Month: November 2017

Top 4 Hardcore Off-Road Debuts – Los Angeles 2017 Auto Showfloor

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LA is lousy with soft-roaders this year.  There are at least a half dozen softroad compacts all the way to plush 7-seaters.  But that is not our goal here. Here we will tease out the top four serious off-road vehicles to make their debuts or appearances at LA Automobility 2017. Special shoutouts to the very-cool foot porthole in the door of the Wrangler.  The flat floor and full front trunk of the Bollinger is also pretty special. 2018 Jeep Wrangler 2018 Bollinger B1 EV-SUV 2018 Ford Expedition Baja Concept 2018 Land Rover Discovery SVX  

2017 Shelby 427 DAYTONA Secret Weapon COUPE CSX2605 [70 Photos!]

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A big block motor was a highly experimental concept in 1964 and Carroll Shelby kept it in his back pocket. The lengthened, re-engined monster was Shelby’s Secret Weapon for the 1964 LeMans 24 Hours. “”..it could have topped 200 miles per hour at Le Mans. Weighing about 2,200 pounds with world class aerodynamics and the power of a big block, the car had tremendous performance potential. However, destiny intervened. The truck carrying CSX2286 to Le Mans was involved in an accident that damaged the Shelby too much to be repaired in time for the race. It never ran a lap …

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Industry Insider – Car Loans: Understanding Your Options

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Regardless of whether you are considering a new car or one that is used, it is important that you understand all of the options available when it comes to auto loans. Because a vehicle is one of life’s major purchases, taking the time to research and determine the best loan type for your situation is a vital step in the process of buying a car. The Most Common Types of Automobile Loans Simple interest loans may be the most widely used type of auto loan; this kind of loan has an interest rate that is based on the outstanding balance …

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2018 Hyundai KONA – Arrives February to Clamoring US Shoppers

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The Kona is a pretty big deal for Hyundai.  It will be expected to shift more than 100,000 units a year, we estimate, to be considered a success for the brand’s SUV mission. In a perfect world, this machine might even kiss 200,000 units in 2019!?   Can you imagine? Hilarious. Or is it? When you think of the future as seen in movies, Kona’s design will fit right in.  It is a post-apocalyptic surivor — navigating the ruins of cities with enough ground clearance not to scrape.  Or to have those pesky gravel cuts in the paint — thanks to …

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OP_ED: KIA Taking Major Risks with STINGER Launch Rollout

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The 2018 Kia Stinger is amazingly cool in the flesh.  Low, wide and longer than any KIA you’ve ever imagined.  It is shaping up to be a real Audi A7 rival, but with pricing that starts in the low 30s for the cheapest models.  Closer in pricing are the Audi A5 Sportback and BMW 4 series GranCoupe — both of which kick off their pricing near where the Stinger tops out around $50k. We’re all for this new sporty KIA.  The initial drive reviews are coming back amazingly positive, and there is real buzz as the first cars arrive at …

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4.6s 2018 BMW i8 Roadster Is No-Brainer Ragtop

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The i8 is amazing to drive!  In Sport+ this machine opens up its full 374HP and rockets forward with glee.  Triple turbo thrumming behind you and popping out racy noises from the exhausts. But the i8 has a problem.  It is so light because of all that carbon fiber.  Which is expensive. And intrudes on the doorsill in a major way.  This makes i8’s beautiful swan wing doors make sense.  They are very-much needed to help get in and out.  With a low roof on the coupe, this has been a barrier to the car’s wider success. This Roadster hopes …

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RM Paris 2018 – 2005 Maserati MC12

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The MC12 is such a special hypercar that it rarely hangs out with mere supercars. This example is flawlessly original and expects to collect at least two million Euros when sold by RM Sotheby’s Paris auction in early 2018. The MC12 was not originally intended as a road car at all.  This is what let Maserati get away with such wild wings and bodywork atop a humble Enzo Ferrari basis. MC12 took a different, high-speed aero approach to the longtail design of a midengine exotic, with less drag than the Enzo.  A bit less downforce as well, in theory, and a …

