A couple of days ago, we saw the DBS in Dupont’s unique green paint made specifically for racing. So if Racing Green isn’t your thing for the DBS, how about this super sexy color - Infa Red.
Can’t really say much but I’m loving it. The deep red is just plain seduction. That combined with the sleek styling and power of the DBS underscores the sex in sex on wheels.
The DBS with this paint job is just one heck of a temptress. Only if I could afford the $265000 price tag to get me one.
Nov 30
Forget the black Pontiac Trans-am with LEDs dancing in front. As of now, that will only be as distant a memory as David Hasselhoff as a chick magnet. The new K.I.T.T for the Knight Rider comeback just might be a Shelby GT500KR.
Hot off the rumor mill that the new K.I.T.T. will be a Mustang looks very much true with this image. Unless of course, someone with a lot of time and a lot of money would play around with a Shelby GT only to make it look like it’s from a TV dinner classic. Not much for nostalgia trips but the idea that the crime-fighting car packs 500 horses is quite a real show of muscle.The Shelby’s still equipped with the red light bar but it has been transfered on the hood just over the wide Shelby screen.
Fan service? Not really. Much like with how you totally mess up with nostalgia trips just to create more opportunities for companies to do their in-show sponsorship and advertising. I’m not all to excited with this news as I’m not that big of a fan of the Shelby. Now, if this were a Roush…
Source: Jalopnik via Autoblog
Nov 30
So the Aston Martin DBS is one heck of a car. Definitely not a Veyron or even a Ferrari 599 in terms of performance but the DBS is really one sexy car. Sure blame it on the Bond stigma but this sex on wheels is a masterpiece.
It looks so good that you often forget that its got a 6L V12 under its bonnet that brings about 510 horses translating to naught to a hundred kilometers in 4.3 and a top speed of 191 mph. Some tough muscle to back that pretty mug.
So you’re thinking about how to make this thing a bit more spiffy? Dupont just made a unique Racing Green color for the DBR9 and this same Racing Green is now an option for the DBS.
Nov 28
It’s about damn time Mitsubishi put a great 2-door coupe back on the road. The Eclipse was one heck of a car until they decided to water it down to be a very casual Sunday car. And I think they have one that would inspire a great new line - the Concept-RA.
Scheduled to premier in the Detroit show next year, the Concept-RA, in true Japanese fashion, is a car that combines the aggressive stance of a sports car with the green goals of a puny little kei car. And those green goals don’t even make this car a wimp. The coupe is powered by a 2.2 L 4-cylinder DOHC 16-valve turbodiesel engine with MIVEC. You read that right. Diesel, baby!
The car also sports all of these terms and initials like Active Steering and Active Damping control to the ACD, AYC, Sport ABS and ASC component systems. All these means is that the car features state-of-the-art control systems to give the car a zippy and agile feel to driving it. Given that these systems are also found in the Evo, handling promises to be superb.
It also features a great look with aggressive flares and an arched top. Its body structure uses aluminum space frame. One thing that turns me off though, is that the hood, fenders and panels are all made from plastic resin. Mitsu says they’re high impact-resistant. But come on. Plastic?
Source: Mitsubishi
Nov 27
I’ve got the car barely a week and I’ve already a lot of dough just to get the car in tip-top shape mechanically. So last time (actually just three days ago), I replaced a lot of hardware from the clutch to restoring the original ride height via stock-length springs. Yesterday, I paid my mechanic one more visit to execute my first “routine” maintenance with the car - a tune up.
Now the bloke from whom I bought the car swore that he changed the oil once every 3000 miles, pretty much standard for most cars. But somehow, I am beginning to doubt that. A simple look at the oil on the dipstick showed that it is due an oil change. And judging by the viscosity of the oil, I could tell that the former owner used non-synthetic engine oil. I’ve been a staunch advocate of synthetic oils since with my previous cars all used synthetic and engine remained in pristine condition after years of use. So it’s about time that the car gets a taste of some good lube.
Also, if the previous owner really changed oil regularly, I was quite surprised at the condition of the spark plugs. I did have my previous cars tuned up every two oil changes just to make sure that every thing’s in order and the guy obviously didn’t give the spark plugs any attention. While the reddish hue of the tips indicated that the engine was burning fuel quite well, judging by the burn marks around the plugs, it had been a long time since they’ve been replaced.
Nov 27
Nissan is recalling 686,500 Sentra and Altima cars to address the stalling problems apparently caused by a sensor. While there are no reports of crashes or injuries, Nissan hopes to make the cars safe before anything bad happens. The recall involves Altima and Sentra models from 2002 and 2005-2006 particularly those that have the 2.5L engine under the bonnet.
