Supercar Saturday!!

Disclaimer: These images were taken from Jalopnik and I do not claim ownership of them

This second edition of Supercar Saturday is very special. Why? Because these leaked images show the all-new Lamborghini V12.

Details are scarce, but what is known is that it is called the Aventador LP700-4. I don't know what "Aventador" means - it sounds like something Toyota would call an Avensis coupé - but the 'LP' means it had a longitudinally mounted engine (Longitudinale) in the rear (Posteriore). The '700' refers to the 700-horsepower fury beneath that volcanic exterior, and the '-4' means that, like its predecessor, it has 4-Wheel-Drive.

The bad news is the lack of a manual gearbox (or at least any mention of it), as it has an advanced single-clutch paddleshift 'box that promises to be superlight, super quick (shifts take 50 milliseconds) and super smooth. Other weight saving features such as the carbon fibre tub and, well, carbon fibre everything-else, help to apparently cut weight down to 1575kg from the Murciélago's 1650kg. The angular body is also very rigid - 70% stiffer than the Murcie, no less - being able to withstand 35,000 Newton Metres of force, plenty enough for hard and fast cornering.

Power comes from the aforementioned V12, which is actually Lamborghini's first all-new 12-cylinder engine since the Miura, way back in the 1960s, as that engine had merely been enlarged and modernised over the past 45 years. This new unit, however, produces 690bhp and 509lb/ft, which should be ample grunt in a sub-3500lb car. Thankfully, it keeps the trademark scissor-blade doors, which, frankly, it wouldn't be a proper Big Lambo without. The Aventador also has horizontal pushrod suspension (see above picture, in-between the wheels), which just screams racing car. It also means the car can have a low nose without looking bulgy.

This is definitely a new era for Lamborghini, with a focus on advancing carbon fibre/composite technology to make their cars as light as possible, as well as leaving that traditional V12 behind. The design borrows heavily from both the Reventón, with its jet-fighter design philosophy, and the recent 999kg Sesto Elemento carbon composite concept, which evolved the aesthetic further with sharp creases and odd-angled geometric shapes that have proven to be quite divisive. Despite appearances, this is playing it pretty safe for Lamborghini in the styling department, not being all that different in shape to the outgoing Murciélago and perhaps not being as daring as the new Pagani Huayra. I'm sure it will be equally jaw-dropping in real life, though.

Basic Specs (According to sources)

Layout: Mid-engined, All-Wheel-Drive

0-60: 2.9 seconds

Top Speed: 217mph (350km/h)

Engine: 6.5 litre V12

Power/Torque/CO2: 700PS (690bhp) / 509lb/ft (690NM) / 398g/km

Weight: 1575kg

Price: Unknown at this time, but if you have to ask, you can't afford it.

Sources: WorldCarFans and Jalopnik

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This Is Quite Possibly The Coolest Car In The World.

These days the car world is full of "retro throwbacks". Volkswagen came up with the (rubbish) New Beetle, BMW had a stab at making a Mini, Fiat recently reinvented the Cinquecento (500), and the Big 3 over in Detroit have all brought back cars from their glory days (GT40, '60s Mustang, Challenger, '60s Camaro, etc.). But none of them hold a candle to the latest retro product, this time from ancient British sports car company Morgan.

Way back when, Morgan made cars with wooden chassis and big long running boards and side-hinged engine covers. Today, however... er... they still do. But they also make the Aeromax, which has an aluminium chassis and a BMW straight-6. Clearly that, along with the upcoming Eva GT, is considered too modern, so they're bringing back one of their cars from The Iron Age (or 1911, whichever's more likely. You can never tell with Morgan...). You see, they started out by making Three-Wheelers, which did surprisingly well in motorsport and made for a fun little "runabout" for the company's founder. After WWII, they started making some kind of peculiar "4-wheeled" car that closer resembles what Richard Hammond is currently selling. The last tripod Moggie ceased production in 1952 and saw popularity partly because the lack of a 4th wheel meant you didn't need to pay tax on it, as it technically wasn't categorised as a car. The Isetta "bubble car" had 3 wheels in the UK for the same reason.

Now, for the first time in 59 years, you can have a properly old-school Morgan, powered by a V-Twin bike engine, just like the olden days, except this fuel-injected unit by S & S produces 115bhp and sends it to the rear, er, wheel, via a 5-Speed Mazda gearbox, with a proper manual shifter. As you can see, it's front-engined. Less obvious is that this is actually safe enough today for sales in Europe and the US, thanks to its reinforced tubular chassis and twin rollbars. Its dinkyness and aluminium tub also mean it weighs around 500kg, meaning that, with only 115bhp, it can go from 0-60 in 4.5 seconds and on to an estimated 115mph! That's Lotus Elise performance in a car that looks like it tops out at 40, or perhaps as fast as a child's legs can peddle.

The coolness continues further - the new 3-Wheeler is designed to look "as much like an aeroplane as possible", so it has a streamlined fuselage-style body (apart from the exposed engine, which probably doesn't contribute to a low drag coefficient either) and is available with a selection of Word War II-style decals to make it look like a road-faring fighter plane from either the RAF or the US Military, including - and I quote - "a fearsome shark nose". Can you get that for a new-age Gerry Mini? I think not old boy.

