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Aston Martin

Buy your own “Skyfall” Aston Martin DB5

Aston Martin DB5, Skyfall replica

The Aston Martin DB5 is sub zero cool in its own right, but its association with the James Bond franchise makes it one of the coolest cars money can buy.

And the good news is you can buy your very own Bond DB5 for just £28,000. Yes, that’s just a shade over AUD50,000. Even better it’s an exact replica of the classic DB5 featured in the most recent Bond flick, Skyfall. Of course this is the same as the car from Goldfinger, the film in which the DB5 made its first Bond appearance.

The catch? It’s a 1/3 scale model.

All of sudden 50 large is not looking so affordable any more. On the plus side the doors open and you can play with famous gadgets like the revolving number plates, pop-up rear shield and, yes, you can even play with the machine guns. Machine guns!

There’s only 100 of these replica models to be made, so get in quick!

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Categories
Formula 1

Marussia F1 Team goes into administration

2014 Russian Grand Prix

Perennial backmarkers Marussia have followed Caterham into the wilderness of financial administration and will definitely miss the next two F1 races in Austin and Sao Paulo.

The news comes after Bernie Ecclestone revealed that both Caterham and Marussia cars and freight would not be shipped for the United States Grand Prix this weekend and would also miss the Brazlian Grand Prix the next weekend.

“With the existing shareholder unable to provide the required level of funding, the (Marussia) senior management team has worked tirelessly to bring new investment to the team to secure its long term future, but regrettably has been unable to do so within the time available,” said Geoff Rowley from administrators FRP Advisory LLP.

“Therefore, they have been left with no alternative but to place the Company into administration.”

According to Rowley no job losses have occurred at this stage and the near 200 staff had been paid in full to the end of this month. However, Marussia longer term future appears bleak, with Rowley adding there was “a very limited window of opportunity” to secure the team’s racing future.

[Source: Reuters]

Categories
News Top Gear

Top Gear captured filming in Australia

Top Gear spotted filming in Australia

Finally, Top Gear has come to Australia to film a segment. At least that’s the conclusion to draw after Jeremy, James and Richard were spotted in the Northern Territory town of Katherine last week.

Presumably in the top end to take advantage of reintroduced and extended desrestricted roads, Clarkson was at the wheen of a BMW M6 Grand Coupe, Hammond had a Bentley Continental GT and May had to make do with a troublesome Nissan GT-R.

There’s also been sightings of a drag race at an airstrip in Batchelor, south of Darwin, and it’s understood the cast and crew are heading to Perth. A Darwin–Perth race perhaps?

Presumably the segment being filmed will feature in the upcoming Series 22 and if you’d like to see what else you can expect when the new series airs in early 2015 just take a peak after the jump.

[Pic: Emily Worrall | Thanks to Tiaan for the tip]

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Categories
Ford Volkswagen WRC

Sebastien Ogier wins 2014 Rally Spain

2014 WRC Rally Spain

Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia have wrapped up their second world rally championship after taking victory in Rally Spain yesterday. The French duo needed just one more point than Jari-Matti Latvala to defend their title and despite a relatively slender 11 second winning margin they always had Latvala’s measure.

“It’s a fantastic feeling to become world champion for a second time! I’m over the moon, it was a real battle to defend the title,” an excited Ogier said after his victory. “In particular, my team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala showed an incredibly strong performance in the last few months. Now Julien and I have a great sense of happiness and relief.

“Big thanks to our fantastic team at Volkswagen. Not just for giving us a fantastic car throughout the season. But also for the unique solidarity that we have. It doesn’t matter whether things are going well or badly—the team stands by every driver crew and that is extremely motivating. I’m happy and proud to be part of this team. Today we will have a big world championship party, that much is clear!”

Rally Spain is run on a mix of gravel and tarmac and on the opening gravel stages Latvala struggled with his car and spent the rest of the rally chasing Ogier’s tail. The Finn did well to fight back and claim second place, he also claimed the fastest time in the power stage and three bonus championship points. Latvala is now 31 points behind Ogier and with just Wales Rally GB left to race and 28 points on offer he’ll have to make do with second once more.

Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen finished third in Spain, which leaves him fourth in the championship and the best placed non-Volkswagen driver. Hirvonen cannot catch Andreas Mikkelsen, who finished seventh, meaning Volkswagen drivers will finish the year 1-2-3 in the overall drivers’ standings.

Mads Ostberg was fourth in his Citroën ahead of Hyundai duo Dani Sordo and Thierry Neuville. While Hyundai and Neuville are the only combination to take victory from Volkswagen this year, we must pray that Hyundai and the other teams can increase the pressure on Volkswagen’s title defence in 2015.

For now, though, well done to Ogier and Volkswagen for their unrelenting dominance.

Continue reading “Sebastien Ogier wins 2014 Rally Spain”
Categories
Audi Porsche Toyota WEC

2014 6 Hours of Fuji in pictures

2014 6 Hours of Fuji

Toyota won its home round of the World Endurance Championship—the 6 Hours of Fuji—a couple of weeks back, leaving Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi with broad grins on their faces. It was a one-two finish for Toyota and Porsche filled the final podium spot with Mark Webber’s crew tasting the champagne.

We’ve had five of eight rounds in the WEC now and Audi still looks the goods for the overall championship. With three races in November we’ll have to be much sharper in getting these updates to you!

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Categories
McLaren

McLaren P1 GTR continues development

McLaren P1 GTR

I want to buy a McLaren P1 GTR. And so do you!

How could you not? The car itself will be almost impossible to describe, so good and so fast will it be. But the whole driver programme that is attached to P1 GTR ownership is a boys’ own adventure on steroids.

There’s a video explaining it all after the break along with the first images of the car’s interior, including it’s MP4-23-inspired steering wheel.

The asking price is said to be over 3 mllion bucks, so you’d better start raiding that piggy bank!

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Categories
Caterham Formula 1

Caterham and Marussia to miss next two GPs

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix

Bernie Ecclestone has revealed that both Caterham and Marussia will not be at the United States Grand Prix in Austin next weekend.

News of Caterham’s absence was expected due to the teams current ownership spat. However, while it was known Marussia isn’t exactly flush with cash they were thought to be heading Stateside. Not any more.

“Neither of those two teams are going to go to America,” confirmed Ecclestone.

Freight for the teams started its journey from Europe to the United States yesterday and is coordinated by Bernie’s Formula One Management group.

Caterham will miss the Brazilian Grand Prix as well, which will be held on the weekend after Austin, while the team searches for a buyer. For freight reasons alone Marussia won’t be in Sao Paulo either.

Meanwhile, the Sherrifs Office in the UK has been flogging parts via twitter in a bid to raise money to cover debts owed.

Finbarr O’Connell, Caterham’s administrator confirmed there is interest for the team, saying he spoke to, “10 to 15 serious interested parties on the phone today and we are speaking to all those and getting information together for them to examine.”

[Source: Reuters | Thanks to Dave for the tip]

Categories
Ferrari McLaren Porsche Video

A decent day out indeed

Ferrari 458 Speciale v McLaren 650S v Porsche 911 GT3

Steve Sutcliffe and his mates from Autocar recently spent the day at Castle Combe with half a million quids worth of track toys. Fighting for their attention was the Ferrari 458 Speciale, the McLaren 650S and the Porsche 911 GT3.

Which one do you think will be the fastest? And which one would you take home?

[Thanks to Tim for the tip]

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Categories
BMW Video

Say hello to the BMW M4 GTS

BMW M4 GTS prototype

Hey, remember that wicked orange BMW M3 GTS? Well, good news, the new M4 is getting the GTS treatment too and here’s the video to prove it.

As you can see the M4 GTS will get a reworked and more aggressive front end, with a pretty big splitter by the looks. At the back there’ll be the obligatory and stupidly sized rear wing. Expect a fair portion of the interior to get chucked out, too, in a bid to shed weight.

