Every action and spy movie has to feature a car which is stylish, expensive, a car which means business.
James Bond and Johnny English used Aston Martins, which is getting a little bit overdone. Aston Martins are the number one choice of the film makers in the world, can’t even count on two hands how many movie protagonists driving one. A lot.
Rowan Atkinson didn’t want to go with the already overdone Aston theme, but being a big car lover didn’t have a hard time thinking up something else. Something really exclusive.
The Rolls Royce Phantom, of course.
But not just any Phantom, this one is equipped with an engine which no other Phantom is.
It all started when BMW bought Rolls Royce and they were developing the new Phantom. They fitted it with a 9 liter V16 engine which developed huge power and torque figures but at the last minute engineers thought this engine might be a bit over the top so they ditched the idea and went with a 6.75l V12 Phantom.
Rowan Atkinson however heard about the original engine, and believed BMW still has some of those somewhere on the “shelf” so phoned Rolls Royce who very kindly agreed in mounting the engine in the Phantom featured in Johnny English.
So Johnny got a quintessentially British car to save the world in, except that the car isn’t British. It’s German.
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The world is full of weird people, take for instance Fröhlich. He is a car collector, only collecting items from his year of birth 1950. So far 50 cars are part of his creepy collection. Not this is the only weird thing about him, as you can see he is not really taking care of his collection, doesn’t keep it in a clean garage where they would belong, but instead he parked them all outside his estate’s garden. Some of them are parked crashed to some tree. He likes to refer to his little exhibition as: Auto Skulpturenpark – Car Sculpture Park.
Not every car lover is fond of his way of exhibiting, had some fellow car lover visitors from different car clubs and recieved some really unfriendly comments.
I don’t think its bad anyway, maybe a bit creepy but would definitely be interesting walk around the estate.
Click below for the gallery.
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Wörthersee, Austria. The home of the event housing the Audi and Volkswagen car show, a massive meeting of Volkswagen Golf GTi enthusiasts where they can get together and talk about variable valve timings and other petrol head topics without being stigmatized as a car freak.
Every year Volkswagen as a symbol of gratitude prepares some sort of a little present for the loyal fans. Except in 2007, when the VW forgot about it. Eight weeks before the event and they had: nothing.
Luckily in a big concern the car parts come by easy. All they had to do is look around the current selection of cars the company produces and lego something together. This is how they came up with the Golf W12 650 concept car. The recipe is: take a W12 bi-turbo 641 horse power engine from the Bentley Continental GT, take the huge 19 inch brakes and the rear axle from the Lamborghini Gallardo and couple them together under the body of a Golf. The chassis is lowered and a more effective rear spoiler installed and the car has no problem reaching 0-100 km/h (60mp/h) in 3.7 seconds up to a top speed of 325 km/h (202 mp/h)… and this time rear wheel drive with a mid-mounted power plant.
A recipe for an impending accident? Maybe, but still a great fun.
The monster Golf lapped the Top Gear test track in 1:29.6 which even considering the rushy development schedule is a bad lap time for a super car, still somehow as looking at it we all nurse a feeling which can be best defined by the expression: “I want it!”.
Click below for more images.
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Parallelly with the opening of the Volvo Ocean Race event, the company invites Internet users for a virtual sail boat race around the world manning a digital copy of the Volvo Open 70 racing boat.
Based on approximation from previous events, the organisers expect half million of participants, who as a point of a game will have to choose their optimal heading and sail settings based on real-time weather data.
The winner recieves no lesser price than a Volvo XC60, the second price is an exclusive wristwatch from IWC Schaffhausen the official timer of the event and the third price is a Formula 1 VIP pack from the logistic partner of the race, DHL.
The first etappe is beginning on the 5th of november 2011 with the route from Spanish port Alicante into Cape Town, South Africa but the curious players can already try the game out on the official site of Volvo Ocean Race, Facebook or on mobile phone as an individual application.
The race consisting of nice etappes will be finished 7th of july, 2012 in Galway, Ireland.
Happy sailing.
Expected to deliver 700BHP and 760Nm of torque.
Despite of Chrysler’s lack of interest in further developing the Dodge Viper, Fiat the new owner doesn’t share their idea. They are going to introduce the new generation of Vipers with an even further expanded combustion area of 8.7 liters, squeezing out a bit of an extra umph from the V10 without having to modify the primitive engine architecture of common rail. The engine was originally developed for Dodge Ram, but for the sake of the Viper, they made a light metal block version of it.
It’s still way too early to talk about the figures, but the new power plant is expected to deliver around 700 break horse power and 760Nm of torque. Fiat also added some of their know-how into the engine designing process, which should aid mainly the fuel consumption figures.
The new Dodge Viper is going to be officially presented on the Detroit Auto Show in 2012, and the manufacturing process is scheduled to start in 2013.
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“I had to drive with only one eye open as the camera was blocking my other eye, quite tricky.”
Not many drivers ought to sacrifice their peripheral sight for the sake of a good video, practically for the viewer. Toyota test driver Lucas di Grassi thinks different, fortunately.
During the testing of a new set of Pirelli tires on the Circuit de Catalunya he attached an eye-level camera to his helmet. Achieving the most realistic camera angles you will ever get, practically exactly what the driver sees. Not much, I must say.
Don’t expect that this kind of view angle will appear on the Formula 1 TV coverage however, because the camera actually obscures the sight of the drivers one eye. Keep in mind while watching the video, Lucas di Grassi is driving without the perception of the depth of field.
Click below for the video itself.
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“This car is the stuff of nightmares. It is the tenth circle of hell. The living embodiment of evil.”
Such words left Top Gear presenter: Jeremy Clarkson’s mouth after taking the good old Brutus for a spin. As some of you better informed already figured out this isn’t the coming out we are all waiting for so long from Jezza, but the test drive of a really old and really special car.
Brutus was built on a chassis from 1908 and what makes it so special is that it was fitted with a 12 cylinder, 46 liter BMW developed engine from an aeroplane.
Demonstrating the ferocious power, the Brutus will be facing a modern fast car a BMW 340 horse-power 1M coupe in a drag race.
I have no doubt about the winner, as long as the big old machine can put its power down properly through those abnormally thin tires of his.
The result can be seen on Jeremy Clarkson’s new DVD, Powered Up.
Click below for a teaser video.
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Giddy up, a new season of Top Gear coming up this winter. Starting in January, followed by a Christmas special episode, where the guys are going to deliver jolly holiday spirit from India. Jeremy, James and Richard were caught wheeling through the streets of Mumbai in their Jaguar TWR, Mini Cooper and a vintage Rolls Royce.
Today’s advertisements are flashy, tampered in so many ways to act on the audience’s perception, one starts to admire the honesty and simplicity these good old Russian ads from the Soviet communist era can offer us. No one should expect top notch engineering, brilliant technological solutions, carefully trimmed interior, neither power, speed, economy or comfort, but if it’s plain old rugged reliability you are looking for, then these vehicles won’t need any more advertising.
Notice the environment, these cars CAN go offroad, which is not a neglectable detail on the Russian roads (pardon, logging tracks).
Click below for the gallery of Volgas and Ladas from the golden era of the socialism.
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