Introducing New Cars: Racing

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Friday, January 27, 2012

Toyota TS030 Hybrid Le Mans Racer Sounds Like the Batmobile when it Takes Off

3:10 PM Hell No comments

The first thing that came to mind upon viewing the videos of Toyota's brand-new TS030 Hybrid Le Mans Racer as it was leaving the pits at the Paul Ricard circuit in France for its first test run was the Batmobile – well, that or Anakin Skywalker's podracer from Star Wars Episode 1.

And no, we're not referring to the racecar's shape and styling but the sounds emitted by the hybrid powertrain which starts off with the electric motor before the V8 engine kicks in like an afterburner – yes, it's that cool.

After that, you get the usual screaming sounds produced by race-prepped engines.

Ford Mustang Shows Audi R8, Ferrari California and BMW M3 who's the Boss at Hockenheim

8:41 AM Hell No comments

While not uncommon, it’s not actually often that we hear about American sports cars beating European models on their home turf. Case in point, the Ford Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca that was featured in the latest issue of German car magazine Sport Auto.

Sport Auto editor Christian Gebhard took the track-orientated Mustang special over to the Hockenheim circuit for a fast lap recording a best time of 1:13.2, which puts it behind the likes of the BMW M5 F10 (1:12.9) but in front of the Audi R8 4.2 FSI (1:13.4), Aston Martin DBS (1:13.5) and Ferrari California (1:13.5).

Ford Focus ST-R to Make its Racing Debut at Daytona Grand-Am 200

5:25 AM Hell No comments

After a year in development and nearly five months after its public debut at the 64th Frankfurt Motor Show, Ford’s Focus ST-R will make its racing debut this Friday at the Grand-Am 200 that takes place at the Daytona Motor Speedway.

Competing in the Continental Tire Sport Car Challenge ST class, the racing version of the production Focus ST is a fully prepared competition car. It sports a 2.0-liter EcoBoost engine, a new suspension specially tuned for track use, updated brakes and an FIA-approved roll cage.

Rhys Millen Turns the Veloster Rally Car into a Golf Cart

11:29 AM Hell No comments

Have you ever wondered what it would feel like taking a high-powered vehicle for a spin on manicured grass found on golf courses? Of course you did.

Hyundai and its partner Rhys Millen Racing had the same question as well, only being who they are; they actually had the opportunity to find out.

In Rhys Millen's second recent short promotional film for Hyundai after the drift clip with the Genesis Coupe, the professional racing driver hopped in the Veloster Rally car and played around with it on the golf course. Mosey on past the break to watch the video

New Aerial Video of the Nissan Juke-R's Race Against the Gallardo, SLS and 458 in Dubai

8:13 AM Hell No comments

Nissan is making a strong statement with its product launches lately pitting its vehicles directly against more expensive offerings from established premium brands.

And we're not only talking about Infiniti's recent commercial where the M35h beat the Porsche Panamera S Hybrid in a quarter mile sprint, as the Japanese carmaker also setup a race between the prototype 485hp Nissan Juke-R and the Lamborghini Gallardo, Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and Ferrari 458 Italia supercars.

The race took place on a tightly designed makeshift track in Dubai on the sidelines of the local 24hrs Endurance Race.

Following on from the first grainy video, Carscoop reader "Meto D" tipped us off on a higher-quality clip shot from the air that also includes footage from inside the car driven by the winner of the 2008 PlayStation GT Academy competition, Lucas Ordoñez.

Toyota Introduces its New TS030 Hybrid Le Mans Endurance Racer

6:40 AM Hell No comments

You lose some, you win some. About a week after Peugeot unexpectedly axed its Le Mans racing program, Toyota revealed its all-new TS030 Hybrid endurance prototype, which is the spiritual successor to the TS010 and TS020 cars that participated at Le Mans during the 1990s.

The Japanese firm's new endurance racer features the THS-R (Toyota Hybrid System – Racing) powertrain that couples an all-new 3.4-liter normally-aspirated V8 petrol engine to a hybrid system with capacitor storage developed by official team partner Nisshinbo.

MG Returns to Racing, will Participate in the 2012 BTCC Series

5:43 AM Hell No comments

After restarting production in the United Kingdom last April, MG is now getting ready to return to racing as the Chinese-owned automaker announced today that it would enter the 2012 BTCC Series with a pair of MG6 GT racing cars.

