Let’s say you have £175,000 burning a hole in your pocket. Let’s say you have a penchant for great sports cars. And let’s say that you fancy yourself as a sort of middle-aged bloke that plans to make his debut one day in Formula 1 racing. If that’s the case, you probably want to drive the same kind of car that F1 drivers are driving. After all, you can’t show up to a black-tie party wearing pajamas (unless you’re Hugh Hefner perhaps). So what do you do? So many choices for supercars out there. You might choose a Porsche GT2 or a Ferrari 458. Or you might choose the same car F1 champions Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton have been driving, the 2011 McLaren MP4-12C.
Not satisfied with merely producing supercars for Mercedes or F1, McLaren is producing a successor to the fabled McLaren F1. Our guess is Rowan Atkinson already has two on order.
VW in an effort to promote the tons of eco-friendlier cars launched at IAA in Frankfurt in September has decided to pursue eco-sales with a new eco-friendly racing series. The company is starting a single-make racing series where all of the cars run on bio-produced compressed natural gas. The model used in the series is the new Scirocco and should reduce racetrack CO2 output by 80 per cent over today’s racing fuels. The 2.0-liter 4-cylinder cars will have 220 horsepower on tap. Not bad for an alt fuel car!
On other green fronts, VW Group is working with Stanford University in California in a US$5.75 million project to make VW the largest carmaker with R&D in Silicon Valley. Already the two companies have produced autonomous (read self-driving) versions of the VW Passat and now the Audi TT-S. The Audi TT-S will attempt to drive itself up the 14,110-foot Pike’s Peak next year, according Wired.
Audi’s Johan de Nysschen, critical of the Chevy Volt, took an interview with Time recently to express his views on the state of the luxury auto industry. He stated that Audi’s goal is to be the “top” German luxury manufacturer, but not necessarily in terms of sales. He also reiterated the push for more fuel-efficient vehicles leading to Zero emissions cars in the not so distant future.
Bugatti has unleashed a new concept car the 4-seat, 4-door (can you believe it???) Galibier 16C. Autocar magazine claims the production will start in 2013 at £900,000. We will believe it when we see it! Interestingly, the car’s engine will be the same as in the Veyron but will only sport 800BHP. Apparently, 200 get lost when adding 2 doors.
Rarely does Caterham make the news, except when they unleash new, wildly fun lightweight roadster, but unfortunately, Caterham’s found Graham Nearn died in late October. Nearn has been selling the then-titled Lotus 7 since its introduction in 1959, and then when the car was discontinued in 1973, Nearn bought the rights and has been producing the car ever since and in more exciting, evolving versions. You can even buy a kit and put a Caterham 7 together yourself. If you are not familiar with this brand, you should be!
Its third quarter results for 2009 showed revenues of 396 million euros (£359m) – down from 450m euros (£408m) in the same period last year. It sold 1454 cars, down 4.3 per cent year on year.
However, Ferrari announced that it has grown its market share in every market it monitors, against a drop in supercar sales of around 40 per cent.
