Bedtime Story - Where Is Godzilla Hiding?

Taken a little while ago. The Stagea is now sporting a substantial skirt to make it look lower. Looks cool for an estate!

The mind works in funny ways. When I walked to school, I used to walk past a particular house every day, which is clearly inhabited by a Nissan fan. Every day for literally as long as I can remember, there has been - no word of a lie - a black Nissan R32 GT-R sitting in exactly the same place on the driveway. There's also a Stagea and there used to be a Lightning Yellow R34 GT-T with Tommy Kaira aero bits on it, but that seems to have been replaced by a black R32 GTS-T on aftermarket wheels about 3 or 4 years ago. Oh, and a Mk.IV Golf "for her".

I've never seen the guy outside the house, so I've never talked to the owner, but every day for the last 5 or 6 years I've walked past that GT-R and it hasn't moved an inch, so because I'm a big fan of GT-Rs (Gran Turismo since I was 7 will do that :D), I've always admired it and often looked it over, occasionally imagining that in a few years I can turn up and buy it off him, as it's clearly not seeing any use. There's even some naturally-occurring green stuff of some sort coming down the bootlid now, and I'm pretty sure one of the tyres is flat, but I'm rambling.

The point is, over the years I've expected it to be there, and it always has been. I even pointed it out to my driving instructor when we went past it in a driving lesson (to which he replied "It's a bit old, isn't it?", perhaps thinking that as a 17-year-old, I'd want something new and shiny). Late this evening, when I was out walking, I went down the path that comes out where I stood to take this pic. As I approached the house, my walking pace halved, and I slowly ground to a halt with my mouth open a little bit, about 2/3rds of the way across the road from the house... the GT-R had gone. After all this time, it hadn't just moved an inch, it had vanished. The Stagea, Golf and GTS-T were all present, so had it been sold? In its place were some building materials and a skip, so maybe it had moved. I walked round (there's a second drive around the corner leading uphill to a garage, as you may be able to see in the pic) to see the Stagea and GTS-T, and the garage door was outlined by light, so for now I'm going to assume the GT-R has migrated indoors while building happens for shelter and... maybe a bit of renovation of its own?

The only reason this is in any way noteworthy is because of the effect it had on me. This is a car I've technically never had anything to do with, but its absence shocked and worried me, as if a friend had moved away without mentioning it, or some such like. I'm not sure why one can become attached to an object they don't own like that. I had half a mind to walk up the drive and peek in the gap in the garage door to look for it, but then I remembered that, again, I've never actually had anything to do with this house, and at night looking the way I do, it would've looked pretty suspicious to onlookers...

For now, I'm just going to assume the GT-R has a roof over its head while the driveway space is needed for guttering and stuff, but what if it is gone? What if someone else got there first? And again, why is it a big deal to me? I don't really know. Maybe I actually believe(d) I'd have it one day. Now that would be a story to tell...

For a more positive wistful bedtime story, read this one I wrote a year or so ago about a Ferrari in the middle of nowhere.

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McLaren X1: MP4-12C Meets Art-Deco Spaceship

Moving around in front of people for perhaps the last time...

There are rich people, who buy shiny Land Rovers and drive them around London. Then, there are very rich people, who buy a Porsche or Lamborghini, perhaps as a second car, and drive around in them on occasion, just to remind you that they are very rich. A step or two up from these pests are the obscenely rich. These are the people who could buy a £12million house on Portland Road or an 80ft yacht in Monaco this evening if they felt like it. These people on't just look at cars as transport or machines to operate, they see them as investments and/or status symbols. Much as I hate this way of looking (down) at cars, it does mean that there is demand for a higher level of customisation than metallic paint, leather and foglights. Some can even go as far as to ask nicely for an entirely new, personalised coachbuilt body when they buy one of the headline supercars, such as Eric Clapton and his 512BB-inspired 458 Italia, or this land-gracing spacecraft you see here, from McLaren's new Special Operations division, called the X-1. It almost definitely cost more than a million pounds.