Come on, don't tell me you don't want one even a little? Only small, white-toothed TopGear presenters could fit in it, but it looks like such a blast! Can you imagine what 100mph would feel like in this, with a brown leather skull cap and goggles on? Apparently, the weight of the engine at the front is balanced by the weight of people sitting in it, which sounds like cornering ought to be more stable than it may appear. Morgan is pricing this little bundle of awesomeness at £25,000 before taxes, so the new 20% VAT brings that up to £30,000. Compared to well-specced Ford Mondeos of similar price, that may seem like a rip-off, as the interior comprises of leather upholstery, two seatbelts, a dash with just 4 switches and 2 dials and fresh air, but if you compare it to anything that provides as much fun and novelty as this, it's an absolute bargain.

Oh, I almost forgot. What makes it the coolest car in the world? The "fearsome shark nose", sports car performance in a tiny more-retro-than-you package and this quote from none other than Sir Stirling Moss: "My Morgan [three-wheeler] was a great babe magnet". Credentials: check.

More images and official Press Release here.
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MINI Rocketman Concept Finally Gets It Right

This new concept finally points BMW's mis-led sub-brand in the light direction.

I must admit, I have a huge rant about BMW MINI saved on my computer, going on about how they've completely missed the point of the original Mini and focussed on making an overpriced retro fashion item that isn't light or space-efficient enough to be a proper Mini, and how the Countryman and terribly-named upcoming 3-Door "Paceman" SUV are an absolute insult to the original car, not deserving in any way of the winged badge and merely the equivalent of Apple making a massive iPod Touch (or the "iPad", as it's known, presumably because it's more suppourtive and absorbant than an iPod), in that they only exist because fashion sheep will buy them. Totally unsentimental and a cynical marketing ploy. Alas, said rant will never see the light of day, partly because I just summed it up in one paragraph, but also because MINI just released images and info about this baby-faced concept for the Geneva Motor Show next week, called the Rocketman.

Quite why it's called that, I don't know. Maybe it's because Elton John is British. More importantly though, it's smaller than the current MINI hatchback (or BMW 0-Series, as I call it). In fact, its exterior dimensions fit neatly inbetween the 0-Series and the original Mini of 1959, being as it is around 3.5 metres long. It's also less of a porker, partly due to its diminutive footprint, but also because - as you may have spotted - carbon fibre is involved. In fact the mini MINI is built on a carbon fibre spaceframe and has low-drag carbon fibre wheels, meaning it weighs... well, BMW haven't told us that yet. But not very many kilograms. In fact, I'd wager that this weighs well under a tonne. Weather the (unconfirmed but inevitable) production version will have a 3-digit weight figure, we'll just have to wait and see, as Carbon Fibre is too expensive for mass production. I would imagine its structure will be aluminium instead. That said, BMW are making a different city car out of Carbon Fibre, so it might not be entirely out of the question...

At this point you might be thinking "That's all very well and good, but where do how many people go?". Technically the answer is "Two go in the front, one goes in the back and a very small person sits behind the driver", because much like the Toyota iQ, this is dubbed a "3+1 seater", meaning that because the driver sits further back than the passenger (due to the 'wheel and pedals being in the way), there is only space behind for a temporary seat for someone's child or dog. In reality though, the Rocketman is designed primarily for two people to use. A trendy couple, perhaps, with a friend called Dave who gets a lift to a cool pub in Piccadilly in Fridays, or something. To aid with ingress and egress into this tiny car, the doors are on a Renault Avantime-style double hinge, meaning that there is plenty of space to fit through without opening the door really wide and hitting the enormous Countryman that's parked next to you. It also has a clever two-piece boot in which the bottom half slides out like a drawer (in two pieces so you can have it slightly open without all your stuff flying out - like so), and the top half is a glassy hatch for when you need a bigger hole to fill.

Power will come from a mystery powerplant (I'd guess a 800-1000cc 3-cylinder petrol engine with Start-Stop technology) that magically gets 94mpg and emits bugger-all CO2. Most of the gimmicks, like the interior light show, the entirely glass roof with fibre-optic Union Flag pattern, those peculiar tail lights and maybe the trick tailgate, won't make the production car. Speaking of which, according to TopGear Magazine, a MINI official says a production Rocketman would not be released until after the new 0-Series generation comes out 2 years from now. That gives them plenty of time to work out how to make a Carbon Fibre spaceframe cheap enough to mass-produce. And 2 years to rethink the name...

More pictures and the official Press Release here.

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Modified Supercars Are A Travesty

Ferrari 458 by Novitec Rosso

When Nissan released the GT-R (R35) in late 2007, they marketed it as a bona fide supercar, separating it from the street-racer Skylines of old and making it more upmarket. They also tried to make it "untuneable", because that's not what Nissan wanted people to do with it now it's a supercar. Trouble is, Nissan, that people tune those nowadays as well...

As I've said in a previous article, there will always be a market for supercars. Sadly, a lot of rich folk buy them not just as adrenaline pumps, but as status symbols. As I've also said before, there are more rich people than ever before, which presents a problem for Rich B. Stard so life-ruining it's almost worth highlighting in an episode of 90210 (if you haven't seen that show, it's about rich teenagers and their "problems". I've only seen adverts for it and can tell it's utter shit).

