Jaguar concept XJ front

Jaguar has revealed an exciting new concept designed to showcase the potential of its new XJ series. The XJ75 Platinum Concept revealed at the Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance over the weekend, although a showcar, may well be an example of things to come from the marque.

“The new Jaguar XJ Platinum Concept celebrates Jaguar’s 75th Anniversary, and highlights the uniqueness of the XJ, and more broadly, the increasingly personal nature of luxury cars in today’s market,” says Mike O’Driscoll, Managing Director of Jaguar Cars.

“The XJ is thoroughly modern, and captures the innovative and daring character that our founder Sir William Lyons built into every Jaguar. And the design team clearly had some fun making their first one-of-a-kind XJ design concept in that spirit.”

Although not an actual XJR, a new version of Jaguar’s sportiest saloon is expected to be released soon, so this look could be incorporated to a new production model about to roll off the line.

A 470hp Supercharged V8 powers the XJ75, and not the 500hp-plus engine that is used in a production XJR. However, it is equipped with new ground-hugging front, rear and side sills and also features bespoke 22-inch black wheels – all of which could easily foretell the shape of good things come. Inside the car, the black colour scheme is complemented by white air vents, veneers and diamond stitch suede inserts to the seats and headliner, that contrast with the black leather interior.

Jaguar concept XJ rear

Jaguar concept XJ wheels

A 37 year old Swedish man has been dished out the biggest speeding ticket in the world after being caught driving at 180mph (290km/h).

The man, who has not been named, was driving through Switzerland in his brand new Mercedes SLS AMG when he was stopped for travelling over 105mph over the speed limit. Under Swiss law, the level of fine is determined by the wealth of the driver and the speed recorded, meaning that the unnamed man has been fined a huge SFr1,080m ($1m or £656,000). As well as being given the speeding fine itself the mans car has been impounded and he is being forced to pay a daily fine of SFr3,600 for 300 days.

Local police spokesman Benoit Dumas said of the latest case that “nothing can justify a speed of 290km/h”. “It is not controllable. It must have taken 500m to stop,”.

I’m surprised the Swiss Police could catch him at 180mhp, they must have some very fast police vans. I wonder why he was in such a rush?

Mercedes SLS AMG

Mk1 VW Golf

The Volkswagen group has closed the deal on the purchase of the Italian design company Italdesign Giugiaro (IDG) by securing 90.1% of share in the company. The shares in the company were purchased by Lamborghini with the remaining 9.9% stake remaining in the hands of the Giugiaro family.

The two companies are not strangers with founder/chairman Giorgetto Giugiaro being responsible for the mk1 Scirocco and the very first Golf  all the back in the early 70′s. Giugiaro was also behind the Volkswagen Porsche Tapiro Concept in the 70′s as well, successfully showing his design prowess with the VW group.

It’s unclear if IDG will continue working with outside clients or will now dedicate itself to VW Group projects.

Volkswagen Porsche Tapiro Concept

Renualt DeZir at the Side of the Road in Paris

The DeZir’s power comes from the same size 24 kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery pack that sits under the Nissan Leaf, and the driving range remains the same 100 miles, though unlike Leaf the pack in the concept is configured for Quick Drop exchanges. The DeZir is propelled by a 110 kilowatt electric motor powering the rear wheels and rocketing the lightweight electric concept to 60 mph in 5 seconds.

Here are some of the shots.

Renualt DeZir Shoing off its Wing Style Doors.

Renualt DeZir Rear

Renualt DeZir Lights

Mini has confirmed the existence of the Countryman World Rally Car for the first time. Mini are going to be behind a Prodrive-built car that will run on selected rounds of next year’s World Rally Championship before starting a full programme of events in 2012.

A statement from the German owned company confirmed the months old rumors that Mini were planning on collaborating with the UK based Prodrive company to enter the WRC arena.

The car is expected to use the Mini 1.6 turbo charged engine with the first tests for the new car to start in the autumn. The car is to called the Mini Countryman WRC and it will be the first outing for Mini in rallying for over 40 years, with the last appearance being the Monte Carlo 1,000 Lakes Rally and Acropolis Rally in 1967.

No official date has been made for the launch of the car in the 2011 season, but the Rally d’Italia-Sardegna in May is highly tipped to be the first outing of the car in competition. Drivers have not been named either but Marcus Gronholm, Kris Meeke, P-G Andersson and Mads Ostberg are all being linked to the new team.

Ian Robertson, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, responsible for Sales and Marketing, said: “I am delighted Mini will be represented on one of the most popular stages in international motorsport. The success enjoyed on the rally circuit has made a vital contribution to the image of the brand. Mini customers have always shown great interest in motorsport.