It remains to be seen if the 3.0 inline six will get a serious makeover or if the BMW M GmbH boffins will simply turn up the wick on the turbos to create the extra 30kW or so it’s likely to have over the standard car’s 317kW.

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Categories
Volkswagen

Golf R is best wet weather performance car

Volkswagen Golf R

The Volkswagen Golf R is the best wet weather performance car money can buy. At least that’s the deal according to British mag Autocar who has just published its results from a seven-car comparison.

Included in the test were (ranked in finishing order):

  1. Volkswagen Golf R
  2. Porsche 911 Carrera 4S
  3. Audi RS4 Avant
  4. Nissan GT-R
  5. Range Rover Sport
  6. MINI Cooper
  7. Toyota GT86

In the five tests conducted the Golf R finished no lower than fourth and came first in the Lateral G and Lap Time test. It also came second in the 30–0mph test. The cars were awarded points for each test (lowest score wins) and when they were all tallied up the Haldex V-equipped Golf R won the test by a single point from the Porsche 911 Carrera 4S, which came first in three of the five tests (a full table of results is available below). So why didn’t the Porsche win overall?

The 911 finished first in so many tests that it could have won, such is its traction and the water displacement properties of its tyres. In lateral grip tests, however, that was less of an issue and its inherent rear-biased weight distribution unsettled it to the extent that the Golf R nips ahead of it. Strong everywhere – under acceleration, braking and laterally – the Golf R is the ideal way to make a car for wet conditions. It goes, stops and grips like no other.

But, the thing we enjoyed the most from this piece was the intro:

How entirely fitting it was that the day of this test was that day that always comes each autumn. You know the one. It’s Monday morning. You leave the house in darkness. It is pelting with rain. You know that you’ll not return before darkness. There is no question about it: you will need a decent coat, from this very day forward, until the return of spring.

Thank god for Australia!

[Source: Autocar]

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Categories
Formula 1 Red Bull Racing

Red Bull Racing’s 10 times table

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix

Red Bull Racing is celebrating its 10 anniversary in Formula 1. To do that, in a rather subtle way for F1’s brashest team, a simple blog post has been published on the team website. A bunch of facts relating to time and 10 are given:

In 10 Seconds…
Our F1 car can travel 494m from a standing start. Given another 10 seconds (and four pit crews!) we could also do four pit stops, changing 16 tyres.

In 10 Hours…
Based on his average speed at the Italian Grand Prix of 235.413 km/h at the Russian Grand Prix, Daniel could travel 2354.13km. That’s approximately from our HQ in Milton Keynes to central Ukraine. Monza also saw Daniel clock the fastest speed through the timing traps of the season at 362.1 km/h. This incidentally, was the highest top-speed through the speed traps during the grand prix and therefore the fastest speed achieved by any of the new V6 turbos in race conditions.

In 10 weeks…
We can design a completely new car. By contrast a major motor manufacturer will typically need three years to bring a new model from design to manufacture.

In 10 seasons…
We’ve so far had seven race drivers (David Coulthard, Christian Klien, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Robert Doornbos, Mark Webber, Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo) – with Daniil Kvyat waiting in the wings for 2015 of course. We’ve started 181 races and won 50 of them for a win rate of 27.6%. We’ve had 57 poles, 42 fastest laps and 115 podiums and scored a total of 2,802.5 points. We’ve raced 19,095 race laps and a whopping 96,3852Km and we’ve loved every single one of them (well almost!).

[Source: Red Bull | Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]

Categories
Porsche Video

Andreas Preuninger earns his keep

991 Porsche 911 GT3

Now that those embarrassing engine dramas are behind the Porsche 911 GT3 the man responsible for what is otherwise one of the world’s most desirable driving cars has hit the hustings to win your vote.

In this five minute clip, showing the GT3 being thrashed around a racetrack, Andreas Preuninger, Head of GT Cars at Porsche, does an awesome sell job on the car. He tells us the 911 GT3 can bring world peace, cure cancer and win Carlton an AFL premiership. Or something like that.

Thankfully, it seems, the only smoke coming from the back of a GT3 these days is from the tyres.

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