Picture the scene: your daddy just bought you a shiny new Ferrari 458 Italia - which, considering how many caught fire early on, might have underlying connotations of resentment and hatred - and it's bright red with the optional 19" wheels and iPod plug-in and all the rest. For about 5-7 days, everyone's looking at you as you recite the brochure to an awed crowd of similarly rich airheads that actually have no idea what any of it means. But Then... Dun Dun DUUUUNNN!!! Chadwick Winchester III next door gets his very own 458 Italia, which looks ever so slightly more impressive than yours! I know, it's a life-ruiner all right. What are you to do now that Candy is over there playing his proverbial flute instead of yours? Kill yourself? Steal his wheels and pour paint stripper on it? Pull a lame practical joke on him, get caught and learn a life lesson just before the end credits roll? Those are all valid options, but the easiest one is to simply make your 458 even more 'impressive' than his. So, your daddy rings around and finds Novitec Rosso, who kit out your gorgeous, refined, all-but-perfect technical marvel of a supercar with about 40 grand's worth of - and there's no other word for it - tat. Just a lot of meaningless, un-beneficial plastic add-ons (they'll tell you it's carbon fibre) that supposedly make it cooler, and some minor engine mods so that you can do your best Clarkson impression.

Here's a low-budget example of what you just did. TO A FERRARI.

Now you look like a really rich kid. Which is good, as you are. You also look like a spoilt bastard. Which is good, as you are. In white with massive black wheels and black trim - you'll tell people it's carbon fibre - you may even look like a drug dealer, and that could well be true too (although if your parents ever caught you they'd ground you for a year before sending you off to millitary school and selling your ruined Ferrari to Candy's mum for a low low price after you dad got separate bedrooms to your mum and had an affair). That means that Candy is back over at your house looking for disappointing sex and an empty relationship with the coolest kid in the Boulevard this week, which, thanks to a tuning company, is now you.

As you may have guessed, I'm not fond of modified supercars. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I dislike them. And by "dislike them", I mean "hate them with a raging passion unparalleled by any other annoying motoring phenomenon and would sooner jab a screwdriver up my arse before going anywhere near one". I know it's nothing new - I'd imagine Lamborghini Countaches and De Tomaso Panteras underwent similar torture in the excess-loving '80s - but the market for them is so big now that whole companies devote their entire time and budget to taking a lovingly designed and engineered masterpiece and turning it into a chintzy pile of hideous turd. But it's okay, some say, because while they're at it, they've fitted Twin-Turbos and added about 200 horsepower, because more is, like, better and stuff.

RR Phantom Drophead redesigned by a 14-year-old chav

On that note, do these people really think that they can whip out a few spanners and a laptop and create a car better than something that's been in development for an average of 3-5 years under the roof of the most famous and established prestige car brands in the world? Does adding a stupid amount of horsepower make it better? If it did, wouldn't Ferrari/Lamborghini/Porsche/Mercedes-Benz have done that themselves? Besides, it would (and often does) make it undriveably hard to control. "Ah, but we modified the suspension". Same point again, only by "modified the suspension" they usually mean they lowered the ride height to add showoffability and not to improve the cornering ability. It's just obtuse and obnoxious. More galling is that sometimes they don't even bother trying to improve the car and just "Pimp" it instead!

The Mansory Veyron is a prime case in point. Mansory, as I hope to make abundantly clear, are the enemies. Enemies of taste, enemies of all that is good and right with cars and motoring. The Bugatti Veyron was designed, developed and redesigned over 6 years, with so much money put into its development that, even with prices starting at €1,000,000 per car, they make a huge loss on every one. In 2005 it was heralded as the fastest, most powerful and most complete car of all time. As a fellow car fan, you probably don't need this introduction to what is truly a milestone in performance cars. So how on Earth do you improve on that with a shed and a copy of Photoshop? You can't. But that didn't stop Mansory trying. Actually it did, but they went for it anyway, perhaps feeling they had to do something to lower the tone of this almighty machine, so... they added an induction kit to the engine and tweaked the exhaust, which is pathetic. That's what teenagers do to their crappy hatchbacks! I can do that to my car for £300 or less and all that happens is that it gets louder. The power figure rises slightly, but any gains in performance are negated by the excessive use (read: use) of gold, which adds weight to the already chubby 1888kg. Gold wheels, gold mirrors and trim and grille surrounds to go with your gold teeth and the gold door to your safe that you spent all the money in your safe on, but then they went a step further in their quest to make the most grotesque car in the world: they wove gold into the carbon fibre. Every inch of the exterior is thus blinged into submission, making this such a horrendous assault on the eyes that staring open-mouthed at John Prescott's ball sack would be more pleasant. Despite making you think you can taste hairs. It is pure style-over-substance. IN A VEYRON!

