The New Chevrolet Corvette (Apparently)

It looks 'shawped. I can tell from teh pixels and from seeing quite a few shawps in mah tahm.

38 minutes after they said they would, Jalopnik have released what they say are images showing exactly what the next Chevrolet Corvette will look like. For some reason they based it on an assumed ZR1 version, so I had a go at toning it down to show you what the normal C7 Corvette may very well look like. I'm having mixed feelings towards it even after de-ricing it. Here's what else The Internet may know about it....

So we have a rough idea of its appearance, but what else do we know? Well, it will be the second production car (after the Porsche 991) to have a 7-speed manual gearbox, because Americans can like totally do anything Yurpeens can. In fact, the new car is apparently designed to "look more European". Why? As the premier American sports car (read: only American sports car), it should look distinctively American. What they appear to mean by looking 'more European' is that they've added rear quarter windows for the first time - taken straight from an Aston Martin Vanquish - and headlights from the AMG SLS or the (Japanese) Nissan GT-R. These details and Camaro-esque tail lights have mixed in with the now-familiar Corvette shape; a low, pointy nose, long bonnet, sloping roof and very square tail, all of which now has more creases in it than a hobo's trousers.

Anyway, it is of course going to be powered by a V8. At one point it was going to be a small-capacity V8 that revved very high, but they seem to have decided against being too revolutionary (and haven't made it mid-engined either), as they've stuck with a 6.2-litre engine, now with direct injection, which will of course be more powerful and more efficient than the LS3 in the C6 'Vette, whose platform this will share when it arrives in 2013. The 7-Speed transmission will mean shorter gear ratios than before, which is a good thing, as the Corvette had very long gears, partly for fuel economy. This way, it can still do that, but the acceleration will improve. Or, the acceleration will be the same and it will have one more gear for cruizin'. If I remember correctly, the C6 Corvette in at least one guise didn't need 6th gear to reach its top speed. With shorter gears it might stay in the main power band more, and might grab a few more miles per hour in 6th, while still having 7th for doing 80mph at 2000rpm or something.

To your right is the original version of the image I played around with. The people at Jalopnik (who are making a big fuss about this, by the way) decided to go straight for the ZR1 they supposedly saw in person and rendered that instead, and so it looks very busy. To try and see the standard car - and to play around with GIMP 2.0 that I recently downloaded - I decided to tone it down a bit. The ZR1 version will apparently have a big front splitter, a lip spoiler on the back and many, many vents, perhaps to help cool some supercharged 700-horsepower beast under the bulging bonnet (although what on earth's the vent above the rear wheel supposed to do???). The heat vent in front of the doors, I've decided, will be bigger for the ZR1, to show it has more engine under there. It will also have a large rear diffuser and four big round exhaust pipes in the middle, much like the C6 ZR1 everyone in America's very proud of. I haven't played with the rear-left view shot of it yet, because I'd only do the same things to it and then set about making the diffuser smaller. Despite rumours, there won't be a C2 Corvette Stingray-style split rear window.

Is any of this accurate? Annoyingly - or perhaps helpfully for Jalopnik - we won't be able to find out until 2013, at which point we'll all have forgotten about these images, Porsche will have released about 5 new versions of the 911 (991), and I will be about 21. Scary. General Motors say that the new Corvette will be "world-class", and compete with the likes of Ferrari or Lamborghini. Them's fightin' words! Maybe I still fail to take American sports cars seriously, and maybe nowadays that's a failing on my part, but I just don't see it. Current Corvettes are all driven by old people in Florida, save for some drag racing enthusiasts and those living near Laguna Seca who have Z06s and ZR1s, and a shonky plastic car cannot compete with the Porsche 911, even if they have now Googled "The Nurburgring" on their iPhones and discovered what corners are. One stand-out criticism of the C6 'Vette is the interior, which is as hideous and plastic as Europeans have come to expect of them, and perhaps the money GM saved on not developing a new platform for this car has gone into materials and fit 'n' finish instead.

