Author Archive for steane
Curtain call – the McMerc SLR Speedster
By Steane Klose
The Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR is preparing to take it’s final bow.
With the exception of Paris Hilton, the SLR has been regarded by most to be overpriced and underdone in the looks department. Folks paying super car coin want super car looks – not a funky looking Mercedes SL – even if it does sport gullwing doors, carbon-fibre panels and enormous horsepower.
As Mercedes-Benz and McLaren prepare to part ways, the final product of their brief affair may be just the car that was needed all along – the SLR Speedster.
Seen here lapping the Nurburgring, this final version of the SLR (even in black and white drag) – looks fast, unique and most importantly exotic. Expensive is of course a given.
Tipped to weigh some 400 pounds less than the coupe and with a top speed of around 217 mph the SLR Speedster promises to be one rather loud and proud swan-song. Only 75 will be made before the AMG SLC assumes the throne.
[Images courtesy of Bridge to Gantry]
Jaguar bring the XF-R to Goodwood
By Steane Klose
Some people have all the fun. As I write this short piece, Gunnar and the ADL film crew can likely be found carving up the country roads around the state of New York in the BMW drop-tops you’ve seen in articles earlier this week. So while the 3-Series is jolting and jarring Gunnar’s backside and making life tough for the camera man, I’ve been called in for a couple of brief articles.
One of Gunnar’s least favorite cars is the Jaguar XF, and I can’t think of a better time to write about it than when the boss is away and I have the keys to ADL on my desk. Having recently had the pleasure of getting up close and personal with the XF SV8 I can confirm that inside and out, this car is a stunner. It makes the Germans look dark and brooding and the Japanese look plain boring and I think Jaguar are going to enjoy a level of success with this car that they haven’t known for many…many years.
With XF’s hitting public roads around the world and meeting critical acclaim as they do so, there is one as yet unreleased variant that is worthy of our attention – the hi-po XF-R – a prototype version of which recently made an appearance at the Goodwood Festival of Speed last weekend.
Dressed in what appeared to be a tight fitting vinyl ‘mask’ Jaguar has left little to the imagination and happily put their new track-tuned XF through its paces in front of the appreciative crowd.
Jaguar is remaining tight lipped on the XF-R’s specs but it is widely believed to be running a 5-liter supercharged V8 with around 500hp, making it a genuine AMG and M car challenger. I suspect the XF-R will have a ‘bellowing’ character similar to the AMG V8 range and make the M5 seem somewhat clinical – it will be better value than both. It’s also very easy on the eye – well my eyes at least.
The XF-R is expected to make its official debut later this month at the London Motor Show.
[Images courtesy of Pistonheads]
Cut From The Same Cloth
By Steane Klose
Well, not really but BMW has revealed a rather unique take on the convertible sports car this week just gone: the BMW GINA Light Visionary Model. Gunnar ranked it quite highly on his ADL Matrix and that – as you and I know – means it has De Luxe.
Now, you may be wondering why there is a picture of a World War One era Fokker Triplane at the start of this article and how exactly the brave Manfred von Richthofen fits into this story.
It’s simple really, Manfred doesn’t…but the plane he flew does, you see it was built by the Germans and features a fabric skin stretched over a wooden superstructure, a construction method that BMW are now somewhat familiar with.
In designing the GINA, BMW took a step back in time, swapping the wooden frame for a metal space frame and the fabric for…better fabric. They ditched the wings and guns added some cool LED lights, a bunch of solenoids and electric motors and once again before you could say “Red Baron”, a fabric-skinned machine built by the Germans is at the forefront of technology and design.
Easily the most remarkable feature of the GINA Light Visionary Model is its ability to shape shift. At the push of a button (presumably) electric motors will move sections of the underlying structure altering the GINA’s shape.
The headlamps showcase this ability. When not in use they are covered by the fabric bodywork which opens in a very ‘eye-like’ manner to reveal the lights when the driver requires them.