The donor cars Mansory use are my main reason for loathing their every move. By using a Rolls-Royce Phantom, Bugatti Veyron or a Ferrari 599, it just cements the fact that in this age, nothing, but nothing, is sacred. Buckingham Palace would probably be used in Extreme Home Makeover if it wasn't pimped out already. A Rolls-Royce Phantom is the epitome of luxury and class. It deserves to be more vulgar than it somehow is with that enormous chrome grille and those immense proportions, but every time you see one, you think not of excess (well, maybe a little), but of genuine prestige, of motoring excellence and of yacht-like luxury. It's not just another shiny car, it's a Rolls-Royce. The Daddy. The Governor. The best luxury car in the world. What Mansory saw was just another platform for adding plastic bodykits, gigantic chrome wheels and gold bits to please oil sheiks. They completely undo all the Rolls-ness and turn it into exactly the thing RR carefully avoided making it: an ostentatious pile of garish tat. All showoff and no personality. Just another bling carriage. Similarly, the Bugatti Veyron is the king of sports cars, the fastest, most powerful, most expensive and one of the most luxurious supercars ever made. Practicality and fuel economy aside, it ticks every box. It is untouchable, right up until Mansory rapes it mercilessly. Imagine someone piercing the Queen's nipples, nose, ears and eyebrows. It's the same thing, but with cars. Did anyone do that to the McLaren F1 a decade ago? No. No they did not.

This is the era where "More Money Than Sense" prevails in the upper classes. Too many overpaid sportsmen, Russian/Arabian Squillionaires and Peter Andres exist and there needs to be a cull, at the very least a cull on their wallets. The money can go to a charity that selects people who need it and could do with it the most.

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Small Block Tuesday!!

My first ever second edition, as it were, this Tuesday it's another lump of Detroit iron, only this time from Ford, in the shape of the Ford GT's 'Modular' engine.

An all-aluminium, highly specialised version of the 5.4L Modular engine, the GT's Modular unit has a dry-sump with a Lysholm screw-type supercharger, as well as numerous technological features (such as dual fuel injectors per cylinder and oil squirters for the piston skirts) that are not found in other versions.

Ford Modular V8 4-Valve DOHC

Displacement: 5408cc / 330ci

Aspiration: 1x Twin-Screw Supercharger

Power: 550bhp / 410kW

Torque: 500lb/ft / 678NM

Cars Of Note: Ford GT (2005-6), Mustang GT500*, Mustang SVT Cobra R*, Falcon FPV GT*

*specifications differ in these cars

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"Growler E 2011" by Vizualtech Celebrates 50 Years of the Ultimate Pussy... Cat.

The Jaguar E-Type (or XK-E if you're American) first debuted in 1961, which was 50 years ago. Its descendant, the XK, is all very lovely - especially with a new 5.0-litre V8 in either NA (XK8) or supercharged (XKR) form - but the E-Type still remains the daddy, regarded by some as the sexiest and most beautiful car of all time. First available with a 3.8 (later a 4.2) litre straight-6 before sprouting a V12 in 1971, it lasted 14 years and is still highly sought after today. Some argue that it should have been a James Bond car, and it often contests the DB5 (of Goldfinger fame) for the title of the Coolest Car Of The 1960s in magazines and blogs. Of course, with modern safety regulations and so on, it would be nigh-on impossible to produce the same car now (although there are some organisations that restore an old one to a modern spec), so Bo Zolland of Vizualtech Design teamed up with Swiss designer Robert Palm and did the next best thing: they imagined a modern-age equivalent, dubbed the "Growler E 2011".

Mmm, British Racing Green.......

Most of the original styling traits have remained, although it has grown a potentially controversial second pair of headlights, possibly a throwback to Jaguar's outgoing styling direction. Chrome bumpers, long sloping bonnet, that pointy tail end, wire wheels with tyre-cutter centre caps and bullet-like mirrors all evoke that classical 1960s style, but they're mixed in with modern touches like low-profile tyres (the wheels are actually a little big for my taste and make the car look smaller), modern lights, blacked-out A-Pillars for that increasingly popular jet-fighter look, as well as the front chin spoiler from a 2006 Jag XK and side heat outlets that remind me of something... I just can't remember what. Perhaps the air intake on the XJ220? I'm not sure the window line is quite right, but that's just being picky. It has all the original's basic and "sensual" lines, but the body drops lower for aerodynamic reasons, which also gives the car a squat stance.

Power for this particular fast feline comes from the same 5.0 Supercharged V8 as the current XKR, but with ECU remapping to get 600bhp. Were it to exist in reality, it would in fact get most of its guts from the XKR 5.0, but weighing a whopping 200kg less thanks to a carbon fibre chassis and lightweight composite body. Sounds like a blast.

Whilst I wouldn't call it prettier than the original (precious few things are), it is yet another great retro-modern sports car from the designers of a 600bhp Volvo P1800 , a 600bhp S13 Super GT racer and this awesome 600bhp Mustang-powered SAAB 96. Hmm. I think there's a lucky number running through all these cars...

Source: Jalopnik

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Supercar Saturday!!

Welcome to Supercar Saturday, a new feature that exists purely due to alliteration (and because smallblocks are for Tuesdays). This Saturday it's the most recently released supercar, the McLaren MP4-12C. The mouthy name is supposed to be the code that McLaren uses for all its roadcars henceforth. According to McLaren's lengthy Press Release, It breaks down like so:

• 'MP4' has been the chassis designation for all McLaren Formula 1 cars since 1981. It stands for McLaren Project 4, resulting from the merger of Ron Dennis' Project 4 organisation with McLaren.
• The '12' refers to McLaren's internal Vehicle Performance Index through which it rates key performance criteria both for competitors and for its own cars. The criteria combine power, weight, emissions, and aerodynamic efficiency. The coalition of all these values delivers an overall performance index that has been used as a benchmark throughout the car's development.
• The 'C' refers to Carbon, highlighting the unique application of carbon fibre technology to the future range of McLaren sports cars.