To be honest though, I'm being cruel here. The C7 Corvette will probably be a vast improvement over the C6. It may even handle well and be compared to something European in UK magazines without losing. I just can't shake off something about American cars though. I guess it's a prejudice, of sorts. Even when the Dodge Viper ACR-X snatched the Nordschleife lap record for production cars, it was just like "oh, that's nice for them", or maybe even "big deal". It's not helped by Americans on the internet trying to force their cars down our throats in an overly proud and defensive manner, like they're all pissed off about prejudiced people like me saying their cars are worse. Let the cars do the talking, please. Stop yelling and swearing and saying I'm an idiot for preferring a Nissan GT-R or a Porsche 911. You don't see me saying you're a burger-mauling imbecile for not preferring a Jaguar XKR, do you?

Anyway, I digress. This is the new Corvette, if Jalopnik's apparently petty head writer is to be believed. Enjoy the pictures. I will post more technical information when I find it.

That front bumper has a hint of Ferrari 458 in it from this angle.

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Video Sunday - Every Second Counts

Uploaded: 16/11/10

Running Time: 5:22

Views When Posted: 243,648

If you don't really get the attraction of motorsport, if you think it's just tubes with spoilers going round in circles and turbocharged Subarus driving past anoraks wearing anoraks in a wood, watch this video. I'm sorry it has orchestral music - you may find it atmospheric, you may find it intruding or cheesy, but I didn't put it there, so I can't help it - but the choice of clips and the quotes from legends and masters of the sport, living and dead, make this an incredibe and moving video. Enjoy. That is all.

Also, as you may have noticed, the background is now carbon fibre, an idea I pinched off a friend's Tumblr blog. This page is now lighter and stronger than before! The smallblock V8 that validates the pun is now in the title image.

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Video Saturday - Celebrating In Style

Uploaded: 5/11/11

Running Time: 5:40

Views When Posted: 72,321

You know you're living your life right when you can turn up at Monza and get to sit alongside Valentino Balboni, long-serving former chief test driver at Lamborghini and all-round cool guy. You also know you've made it on the internet when such a man says your username on camera and lets you film him hounding round the Italian Grand Prix circuit in a Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera. Marchettino has made it, and is living it right. I don't know if he actually makes money from filming supercars around Italy - although he has enough for a shiny red Abarth 500 and a fancy camera - but he should. That would be the perfect job. Here he is commemorating his 900th video in true style.

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Supercar Weekday - Toyota 2000GT

Written for Jalopnik's gift to Jezebel each night

Think Toyota and you may well think Prius, or Corolla. Toyota have built their reputation on well-made, economical sedans (and nearly threw it away with the whole "Unintended Acceleration" fiasco, but let's not get into that now). The only problem with being known for cars like that is that it earns you quite a mundane image. Back in the 1960s, Toyota decided it didn't want such an image, and wanted to prove that they could not only build an original car, but something that could compete with the world's sports cars. In 1967, they stunned the world with the 2000GT, which was developed in partnership with Yamaha. This, then, is Japan's first 'supercar'.

The first thing that hits you about it is its appearance. The proportions are just-so for a front-engined, rear-wheel-drive sports car, with a swept-back shape, and while some criticize it for looking like the Jaguar E-Type (XKE), I actually - dare I say it - prefer the Toyota at the back, because the tail just looks a little less... pinched. It's also deceptively tiny, with that long hood tricking you into thinking it's somewhat bigger than it is. I actually had the pleasure of seeing one at the Goodwood Festival of Speed (an annual gathering of history's greatest road and racing cars in southern England), and I can personally vouch for this. In fact, it's only 45.7 inches high, so when the 2000GT was used in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice, they had to make a special open-top version so Sean Connery could fit in it! I guess good things come in small packages.

Front view. Pop-up headlights FTW.

