HP 2016 Lotus 3-Eleven Nearing 7-min Nurburgring Laptime + Evora 400R Now Shipping!

Lotus just completed a 1200-mile testing session at the Nurburgring Nordeschleife, and the stopwatch is promising some fantastic pace! As the lightest and most-powerful Lotus ever made, this new 3-Eleven has high hopes for the brand at toppling the Radicals, BAC Mono, various Caterhams and numerous other track specials. After all, a lightweight track machine is Lotus’s core identity!  Who are these upstarts carving global sales from Hethel!? Even taking the 3-Eleven to the Nurburgring is huge news: most Lotus handling and performance R&D is handled on the firm’s headquarters test tracks. Jaguar and Aston share that track too at …

Keep reading

2015 Lamborghini Aventador SV USA Reveal 36

2015 Lamborghini Aventador SV Joins Hypercar Big League With New Sub-7-Minute Nurburgring Lap

Updated 5.19.15 with 20 New Photos + Nurburging Fast Lap Video The new Aventador SV just locked in a seriously impressive Nurburgring fast lap: a time of “under 7 minutes” makes it very close to the 2010 Pagani Zonda R and its 6:47 laptime — yet this Aventador SV is fully road-legal! Also included below are a dozen fresh photos from the car’s USA reveal the other month in Amelia Island, Florida. The cabin is quite something — with the carbon-fiber seats a particularly pleasant surprise for their grip on the body, rigidity on the move and their overall design …

Keep reading

1939 BMW 328 Mille Miglia Coupe 35

Amelia Island 2015 – 1939 BMW 328 Mille Miglia Touring Coupe

Imagine a single racecar that won the its Nurburgring debut race, the Tourist Trophy, Mille Miglia and RAC Rally. A car so advanced and streamlined, its giant exhaust system is the only portion of the underbody that is not wrapped in lightweight alloy. Even the taillamps are integrated into the lower body with custom alloy stalks, and a license-plate housing that wraps that plate around its ultra-smooth rump. A coupe so sexy and sensual in person, we are embarassed to report that it is a clear favorite for top-ten cars of all time. Like the Mercedes-Benz 540K Streamliner shown at …

Keep reading

seat leon cupra st

2014 SEAT Leon Cupra Now Offered in Very Cool ST Wagon

Updated 1.10.2015 The sexy Leon ST wagon is now available in the Cupra trim! This cool dynamic and style upgrade includes the availability of the postent Cupra 280 pack and its huge-boost turbo gasoline engine. Six styling packs are also available on the Leon Cupras — with the Dynamic Grey shown in the press shots an ST Cupra exclusive that is not offered on Leon ST’s with lesser engines. We also anticipate the Sub8 performance packs to be offered on the ST wagon – these trims commemorate that the Leon Cupra is the quickest front-drive car of all time around …

Keep reading

2015 Subaru BRZ GT300 and WRX NBR

2015 Subaru BRZ GT300 and WRX NBR Racers Pack Wild Aero Ugrades

2015 Subaru BRZ GT300 and WRX NBR When overall power is capped by a racing series of technical limits of the engine, you have a few other routes to more speed. These include a drop in weight and an increase in grip. But what can you do if max weight and tire setups are also regulated by racing rules? The last summit to climb is then aerodynamics and downforce. Subaru has embraced this fourth route to greatness in its two new racers: the BRZ GT300 and WRX STI NBR Challenge. The splitters up front add nearly a foot of extra …

Keep reading

lfa nring gif

Hypercar Halloween! 202MPH 2012 Lexus LFA Nurburgring Pack in 110 Scary-Sexy Wallpapers

Trick or treat! Criteria for being a Halloween Hypercar? Amazing performance, stunning design, delicious details and exclusivity for the ages. What meets these criteria in spades? The 2012 Lexus LFA Nurburgring Package — an orange stunner with V10 legs for miles and a bite to sate even the sweetest tooth. Enjoy these photos – we have never seen many of them published in their full glory, and they are worth considering in detail. Interspersed are the LFA’s official specs from Lexus.com. Overall, the Nurburgring pack brought a fixed rear wing, an extra 10-horsepower, firmer and remapped suspension and transmission, and …