Lovely, but couldn't you have put a word on the end too? Something like the McLaren MP4-12C "Brooklands", or the 12C "Goodwood", perhaps take a leaf out of Ferrari's book and call it the 12C Britannia, or the McLaRon? Maybe not the last one. Oh well, for know we'll just have to shorten it to "Twelve-C".

I won't go on at length - I've been doing too much of that - but this has some serious tech on board, such as a "Carbon MonoCell" (the black bit in the above image that isn't a seat) one-piece carbon fibre tub that weighs only 75kg, the lightweight Seamless Shift gearbox that eliminates that brief pause during a gear change, a V8TT (McLaren's first road car engine) with the highest horsepower-per-CO2 of any combustion engine ever, hybrid or otherwise. That makes this orange supercar greener than a Toyota Prius! Sort of.

Basic Specs

0-60: 3.3 seconds (3.1s with optional sports tyres)

Top Speed: 205mph

Engine: McLaren "M838T" 3.8 litre Twin-Turbo V8

Power/Torque/CO2: 600PS (592bhp) / 443lb/ft / 279g/km

Weight: 1336kg (1301kg with "Lightweight Options")

Price (UK): £168,500 + optional extras

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Was Jeremy Clarkson Right About Supercars?

I was watching Dave the other day and saw the final episode to Series 13 of TopGear (not one of their best series, to be honest), in which The Tall One drives the Aston Martin V12 Vantage - essentially the AMV8 with a DBS engine shoehorned in, uprated brakes/suspension and sticky tyres - and declares that "What I'm driving here... is an ending". But is it, though? Really?

Well, let's take a look. His full point was that "Thanks to all kinds of things - the economy, the environment, problems in the Middle East, the relentless war on speed - car like this will soon be consigned to the history books". I think first we should establish what he means by "cars like this".

Aston Martin V12 Vantage (Pre-production)

The AMV12, as it shall henceforth be nicknamed, is unlike most special editions. Usually they would add shiny trim pieces or a few pre-ticked options boxes and some special paint, at most there would be a big trackday-friendly power-hike-and-diet-plan or a Roadster version. This, however is Aston Martin's smallest car fitted with their biggest engine and given an all-round tuning job to keep the resulting beast at least somewhat drivable. That's like Porsche putting a 911 GT2 RS's 620bhp engine into a Boxster and beefing everything else up to cope, or Ford putting a Mondeo V6 into a Fiesta. The result is a fire-breathing brute that serves no real purpose other than being awesome in every way. It also costs £130,000 and that's £40,000 more than the usual 4.7-litre Vantage V8, so you'd have to either really want one, or be so rich that money is just a number you have to write down on a cheque before getting the thing you so dearly covet this week.

So is he talking about a hugely expensive indulgence, a glorious and insane version of an already fast and expensive car that exists just for the hell of it? One might think so, and that would be understandable as car companies increasingly make efforts to save precious money and keep their average CO2 emissions down (AM themselves have been forced to launch the borderline-offensive Cygnet, literally just a Toyota iQ in £20,000 drag). But then it becomes clear that the spectrum of cars he's talking about is broader than that when photographs of old racers and supercars appear in the grass...

These aren't bonkers versions of supercars, although some of them - the Ford GT40s, the three Bugatti Veyrons from a TG photoshoot - are serious speed freaks, but it's the junior Lamborghini and the Aston DB5 that made me realise he meant all supercars. And to the notion that the supercar as a breed will soon die, I say nay. Nay nay nay, all damn day.

First off, we are getting the first splashes of a whole new wave of supercars. There's the recently-announced Pagani Huayra which you can find described in great detail further down. The replacement for the Lamborghini Murcielago will be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in early March, and alongside it will possibly be the production version of the Porsche 918 hybrid hypercar that promises 718bhp and up to 90 miles per gallon thanks to amazing new advanced hybrid technology (talk about having your cake and eating it!). Last year saw the new V8 Ferrari 458 Italia as well as a 670 horsepower V12 F599 GTO, a new Mercedes-Benz SLS designed and built purely by their sports car division AMG, and now we get a rival to these cars from McLaren, the snappy-named 'MP4-12C' with the lowest CO2-per-horsepower of any car in the world, making the 600hp twin-turbo V8 more efficient for its size than the motor in a Prius, Smart car, VW Polo Bluemtion, Lexus Hybrid Bicycle, anything.

