The Ferrari F12 Berlinetta is one of the greatest machines money can buy. With 730BHP on tap from a beating heart of 12 cylinders, it’s quick. 0-62MPH in just 3.1 seconds sort of quick. This super GT is faster around the prancing horses test track than both a 599 GTO and an Enzo. Awesome doesn’t even begin to describe the cars capabilities!
Recently an F12 was given to fellow Chris Harris to produce a piece for Drive’s YouTube channel. The result is some stunning cinematography and, rather predictably, five sets of destroyed tyres.
You are going to want to turn up your speakers for this one! The Aston Martin V12 Vantage S is the fastest full production car the British company has ever built. With its beautifully authoritarian stance aggressively snarling at passersby, the 565BHP V12 coupe can crack 0-62MPH in under four seconds and go onto a top speed of 205MPH. This car is something of a swan song for the ageing Vantage which is set to be replace in the near future. A true embodiment of power, beauty and soul…
Check out the video below to see this British bulldog in action.
The Jaguar C-X17 Concept gives us our first insight into what Jaguar plan to bring to the SUV sector next year. This stylish and rather handsome crossover is Jag’s first and aims to build upon growing global sales for the brand. Seating four in luxury, the C-X17 is powered by the F-Types V6 engine and uses a front engine rear wheel drive layout. Here it is in action!
McLaren are an automotive icon, both on track and the road. Starting out on September 2nd 1963, 50 years ago today, Bruce McLaren had a dream that his cars woulds be the fastest in motorsport. Though 2013 hasn’t been the teams greatest year, these British built machines have collected; 8 Formula One world championships, 182 race victories. 155 pole positions and 152 fastest laps. These guys know all about hard work and the reward of winning, an ethos that was laid down 50 years ago.
Match the legendary Ferrari blow for blow, these two rivals make F1 quite the spectacle. The person to sum up McLaren the best? How about Bruce McLaren himself? Watch the video…
2014 will see the biggest upheaval in the rules of Formula One for quite some time. Aerodynamics are changing, KERS plays a much bigger role in the cars overall performance, fuel loads are being reduced, but the biggest change comes with new engines. For 2014 we move away from the naturally aspirated V8’s to 1.6 litre turbocharged V6’s.
The new V6 engines are to be considerably more efficient than their predecessors but are actually looking to output more power. Mercedes AMG Petronas are aiming for 2014 to be their championship winning year and with a promising 2013 car on track at the moment, things are looking good. Mercedes-Benz has invested a lot of money to try an insure they are at the front of the pack next year and so the new engine has been in development for a while. Questions over the new engines audible sensations are being raised with fans crying for the old V8’s or even the return of the V10, however Mercedes are quick to defend the 2014 power unit. On their YouTube page a comment to a user mentioning older engines reads “No, that’s what F1 used to sound like 15 years ago. Playing the nostalgia card isn’t tricky but Honda are returning to the sport because these rules make sense for them.”
Here is what the future of Formula One sounds like…
The world will run out of oil. FACT. Though scientists can’t exactly put their finger on when, it is an inescapable truth that this fuel will not last forever. It is already very difficult to extract the black gold that powers almost everything around us as you can see from ever rising petrol and diesel prices. So what will we do? The world is so dependent on the energy provided by oil, particularly in motoring, that we simply can not do without it. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and so Honda and GM are going to work together to produce a production car that runs on the stuff.
These two motoring giants have some of the worlds leading R&D departments so by putting their heads, patents and cash together they aim to have a hydrogen powered machine in production by 2020. Honda have already produced a hydrogen car in the FCX Clarity, however, its production costs do not lend it to be very financially viable. Both General Motors and Honda aim to use economies of scale to reduce the total price a consumer would pay.
2013 provides the world a rare opportunity to compare four new supercars from four of the worlds most prestigious brands. The Ferrari Enzo replacement LaFerrari, the successor to the legendary F1 McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder hybrid and the Jaguar C-X75. There has bee much heated debate in the comments on a previous McLaren VS Ferrari video we did as to the merits of each car, so we expect arguments to be rife when factoring in two more world class machines.
What one would you back in a race and which one would you most like to take home?
Most motorsport events are strictly governed by rules and regulations that are mainly there in the interest of safety. This is the very reason why rally drivers are not tearing about forests in 700BHP mega machines any longer. However, the Pikes Peak Hill Climb’s unlimited class is just that, unlimited. Driving the closest thing to a modern-day Group-B rally car we shall ever see, 9 times WRC champion Sebastian Loeb has taken on the mountain.
The 875BHP Peugeot 208 T16 flew up the now all tarmac route faster than a fireman gets out of bed. It really was something special to watch as the mid-engined machine was the perfect tool for this Frenchman to dominate at the event. Loeb smashed the previous record by over 92 seconds clocking in at the finish line with a run of 8 minutes 13.876 seconds. The word obliterated does not do justice when describing what Sebastian and that car did to the competition… But then what else can you expect from a man who has 896 rally stage wins under his belt?
After having Aston Martin’s Vanquish Volante as my desktop background for a little over a day now, I have had to remove it. It is just too much of a distraction! What a gorgeous machine it is with its perfect balance of elegant curves and muscular body lines. Future classic? Maybe… Here in this official video Aston’s latest model is in action.
There is no getting away from the fact that McLaren’s P1 is an incredible machine. Taking technologies developed in the world of Formula One and applying them to a road car is no easy task. A road car has to run for years, decades even, whereas these “prototype” technologies lifecycle was intended to last the race distance. When you are at the very limit of what is possible, it is inevitable that something will brake. That is what happened to this pre-production McLaren P1 at Villa d’Este.
The concourse full of the rich and famous, likely prospective buyers, played host to the £866,000 car. At some point during the day the McLaren staff attempted to fire up the P1 but instead were met with a series of electric faults. Whilst the gremlins were hard at work, the prestigious car was unceremoniously towed onto the back of a truck. Though issues like this are expected in pre-production models, such a public display of electronic disobedience isn’t what McLaren would have wanted.