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215MPH, 2.2s 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Steals LA Auto Show

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Performance on the ZR1 is so insane that not even Chevy knows how fast it is yet.  210MPH+ is all they will say on record.  755HP makes this ZR1 earn its racing spats, sills and wings. Is it angel or demon in the US car business these days!? Check out the latest photos of the Convertible, which will carry a $124k sticker that’s about five grand more than the hardtop.  Both have the giant wing and Sebring Orange designer package available! More details to follow.  Gallery and official tech specs below. 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 GM-EST. FUEL ECONOMY City 15 …

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2018 GENESIS G80 Sport AWD 3.3T – Road Test Review – By Ben Lewis

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BMW, Audi and Mercedes: better check your mirrors. There’s a new brand breathing down your neck. Hyundai. Yes, Hyundai (hey wasn’t that their ad campaign a while ago?) In this case, it’s the Korean automaker’s luxury division, Genesis. From the get-go, Genesis has taken serious aim at the luxury market, and while early cars where Hyundai Genesis models like the Coupe, it has slowly divested itself from the mothership, and become a stand-alone luxury brand. Well.. sort of, they don’t have stand-alone dealerships yet, so the lavish love you get from The Europeans, Lexus, and others is sadly missing. That …

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2018 INFINITI QX30 Sport – Road Test Review w/ Performance Drive Video!

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 We start the drive video review asking a serious question: does this Euro Infiniti QX30 belong in the USA? This baby Infiniti has two variants on sale in America: the crossover-ish QX30 and QX30 AWD.  Then there is the wild cousin: the QX30 Sport.  Lowered ride height.  Performance mods and gloss black finishes galore.  Stance to make the most of the double-clutch automatic and turbo motor from Mercedes-Benz. Premium compact five-doors are big business on the continent.  Instead of trading up to a sedan after the Golf/Focus class, owners will shell out big cash to get into the A3, 1 …

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2017 Toyota Yaris iA – Road Test Review – By Ben Lewis

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While it’s great to test the latest hi-tech, hi-buck vehicles, we really enjoy when a manufacturer makes an inexpensive car something special. Especially when it’s not only good, but also a surprisingly good drive.  And this is one of those vehicles. Yaris, I am your father… OK, the Yaris has a confused parentage going on here. Until last year, the iA was a Scion. And when Toyota got rid of that brand, it adopted the little sedan. Hence the funny iA name – clearly a remnant from Scion. But of course, that’s only half the story, because the iA is actually …

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2018 Bugatti CHIRON Headlines RM Sotheby’s 2017 New York Icons [33 Photos]

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Imagine having a Chiron. Not in 18 months.  Or even three months. Now.  This week! That is how the new owner of this never-register Bugatti Chiron will feel in NYC at Rm Sotheby’s 2017 Icons auction. No word on who this original orderer was.  The Chiron’s exact color shades are not shared, but it is black on black with red accents.  The red stripe wraps the C-shaped door intake and then sweeps around the nose. The vehicle comes with an extra rear bumper in crate that meets US road specs.  Fitted is the slightly slimmer world-export-spec rear bumper. Pricing is …

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2018 DALLARA Stradale Roadster – Make the World Your Racetrack! [99 Photos]

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  This beautiful new supercar starts life with no doors and no windshield or upright cowl whatsoever.  Just a sleek, wide disk shooting around a circuit! A windshield option makes this a Dallara Stradale Roadster, and a bubble glass hardtop makes it into a Dallara Stradale Targa. Loving them all is easy.  A few reasons: — This is a right-now production car.  First delivery happened last week and production is in full swing. — Dallara is a name known on racetracks worldwide.  They make the carbon chassis tubs for everyone.  Seriously. So they have carbon-fiber at scale.  And wind tunnels …

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2018 Aston Martin VANTAGE – Official Configurator GIFs + Q Palette Neons