Most tellingly, though, Aston Martin (again) are pleasing enthusiasts saddened by the horrendous Cygnet with the £1.2 million ONE-77 limited-production supercar, arguably the first true supercar they've ever made. It's worth £1,200,000 for two very good reasons: 1) The engineering and technology involved are quite extreme, and the materials used were used irrespective of cost, such as the real gold leaf that lines the engine bay (gold being the best material at deflecting heat), and 2) Because Aston Martin can sell 77 cars at that price. Partly because it's a very special and exclusive car, but mostly because despite announcing it in 2007 at more or less the exact time the "Credit Crunch" hit, there are more rich people now than ever before, thanks to Dot Com Millionaires, oil sheiks and Alan Sugars roaming the richer parts of London with more dough than they arguably deserve. These people will always want something special (read: shiny) yet comfortable to drive around as a status symbol (not the attitude I would ever take to owning a nice car, but then I'm not the one with money, nor are most genuine car lovers, unfortunately). There are also some lucky car enthusiasts who do have money and want to spend the weekend driving something that doesn't merely look special, but feels special in their hands and under their feet, a car that provides an adrenaline rush, that puts a smile on their face. While even the humble Mazda MX-5 or a hot hatch can take care of the latter part, these people as well as the aforementioned silver spoon eaters will always demand a supercar or a sporty GT, and companies like Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini etc. will always happily oblige. It's pretty much why Lotus are bending over backwards to pander to these people by throwing their entire history down the swanny and just making something fancy and powerful instead.

I don't worry about the "New Lotus Position" ruining the upcoming fatties' handling ability though, because as the gazillionaires are indeed balanced out the Jay Kays, Jay Lenos, Jay Somethingelses and Rowan Atkinsons of the world, these companies are locked in an arms race to provide the best mix of showoffability and driving thrill, which, if anything, is turning out better supercars than ever before, in order to appeal to both crowds at once. Consequently, this new wave of supercars provide a great mix of on-road drivability and world-beating performance. Those that want something purer can go to people like Koenigsegg, Caterham or Ariel, or even have a Porsche 911 GT3 if they don't have a taste for all this focus on technology and driver aids, particularly if they crave that most endangered and beloved species of gearbox: the Manual transmission, considered too slow or old-fashioned for most high-end car makers and champagne-swilling poseurs these days. Unfortunately......

Ferrari 599XX, mixing road and racing for research
into new and improving technology

Lastly, let us not forget where supercars originally came from: Brooklands. Silverstone. Le Mans. The Nurburgring. Suzuka. Laguna Seca. Monza. Ferrari started making road cars in order to fund their racing efforts, and these days most established prestige car makers have a history in motorsport. And as motorsport will be with us for a very long time to come (it's the biggest industry in the UK, for a start, and Formula 1, Moto GP and the World Rally Championship aren't going anywhere yet), the advances found in racing will always filter down to road cars - at least to reassure people it's still "relevant" - and the halfway step between racing cars and commuter boxes are sports cars and supercars (if it's too extreme even for them, the company usually releases a Concept car and says that the tech will reach a production car soon), developing things like carbon fibre construction, dual-clutch transmissions and better knowledge of aerodynamics to name a few things, until they're cheap enough to affect your car. Yes, your replacement for that tired old Ford Escort/ Rover 400/ Benz Patent Motor Wagen sitting forlornly on your driveway. Carbon fibre, previously the reserve of McLaren F1s and Ferrari Enzos, is now used in the Citroen DS3 R, and more extensively in a rumoured upcoming BMW city car. Volkswagen's DSG twin-clutch 'box is now found in the VW Polo, but can trace its routes back to '80s Porsche Le Mans prototypes and the fearsome Audi S1 Quattro Group B rally car. Most modern cars use aerodynamics in their body design to have a low drag coefficient in order to improve fuel economy and/or top speed. The Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is soon to be found in Lotii and Ferraris, as well as that Porsche 918 Super-Hybrid I mentioned earlier.

Basically, the world needs supercars. It may not seem like it to environmentalists, but they make ordinary cars better, they make rich people's lives better (as well as those of motoring journalists), and they make bedroom walls better. So, Mr. Clarkson, that makes you wrong, I'm afraid. Supercars will never go away. They will merely change with the times.

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Small Block Tuesday!!

It's Tuesday and I just realised I haven't posted anything about the engine that gave this blog its name: the Small Block V8. So it's now a feature! Welcome to Small Block Tuesdays.

This week it's a biggie: the GM LS9.

Displacement: 6162cc / 376 cubic inches.

Aspiration: 1 Roots-Type Supercharger (Eaton four-lobe)


Power: 638bhp (476kW) @ 6500rpm


Torque: 604lb/ft (747NM) @ 3800rpm


Cars Of Note: Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 (C6) [2009-present]

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Lotus Is Going Down The Crapper

Mansory Evora...

At the Paris Motor Show last year, Lotus unveiled that it was to have a new beginning. A fresh start. A makeover... one where they aren't Lotus at all.

As any car fan will tell you, Lotus founder and utter genius Colin Chapman (R.I.P) had a philosophy, and said philosophy is "Simplify and add lightness". The cars he made reflected this, from the no-frills-at-all Lotus Seven of the 1950s/60s/70s/80s/90s/00s/10s (built by Caterham since 1973) to the Exige S and 2-Eleven of today. Lotus was also a pioneer in F1, frequently at the very front of both technological advances and the rest of the grid. Most Lotuses (or Lotii, whichever you prefer), are regarded as fantastic drivers cars, with the more recent Elise (1996 -) considered one of the very best and the benchmark for all small MR sports cars. Even the new Evora is a great car - initially underpowered, but that problem has been solved with a new supercharger - blending world-renown Lotus handling with comfy seats and a level of luxury usually missing from the equation over at Hethel, Norfolk.