Dihedral doors remain in place. Frankly it would be an insult if this car had
normal doors. Badge made of Super-Platinum (not really)

Up until now, said SpecOps division has only gone as far as special paint and materials (as in rare animal hide or super-paint that heals itself and perfectly matches the buyer's favourite shoes... probably), but now they've flexed their muscles to let us all know that this division exists by creating something for an Anonymous Rich Man which it seems nobody can take their eyes away from. While the interior is the same as the MP4-12C upon which it's based - save for carbon fibre trim with a titanium weave for a 3D effect, and special "Harissa Red McLaren Napa" leather trim, whatever the hell that means - the exterior shares approximately 0% with the standard car, which has been unfairly criticised by many as "too boring". Such criticism cannot possibly be applied to this 12C, though, which still has the standard oily bits, meaning 616bhp from a 3.8-litre V8TT.



One reason for this is probably the different influences that McLaren design chief Frank Stephenson and Anonymous Rich Man (henceforth referred to as ARM) used to create this body, which include, but are not limited to, the following:

Cars: 1961 Facel Vega, a 1953 Chrysler D'Elegance Ghia, a 1959 Buick Electra, a 1939 Mercedes-Benz 540K and a 1971 Citroën SM.
Architecture such as the Guggenheim museums in Bilbao and New York.
An Airstream trailer.
A Jaeger LeCoultre art deco clock
A Thomas Mann Montblanc pen.
A grand piano.
A black & white photo of Audrey Hepburn.
An eggplant [The client liked the shiny texture of the finish,' notes Stephenson].

Crikey. With all those things affecting the design, it's a wonder it came out looking like a car at all! They spent three whole years putting McLaren levels of obsession into every detail, and this is the result.

McLaren X-1 at Pebble Beach, alongside a commoner's MP4-12C.

An article on an design-driven car shouldn't feature opinions too heavily, as the reader should really develop their own opinions from it, but what I will say is that it works better from some angles than others, and that photos of it outdoors look much better than the official studio photos, something I suspected to be true as cars like this are much better-appreciated in person (well, outdoors, at least - sadly I'm not in Monterey, California at present, so these aren't my photos). The details and complex shapes and surfacing are something to behold, with some almost looking liquid and some looking sculpted, and all accented by slinky chrome lines. The rear fascia is a little less graceful in my view, but you may think otherwise. At any angle, though, you can definitely tell it was inspired by stuff from the '50s and Art Deco. The covered rear wheels are inspired by the '71 Citroën SM and because the MP4-12C doesn't have hydropneumatic suspension, it's the wheel covers that have to rise up to give access to the wheel, enhancing any kind of Batmobile aura it may be giving off.

If you don't like it, who cares? There is only one of these cars in existence, and if ARM has anything to say about it, it shall remain as such forever. This is its only official outing, and knowing what the ARM types are like, Pebble Beach's Concours d'Elegance - happening now - will probably be the only time it gets driven around outdoors, which is, of course, a terrible shame. McLaren spent years honing and developing every component of the MP4-12C, Frank Stephenson spent three of his own years drawing and redrawing every single crease, surface, angle and chrome highlight, and what do they get as thanks? A seven-figure cheque, yes, but the fruits of their labour will now disappear into a private collection, sitting proudly alongside a McLaren-Mercedes SLR, F1 road car and a regular MP4-12C... because only when stationary are this and the other 12C not exactly the same (well OK, the X-1 doesn't have an air brake). Other people will put tens of thousands of miles on their advanced British supercar, with its clever anti-roll system giving it an uncanny ride quality over bumps this car will never see.

So enjoy the photos you see coming out of Pebble Beach. They may well be the only ones until the collector dies and/or passes it on to another ARM who brings it here again to auction off for more money than a house on Portland Road. Here's one more, of the rear wheel cover. Just 'cause it's cool:

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NISMO To Bring Gran Turismo 5 Into Reality, Tune Nissans

Many car companies have what are known as a "Tuning Arm". No, not a big mechanical arm, silly. A tuning arm is what AMG is to Mercedes-Benz, or STI is to Subaru, or M is to BMW, or RenaultSport is to Renault, or - to some extent - what Mugen is to Honda. Nissan has had one for quite some time now, but only really in Japan. Called NISMO (NISsan MOtorsport) they've made a variety of racing cars from GT-class cars to Le Mans racers, and given Japan tuned Skyline GT-Rs, Silvias and Fairlady Zs of varying natures and power levels since the 1990s, but now that tuning arms are increasingly numerous and productive in Europe, Nissan has decided to share its racing magicians with the world. And unlike Renault's failed attempt to bring back Gordini, it won't just be a few expensive stripes and a few badges (although they will be doing a lot of that, with red highlights and other little things). No, it'll be a proper tuning arm, and that extends to engines. Thank goodness.