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Time for a follow–up to the fantasy colorizer.  This launch for Vantage was well planned indeed! The car is showing up in special events across the globe in person – despite just coming online officially days ago.  Fittingly, the cofnigurator is fully live and the Vantage is rumored to be sold out for first year already! Favorites include the Lime Essence launch color, a few of the Aston Designer Pre-Specced models and the new Q Palette.  Shades so wild they need their own brave champion to drive! One of these is Kermit green, which we landed on through the detailed …

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Aston Martin Reinvents Its Sporting Pedigree With 2018 Vantage Coupe

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With a new era being ushered in thanks to a partnership with Mercedes Benz, the newly re-energized Aston Martin is keen on reinventing itself, and has followed up on the recent unveiling of the DB11 with perhaps the most important offering yet, the 2018 Aston Martin Vantage. The previous generation Vantage was a lingering spectre of the old Aston Martin with an aging platform, V8 engine, and a fussy semi-automated manual relegating the otherwise handsome Vantage to the back of the sports car line. In short, it was like a hipster wearing Abercrombie and Fitch in a sea of Ralph …

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2018 Aston Martin VANTAGE – Fantasy Colorizer in 50 Candy Paints

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One of 2018’s sexiest new cars has landed.  The new Aston Martin Vantage takes a quantum explosion into the future.  V8TT, tight and lithe chassis, and sparing design that relishes drama.  Here is a shark on the autobahn.  An MX-5 GT500 some might joke. But here this Vantage is so, so painfully beautiful that it makes the 911 seem trad and old.  Onward to the future of Aston. The reveal Vantage wears a very familiar Lime Essence paintwork that does what I always do.  Try to find that elusive perfect yellow-green. As Vantage strides into the future, we take a …

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2017 INFINITI Q60 Red Sport 400 – Road Test Review + Drive Videos

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Power over everything! There is a specific subset of hot coupe shoppers who place speed at the top of their list. Then there are the people drawn in by the beauty and elegance of a two-door.  Then once on the test drive, they realize what true torque and big turbo boost feels like. For both groups, there is no going back. This is the 400HP threshold we’re talking about.  And for many, it opens a new world of driving pleasure. The first outing with Q60 RS400 was filled with raw shock at its performance capabilities and sensual beauty. Our second …

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Road Test Review – 2018 Lexus LC 500 – By Carl Malek [HD Videos]

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The 2018 Lexus LC 500 has always had a way of allowing people to relive their inner most fantasies. When we last met the LC 500, it allowed fellow Car-Revs-Daily writer Ben Lewis to channel his inner Bond Villain while proving itself as an excellent grand touring coupe. But how does the LC 500 measure up against its elite competition? and is the LC 500 capable of taking its impeccable elegance to other locales? To find out we took the LC 500 to our Metro Detroit outpost to see if a change of scenery allowed it to blossom to its full …

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2017 Mazda CX-5 GT Premium AWD – HD Road Test Review

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The compact crossover segment has a ‘masculinity gap.’  There are more than a dozen of these cute utes on the market, but none of them really looks or drives manly.  Yes, the Audi Q3 and Honda CR-V are good cars. But do they increase or decrease their driver’s sex appeal? Among the dudes of the world coming up from econoboxes and blah mid-size sedans, CUVs are theoretically perfect machines.  A bit of all-weather ability here, a dash of extra practicality there. Like it or not, people buy cars based on strange psychology.  Men and women are usually both fine with …

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SPOFEC OVERDOSE for the Rolls-Royce Dawn – 700HP Widebody Ragtop

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How do you turn an ultimate luxury cabriolet into a bad-ass gangster musclecar? Enlist the experts at SPOFEC by Novitec. Extra boost for the V12TT joins a widebody makeover with ground-effect aero and a grip package of your dreams.  Electronically dropping the suspension and electronic flaps for the big new exhaust complete the makeover nicely. Only the hood, doors and trunklid escape a full redesign.  One of the nicest details of the SPOFEC Overdose is how seamless the aero package is.  No tacky shutlines and panel gaps here! All naughty for this new Dawn Overdose, though, make no mistake!   …

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Who’s Winning the Race to Driverless Trucking?