Keep reading

EX1 peugeot gif header1

2011 Peugeot EX1 is Part EV Quad-Bike and Part Track-Day Supercar

As part of our continuing delve into the latest Peugeot design renaissance, the EX1 is exciting for a few reasons. It is gorgeous and fresh and extremely interesting from a design perspective, fast as all hell in a straight line with a 62-mph sprint in 3.5-seconds, and also quicker than anything else from France around the Nurburgring. The design itself is perhaps the most critical element for the EX1’s lasting importance: it shows a completely fresh idea on form sculpting, a new nose, and new layered surfacing techniques not seen before from PSA, the parent company. The idea of a …

Keep reading

Renauilt Goodwood GIF header1

Goodwood 2014 – Renault 5 Maxi, 1926 40CV Type NM, 1965 Alpine M65, 2014 Megane RS + Clio RS

Renault… has been making cars for a long time. Very unique cars! I usually crop off the UK press release info from photos,  but will leave it on for a few of these for information purposes. The 1926 40CV Type NM de recordes is a speed racer, believe it or not. Looks like the steering wheel is about 40-inches across – helping leverage when steering the very heavy-looking nose of this machine. So cool. The Alpine M65 is simply amazing.   This Renault 5 is definitely not being pushed by someone… despite what it looks like here…. The new Megane …

Keep reading

M235i N24H livery art car gif header

2014 BMW M235i Wearing Art Car Warpaint for Upcoming Nurburgring 24H Race

Art Car Warpaint? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Perhaps. But the Art Cars all had a purpose to their wacky designs – many of which were colored and imagined to enhance the sense of speed, cause envy in pedestrians, or generally dazzle the eye. The M235i certainly brings all three of those Art Car themes to the track this weekend – with a new livery that is quite astounding, very unique, and visually jarring at first. Most of the BMW Art Cars were racers themselves, with a few exceptions toward the late 80s and early 1990s, when production models became the …

Keep reading

header gif Civic Type R USA

2016 USA Honda Civic Type R Renderings + Strategic Rationale

YAY… HONDA MOJO IS BACK! After guest editor Chris May’s article this week, the Honda sportscar fan owner situation feels very real. His main message was one of frustration and confusion about the lack of a US Type R akin to the outstanding concept and real-life model that is heading to Japan, Europe and the UK within the next year or so as a production car. Spy Shots photo credit: MotorAuthority.com Finally. Finally! A turbo engine in a Honda Civic that is promised to deliver “at least” 280 horsepower. And a lean and mean pocket-rocket bodystyle that packs five doors …

Keep reading

Acura RSX-S 2002 from Special Features Editor Chris May

A Love Note to Honda, from Special Features Editor Chris May

Written By Special Features Editor Chris May A Love Note to Honda: We are on a Break Let’s get this out there right now, I really like Honda. I have owned 6 Hondas over the course of 10 years and current have 2 still in my driveway. I have an RSX-S that is my track toy and of course like any good fan-boy, the Ridgeline to trailer it to events. Now before you assume I don’t buy other marks, over the course of the last 10 years, I have also owned a BMW M3 (E46) and two family cars in …

Keep reading

E63 GIF new header3

White Dynamite – 2014 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG 4Matic S-Model

What is it about white cars lately? Perhaps because white was previously the cheapest paint known the man, it got a rough reputation for being about as classy as a burned-out Econoline van. But the new white is indeed new. It is deeper, richer, whiter and ultimately a slinky color that even looks good dirty and at night. It is The Color. The Car? The new E63 AMG 4Matic S-Model.   The BMW M5 might claim a faster Nurburgring lap time, but lags a full half-second behind this bad-ass Benz in 60-mph sprints: 3.7s plays 4.2s. That is a big …