We've already seen the two different sides to this coin - Mugen have given us both an obscenely expensive 276bhp Civic and a bunch of meaningless styling upgrades for the CR-Z - but with their presence at Le Mans being felt and their domestic success and history long and illustrious, NISMO is being serious about being Nissan's AMG of sorts, saying there will be more than just the tweaked Juke we've already seen, with the Leaf, 370Z and GT-R all getting a makeover.

The Juke NISMO - previewed recently as a styling concept and not as extreme as the wonderfully daft Juke R - will have 215bhp from a 1.6 Turbo four and will thus be the closest thing the convention-dodging company has to a hot hatch, but according to WorldCarFans, the aforementioned models will all get 15% more power, styling touch-ups (which they're concentrating on more than they should, going by the wording) and suspension modifications to match the added poke, while at least one track-focused "RS" model will appear at some point. This all comes from Nissan executive vice president Andy Palmer, so it must surely hold water.

Let's see what that 15% means in numbers:
GT-R: 542bhp ---> 623bhp
370Z: 323bhp ---> 372bhp
Juke: (see above)
Leaf: 108bhp ---> 125bhp (plus a big lump of instant torque, of course!)

Yup, those seem like healthy increases! An RS version of the R35 GT-R and the eventual "Z35" next-gen Fairlady Z may also appear, along with a lightened, 270bhp Juke. For a rough idea of what the R35 GT-R NISMO RS would be like, just play Gran Turismo 5. A Stage 1 weight reduction (at most), Stage 2 suspension and a turbo upgrade ought to do it. Oh, and a big wing. And Sports Soft tyres. I can't wait to see this kind of tuning in real life from the people who made my dream car (yeah, blame Gran Turismo for that too :D). Also, a fast Leaf would be electrifying. Hopefully the range won't be shocking after they amp up the power. Not that I'm trying to plug EVs or anything. I hope they sell it in Lighting Yellow.

Original news source: Auto Express

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Chris Harris For President (Sort Of)

9/8/12, 3:55, 301 views (when posted)

The Drive Channel on YouTube are having a competition to see which host can get the most views, so to help my favourite - Evo's and Pistonheads' Chris Harris - about 1%, I'm reposting his video here. It's a short blast, and incorporates two big cheeses at Jalopnik, which is where I spend much time, and another big cheese at Pistonheads, which is where I should be spending much time. Most of all though, it involves a 564bhp Cadillac CTS-V SportWagon doing drifts around A Man. Also green shorts. Those are worth a vote on their own...

Simply watch to vote for him, and then share it around. DON'T WATCH THE OTHER VIDEOS. Even though one of them has a model in it. She's probably a dude. Don't bother.

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Pikes Peak 2012 - The Mountain Awakens

15/6/12, 2:25, 56927 views (when posted)

After being delayed due to most of Colorado being slightly On Fire, the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb is finally upon us, which means the big road-laden mountain in Colorado Springs, CO, USA will once again play host to some of the maddest machines known to man, woman and golem. One such example is this, the Banks Power Special made and driven by noted race winner Paul Dallenbach. Improved from last year and running on methanol, power and torque have increased by 93bhp and 95lb/ft respectively over last year's car, giving an overall total of 1400bhp and 1301lb/ft from a Twin-Turbo V8. Yeah, that should be enough.

Mind you, it needs to have a lot if it want to stay quick, as with higher altitude (the race goes from 9390ft to 14,110ft above sea level) comes thinner air, which is bad for engines as they run on an air/fuel mixture. The enormous turbochargers - which compress exhaust air and force it back into the engine, of course - go some way to aiding this, which is why none of Nobuhiro "Monster" Tajima's eleven race-winning cars have used big naturally-aspirated engines, but the power figure will drop notably at those altitudes.