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Driverless cars are a hot topic in automotive circles, and the introduction of Tesla’s electric semi’s is set to turn the long-haul trucking world on its head — if they ever get around to releasing it. While Tesla is one contender in the race toward driverless trucking, they may not be the frontrunner when you look at the other contenders. Otto Despite the bad press surrounding Uber, it recently acquired a San Francisco based startup company that can turn any big rig or semi into a self-driving vehicle. Otto’s set up isn’t at risk of putting drivers out of a …

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2017 VW Passat 1.8T R-Line – Road Test Review – By Ben Lewis

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Hankering for a sporty European performance sedan, but stunned by the high prices? Never fear – we’ve found a sweet sedan that ticks all the right boxes and even surprised us with its sensible pricing: the 2017 VW Passat. Now you have to be a smart shopper, or you could get carried away and end up dropping a fair amount of loot on some maxed-out model. You have to know the magic word. The magic word is R-Line. VW actually serves up 6 different models, but the R-Line gives you a nice dollop of sporty goodness in its second-to-lowest priced …

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All Hail The King!!! Chevrolet Revives Corvette ZR1 For 2019 Model Year – By Carl Malek

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After numerous spy shots, months of rampant speculation, as well as a poorly timed leak, Chevrolet has officially unveiled the 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 choosing to formally unveil the car at the Dubai Motor Show versus the highly anticipated NAIAS unveiling that was rumored for so long. Looking beyond the unusual location for its debut (Chevrolet said it was a nod to the growing Middle East market, the 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 brings newfound muscle, technology, and refinement to the supercar segment. While this iteration of the ZR1 does share alot of its underlying construction with the Z06, Chevrolet engineers …

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Road Test Review – 2017 Toyota Yaris iA – By Carl Malek

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The legacy of Scion continues to permeate throughout Toyota showrooms. While the logos, marketing material, and the fancy displays have long since been deposited in the dark corners of history, several of its models continue to linger in Toyota showrooms. One of these is the budget friendly iA sedan. Designed and engineered with help from Mazda, the iA was Scion’s last ditch effort at attracting young first time buyers before the rug was pulled from under it. Will the addition of a Toyota badge and a new name allow the Yaris iA to still fulfill its mission in life? Or …

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2017 Toyota AVALON Hybrid XLE Premium – Road Test Review – By Ken “Hawkeye” Glassman

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  When it comes to hybrid vehicles, Toyota knows their stuff.  The Prius has been around for decades now, and have constantly improved them with each new makeover.  It is the best-selling hybrid of all time.  So as the company expanded their hybrid offerings to many of their other models, customers can feel comfortable enough to buy these larger vehicles in hybrid form.  I couldn’t wait to see how their full size Avalon, which I enjoyed in its gasoline version, would stack up.  The verdict?  It’s a wonderful hybrid car too. We tested the 2017 Avalon XLE Premium, which slots …

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Design Talent Showcase – P1 Phenom Hybrid – Le Mans WingTire Concept

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  Here is an eye-popper of a design concept!  The racecar of the future packing micro turbojet engines on each side.  And tires made of carbon-fiber turbine wing blades.  Packaging of the driver within a central translucent pod / teardrop is almost the most subtle piece of this beauty. P1 Phenom Hybrid is imagined in partnership with Michelin and Embraer — tire and aircraft experts.  P1 Phenom is best in exploring how racing will look with jet propulsion: beyond axles and contact patches for traction. Cheers Carlos Carvalho! Follow him over on Behance here. https://www.behance.net/gallery/41172119/P1-Phenom-Hybrid-Le-Mans-(Michelin-top10) P1 Phenom Hybrid – Le …

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2018 Hyundai Elantra GT Base Automatic – Road Test Review + 2 Videos

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There are cars that are simply better than they have to be. They go beyond just beating their obvious rivals and into another level of long-term partnership potential for their drivers. Such is the case with the five-door Hyundai Elantra GT.  This variant of the best-selling sedan shares much of its drivetrain cabin, but none of its exterior or platform design. It enters a market segment that has more strong rivals than ever.  Focus and Cruze hatchback might be easy to beat.  But how about the new Civic Sport 5-door, Mazda3 and VW Golf?  Those are some seriously good global …