This will be the first time since 2003 that MG will have an official entry in the championship. The brand's two racing cars will run in the all-new MG KX Momentum Racing team piloted by double BTCC champion Jason Plato and former Team Aon driver Andy Neate.

This is the New 2013 Ford Fusion NASCAR Racecar

11:37 AM Hell No comments

The presentation of the 2013 Fusion at the Detroit Motor Show earlier this month has brought a new look for Ford Motor Company's representative at the NASCAR Sprint Cup series.

And by that we mean only looks as the actual 2013 Fusion sedan you'll find in your local Ford dealerships has nothing else in common with the NASCAR racer seen here. Nevertheless, Ford sees the NASCAR racer's familiar looks as a good promotional tool to sell more Fusions to the masses.

Living the MegaLife: A Look at MegaUpload Boss Kim Dotcom's Passion for Cars

5:42 PM Hell No comments

Fast cars, beautiful women and lots of cash: what else could a man possibly want? Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz, aka Kimble (a hacker alias inspired by The Fugitive’s Dr. Kimball) had it all, but apparently wanted more.

The former hacker was the founder of popular file-sharing website MegaUpload and was worth more than US$200 million. Until last week, that is, when he made headlines all over the world after feds shut down his site and police arrested him in New Zealand.

Dotcom's collection of cars worth some US$6 million, which including two examples of the rare Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM along with a dozen or so other Benzes and a Lamborghini LM002, was to be expected – even with the not-so-subtle “God” and “CEO” vanity license plates.

WRC: 2012 Season Kicks Off With 80th Monte Carlo Rally [Videos]

7:36 AM Hell No comments

After a three-year hiatus, the most famous rally in the world, the Rallye Monte Carlo, has returned to the WRC calendar. As it was the 80th event, the Automobile Club de Monaco, which organized the race, decided to design a route that combined memories of past years with demanding stages.

The 2012 Monte Carlo rally started on January 17 with a ceremony north of Monaco, in the city of Valence. The real action, which consisted of 430 kilometers (267 miles) spread over 18 special stages, begun three days later, on January 20.

Watch the Nissan Juke-R Pawn a Ferrari 458, a Lamborghini Gallardo and a Mercedes SLS AMG

6:03 PM Hell No comments

There's no question that the Nissan Juke-R is wickedly fast, but is it actually fast enough to give a lesson to exotic supercars like the Ferrari 458 Italia, the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4, for example?

Well, there's a lot to take into consideration including the place and the person driving (let's not forget that any car is as fast as its driver is), but for whatever reasons, this time the Juke-R came out as the winner.

In the video clip from Carsandspeed that follows, we see the 485HP-strong Juke-R winning a race against the three aforementioned supercars on a tightly designed makeshift track in Dubai as part of a promotional event on the sidelines of the local 24hrs Endurance Race, in which it took part as the official pace car.

We managed to find out that the man behind the wheel of the Juke-R was 26-year old Lucas Ordoñez from Spain who was the winner of the 2008 PlayStation GT Academy competition.

Watch a Lexus IS-F Drifter Drive On Top of a Set of Concrete Blocks

6:59 PM Hell No comments

After watching the following videos over and over again, the kindest explanation we can give about this incident that took place during the demo drift run at last week's Tokyo Auto Salon is that something went wrong and all of a sudden the driver of the Lexus was confronted with a locked steering wheel and stuck gas pedal.

Now, if that's not the case, then the driver of the IS-F racer not only has a lot of explaining to do but he should probably also avoid making any public appearances for the near future…

Peugeot Says Au Revoir to Le Mans Racing Program

4:13 PM Hell No comments

It’s a sad day for fans of the Peugeot Le Mans racing team as the French carmaker announced today it is pulling out from the endurance race series and will not be taking part in the next Le Mans 24 Hours.

Now, if you're wondering why the French company is abandoning the series after a successful run with 14 victories in the last 16 races, including a double at the Le Mans 24 Hours 2009 as part of the ILMC championship won by Peugeot two years in a row in 2010 and 2011, the answer is financial difficulties.

Mini Countryman Wins the Dakar 2012, Peterhansel Records 10th Victory [Video]

3:01 PM Hell No comments

Despite not taking place in Africa anymore but in South America, the Dakar Rally remains a very tough race. To finish is in itself a unique experience but to win is a truly great achievement.

