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

The Thread is only 10 pages long and is still running with the car only half finished, but its still well worth a read as the engineering and build quality is second to none. The thread starts like this,

So i was going to swap the VR6 out of my mk3 track car into a mk2 jetta with a clean shell…or so i thought. Turns out that the jetta shell was far from clean, but it was free so i couldn’t complain . I gutted the car to find about an inch of water in the foot wells caused by a pin hole in the sunroof panel and plenty of sitting outside. I started removing the undercoating and got sick of being covered in sticky crap so i pulled out the big guns. I ended up removing the entire floor pan from the front firewall to the license plate tub. Now the fun begins…the plan has changed to create a mid-engined RWD 4 door jetta.

Followed by loads of photos of his little white mk2 Jetta getting cut down and completely stripped. It take the builder no time at all to start building up the space frame to house the driver and passenger and to house the new power unit and all the interior. The car gets a new heavy-duty roll cage and a test fitting of the VRT engine in the back.

Jetta getting the chop

Rear subframe in place, though it wont be used in the end.

The new VR6 engine in place.

I would continue with a full commentary of the whole build, but I am sure you would all prefer reading through and watching the car come to life with some excellent pieces of engineering along the way, including the billet hubs and completely custom suspension setup. Here are some highlights from the thread.

Centre bore mounthed split rims.

The Jetta finally on its wheels with all the spaceframe finished.

The rear suspension setup now looks nothing like the standard setup at all.

The front suspension it unique too, with two shocks dealing with two different plains of movement.

The car is truly amazing and will be a complete beast once finished. I will be watching the thread on Vortex with great interest. All of the photos in this blog have been taken from the Votex forum and have been originally taken by the builder of the car VR6-3.0.

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

Lamborghini Presa Concept

These images are a concept for a new GT Lamborghini by Mohammad R. Shojaie that might be gracing the forecourts in the near future. The new concept is xalled the Lamborghini Presa and has been designed by Mohamad Monfared, Alireza Sahragard, and Arian Moqbeli in a joint effort to come up with a brand new GT Lambo like never before.

The Presa is the first front engined Lamborghini’s since the Jarama S in 1972. The Presa GT has been designed to take on the crowded front engined V8 GT market where the Ferrari 599 and the Aston Martin DB9 current command.

The concept is clearly a Lamborghini, but special attempts have been made to design the transverse lines in order to distinguish it from other GTs on the market.

When or even whether the Lamborghini Presa will make it to market is unsure. I hope something comes of this cencept because I love it.

Lamborghini Presa Concept Side

Lamborghini Presa Concept Front

Lamborghini Presa Concept Bottom

Original Lancia Stratos

The images below have been circulating the Internet over the last few days with the unfounded labels of photos of the new Stratos.

The photos were originally broken by Italian car blog Italiaspeed and they were taken back in June at Alfa Romeo’s Balocco test track in Italy. Though many have stated that they are the new Stratos, no one really knows exactly what it is as nothing has been confirmed nor denied.

There are of course many rally and Lancia fans across the net that are convinced that the images show the new Stratos sports car which is a continuation on the 2005 concept car that was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show. You can definitely see why people think that the new spy shots are of a new Stratos though, the lines are very similar to the old legendary Rally car, with a low pointed from nose and an almost identical rear spoiler. The new spy shots have caused quite a stir in rally and lancia circles with all sorts of rumors about the power-plant and drive train.

As for the drive-train and chassis, no one really knows, but the general consensus seems to be that the Stratos will use a Ferrari V8 and a chopped-down Ferrari chassis, though whether these will come from a 360 Challenge Stradale, an F430 or even an F430 Challenge racer is unclear.

An F430 basis seems most sensible, but even though the use of the Balocco facility means the project has Fiat Auto’s implicit approval, it’s unlikely that neither Fiat, Ferrari nor Lancia will have anything more than a tangential involvement with the project.

New Lancia Stratos Spy Shots

Another New Lancia Stratos Spy Shots

I spotted this very rare 1977 BMW E21 Alpina A1/3 for sale on Pistonheads last week and just had to feature it as a car of the week.

The car is a Alpina version of the E21 320 BMW from the late 70′s and is believed to be one of the first Alpina edition BMW’s. Alpina grabbed the classic E21 3 series car and tweaked it to make it even better. The changes include tuning of the M10 engine by including a set of twin 45mm Solex carburetors giving the car 125bhp. that doesn’t sound much these days with the new M5 BMW pumping out over 500bhp, but the old E21 weights a fraction of that of the new M5 giving it good pace. The M10 engine is mated to the standard 4 speed gearbox, but a LSD feeds the back wheels for better grip in the corners.

Alpina didn’t just stop at the engine, the springs, shocks and anti-roll bars have been changes to help the little classic BMW corner like a true sports car. Alpina also fitted the now famous front and rear splitters to the car to help aerodynamics (and make the car look much more business like).

The car also saw a make over inside with half leather sports seats and a Alpina steering wheel.

The car for sale has been lovely restored with a full respray in the original colours with all of the rust treated and repaired.

The car looks stunning and has only 55,000 miles under its belt.The car still retains all its original handbooks, service book, original Grundig radio and instructions and even the original purchase invoice for DM23,700 from 1977.

BMW Alpina E21 A1/3 classic low front shot.

BMW Alpina E21 A1/3 Front.

BMW Alpina E21 A1/3 Bottom.

Alpina A1/3 M10 Engine

I knew that Porsche had done some very clever things to get the 2010 911 to handle with the big old engine hanging out over the rear wheels, but I never realised how they did it until now. The video includes all of the normal stuff like the power ratings and the 0-60 times, but it also goes through the new gearbox the abs and pretty much everything else they have developed for the new cars.

If you are fan of the 2010 911 Turbo or even if you aren’t its well worth 10 minutes of your life.

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.”