It can cash the cheques its body writes, too. With a 150 horsepower, 2-litre (or 2000cc, hence the name) Inline-6 engine propelling the light aluminium body, it could keep up with the best of them, being able to hit 135mph in 1967 (and also managing 30mpg, although probably not at the same time). It wasn't just straight lines where it could impress either. Road&Track magazine said at the time that the 2000GT was "one of the most exciting and enjoyable cars we've driven", even comparing it favourably with that ever-present benchmark, the Porsche 911, as Toyota teamed its dynamic abilities with a rosewood veneer dash, auto-seeking radio and plenty of leather, all crammed into quite a small cabin but making it into a luxury GT.

The 2000GT ended up marking a turning point for Japanese cars. It was the first truly desirable car to come out of the nation, and because a mere 351 of them were made (as well as two topless Bond cars, one of which has disappeared), they now trade hands for a lot of money. They traded hands for a lot in the '60s, too, with US prices starting at $6,800, more than any Porsche or Jaguar of the time. Due to high production costs, Toyota didn't really profit on it either, and they made it primarily to make a point and to demonstrate their abilities as a company, which they certainly did, as the 2000GT won a 24-hour endurance race at Fuji Speedway and set several endurance records in a 72-hour test, which made Porsche stand up and pay attention to the Japanese automaker, designing the 911R just to beat them (a bit like the 911 Turbo S and the Nissan GT-R nowadays).

In many ways then, this was a highly successful car. It's easy to argue that they need to make an equivalent now, as their reputation for "beige" cars has come back with a vengence after they slowly killed all their '90s sports cars (Celica, MR2, Supra). But actually, they've already made it. So expensive they don't profit on it? A demonstration of their engineering? Getting the world to take notice and take Japanese sports cars seriously? That's the 2010 Lexus LFA. Unfortunately for them, it doesn't seem to have had quite the same effect, despite being a very impressive car...

Race-prepared Toyota 2000GT

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Photo Dump - McLaren

First of all, if you haven't already, check out the new blog title image I made! Pretty cool, right? It's quite simple, but the redesign needed a proper title image to look finished. Since I used the same engine for that as the background, I might consider changing the bg to a different small block V8, but for the time being, enjoy the new pic. Anyway...

 Gran Turismo 5's Photo Mode is brilliant, because not only do you get all the professional camera settings to choose from, but the resulting image can look incredibly realistic, even though the cars are no different to the ones you actually race. Because I've filled up my Flickr account, I'm going to post a set of photos on here every so often. This time, the theme is McLaren.

Most of these photos are in 1920x1080 resolution, but sometiems I forget to adjust the aspect ratio

Black & White is called Monochrome, because that sounds more professional. These F1 images are in 1620x1080

This was taken using the Cool Colours filter.

This image applies the "Cross-Processing" filter. I'm not really sure what that means...

A quiet, secluded home and a McLaren F1. That's a hell of a way to live.

A nice shiny carbon fibre diffuser, before CF diffusers were cool.

If you think this image looks threatening...

...you should see this one.

So that's the McLaren F1. Please don't claim these photos are your own! Now the newer MP4-12C. Sounds like a fax machine, goes like a rocket.

Here's the nifty air-powered airbrake. Instead of a big electric motor, it uses the gearbox hydraulics to punch it upwards, then lets the air going under it do the rest of the pushing. Clever.

Apart from a portrait picture, they will all be 1920x1080 from now on. This 12C has quick-release pins because I modified it

I was going to use this for the Tsukuba 9H endurance race, but it proved too much effort to drive over long periods without crashing.
Of course, that could have something to do with me giving it 670bhp to make it competitive...

Same shot as one of the F1 pictures above. Damn this car looks good in white.

It has something of a deranged grin about it, though...

Complete the look with Prodrive alloy wheels. I've been to Prodrive, I have. I drove a white car there, too.

But where are the tail lights?

Oh, there they are. The indicators are above the brake strip, and the reversing light is on the diffuser in the middle.

People say this car looks boring, but I just don't see it. Everything's there, what more could you add without spoiling it?

Here's the same shot in Monochrome. You can get black tailpipes by equipping the Cr.4,500 Sports Exhaust.

And that concludes my GT5 McLaren Photo Dump. I hope it didn't take too long to load!