Imagine now how Stephane Peterhansel must have felt on January 15, after 38 hours, 44 minutes and 56 seconds and 4,000 competitive kilometers from Argentina’s Mar del Plata to Peru’s capital Lima.

Not only did he win what is probably the most demanding off-road endurance rally in the world but he also did it for a record 10th time, having won six times riding a motorbike and four driving a car.

Ferrari F1 Drivers Have FFun Doing Slaloms at Ski Resort [Video]

3:17 PM Hell No comments

With testing prohibited by FIA rules until the first official session at Jerez on February 7, Ferrari’s Formula 1 team took a break from preparing its 2012 racer and as usual, visited the Madonna di Campiglio alpine ski resort.

It’s a tradition that’s being going on for many years now (if you’re an F1 fan, you’ll surely remember Michael Schumacher’s exploits) and this time the Scuderia F1 drivers, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, had a little fun on the snow-covered slopes.

The Finn who Accidentally Cheated his Way into Winning the 1967 Monte Carlo Rally: A True Story

3:37 PM Hell No comments

Watching today’s World Rally Championship cars sliding at insane speeds on tarmac, gravel and snow, you marvel at the driving skills of the drivers. And rightly so: Formula 1 may be the king of motorsports, but it’s a two-hour sprint, while rallying is more akin to a three-day marathon.

Even so, while mustering the today's beasts amid strong competition is quite a feat, it is a piece of cake compared to what rally drivers had to face three or four decades ago.

“We did one 36-hour section non-stop, leaving from Monte Carlo and back again”, tells Sympatico.ca Autos, one of the “Flying Finns” of the 1960s and 1970s, Rauno Aaltonen. “The 100 best competitors started the next day at around 5 or 6 p.m. on the Mountain Circuit.”

Scion Debuts 600-Horsepower GReddy FR-S Racer for Formula DRIFT Series

1:37 PM Hell No comments

It was only to be expected that Scion would prep its new FR-S rear-wheel drive sports car for the Formula DRIFT series and at the 2012 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the Japanese company presented a race-spec version with which veteran driver Ken Gushi will participate in the 2012 season.

The FR-S racecar is the result of a collaboration between Scion Racing and GReddy, a long time racing partner of Toyota.

Nitrous Overload Sends Lexus IS 350 Smashing into the Wall

9:06 AM Hell No comments

Like the say, “with great power comes great responsibility”. So when you decide to make use of Nitrous oxide (also referred to simply as NOS) to juice up your engine's performance on the road or on the track, you should be prepared to handle the butt kicking effects.

The owner of this gunmetal grey Lexus IS 350 sedan allegedly gave an overdose of NOS to his six-cylinder engine during a quarter mile drag race with another IS model and the results were disastrous, though the outcome could have been much, much worse if the other car didn't manage to slip away…

Head on past the break to see the video for yourself.

1970s Toyota Corolla Sleeper with Nissan V6 Turbo Runs 1/4 Mile in 11s

8:03 AM Hell No comments

We all love us some cool sleepers and what a better mechanical wolf in sheepskin than a third generation Toyota Corolla sedan [KE30 series] from the mid-1970s with a completely stock look right up to the rear window shades sporting a 3.0-liter turbocharged V6 Nissan engine under its tiny hood.

The ride comes to us from Australia and according to the blokes over at FullBoost, it was created in just four weeks' time. The force-fed VQ30 is linked to a ZX five-speed manual gearbox while the car runs on 14-inch tires.

New Footage from Bugatti Veyron 16.4 vs Nissan GT-R R35 Drag Race

9:01 AM Hell No comments

Last Wednesday on December 28, a stock Bugatti Veyron with 1,001HP and a Nissan GT-R R35 upgraded with some light performance mods met up at the Palm Beach International Raceway near Jupiter, Florida, for a friendly quarter-mile drag race.

Once the Bugatti owner managed to sort out the problem with the 16-cylinder model's launch control, the race took off with the Veyron completing the quarter-mile in 10.175 seconds at 139.44mph (224.4 km/h) versus the Nissan GT-R R35's 10.939 second run at 125.74mph (202.3 km/h).

The crew over at That Racing Channel was among others filming the duel between the Veyron and the GT-R and today, they tipped us off about a new behind the scenes video with commentary from both drivers as well as new footage they shot during the race.