Keep reading

GT-R GT3 2014 Nurburgring GIF header

Porsche, BMW and Aston Beware: Nissan GT-R GT3 Poised to Dominate Nurburgring 24H Race

Nissan GT-R GT3 Nurburgring 24H Race When the Nissan GT-R goes racing, it typically does so to win. This is not a flight of fancy – the latest GT3 version of the mighty GT-R must know something we do not about speed and stamina around the Green Hell. Either the car knows something, or the Nismo.tv YouTube channel, or perhaps the GT Academy drivers for this year’s online reality competition show? Someone must be very confident that this GT-R GT3 can beat everything else on the grid.   With this GT3-spec GT-R, perhaps Nissan is delivering such fast testing laps …

Keep reading

dsc63_1657

2014 SEAT Leon Cupra 280 Sets New ‘Ring Record + Leon Sports Styling Pack Is Calling My Name

My long-distance love affair with the SEAT Leon continues to heat up! I love the standard LEDs of this Spanish GTI — and also love its overall design and performance. For the Geneva show, SEAT revealed its track-champ two-door Leon as well as this delicious Sports Styling Kit for the full range. The gloss black alloys and brilliant blue paint are simply astounding, and very appealing! Now, to shorter than Ocean between us… =]

CarRevsDaily

Update1 – Teaser Images Only – KIA GT4 Stinger Coupe to Pack 315HP Turbo

Update1: This article has been updated to remove some amateur renderings of the rear-drive coupe ahead of its show debut today. The real thing looks AMAZING! Kia is building buzz around the debut of its first RWD performance coupe with a new teaser image and an official name: the GT4 Stinger. That is an aggressive badge, and one that leaves room for this car to compete with the Ford Mustang or Subaru BRZ at one end, or perhaps even the BMW M6 on the top end. The Stinger GT4 is more likely to hit the market with a $32,000 price …

Keep reading

CarRevsDaily

Update1 – Teaser Images Only – KIA GT4 Stinger Coupe to Pack 315HP Turbo

Update1: This article has been updated to remove some amateur renderings of the rear-drive coupe ahead of its show debut today. The real thing looks AMAZING! Kia is building buzz around the debut of its first RWD performance coupe with a new teaser image and an official name: the GT4 Stinger. That is an aggressive badge, and one that leaves room for this car to compete with the Ford Mustang or Subaru BRZ at one end, or perhaps even the BMW M6 on the top end. The Stinger GT4 is more likely to hit the market with a $32,000 price …

Keep reading

HYUNDAI-R-Spec-nurburgring_nordschleife

Hyundai Veloster R-Spec New for 2014 with Nurburgring Chassis Tech

Hyundai just announced its new Veloster Turbo R-Spec for 2014, which will become the most affordable Veloster Turbo model with prices just above $22,000. The turbocharged engine’s output stays at 201 horsepower, but the steering, suspension and handling are all much firmer and more precise. This previews the next wave of hardcore, “N Spec” Hyundai models in the future. The N, by the way, is for Nordschleife. Great news for sports car shoppers on a budget, as the Veloster is still a trendy and innovative shape on the roads. More color helps liven the package, but the best news will …

Keep reading

HYUNDAI-R-Spec-nurburgring_nordschleife

Hyundai Veloster R-Spec New for 2014 with Nurburgring Chassis Tech

Hyundai just announced its new Veloster Turbo R-Spec for 2014, which will become the most affordable Veloster Turbo model with prices just above $22,000. The turbocharged engine’s output stays at 201 horsepower, but the steering, suspension and handling are all much firmer and more precise. This previews the next wave of hardcore, “N Spec” Hyundai models in the future. The N, by the way, is for Nordschleife. Great news for sports car shoppers on a budget, as the Veloster is still a trendy and innovative shape on the roads. More color helps liven the package, but the best news will …

Keep reading