Sunday, 29 January 2012

Video Sunday - Je Suis En Retard

Uploaded: 25/1/12Running Time: 1:56Views When Found (26/1): 390,775Views When Posted Today: 5,401,438 [Don't worry, "Je suis en retard" means "I am late". I'm not questioning anyone's mental strength]As you must surely own an Internet (otherwise how are you reading this?), you have probably become aware of the phrase "trolling", which refers to someone winding people up on internet forums/comment sections or posting something designed to get an indignant response, perhaps from someone whose mental strength is roughly on par with YouTube commenters...

Saturday, 28 January 2012

Video Saturday - Beats an EZGO

Uploaded: 18/1/12Running Time: 2:08Views When Posted: 99,221Unless you've been tricked into the relentless and fruitless pursuit of perfection that is playing the sport, golf is dull. Sure, taking a few swings at the driving range can be pretty fun, but on TV it's mostly men who've waved 30 goodbye standing on cleanly-mowed fields in beige trousers looking at a flag. To spice things up, New Zealander Rhys Millen, son of Pikes Peak legend and IMSA racer Rod Millen, has taken his 500-horsepower Hyundai Veloster rallycross car and gone all Ken Block...

Thursday, 26 January 2012

Video Thursday - The Only Hybrid You Should Listen To

Uploaded: 25/1/12Running Time: 59secsViews When Posted: 10,800The other day I did a post on the new Toyota TS030 HYBRID looking to take on Audi at this year's Le Mans 24 Hours. Now you can listen to what that hybrid system sounds like. As well as gathering up to 500kJ of electrical energy to release above 75mph, the Toyota Hybrid you should actually care about will apparently use its electric motor (which, looking at the DENSO sponsor on the side, is probably rear-mounted) to taxi down the pit lane, thus saving extra fuel with each stop. Well,...

Wednesday, 25 January 2012

SAAB's Entire History Is Secure. I'm Glaad

2011 SAAB Phoenix ConceptThis is just a quick post to say that, after getting all sad that the SAAB museum was for sale, the City of Trollhättan , SAAB AB and The Wallenburg Foundation have all pitched in to save the collection of 123 cars and keep them all in one place, in the museum in SAAB's town of birth, which clearly cares enough about its history to preserve it. Woo!To celebrate, here's some stunt driving. It's grainy, but there are some pretty...

Forget The Prius GT300, THIS Is The Only Hybrid You Should Care About

2012 Toyota TS030 at the Paul Ricard CircuitWow, Toyota are really keen to get rid of their dull image. First they co-produce the GTBRZ86-RS coupé with Subaru, then they make a Prius to enter the GT300 class of SUPER GT, and now we have here their first Le Mans entry since 1999 (around the last time they were this awesome), the TS030. Sure, it's a hybrid, but it's in the Porsche/Williams flywheel-accumulator-cum-KERS kind of way, not the barely-moving...

Tuesday, 24 January 2012

Chevrolet Corvette C7 Spied Wearing A Snow Jacket

As a follow-up to the renderings (and my subsequent slap-dash modifications) of the C7-generation Corvette, here are spy shots of the first C7-bodied prototypes getting their chill on in Northern Europe for cold-weather endurance testing. Temperatures there are estimated to be at around -20°C, so will this ensure the next Corvette will be a cool car? Someone should probably tell them it doesn't quite work that way...Looking pretty similar to a C6...

Saturday, 21 January 2012

Video Saturday - Epic Win

Uploaded: 16/1/12Running Time: 3:03Views When Posted: 1,405,031When a YouTube video has reached nearly 1.5 million views in five days, you know it must be good. Unless it's a new Rebecca Black song, then you know it's laughably horrid. Either way, this definitely is worth watching, as motoring and football mix together to make one heck of a good shot. I don't know who this guy is, other than being called Nakamura, which is a bit like being called Jones when you're in Japan. Anyway, Mr. Jones has to kick a football through the window of a moving...

