1974 Alpine A310.
foto of the day. 12022009.
Porsche 356 Outlaw.
click to enlarge.
Top Gear & Lancia.
This past sunday night, the latest episode of TOP GEAR featured Lancia as the company who has made the most number of ‘great’ cars. It was a fantastic episode, and a MUST watch for any italian car fan and especially for anyone into Lancias.
Here are the videos from that show, in 2 parts:
PART 1
PART 2
Audi introduces the D4 A8.
Audi has just introduced the new A8 in Miami at some art festival (can’t be arsed to look up which one!). On first impressions, the car looks GREAT. MORE INFO AFTER THE PICTURES.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD FULL PDF PRESS RELEASE —–>>> PDF
Drivetrain Highlights:
• Optimized 4.2 FSI V8 specifications:
o FSI direct injection
o Audi Valvelift System (AVS) variable intake valve lift
o 8-speed transmission for improved fuel economy, responsiveness and driving comfort
o 372 hp (D3 A8 had 350 hp)
o 328 lb-ft (D3 A8 had 325 lb-ft torque)
o 0-100km/h (62 mph) in 5.7 seconds
o 15% improvement in fuel consumption estimated vs. current A8 (EPA figures TBD)
o quattro ® AWD – latest generation with asymmetric rear-biased torque split (40/60)
| (inches) | LENGTH | WIDTH | HEIGHT | WHEELBASE |
| 2011 all-new Audi A8 (NWB) | 202.0 | 76.7 | 57.5 | 117.8 |
| 2004-2010 Audi A8/S8 (NWB) | 199.3 | 74.6 | 56.9 | 115.9 |
| 2004-2010 Audi A8 (LWB) | 204.4 | 74.6 | 57.3 | 121.0 |
| BMW 7 Series (NWB) | 199.7 | 74.9 | 58.2 | 120.9 |
| BMW 7 Series (LWB) | 205.2 | 74.9 | 58.3 | 126.4 |
| Lexus LS (NWB) | 199.2 | 73.8 | 58.1 | 116.9 |
| Lexus LS (LWB) | 203.9 | 73.8 | 58.1 | 121.7 |
| Mercedes-Benz S Class (LWB only in USA) | 205.1 | 73.7 | 58.0 | 124.6 |
foto of the day. 12012009.
from the groovy LATE 70s…..my favourite BMW 5-series—–the E12!
must see film: “The Belgrade Phantom”
“A new film exploring the life and crimes of Serbian Vlada Vasiljevic premiered earlier this week in Amsterdam. Titled The Belgrade Phantom, for Vasiljevic’s nickname, the story follows the man after he stole a white Porsche 911, and used it to torment the police over a ten day period during Serbia’s communist era.
First-time feature director Jovan Todorovic used a mix of archive footage, radio interviews, and original dramatized material to tell the story. Several car chases were shot throughout the Serbian capital of Belgrade to recreate the Phantom using his stolen Porsche to easily outrun the 60hp Zastava police cars.
In the story the Phantom gets more daring, starts stealing more white Porsches, in more risky ways, and becomes even more popular by taunting police over the radio. By the end of the ten-day stretch, the Phantom had drawn the support of tens of thousands of people, something highly unusual in the Soviet era.
For production, they used a 1979 Porsche 911 Targa, police vehicles from the era, as well as the actual car that belonged to the former dictator, Tito.”
LINK: http://www.worldcarfans.com/109112623249/trailer-the-belgrade-phantom–documents-porsche-thiefhero
get the tea and mustard out!
gangstaz in the alley. Rolls Royce yo.
foto of the day. 11292009.
Lancias!
click to enlarge.
the coolest flash drives around.
FLASHRODS takes small die cast 1:64 cars and turns them into portable flash/jump drives! Much nicer than carrying one of those suit and tie black sandisks around, it’d be quite nice to be rollin with a 4GB GT3, wouldn’t it? Very cool and very affordable at $19 a pop! Good for holiday presents!
I’m not sure how the quality is, since i’ve never seen this in person…but the pics look good.
new Chevy Cruze interior inspired by early 90s boom box.
Why can’t GM get interiors right? They design a reasonably nice exterior for this new Chevy Cruze, and then when I rummaged through the promo photos of the INTERIOR—–i started to think it reminded me of something….and then i remembered. I then searched, and then confirmed the truth. Why GM? Why can you not make a nice, clean, functional interior without making it look like a drunk 11-year old designed the dash and buttons?
Chevy Cruze interior VS. cheesy early 90s boom box
580hp + 870kg of hash + 133mph + Audi RS6 Avant.
This has to be the funniest Audi related news story of the year. A guy in an Audi RS6 Avant was busted in Spain doing 133mph with 870+ kg of hashish stuffed into the back of the rig! HAHAHA. Genius. Pure genius. The ride height has been significantly lowered, nice one mate!