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Lightest Car Ever Made Should Be Easy To Park

In recent years, cars have suffered something called "model bloat", wherein each new generation of a model gets longer, wider and heavier as more safety features and creature comforts appear. Happily though, the last couple of years have seem most makers fight against this in various ways, partly to improve their cars' efficiency, and in some cases also to improve the driving experience by making them less cumbersome. Leading the charge, it seems, is a group of Dutch scientists, who have created what is undoubtedly the smallest and lightest car in motoring history. That is, if you consider it to be a car at all...

This concept vehicle doesn't have a name, seeing as it was made by scientists and not a car company, so I'll call it the Twente Electron, because the lead author on the scientific paper about it - Dr. Tibor Kudernac - is a chemist at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, and it is propelled by electrons jumping into it from the tip of a "scanning tunnelling microscope". Beats lithuim-ion batteries, I guess. Part of its lightness is in the monocoque chassis, as amazingly, the whole car is actually made of one piece, with the integrated wheels moving the Twente Electron forwards by changing shape when the electrons hit the car. This level of lightweight engineering should make it very exciting to drive - especially given the instant torque of any electric car - but most of us will never know, because headroom could prove to be an issue, partly because of that very narrow-looking chassis, but mostly - and this should explain its unusual appearance - because it's actually a molecule. Even Richard Hammond would thus struggle to get inside it.

Everything I've said about it so far is true. It is powered by electrons hitting it, at which point the "molecular rotors" at each corner change shape as they absorb said electrons. It's designed to be a demonstration of "bottom-up" nanotechnology, building up from a single, carefully-designed molecule that does what naturally occurring protein-based molecular motors do (such as contracting muscles, for example), although applications for a molecular car are still something for the relatively distant future, according to Dr. Kudernac. The wheels, as you can see in the image below, are actually not very wheel-like, as they are flat and rotate to move the "car" forward like a kind of paddleboat-cum-quadbike.

Like all concept cars, then, this display of technology is not designed to be "hitting the road" any time soon, and hopefully when it does, they'll have sorted out the performance (and, er, headroom), as 0-60 is currently impossible unless it's attached to something that's travelling that fast anyway. In fact, ten shots of electricity is only enough for it to move 6 nanometres forward. That's 0.000006 mm, or six billionths of a metre. Imagine the standing quarter-mile time...

The other slight catch with the Twente Electron is that it only works when it's cold, and by cold, I mean freezing. And by freezing, I mean -266°C, less than 10°C off Absolute Zero, so that's their next challenge, because you can't very well send nano-cars inside people's bodies to repair something or transport an antibody in if you have to flash-freeze them to death first and put them in a 'high vacuum' for it to move.

The molecular machines would have to be built for any purpose found for them, which could take some redesigning, but Dr. Kudernac doesn't mind. "There are ways to play around. That's what we chemists do - we try to design molecules for particular purposes, and I don't see any fundamental limitations." Personally, I look forward to more Twente models. I don't suppose you could do a four-seat one next, guys? Or a one-make racing series? That would be cool. Very cool if it still has to be in very-sub-zero temperatures. *rimshot*

Source: BBC News

P.S. Regarding the quarter mile thing, there wasn't actually any mention of speed, but if my maths are correct, at the current rate it would take 67,056,000,000 shots of electrons just to get it that far!

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SBV8 Spec 2.0

Farewell, original layout.

Yes, this here blog looks different now. I might have to get used to it myself, but it was necessary, because the site now looks cleaner. It also has a new background, which is still a General Motors LSA smallblock V8 (so the pun still stands), which powers the Cadillac CTS-V, and will eventually power the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 when it's unleashed next year. This slightly-wider SBV8 also allows for more tabs, which means I can give Video Sunday posts their own tab, seperating them from "SBV8", which usually refers to posts like this one.

I tried the new "Dynamic Views", but none of them quite did it for me, inventive as they were, so it's all layed out the same as the original. Consider it a facelift, like when a car is revised and tweaked to keep it fresh.

Otherwise, it's same old same old. Enjoy!

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