It may, however, be the last.

The Elite was a revolutionary sports car, then a four-seater GT shooting brake, now a chubby Ferrari California rival...

Lotus is now under new management, and while a lot of the new people have deeply impressive CVs spanning any major sports car company you care to mention, the cars they had come up with were very complicated and heavy. The exact opposite of Lotus's founding philsosphy. They will also cost a fortune in Lotus terms, and the badges that new CEO Dany Bahar revived are almost completely misplaced. Elan on a mid-engined car? Elite on a coupé-cabriolet? And what the hell is are 4-door car and a city car doing with a Lotus badge? This is not Lotus. They're just going to become "Premium Brand X" and sell to the sheiks and lazy poseurs. The worst crime? All but the Elise replacement will be auto-only (and the Elise only gets a manual for sentimental reasons, possibly the only sentiment left at Lotus). The world's finest purveyor of driver's cars will soon do away with the driver's transmission, thus moving the driver a big step away from the whole "driving" business.

Put simply, Lotus will soon be dead. Using the same name will be Proton's new sports brand, trying to take on just about every prestige brand going, not by beating them, but by becoming one of them. It won't be an easy or dignified death either, because, as you can see atop the first paragraph, they've just teamed up... with Taste's Nemesis.

Mansory is, without question or shadow of doubt, the worst abomination ever to happen to the world of prestige cars. And are Lotus avoiding them? Ignoring them? No, they're joining forces with them! And this is "only a toe in the water". I can't be the only one who wants to cut off that toe. With scissors. Blunt ones. Made of sand paper. Bleeding venom. While laughing maniacally.

I understand that they're a business like any other and they need to survive. I know that every car gets heavier with a new generation (although surely a lightweight sports car shouldn't gain 125kg in one go?), but it's the attitude, the lack of manual, the ignorance of Dany Bahar, who actually said of a beloved small sports car company "We are only interested in profit", round about the time he said "I'm not a car guy"...

This is a company kept alive by fans and enthusiasts. Alienating them to become a generic prestige brand is a stupid thing to do. There are other ways to reinvigorate Lotus, and they would've gone down a LOT better...

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Pagani Huayra - Supercar 2.0

Front view. Note the gullwing doors, a first for Pagani

I think it only right to christen my new blog with this car, as it is also a new beginning. In fact, this is quite possibly the most exciting supercar - and therefore the most exciting car - of 2011.

A quick back story: the Pagani Zonda has been around since all the way back in 1999. Horacio Pagani planned to replace it in 2003, because he thought it would be outdated by the new generation of supercars (Murcielago, Enzo Ferrari, Koenigsegg, Carrera GT and so on). It wasn't, so in 2004 he merely updated it with the Zonda F.

Now though, after countless special editions of varying insanity, the Zonda really has run its course, and so the 7.3 AMG V12-powered Wondercar is sadly now in its death bed. The replacement which ended up being designed and developed over 7 years must now come into the light: Enter the Huayra.

Powered by a bespoke 6.0 V12 BiTurbo (made once again by AMG) which produces around 730bhp and an Earth-spinning 811 lb/ft of torque, the Huayra (it's pronounced H-wy-ra, which TopGear can't seem to grasp) can hit 60mph from rest in around 3.5 seconds and charge onwards to a top speed of 235mph. Compare that to the Enzo Ferrari and the upcoming Lamborghini Aventador LP700 that'll hit 217mph, or the Zonda F which topped out at 215mph. In fact, it's just as fast as the rule-ignoring, race-grade Zonda R! Any faster and you're up there in the stratosphere with the Koenigseggs and Bugatti Veyrons of the world. That's fast. Really bloody fast. Despite this, the huge V12 engine coughs up less CO2 (at <310g/km) than a V8 Ferrari or Corvette ZR1, and can manage about 25mpg on a combined cycle. It's no Polo BlueMotion I admit, but for an engine like that it's very impressive.

The bespoke V12 engine has its own unique part number at AMG (M158)

But this is no million-euro dragster. The CarboTanium construction (carbon fibre woven together with titanium wire for a very high strength-to-weight ratio) and carbon ceramic brakes were first used in the Zonda R. The single-clutch paddleshift gearbox is also derived from the concept racer, only it's a little softer in this road car. Not slower, just smoother. They decided to forego the trendy Dual-Clutch Transmission (DCT) that most cars use these days in order to save 65kg, and this attitude to every aspect means that the whole car weighs around 1350kg, the same kind of weight as a Lotus Evora, a Ferrari 458... or a Volkswagen Golf. In fact, it's a whopping 500kg lighter than a 270mph Bugatti Veyron SS. This along with advanced pushrod suspension and bespoke Pirelli P-Zero tyres gives it the potential for truly track-shredding cornering ability. But there's more to go with it...

Between the headlights and tail lights sit aerodynamic flaps. Each of the four (two front, two rear) are computer-controlled using input readings from the pedals, steering wheel and speedometer, which are gained from ESP and ABS systems, and raise or lower accordingly. Yup, this production road car has "Active Aerodynamics". Very clever, and the sort of technology that wouldn't be allowed anywhere near a racing car, for fear of race domination.