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2017 Dodge Challenger T/A – Road Test Review – By Ben Lewis

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Some cars just take you back. And the 2017 Dodge Challenger is one of them. Sure, it’s loaded with modern technology and conveniences, but once you fire up that awesome Hemi V8, and just listen to it whump, whump, whump – it becomes a time machine that transports you back to when driving was almost everything you could think about. It’s big, it’s bold, it’s positively bad-ass. What’s not to love? The design is familiar, the Challenger hasn’t changed much since it was re-introduced 2008. And they were smart – the proportions, the stance, the swagger – it’s all true …

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Update1 – 2017 Lamborghini Terzo Millennio

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Updated with high-res photos. Lambo just whipped the wraps off the newest, hottest Lambo yet: the Terzo Millennio.  This third wave hypercar aims to make electric exotic.  And make it sexy. Tough ask! The new Lambo TM aims to revolutionize materials and packaging to go even more mid-engined than Aventador or Centenario.  Cab farther forward.  More extreme rakes to all glass.  And extreme aero taking more precedence than beauty.  We see Lambo’s wild pipedream of what their flagship might be in 2025. Only fairly lousy images and no tech specs available yet.  Watch this space for better materials when available. …

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How to Start Your Own Trucking Company – Scott Huntington

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We’ve all seen big-rig trucks on the highway, delivering important goods to keep our economy moving, but it’s hard to tell which company a truck works for. You might not know that most commercial trucking operations run six trucks or less. You can get into the commercial trucking yourself, but like any business, the key to getting started is knowledge. You’ll need the proper license and some capital, but all things considered, it’s pretty straightforward. Just be ready to lead a lifestyle very different from the average job. Here’s where to begin. Get Your CDL License To run a trucking …

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Old vs New – 2018 Chevrolet Equinox vs 2017 Chevrolet Equinox – By Carl Malek

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When an automobile is extensively redesigned and or updated for the new model year, it really makes you wonder if it can indeed be better than the model it replaced? That question compelled us to take a closer look at one of Chevrolet’s strongest selling crossover entries, the venerable Chevrolet Equinox. When the second generation model was introduced in time for the 2010 model year, it proved to be popular with a wide swath of buyers, and as a result, they are a common sight on the roads of Metro Detroit. The 2018 model aims to continue this tradition of …

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Designer Showcase – Changha Lee – Peugeot Lumie LMP1 Concept

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Changha Lee has created quite a storm with this molten bullet of a racecar.  Insanely long and nearly melted in its surfaces.  But full of strategic aero and functional slashwork where needed.  It is quite a fetching design story as well.  From initial ideation to engineering skematics.  Then onto photoreal renders and even a scale model. THe Lumie Peugeot design is so charming in its simplicity.  No doors with just a hinged canopy windshield to let the central driver get in position.  The flexing, superheated flow of the design extends far over the rear axle.  A super longtail with carved …

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2018 BMW M550i – HD Road Test Review

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What if one of the most comfortable cars you’ve ever driven … is also one of the fastest? A big sedan that pivots like a track star? How has BMW defied physics?  Yes. The M550i is a revelation on the road.  After a week of flogging this beauty for kicks – and the cameras – we came away absolutely in love with BMW’s fastest ever 5 series. The 3.9s sprints to 60-mph from the almost-violent launch control are enough to make up for its lack of M5 sounds from the V8TT.  The hyper-adaptive suspension and standard xDrive turn a soft car …

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Update1 – 1600HP, 301MPH 2018 Hennessey Venom F5 Revealed

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Hennessey has been in a two-pony race with Bugatti for the world’s fastest production car for about a decade now.  Their Venom GT easily smashed 270MPH at the NASA runway a few years ago — so we know more pace is certain for the GT’s successor. That car arrived today with a huge gasp at SEMA 2017.  The Venom F5 is fully redesigned with lighter, sleeker and stronger carbon-fiber bodywork.  It promises even less overall drag while also providing race levels of downforce. The quoted figures for power and performance are nothing short of amazing, if they are proven in …

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