“A smoking Audi RS 6 Avant was caught doing 213.8km/h on the A-49 stretch between Huelva and Seville in Spain. The driver was busy getting away from the long arm of the law, which in turn was keen on his load. Some law-enforcers spotted the big Audi carrying a number of rather suspicious-looking bags at the back. These could easily be seen through the clear windows.
Upon realising his steed was being closely examined, the driver planted his right foot on the floor, letting loose all power to reach a high of about 240km/h at some point. The agents of course gave chase for about 20km but could not catch the flying RS 6 with its 580 horses in full attendance.
Eventually the fleeing driver came up to some heavy traffic and could not exploit the car’s engine anymore. So he got out and ran, on foot. It turns out he had quite a valid reason for his neck-breaking speed. A total of 27 bags of hashish weighing about 870kg (1,918 lbs) was confiscated from everywhere but the driver’s side. The illegal cache’s street value is estimated at €120,000 (US$180,500), about €10,000 less than a standard RS 6 Avant in Germany. The RS 6 driver was eventually apprehended.”
http://www.worldcarfans.com/109112523233/audi-rs6-caught-in-spain-going-133mph-with-870kg-of-hashish
lancia, frog, and rain.
i love this foto.
click to get hi-res.
sniff petrol makes us LOL
Sniff Petrol truly cracks me up. If you’ve never read it…go check it out —
VW Pranks Porsche (excerpt from)
“Volkswagen’s executive director of research and development, Dr Wolfgang Schiele, backs up his colleague’s Porsche prank story. ‘Oh man, did Rudi tell you about that? Dude it was awesome. All these Porsche guys are like, Boo hoo, you can’t cancel the 911 and we were like, we so can too cuz we, like, totally own your asses now, and they were all like “But it’s our core model and epitomises all our key values” and then like Tha K-man [VW executive director of engineering Dr Klaus Rieble] pretended to, like, use his phone and said “Wait, I’ll just call someone who gives a shit”. Man, it was so funny I almost puked’.”
foto of the day. 11282009.
Before the Audi Quattro. Before the…err…80’s. Before the advent of shaving moustaches. Before the banning of orange and brown vans. THERE WAS THIS FOTO! 1979, german style! AUDI 80 rally car and associated weird Audi Van.
VW entering F1?
Well, at least the ENGINE portion of the game…..that’s what Autocar is saying. I’m still waiting for the day that VW enters F1 completely and uses the name Bugatti on blue F1 cars…imagine that…or maybe even Auto Union.
“The imminent expansion of the grid and the reduced costs of the sport have caught VW’s eye, and the firm is not deterred by the pullouts of Honda, BMW and Toyota in the past 12 months.”
LINK: http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/245349/
Ferrari guitar.
Blackbird makes some pretty great carbon fiber guitars, and now they’ve created a custom version of their Blackbird Rider guitar with Ferrari badges on it. Pretty interesting. $1500.
info: http://www.blackbirdguitar.com/pressreleases/ferraripressrelease.html
foto of the day. 11282009.
BMW 135 tii concept. remixed BMW promo photo by IEDEI.
CLICK TO GET HI-RES.
format67 BMW 130i and 135i videos.
Some really well made, and very cool videos about a car i am genuinely in love with—the E82 1-series Coupe.
more F67 stuff: http://www.format67.net/67/
BMW 130i “tii”
BMW 135i
Titan. a film about the nurburgring.
Pretty damn cool, this is a 6 minute trailer for the film “TITAN” which documents the glory of the Nurburgring.
more info and videos at: http://www.clashproduction.com/blog/
DTM history videos.
Thanks to Jalopnik for the heads up on this video series on YouTube, made by the very enthusiastic DTM ENTHUSIAST.
FIRST CLASS
THE REBORN STARS
THE GOLDEN YEARS
IEDEI Solutions: Hey Volkswagen! Buy Saab!
Yeah, that’s right. I think VW should buy Saab. Why? Here are my reasons.
1. SAAB hasn’t made a profit in years, and likely has debts. VW has a huge amount of money at the moment, and is one of the only companies that can absorb the debt AND has the ability to bring Saab back into the global auto market with shared platforms, new engines, and most of all a brand identity.
2. Volkswagen’s global auto empire. the Volkswagen Auto Group spans from Germany to Spain to Czech to Italy to all sorts of smaller conglomerates in China and South America, and what better international frontier than Scandinavia. Yeah, VW needs a Swedish side to it.
3. F*ck Koeniggsegg….BUY THEM AS WELL if you want.
4. Relaunch a Saab 900 on the VW Golf platform, as a smaller, more practical solution built with a SAAB image……and with SAAB personality.
5. Launch the ‘new’ 9-5 (which i love the styling of….) on a VW/AUDI platform (A4 or A6?).
6. Make it a specialized brand with profitability and character.
7. Cancel silly developments like those Saab SUVs that GM was doing….
8. IEDEI told you to.
COME ON VOLKSWAGEN! you know you want some Swedish in yer.
IEDEI 