BMW say that the fabric skin or flexible textile cover as they like to call it, can be replaced in a matter of hours should it be damaged.
The GINA Light Visionary Model is the purest type of concept vehicle. It does not appear to preview a future production model, we can be reasonably certain it won’t be available in BMW showrooms next summer, it is solely an exercise in design and technology. BMW’s way of keeping one or two of their designers and a dressmaker off the streets.
I think it is marvelous.
The video (below) is worth watching just to see GINA wink.
[Fokker Triplane image source: Airport Journals]
Breckland Builds Vette For Cashed-Up Brits
By Steane Klose
THE U.K. is the undisputed refuge of the specialist sports car manufacturer.
Over the years we have seen extraordinary offerings from the likes of Caterham, Radical, Marcos and of course McLaren with their legendary F1. Arguably the most wonderfully bizarre of them all were the vehicles rolled out by TVR, whose founder Trevor Wilkinson has sadly just died at the age of 85.
TreVoR took three letters from his first name and combined them to name one of the world’s quirkier sports car manufacturers but the TVR story is one for another day.
It was a new(ish) U.K. based sports car manufacturer who hit the headlines this week and piqued my curiosity. Breckland Technology are not new to the world of performance cars, having rented their expertise to other low-volume producers including Mosler, however this week they unveiled the first sporty offering to wear the Breckland name, the Beira.
A United Kingdom Corvette?
Breckland like many low-volume producers are simply not in a position to develop their own platforms and engines and this is certainly the case with the Beira. Breckland have borrowed the General’s Kappa platform, the same one currently doing time under the Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky and Opel GT and combined it with a 6.0-litre 400hp LS2 V8, backed by a Tremec six-speed transmission. Brakes and wheels are suitably large items.
The striking bodywork is a combination of steel and lightweight composite panels with the headlights and rear quarter panels being the only carry over bodywork items from the Opel GT donor car. All of that composite goodness sees the Beira weigh in at a lithe 1300kg, a result that sees the 0-60mph sprint dispatched in under five seconds.
Is any of this sounding vaguely familiar yet?
Mike Rawlings, the director of Breckland claims that the “Beira carries on from where the Marcos and TVR left off in terms of providing maximum performance for money spent and real individuality”.
Hmmm… a two door roadster with lightweight body work, an LS2 V8, Tremec six-speed cog-swapper and GM underpinnings. There are no two ways about it, this is a U.K. Corvette.
Or at least it could be if it wasn’t for the price. Currently only available in the U.K. it will take a hefty £55,000 to pry a Breira out of your local Breckland dealer’s clutches and I’d be wanting them to do something (anything) with that rather proboscis like gear shifter.
Ferrari California: Life In The Shadow Of A Legend
By Steane Klose
I often wonder what it must be like for the siblings of movie stars and famous people, living their lives in the shadow of their famous brother or sister.
With the exception of the severely introverted it would have to be an odd existence, constantly feeling like an underachiever despite their own talents in less publicly recognized fields.
What would it be like living in the shadow of a legend?
Ferrari has recently announced their first ever retractable hardtop convertible, an all new model referred to as the F149 during its development phase. Ferrari to their credit managed to keep their new cars existence largely under-wraps and even when word eventually hit the streets there was little in the way of hard fact available regarding its specification or production name.
In another first for Ferrari, the folks in Maranello established a website – ferraricalifornia.com- complete with countdown timer, with the intention of slowly and provocatively undressing their new model. Ferrari was finally embracing the marketing power of the internet and at the same time started referring to the F149 as simply the “GT”.
Money’s No Object As Audi Leads Us Down Diesel Super-Highway
By Steane Klose
De Luxe – “Particularly elegant and luxurious; sumptuous; a de luxe automobile”.
I made a decision this weekend and it was to leave the De Luxe to the master and look to write a weekly article that may not otherwise feature on ADL. Once a week I am going to sneak in an article on something disturbingly fast or disturbingly interesting but not necessarily sumptuous or elegant. If you are reading this then Gunnar has expressed his agreement with this approach and pushed the ‘publish’ button!
