We interrupt our Geneva-based programming to bring you 380kW of fury. If you’ve seen the latest ep of Top Gear you’ll know that Clarkson didn’t rate the Mercedes-Benz C63 Coupé AMG Black. Well, bah humbug to him; we wish we were one of the lucky 32.
Like us, if you want to wallow in self pity here’s a clip showing the C63 Black getting all sorts of angry around the famed Laguna Seca race track in California. Make sure you turn the volume up, okay.
[Thanks to James for the tip]
Today is Peter Brock‘s 67th birthday. Sadly the motorsport icon is no longer with us to celebrate it. Perhaps the running of the Bathurst 12 Hour today serves as a fitting tribute.
As a child growing up in the 1980s ‘Brocky’ was a boyhood hero and, even more so now that he’s gone, remembering him takes me back to my youth where I was lucky enough to have a smile on my face more often than not.
To help remember those good times here’s a video of Peter Perfect shooting the breeze in his VK Commodore with the Channel 7 commentators during the 1986 James Hardie 1000.
Along the way Brock gives an impromptu guide to a lap around Mount Panorama. All while he’s knocking out high quality lap times. Never mind that he’s doing it while joking away and waving hello to his family, what about the casual right elbow resting on the door!
Those were the days.
[Thanks to Wes for the tip]
Chris Harris is fast forging himself a solid niche with his extended video reviews for Drive. At 10–15 minutes in length they are long enough to allow the reviewer to provide in-depth feedback, without being so long as to bore the audience.
In his latest edition Harris takes up the cause for McLaren and its much hyped, but often maligned, MP4-12C. Via his Pistonheads blog Harris introduces his thoughts by asking:
Has the media treated the MP4-12C too harshly? Maybe. The odd technical gremlin isn’t such a problem. Even the biggest names have bad days, but perhaps what has undone the McLaren more than even the punchy rhetoric is the sheer expectation of a new supercar made by McLaren. Did the prospect of the values that built the Technology Centre being transposed onto a street car propagate unrealistic expectations?
I think they did. Flip those group test results on their head and you’re left with a brand new car, from a company with zero experience in this sector, that ran the best car Ferrari has ever made very close. That is a mighty impressive result.
Here in Australia we don’t really have to deal with the concept of running skinny winter tyres or even, as Chris Harris has recently done, setting your car aside to rest until the seasons start to warm up.
But what if you did. Do you think you’d go for one last drive before putting your pride and joy into hibernation? I reckon you would too. Especially if your car was a 911 GT3 RS 4.0.
In his latest Drive clip Chris Harris has put a 2012 BMW M5 up against a 2012 Nissan GT-R? That doesn’t make any sense. Well, according to Google and YouTube it does. From the video description: “It’s perfect for YouTube search results, and thats why we’re doing it.”
Okay, then. Well they are both considered heavy cars for their segment. They both have twin-turbo motors, a V8 in the BMW and a V6 in the GT-R. Both have double clutch transmissions. And, so we’re told, they’re both great search fodder.
But that’s where the similarities end, really. That said, in isolation Harris provides some good in-depth feedback on both cars and, well, who wouldn’t spend a few days in these two cars if given the chance?
It’s often said that you should never meet your heroes. The fear being they can never live up to your massive expectations. We’re not sure if your hero is an inanimate object if the the same can be said or not. What we do know is if we were ever offered the chance to drive our automotive heroes we’d bite off the hand making the offer with extreme enthusiasm.
For us our heroes would be the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing, the McLaren F1 or Porsche Carrera GT. Throw in a Ferrari F40 for good measure. For Chris Harris, two of his automotive heroes are the Ford RS200 and Audi Sport Quattro. Two cars made in limited numbers of 200 for the sole purpose of meeting Group B rally regulations.
True icons they are, but can they live up to the hype? Check out the video after the break to find out.
[Thanks to Adam for the tip]
Last week we saw the emergence of the ‘platypus’ nose in Formula One. A result mainly due to a requirement forcing teams to lower the nose to meet new crash regulations. That messes with the current belief in F1 that a high nose helps contribute to optimum downforce; hence the stepped look we see today.
Of course, the ‘platypus’ is not the first oddball look we’ve seen in F1. There’s been a number over the years and few have been as out there as the six-wheeled Tyrrell P34. The P34 was first introduced in 1976 and ran four 10 inch wheels up front. The theory was the smaller wheels would offer a greater contact patch, increase braking performance and increase downforce.
The P34 and P34B (1977) ran for just two years and showed good promise. The zenith of the six-wheeler came at the 1976 Swedish Grand Prix when Jody Scheckter and Patrick Depailler finished first and second.
It’s believed the reluctance of Goodyear to continue tyre development for the smaller wheels helped contribute to the car losing its competitiveness.
As a treat for F1 fans we have a video below showing triple world champion Sir Jackie Stewart testing the P34. He retired in 1973 so was not long out of the sport. The camera angles are quite interesting too for the mid-70s and in some frames you can see the bulky rigs used to capture the footage.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if the Wiggles returned to their pop/rock roots and took their theatrical skills on the road (literally)? Well wonder no more because OK Go has provided the answer with this rather cool film clip for their single ‘Needing/Getting’.
From the clip’s YouTube description:
The new music video from OK Go, made in partnership with Chevrolet. OK Go set up over 1000 instruments over two miles of desert outside Los Angeles. A Chevy Sonic was outfitted with retractable pneumatic arms designed to play the instruments, and the band recorded this version of Needing/Getting, singing as they played the instrument array with the car. The video took 4 months of preparation and 4 days of shooting and recording. There are no ringers or stand-ins; Damian took stunt driving lessons. Each piano had the lowest octaves tuned to the same note so that they’d play the right note no matter where they were struck. For more information and behind-the-scenes footage, see http://www.LetsDoThis.com and http://www.okgo.net. Many thanks to Chevy for believing in and supporting such an insane and ambitious project, and to Gretsch for providing the guitars and amps.
[Thanks to Matt for the tip]
Audi has chosen a vampire theme for its Super Bowl television commercials. Things start to look a bit grim when the party runs out of blood. But a fresh new night time delivery is on its way, delivered by an Audi, if course. What could possibly go wrong?
Kia has taken a leaf from the Jeremy Clarkson book of advertising for its Big Game Day Super Bowl XVLI television commercial. There’s loud music, Motley Crüe no less, explosions and, of course, Adriana Lima. Making sure they got bang for buck with the supermodel they have also upload a five hour video showcasing Lima’s flag waving prowess. No, we’re not kidding!
Oh yeah, the ad is for the Kia Optima. Almost forgot that bit.
You may have noticed we’re suckers for a Porsche 911 video here at AUSmotive. With this clip Porsche tugs at the heartstrings by taking us back to where it all began, before bringing us back to the present day with the 991 911.
Last year Volkswagen hit the jackpot with its Super Bowl ad featuring a junior Darth Vader. To date the YouTube clip has had over 49.5 million views. This year the German giant strikes back with an overweight dog and a Beetle.
We can’t see this ad having the same cut through and its only the closing stages of the clip that hit the spot for us. Actually, the ‘Bark Side’ preview, released a few days ago, is probably better than the final ad. You can see both clips below.