Speaking of the Monster, there is of course one solution to the loss of air, which is to use a power source that doesn't need air, like, say, electricity. To that end, the car to your left if the first Monster machine in a long time not to enter in the Unlimited class, instead being designed from the ground up by his own company "Tajima Motor" as a hillclimb car which, he hopes, will set a new record for electric vehicles up the mountain. Well, when you've dominated the "Race to the Clouds" and won the last six races in a row, setting multiple records and being the first to break the 10-minute barrier, you might as well mix things up a bit. Mitsubishi are also trying this with something that appears to have swallowed and compressed an i-MiEV, but the first day of practice today hasn't gone well for them. Nobody seems to know the specs of Tajima-san's new leccy racer, but come on, it's not going to be slow, is it? We'll hopefully find out how not-slow it is over the coming practice days, as they spend each early weekday morning making sure nothing but GoPro cameras will fall off their cars as they race to the Colorado clouds on Sunday. Sadly, I won't have time to cover the race, but if you want to follow it, Speedhunters are promising full coverage, or you can go to the race's official site.

Who will win now that Monster has bowed out of the top class? Odds are it'll be an American driver, given that 5 of the 7 Unlimited entrants are from the US but which one? We'll find out this Sunday!

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The Week In Interesting Motoring News

Logo may change if this becomes a feature

Spending a week away without internet is made easier when you have increasing amounts of British Olympic success and the occasional seaside town to keep you going, but the motoring world moves fast, and missing seven days of news is missing a lot. Happily, from my perspective at least, most motoring news is the same, be it a new facelift, intriguing new technology, obscure supercar, new model rumours and spy shots, miscellaneous industry news or more "works" from tuning companies that think they can improve on cars the world's biggest and best have spent millions getting right in the first place. Thus, I can pick out seven highlights of the week's news without too much trouble, by simply filtering the normal stuff out and picking out what interests me. Hopefully it interests you too.

Speaking of the Olympics, if you've been watching the track & field events then you may have spotted that, after the first turn of the running track, there are four little cars on the infield, occasionally with javelins sticking out of them. This is part of BMW's sponsorships of the games, as having a factory in Oxford clearly makes them British. The mini "Mini" R/C cars are used in throwing events to retrieve and deliver equipment, saving valuable time during competition. They're capable of carrying 8kg of weight, which equates to either a pair of javelins, a discus, a shotput shot or a hammer-throw hammer. They cover about 3.7 miles (6km) per day.

I'll stop going on about the 2012 London Olympics (2013 London Olympics in the US) after this paragraph, as it's proving to be highly difficult to avoid on British television, largely because there's nothing good on except the Olympics, and partly because the BBC is showing literally nothing else all day every day, except the news, whose first couple of headlines are all Olympics-based. Nevertheless, we have been owning every sport with a vehicle in it so far, with gold medals in rowing, kayaking and cycling, as well as Ben Ainslie getting his fourth career gold medal in the sailing as I type this, which brings our current gold medal total to 15 after dominating the velodrome (Team GB's Women's Team Pursuit trio beat the USA by a staggering and frankly comical 5.7 seconds, for instance), as well as winning all three of the athletics events we entered last night, meaning Mo Farah's first 10,000m gold, headline act Jessica Ennis winning the Women's Heptathlon and Greg Rutherford getting Britain's first gold in the Long Jump since 1964. And that isn't even the end of our record-breaking levels of success in our home games. It's great to see that we aren't as rubbish as comedians and pessimists have been saying for the last three or four years. Even the opening ceremony was brilliant. Here's hoping the second week brings even more success. Frankly, to catch the People's Republic (read: Communist Dictatorship) of China and the water-friendly USA in the medal table, we'll need it. Go Team GB!

Meanwhile, Ferrari are planning to draw attention to themselves in a different way, by assembling what they hope will be the biggest parade of models from the Modena masters' long and illustrious history ever. This parade will take place at the Ferrari Racing Days event at Silverstone on 15th and 16th September, which you're welcome to turn up to in your non-Ferrari and enjoy for as little as £15. At present, over 1000 cars are set to take part, which would easily smash the existing record parade of 490 Ferraris, assuming at least half of them manage to survive the journey there. In fact, if owners do all drive their Fezzas to the event, we may only see models from the last 5 or 10 years...