With fuel prices rising rapidly and the inconvenient truth of CO2 emissions on all our minds, I read with interest a review of the prototype Audi R8 V12 TDi Le Mans by the good folks over at Winding Road. Audi were good enough to hand over the keys to their multi-million dollar prototype and a quick tour of Miami ensued. Reading the resulting article, it was one point in particular that grabbed my attention; the fact that the prototype has virtually no emissions thanks to something called AdBlue.
“…plus the emissions are almost zero, thanks to the intricate latest-generation clean diesel treatment relying on a six-gallon tank of AdBlue.”
Needless to say my next Google search was for AdBlue which it turns out is the registered trademark for AUS32 or Aqueous Urea Solution 32.5%. Yes, you read that correctly – Urea. This AdBlue concoction is injected into diesel engines through their fuel system to reduce emissions. In North America AdBlue is being called Diesel Emission Fluid (DEF).
So, here we have a 6.0-litre V12 powered supercar with 493hp and 737 pound-feet of torque capable of belting from 0 – 62mph in 4.2 seconds all with virtually no emissions. With technology already being developed to produce high grade bio-diesel from algae and even have the production plant produce electricity as a by-product, the clean diesel engine has to be the (almost) perfect solution for cars of the future – a truly renewable and unlimited fuel source?
According to Winding Road, Audi has every intention of producing the R8 V12 TDi, in fact it is a pet project of the good Dr Ferdinand Piech. Previous Piech pet projects of note have included the VW Phaeton and Bugatti Veyron, so Ferdinand is not the sort of chap who lets a little thing like money get in the way of a good project.
With massive reserves of torque, the one major issue that Audi have with the R8 oiler is building a gearbox that will cope. The Veyron’s gearbox would be up to the task but simply won’t fit so it is back to the drawing board for Audi’s engineers who are now working on a sophisticated dual-clutch transmission exclusively for the R8 V12 TDi – money not being an object remember.
The prototype R8 V12 TDi is currently running a six-speed gearbox from the A4 range and torque is artificially limited to 440 pound-foot in an effort to help it survive. The Winding Road crew were also limited to a top speed of 40mph on their drive for much the same reason.
Aside from the gearbox, another area of the prototype hi-po diesel that needs work is the exhaust note but Audi have promised that the production car will sound how a supercar should.
I’ve never fully understood the current obsession with petrol-electric hybrids or even fully electric cars like the upcoming Volt, to me they are appliances not cars and certainly bereft of even a hint of De Luxe. I much prefer to think that Dr Ferdinand Piech has seen the light and I for one will be happy to follow him into it.
[Sources: Winding Road and Wikipedia]
2010 BMW M1 supercar designed in Spain?
By Steane Klose
THERE I was packing my swag, grateful for the little shade provided by the Coolibah tree on the edge of the Billabong when my thoughts turned to BMW’s latest concept car. Probably not destined to be the subject of ADL scrutiny there is however an interesting story for which it provided the inspiration.
BMW’s original M1 supercar turns 30 this year and to celebrate the folks from Bavarian Motor Werks revealed their aptly named Hommage concept (pictured above) – clearly a modern day M1 in the making. It caused a stir to say the least, with obvious retro M1 cues and plenty of comic book styling – many applauded but not everyone appreciated the bold styling and crab-like face.
The official unveiling of most concept cars is often followed by speculation concerning the likelihood of a production version. In the case of the Hommage speculation was rife and the stage was unwittingly set for a very talented CGI artist to boost his profile.
The image you see above found its way onto the auto blogosphere around a week ago and was immediately snaffled by most of the major sites, with headlines touting the ‘return of the M1’ or ‘M1 production model spotted’, usually followed by a ?. Most sites admitted that they were not 100 percent certain the image was real but it was real enough for them not to declare it a fake either. Instead they chose the safe middle ground, where not making a decision meant they couldn’t get it wrong – they were smart to do so.