Friday, 20 January 2012

Special Stage Route X - A Guide Through Polyphony's Ehra-Lessien

It's not every track where turns 1 and 2 are over 10KM apartThis month, Gran Turismo 5 received another update to Spec 2.03. This included some new cars, none of which is an R35 GT-R (finally) and one of which will be appearing here in the next couple of days, and a new circuit, Special Stage Route X. While all the other SS routes in the GT universe are on fictional Tokyo streets, this one is literally in the middle of nowhere, and makes no bones...

Tuesday, 17 January 2012

SAAB's Entire History Is For Sale. How Saad.

SAAB Sonnet on the left, one of very few MF-layout carsAs I'm sure you know from the horribly drawn-out and very public fall to bankruptcy, SAAB has gone bust. The weird and wonderful Swedish company lost it all, lest we forget, because a saving bid was blocked by General Motors, who didn't want the parts and platforms they were supplying to go to the Chinese operation that were interested in buying them. Damn you, GM. SAAB are cool. Secretly. Anyway,...

Sunday, 15 January 2012

Toyota's GT300 Entry Is the Only Hybrid You Should Care About

Can you tell what it is yet?As well as the Subaru BRZ, this year's SUPER GT series is set to have a pretty damn awesome GT300 class, not only because of the usual mix of BMWs, Porsches, Ferraris, Nissan Zs, bespoke racers and so on, but because of Toyota's new entry, which started out in life as something you wouldn't expect to become a racing car...You see, it's a Toyota Prius. No really, I mean it, this is a Toyota Prius racing car, with a racing...

Video Sunday - In Soviet Russia, Drowning Escape You

Uploaded: 8/1/12Running Time: 2:36Views When Posted: 245,491For a long time, it looks like this Kirovec K-701 isn't going to avoid its watery grave in the middle of what can only be described as A River. The huge Russian tractor-truck, which weighs 12.4 tonnes and only has 300 horsepower (but probably a huge torque figure) to help it, finally makes it out and into relatively dry land. With the air intake and exhaust staying relatively out of the water's way, chances are it continued working perfectly after taking an unwanted dip. What's surprising...

Saturday, 14 January 2012

Video Saturday - Gojira-San

Uploaded: 8/12/11Running Time: 4:56Views When Posted: 35,244After giving you a few quotes from the man who co-created Godzilla (by which I mean the Nissan GT-R since 1989), and then rambling a bit afterwards, here is a video where Autocar's Steve Sutcliffe interviews him from behind the wheel of the new 2012 DBA-R35 GT-R. One point of interest is where he mentions that, while most car companies publish the highest power figure they got for a new model, Nissan quote the lowest for the GT-R, so even with the different variables between each engine...

Friday, 13 January 2012

SPIED: Lexus LFA Roadster?

Before we begin, I'd like to point out that the same site where I found this also has a video of the Ferrari Codename F152 prototype I reported on a couple of days ago.Is it a custom job? Is it a surprise unveiling of a new special edition? Who knows. Not even Carscoop, who hosted the video originally, can shed any real light on it, but what can definitely be said is that this video contains a fully-functional Lexus LFA Roadster. 47 seconds into...

Supercar Buyers Are Stupid

See that silver thing? You can't have one any more...In late November, the Ferrari California was updated with a bit more power and a bit less weight, adding 30bhp and shedding 30kg. That all seems fine, but with the refresh came sad news: The California is no longer available with a manual transmission. While only a tiny fraction of Californias sold came with a clutch pedal, and a manual doesn't necessarily make sense in a more relaxed open-top...

Thursday, 12 January 2012

2012 Detroit Auto Show Highlights

This colour is called 'Gotta Have It Green'. Have I? Have I really? I prefer the blue, myselfThe first major motor show of the year is the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), which has just finished. It was relatively quiet in terms of exciting new models compared to Frankfurt '11, but there was plenty of new American metal looking to finally take on the Europeans at mainstream cars with at least some level of genuine conviction... because...