I hope not. In other Ferrari news, the F70 prototype has been spotted numerous times, and apparently takes inspiration from the Enzo-based Pininfarina P4/5 (and subsequent F430 Scuderia-based 'Competizione' racer) of James Glickenhaus, as well as current models with their long vertical LED headlights. The F70 is rumoured to have an 800bhp V12 and a KERS which zaps the rear wheels with another 120bhp if you end up drag racing a Veyron at any point in your travels. Two new shots of the rear end can be found here and here (from P4/5 Competizione's Facebook page).

Something we'll definitely see soon-ish is the final, finished, production version of the amazing Porsche 918 Spyder. More prototype pictures have been released, this time showing a colourful Martini Racing livery, which Porsche has announced can be ordered for your 918 Spyder if you ask nicely (hint: "asking nicely" means writing a bigger number on your cheque to Porsche). This will be the first Porsche to feature fully licensed paintwork, as the now officially VW-owned company has teamed up with the Italian drinks brand that adorned its iconic and timelessly beautiful stripes on the 917 Le Mans racer many times in the 1970s, along with countless 911-based 935s, not to mention the 936 that won the Targa Florio road race in 1973 and Le Mans in '76 and '77. While some of you may think of Lancia when you think of Martini Racing colours, it's Porsche that have the strongest bond with them, and including a bit of Le Mans heritage in a car named after their most important and iconic racing car is surely not something that people will have a problem with. In related news, a suspected production version has been spotted at what appears to be a preview event of some sort. While the lights are from the original concept car - the prototype seen here is still using the ill-fitting tail lights from a new 911 (991) - the preview car has double-stalk glass mirrors to replace the little camera fins, and uses the updated exhaust system, wherein the pipes exit right behind the driver and passenger as opposed to the concept's dual side-exit system. Their previous location appears to have been replaced by a small air intake on the right side. The limited run of 918 cars will go into production next year, on 18th September (as that's 9/18 in American), but a reveal is surely not far away considering the completeness of these prototypes.

In one last bit of supercar news, Lamborghini is going green, and I don't mean Verde Ithaca. The flagship model is getting a GT-R-style annual upgrade, much like the McLaren MP4-12C (which gained 25bhp, more colours to choose from, a mildly improved transmission, other detail changes and the ability to choose from three engine noise settings for the cabin. Oh, and a Spider version). So what do you get in Aventador version 1.1? Well, while you get some superficial carbon fibre accessories and an updated digital speedo which enlarges the number you're up to so you can better see how fast you're going, the big changes are in the engine. Without a Cygnet-style city option, Lamborghini are lowering their average CO2 output by adding Cylinder Deactivation and Stop/Start to their 6.5-litre Direct-Injection V12. Essentially, the V12 becomes a V6 when you're just cruising on minimal throttle, which saves on fuel usage by up to 20%, but when you feel the need for speed, the six dormant cylinders fire back up again seamlessly, according to Lambo. Stop/Start is pretty self-explanatory - like the system you find on Citroëns, Fiats and more relevantly Audis, the system holds the engine at 0rpm when the car's stationary, before electronically waking it up again when you set off. Unlike normal systems, however, the Aventador stores the energy needed by the system in capacitors rather than batteries (saving 3kg) and the V12 kickstarts in just 180 milliseconds, compared to Ferrari's 230ms and the ~250ms of a more normal car's S/S system. This means that overall CO2 output will drop from 398g/km to 370g/km. Hardly the 70g/km the 918 Spyder's capable of, but then that's a highly-advanced hybrid that costs about twice as much (yes, really - it's Porsche's 'halo car'). The 2013 Aventador will cost slightly more than the 2012 one and be out, I suspect, next year. The Apple technique is taking over supercars...
(more here [in Swedish], including graphs)