Based on the current M3 Coupe it is indeed a fake and the work of one very talented Spanish CGI artist going by the name of ‘Hoss’. While I have no idea how the nuts and bolts of graphic manipulation like this work, I have undertaken a little research to see just where Hoss started on his road to a production M1 that had some big name sites scratching their heads.
Take one E92 M3 BMW Coupe.
Add some Alfa Romeo Brera headlights and some curvaceous new panel work.
Those Mazda Kabura Concept wheels look sweet!
Find a suitably mysterious looking background – hard to beat an old hanger even one with a Ford GT in the way.
Blend all ingredients gently in a bowl.
And now for the pièce de résistance, Hoss’s fake M1 for all intents and purposes garnered more blogosphere approval than BMW’s Hommage – much more.
A Sense of Style
By Steane Klose
STYLE? In a blogosphere full of old news and the same story re-hashed by countless hundreds I can honestly say that ADL is a breath of fresh air. If you think this is just me being kind to Gunnar you’d be wrong as I count myself in the ‘countless hundreds’ category, so I write with some experience on that one particular topic.
So, fresh air it is and if I had my arm twisted and was forced under threat of injury to identify the one ADL quality that keeps me coming back – it would be Gunnar’s sense of style regarding all things automotive and the no-holds barred way in which he dishes it out and defends it when required.
An example I hear you say?
Okay then, I was until recently a fervent admirer of the Mercedes-Benz CLS. The first time I laid eyes on the original ‘four-door coupe’ I was moved and in a good way. I thought it was a stunner. Brilliant.
Who could possibly buy a normal E-Class when this version of the same car was available?
ADL on the other hand, saw things a little differently…
“When the Germans do deliberate emotional styling, it’s awkward to the point of all out embarrassment. Tight rear quarters and comic book exterior proportions are major negatives,” said Gunnar Heinrich about the Mercedes-Benz CLS
So, I took a closer look at every CLS I saw in my daily travels and admit I stubbornly stuck to my guns for a while, it still looked good…didn’t it? Sure, the rear quarters were a bit tight but comic book exterior proportions?
As it has a tendency to do, time went by and as much as I tried to stay true to the CLS my view of it began to change, if only a little each day but a little each day over lots of days – well you can do the math.
I mean, who could possibly buy a CLS when the normal E-Class was available, have a good close look at the thing!
So, to me ADL has a sense of style that you are unlikely to find on any other auto site and if you hang around long enough, like myself you may find a little of it will rub off.
It is with my new sense of style, ahem…that I have pleasure in taking up a weekly writing role at ADL. For me, it is a welcome change and a chance to escape the furious news treadmill – the ‘countless hundreds’ will always be there beating me to it and I don’t think they will miss me for an hour or two each week.
What am I going to write about? You’ll know about an hour after I do each week. Nothing automotive is off limits – it will be an eclectic mix.
With this being my inaugural ADL article, I think it is appropriate to give you an insight into which cars influenced my ‘formative automotive’ years . Every auto enthusiast has a list of cars that turned their young knees to jelly. It is a teenage experience but it stays with you and influences you for a lifetime and getting a glimpse of another person’s list can be fascinating.
My list – in order of influence back in the day (image gallery below);
1/. Porsche 928 – It was 1979 and my young jaw hit the ground.
2/. Lamborghini Muira – Who wouldn’t like the Muira, even seeing it for the first time now, in 2008.
3/. Lamborghini Countach – The original, before all the wings-n-things.
4/. Porsche 356 Carrera GT – My first ride in a Porsche and it was the ‘rare as hens teeth’ 356 GT.
5/. Bolwell Nagari – Built in Australian backyards. A Nagari with a Ford 302 was a teen dream.
Running a close second to a sense of style, is the active commenting community on ADL, so feel free to share your list with the rest of us. Let us know which cars helped you evolve from just interested to enthusiast and have you here, today, right now on ADL.
Until next week…