“I am convinced we will add a few more chapters to our success story in rallying. The Mini Countryman provides an excellent basis, from which to create a competitive racing car for the world championship. In Prodrive, we have a strong and experienced partner. We will work hard together over the coming months to ensure we get the project on track right from the word go.”

Prodrive chairman David Richards added: “This is a very exciting new motorsport programme. During the 1960s Mini captured the imagination of the world when the tiny car took on the might of V8-powered Fords and won what was then one of the toughest motorsport events, the 4,000km Monte Carlo rally.

“I believe our new Mini will become a firm favourite of the latest generation of rally fans, just as it is adored by its millions of owners across the world. We already have a significant number of confirmed customer orders for the new Mini rally car with the first deliveries scheduled for the start of the 2011 season.”

Mclaren F1

Mclaren have developed a new upgrade for the F1 car that looks to be ready for introduction in this weekends British GP. The McLaren team have developed a new blown rear diffuser that has been pioneered by Red Bull and are expecting significant improvements.

Although the upgrade for the car is ready McLaren is letting the two British drivers decide whether they want the new changes on the cars for this weekend. McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale said  “We would like to take it this weekend and, if the drivers think it’s good enough, it will stay on, if not, then we will continue to develop the upgrade.”

A number of teams made aerodynamic upgrade for last weeks European Grand Prix, including Ferrari who were very impressed with the new changes to the F10, though other in race incidents stopped Alonso finishing as high as he would have liked.

Jonathan Neale also added

“In Formula 1 it’s rare there are golden bolts that will transform your car from uncompetitive to competitive,”

“Most teams, including Red Bull, made an impressive change to their diffusers to give them a good step forward.

“It’s one of the things we are working on as part of a package of changes that we are bringing to the next race and subsequent races.

“A lot of teams upgraded their cars quite heavily last weekend, we’ve been trying to pull forward a variety of packages we have planned through the season.

“Friday will be a testing day. A number of teams are working with complex projects like blown diffusers and f-duct systems, there are a lot of installation issues which require track time to get right.

“I’m confident that we’ve made a reasonable performance step. Do I think we’ve got everything we’ve expected? It’s hard to tell at this stage, I’ll wait and see what the drivers think.”

I think this weekends F1 will be one of the most exciting this year. With all the teams continuing to get to grips with all the new regulations and rule, continuing to develop each car to make the most out the current constrictions, two of the top drivers in F1 at the moment being British  and the brand new track at Sliverstone, its all starting to look like one of the best British Grand Prix’s in years.

After the Veyron was released I shed a tear thinking that this could be the last ‘mad’ uber-car we could every see, with climate change becoming an ever more talked about subject and all of the big car manufactures (wisely) investing their R and D money into researching hydrogen and electric cars I had a feeling that the Veyron may very well be the last of generation.

Oh how wrong i was. As well as Bugatti tweaking the Veyron making it even faster, there is a new kid on the block boasting even crazier power, acceleration and speed figures.

The car in question is the new TranStar Racing Dagger GT which houses a whopping 2000bhp engine. The power is produced by a 572 multifuel (petrol/methanol/hydrogen/ethanol) twin turbo racing engine produced by Nelson Racing Engines. The engine will also produce 2000lb/ft of torque which is delivered to the wheels by a 6 speed gearbox.

The amazing figures don’t stop with the power, the Dagger GT is set to rocket to 60 in only 1.5 seconds and complete a quarter mile in a staggering 6.7seconds. The top speed is as equally as mad as the other figures surrounding this car, with the Dagger GT being able to reach 300mph, nearly 40mph more then the new Veyron’s record.

As you could expect the Dagger GT is constructed using a mixture of strong but light materials including high-strength 4130 Chromoly Steel for the chassis and carbon fibre for the exterior body work.

Unlike the Veyron the Dagger GT is almost cheap, priced at $450,000. Though with only 5 units planned for 2011 and 10 units planned for 2012 you better get your orders in fast if you want one.

The car looks great in the pictures, but i have my doubts about how ‘good’ it will actually be. All supercars are built to be fast, but the Ferrari’s and Bugatti’s of this world are also comfortable and refined at the same time. With a race spec engine and a super light body I can’t really see the Dagger GT offering the same package. Also, with an engine as finely tuned as the Nelson Racing multifuel engine in the Dagger I doubt you will be able to many miles before you have to pay for a pricey overhaul. Though I guess if you can afford it as a toy you can afford the bills.

Here are some photos.