An overheating crankshaft position sensor could overheat affecting its signal. This, in turn, can cause the vehicle to stall suddenly without warning when driving at low speeds.
That’s electronics for us. All it takes is a glitch in sensors to stall your vehicle or worse. I know some car enthusiasts swearing by vehicles with minimal electronics and I do understand their enthusiasm with such cars.
Nov 26
A lot of automakers are fiddling with hydrogen technology and I just hope that we get to fully utilize the technology sooner than we think. With oil prices sky high, we really need to get one readily available and affordable technology to help us get from point A to point B in style and comfort without spending much and damaging the environment.
Perhaps this is a breakthrough with Honda now planning to begin leasing the FCX Clarity - a hydrogen car first featured a couple of years ago - all at a price of $600 a month. And get this, it’s not only limited to corporate fleets. It’s also available for ordinary folk. The latest test drive reveals that it can get an amazing 68 mpg on just a $5 pop of hydrogen.
While compact, the FCX has ample room as with a four-door sedan. It’s equipped with the niceties of a modern car like climate control, cruise control, power windows, airbags, and a radar-guided collision mitigation system. It’s quite zippy in terms of acceleration but doesn’t bring that much in terms of top speeds.
But doing the calculations, with $5 a kilogram of hydrogen, it is quite thrifty for cars of similar size. But my beef is the $600 monthly lease price for three years. So that’s $21,600 for the whole three years enough to buy you a Prius. The price you pay for getting to claim that you love the environment.
Nov 26
While I admire Koenigsegg’s push for engineering perfection, I wonder what they’re doing with their financial issues. Reports earlier indicated that the Swedish car maker is in financial trouble with a debt that they can’t seem to pay off even if it’s just under the price of one of their cars.
Yet what we have here is a display of engineering hubris. Gunning for both power and eco-friendliness, Koenigsegg is working on this special edition of the CCXR that can both run on biofuel and inch ahead of the Veyron (and perhaps the Venom GT) in the horsepower category.
This project will (surprisingly) feature a cast-aluminum 4.7 L V8 with sequential multipoint fuel injection and twin superchargers. This, with E85 ethanol running in its bowels is supposed to get a staggering 1,018 hp at 7,200 rpm. These, translated to performance is supposed to propel the car from naught to sixty in under 3 seconds with top speeds of more than 250 mph. Not bad at all for an eco-friendly vehicle.
You get at least 10.7 mpg and just for a low-low price of 1.5 million euros. Hehe.
Source: World Car Fans
Nov 25
Day 4 with the project car and I’d have to say that the car wasn’t a good or great buy. It was a fair buy at best. Even after test driving it for a good amount of time and checking all the nooks and crannies visually, you can’t really be sure if there’s anything wrong with a used car until you have a good mechanic go at it. And it’s true for the used car market - “Nothing to fix” is similar to a hole in one in golf.
Since I’ll be primarily using it to ferry me around (to know what it feels like really riding a project car), the most logical thing to do is to get it into tip-top shape at least mechanically. Aesthetics can always wait. No use in getting a auto show worthy paint job only to have it conk out on you after running 10 miles.
And yesterday, that’s what I did - dedicated a whole Saturday for a day at the shop to have the car thoroughly check out. Since it’s my trusty mechanic who’s doing the job, I even let him test drive the car so that he can get a driver’s feel to it. One thing that I do like about my mechanic is that he’s one of the best in what he does.
Here’s what he came up with after driving it and checking the car out.
Nov 25
I love Top Gear and I’m sure a lot of other people love it too. And I’m quite sure that ordinary testosterone-y guys can only just go “I wish I could do that” to all the stunts and challenges that Top Gear does. Well, even driving supercars on a track would’ve been great for ordinary car enthusiasts. I bet there’s some crazy bastard out there who might have given a kidney just to drive a Veyron.
So Top Gear drops an idea. But it’s not just some ordinary Joe who picked it up and decided, “Hey, we’re going to do that as well.” So folks from Lamborghini decided they’d do a similar feature as with what Top Gear did with the Veyron vs. Eurofighter drag race. Since the Reventon’s modeled after aircraft, they decided to have an acceleration race between the Reventon an A200-A Tornado.
The drag race was held over a 3 km long runway. Well, no points for concept originality and no points for the result as well. The Reventon surged ahead but the Tornado struck an “upset” at the final meters to catch up and rip past the Lambo in speeds of over 340 kph.
Nov 24