But enough of supercars now, because as you may have heard in recent weeks, the mighty Nürburgring has become bankrupt after, well, running out of money. The state said it wouldn't help any more, as it had already pumped €524,000,000 into the iconic track referred to by Sir Jackie Stewart as "The Green Hell", which had been given an amusement park, several hotels and a shopping centre by unpopular new owners who have done nothing to help the 'Ring stay alive. While 2012 would finish as planned, 2013 became a complete mystery for the Nordschleife and F1 track, and while it's not unreasonable to expect car companies to save it - most of them are practically relying on it to develop their new cars and make no bones about it - none of them have stepped in so far, and while Bernie Ecclestone was rumoured to step in, he said at the Hungarian Grand Prix that he "[doesn't] think it's for sale that way". Happily, however, the state have been persuaded into guaranteeing a €254million loan so that the Nürburgring can pay its debts, only to have one €254m debt left to pay back to the state. So effectively, they've done the equivalent of going to Ocean Finance. Hopefully it works out for them. While boasting about lap times around the Nordschleife has become a cliché, the track itself is still a dream drive, somewhere to go before you die if you're anything of a car fan (and where the unlucky or overambitious go to die). I wouldn't want it to be in ruins by the time I got there...

On to tuning companies then, and while vomiting naked carbon, grilles, scoops and vents all over a nice car is the wrong way to do it, the right way to do it is probably something along the lines of this. This started out life as an Ariel Atom 3, with a half-tonne kerbweight and a 2.0-litre supercharged Honda engine making around 300bhp, enough to zip the face-shredder up from 0-60 in 2.9 seconds. However, American tuners DDMWorks have decided that neither the standard car nor the parts they already make for the Atom 2 are enough, so they have taken it upon themselves to make this British flyweight into an Atomic Bomb. To create the "DDMWorks Atom 700", they swapped the Honda engine for a General Motors Ecotec 2.0 Inline-4 (as they specialise in GM-engined cars), which was then modified to produce a staggering 700 horsepower, in a car that weighs slightly more than before at 657kg. Don't feel bad about the weight gain though; that still means over 1000bhp/tonne, eclipsing a TVR Cerbera Speed 12 with relative ease. The engine in question is Twincharged, meaning that it combines the low-end shove of a supercharger with the high-end boost of a turbocharger, something that you don't see very often (although VW does it [TSI engines]). Among other elements of the engine that have been tuned up to cope with such massive amounts of forced induction, there's a new exhaust system that includes a third pipe just for the turbo, like on a Ferrari F40. A huge intercooler sits outside the rear frame to stop the turbo exploding, and sitting atop this tower of power is a reassuringly large rear wing. The semi-slick tyres on this ridiculously mad little car are also wider than before, in the hope that you might actually be able to put 700bhp down onto the road in a car that weighs the same as an Austin Mini...

On the other end of the scale, there's this. You know what this car is, don't you? Go on, tell me...... ["it's a Shelby Mustang GT500 "Eleanor" from Gone In 60 Seconds"] ......nope. You're not even close. You're not even in the right company. You're not even in the right part of the world. Idiot. This is, in fact, a Daewoo Lacetti. How could you possibly not know that? Indian magicians at "Big Daddy Customs" (yes, that's really their name...) have changed all its physical properties to those of a Daewoo Lacetti, without changing the appearance of it, much like "An Oak Tree" by Michael Craig-Martin (see here). Oh, wait, hang on a second, we don't live in the magical Land of Ooo. So, this must be a rebodied Daewoo Lacetti pretending to be a Shelby Mustang GT500, akin to the one in the 2000 remake of Gone In 60 Seconds. From this angle, it looks relatively accurate, although there are still some proportional issues that could throw you off. Still, it's more convincing than their "Moon Rover" concept, effectively a Range Rover Evoque look stretched over a Tata Safari which looks completely... unconvincing. In fact it looks like a plastic car that took an hour to make and cost a fiver, much like the nose of this 'Elea-not' does.

WHAT AM I???

That said, what's actually quite impressive about this body is that it's not made of plastic - it's actually all steel and aluminium, and considering it started out as a Lacetti (TopGear's second Reasonably Priced Car, between the Suzuki Liana and Kia Cee'd) and is now Mustang-shaped, it must've taken a hell of a lot of work to do. But to what end? The result is a disproportionate, almost-convincing Mustang "replica" that is still a Daewoo saloon underneath, with no reported performance upgrades. The definition of "All Show and No Go"...

So that's what caught my eye this week. Next up, I'll be attempting to catch up on F1 reports... while enjoying the Olympics, of course!

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