Dagger GT Rear

Dagger GT Rear Quarter

Dagger GT Front

Dagger GT Front Quarter

]]> http://www.motoring-news.co.uk/2010/07/05/2000bhp-transtar-racing-dagger-gt/390/feed 0 http://www.motoring-news.co.uk/2010/07/05/bringing-a-stag-back-to-life/387 http://www.motoring-news.co.uk/2010/07/05/bringing-a-stag-back-to-life/387#comments Mon, 05 Jul 2010 10:42:26 +0000 admin http://www.motoring-news.co.uk/?p=387 I love project build  threads on forums because they give you the story of someones pride and joy and you get to see all of the love and care that the owner/builder of the car is putting in.  I am currently following a number of build threads and they can become a little boring and I sometimes find myself skipping through the chat and just scanning for the pictures.

This morning I followed a link to a gallery on Picasa that gave me exactly what i wanted, a build thread without any thread. The gallery is a record of one mans project to rebuild an old 1973 Triumph Stag with everything documented and uploaded so you can skip through the pictures and watch the car coming together in front of your own eyes.

What makes this Stag rebuild worthy of blogging about is the attention to detail that the builder has taken to every part of the cars rebuild. The car sees a full bare-metal respray with new panels as well. I would say that the car, when finished, is ‘as good as when it came out of the factory’, but i think that wouldn’t give the finished article any where near the level of respect as it deserves.

Here is the gallery in question picasaweb.google.com/markweedon/. There are over 370 image in the gallery, so sit back and flick through them all and enjoy the workmanship of this amazing rebuild.

Stag Bare-Metal Start

Stag Under Carage Shot

Finished Article

]]> http://www.motoring-news.co.uk/2010/07/05/bringing-a-stag-back-to-life/387/feed 1 http://www.motoring-news.co.uk/2010/06/30/porsche-intelligent-performance-hybrid/372 http://www.motoring-news.co.uk/2010/06/30/porsche-intelligent-performance-hybrid/372#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:05:07 +0000 admin http://www.motoring-news.co.uk/?p=372

That’s right, the title has ‘Porsche’ and ‘hybrid’ in it together. To be honest, Porsche have been playing around with the hybrid car idea for a while and have been looking to release a hybrid version of the Cayenne 4×4 to try and please those who want a massive Porsche but don’t want to feel like they are harming mother nature… Silly i know.

The Cayenne is not the focus for this post though. I wanted to write about another part of Porsche that is using the idea of adding an electric engine to a car to increase the performance instead of just replacing the petrol engine.

Porsche Intelligent Performance have taken a step back and looked at the whole hybrid car package from another angle. Instead of having the electric motor power the same wheels as the petrol engine and having it take over at low speeds they have decided to do something very different. The 911 GT3 R Hybrid was developed by Porsche Intelligent Performance to do one thing, Go Fast. The car sets about this by using a normal 911 GT3 engine, mounted in the normal place, powering the rear wheels but the car also includes an electric motor, mounted in the center of the car (for weight distribution) and powering the front wheels. The electric motor only comes in when a special button is pressed by the driver to give him that little extra power he/she needs to overtake or power out of a corner. When the electric motor is not being used it get recharged by the turning of the front wheels.

The car is fully focused on performance and racing, so you can forgive the fact that there is no saving of petrol to be found in the 911 GT3 R Hybrid. To test the new hybrid Porsche Intelligent Performance decided to throw the car in at the deep-end and enter it into the Nürburgring 24hr race. Known as one of the most demanding endurance races in the world the Porsche 911 GT3 hybrid ended up retiring after 22 hours and 15 minutes with engine damage after leading its class. Wolfgang Dürheimer, Board Member for Research and Development at Porsche AG, gives an outlook to the future: “The 911 GT3 R Hybrid has proven that highest performance and a unique efficiency don’t exclude each other. The vehicle shows the technological path to racing in the future.”.

I can see the idea behind the Porsche 911 GT3 hybrid catching on in the future. You could say that McLaren have already been using something similar in last seasons F1 car, but with mixed results. Anyway, here are a couple of videos of the 911 GT3 hybrid in action at the ring.

Now i may have over exaggerated a little, but electric cars are no where near as cool and usable as we were promised they would be 10 years ago and they are certainly now fast. Or are they?

I found some very cool photos of the fastest electric powered drag car in the UK toady and i must say and have fallen for it. I maybe a sucker for a low old skool beetle, but one that looks like its going to kill you like Christine on steroids, and can do a 11.95 quarter mile is enough for me.
The car is not the fastest electric car over 1/4 of a mile, there is a 1972 Datsun in the USA that holds that honour with a run of 11.4 seconds, but the Beetle built by Sam Young and his team sure isn’t too far away.

I think i will be keeping an eye for anymore news on Sam Young’s drag beetle to see what else they can do to squeeze out some more speed to help crack the 11 second mark.

Here are the photos of the car i spotted over at  retro rides

Sam Young's Beetle

Sam Young's Beetle Burnout

Electric Bug Engine-less