But what's it for? Well, here's an example: you're about to head into the first corner of the TopGear test track, a 2nd-gear left hander. The 2 rear flaps flip up under hard braking, acting as an air brake. At the same time, the front suspension is raised slightly, all to counter the weight transfer to the front and stop the tail sliding out or otherwise losing stability (which even Gran Turismo 5 will teach you is crucial when you're really going for it in a sports car). As you ease off the brakes, you'll start steering left and the rear flaps drop. The left flaps front and rear will then rise as much as necessary, raising downforce on the inner side of the car and keeping the line tight, as well as counteracting body roll. As you take some steering angle off and gun it, all the flaps lower to keep drag to a minimum (Cd = 0.33), as low drag is what helps any car cut through the air more cleanly and achieve a higher top speed. All this makes for a tight and tidy line through the corners, meaning you can take them faster and faster, shaving precious tenths off your lap times.

This potentially outrageous performance is balanced with sumptuous luxury and pure mechanical art, and art really is the word - Horacio wanted every part of the car to be worthy of display in a museum, which is why beauty runs all the way through this car. The interior is a stunning and leathery place to be, with all your basic creature comforts (stereo, a/c, sat nav, bluetooth hands-free, etc.) controlled by a big touchscreen in the dashboard. The gear selector is exposed, but because every detail is so exquisite, it doesn't look shoddy, it looks like utterly fantastic artwork that moves in and below your hand. The two-tone weave typical of carbon fibre is weaved to make a V-shape that runs through every part, the lines matching up from panel to panel, and the €2,500 dials (!) are handmade by Swiss watch makers. Just to look nicer. This extreme level of detail is part of why this will cost around €1m (~£860,000). The other part is the super-high-tech engineering and hand-crafting of each car, of course.

Handbrake probably not available in any fleshy colours...

The exterior styling has been surprisingly divisive, with some comparing it directly to the Zonda F and calling it "bloated". Harsh, really. Sure enough, the nose is higher to meet US crash regulations, so Americans can't really complain, but I think that while the front bumper takes a little getting used to (and, if I'm picky, the tail lights look a little bit prototyp-ish), the lines and creases and shapes all flow together so well that the Huayra looks utterly gorgeous, and to be honest, one may be picky when merely judging pictures on the internet and in magazines, but when you see shots of it outside rather than in a studio, you just know that when you see a Huayra in front of you, either on a road or at a motor show, it's going to do special things to your insides and turn you into that giddy 7-year-old that just saw a red Ferrari for the first time. The lack of spoilers and the less extreme lateral proportions (it's not so much wider at the back this time) give it a cleaner look than the outgoing Zonda, too.

The ride is designed to be perfectly comfortable for a road car so that you could sit in it for an hour or more and not get a numb behind, more Maserati GranTurismo than McLaren F1, and it has an 85-litre fuel tank for doing long journeys with, so in theory it does what all sports GTs should be able to do: perfect schizophrenia. One moment it's a sublime luxury car, the next it's a mind-blowing racing car. Yet in truth, it's a supercar, comparable to all those hard-to-see-out-of red pointy things with vertical doors that you look at and think "that'd be fun for a weekend, but it must be a nightmare to live with". The Huayra might not be, although of course I haven't actually driven it - nor has anyone outside of Pagani Automibili as of yet - so I can't say for sure.

In summary, the Pagani Huayra takes supercars to a whole new level, incorporating racing technology with a continuous focus on making a road car to end up with a genuinely comfortable long-distance GT car that can out-drive the very best cars in the world. Ironic, really, as this actually is one of the very best cars in the world. It may be a daring claim, but the new Lamborghini V12 has just been overshadowed.

(P.S. I promise not all posts will be this long!)

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FIRST!!!!1

Yes, that's right, I get the first post. Throughout the entire history of this blog, it will always be true that I got here before you did. Even if you're Jesus, or you drive a modified DeLorean and tried posting seconds before I did. But what's the obsession with getting the first post? Why do some people act so pleased that they just so happened to click Comment before someone else? Perhaps these are the people that used to shout "Race you to the swings!!" and then go charging off without even looking to see if you're chasing them? The sort of people that race you at the lights in their Vauxhall Corsas when you're just trying to get home? The sort of-- oh, you get the idea...

I must admit that when I first started commenting, I did get excited at getting there first, especially when it was something I really wanted to say, rather than just typing "FIRST!!!!1" and clicking send in hope, only to come second. At 19, however, I like to think I've outgrown it.

But whatever, this blog isn't going to just be light internet satire, because if it was, it would suck. This blog will be mostly about cars, hence the car-based pun in the name and the disassembled engine in the background (which, if you were wondering, is the 550bhp 6.2 litre "LSA" supercharged small-block V8 - get it now? - from the 2011 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, which, at the time of writing, was unveiled mere days ago). There'll be a mix of news, spy shots of exciting new cars and personal opinions and rants. And, just possibly, some sprinklings of light internet satire.

I hope you enjoy the articles that follow. The site will be updated at precisely... every now and then. I'll aim for 3 times a week.

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