McLaren P1, LaFerrari and Porsche 918 all go LEGO in 2015

We’re buying everything in the Speed Champions line.

Gah! Unbridled glee! The days of Ferrari having an exclusive hold on branded LEGO cars are officially over. Next year, you’ll be able to buy a minifig-scale McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, and LaFerrari. (Yes, we know about the Mini and VW stuff, but Maranello has been dominant.) We will take one of each, thank you.

These leaked images come courtesy of YouTube user just2good, so no prices yet, but the kits looks small enough that they should come in around 20 bucks. Again, we don’t care. Buying.

McLaren P1 (75909)

Is that a snowboard acting as the P1’s wing? Yes, yes it is.

LaFerrari (75899)

Some authentic Italian stubble on the LaFerrari test driver. Also: Why didn’t I think of making brick pylons?

All three cars have production-correct wheel designs, the 918’s being the coolest. And each car comes with a wrench, because, uh, why not?

There are also a few competition-inspired sets in the 2015 Speed Champions line, too: a sponsor-sticker-tastic 458 Italia GT2 (75908); a pair of 911 GT cars with podium, mechanics, and LEGO four-way (75912); a full pit-stop setup for the McLaren F1 team (75911); and (yet another) Ferrari F1 transporter (75913). I’m guessing the brick separators included in the F1 sets are in place of wheel guns.

Formula 1 Pit Stop — Formula One Pit Stop

We’ll forgive the similar look of the hypercars because there’s only so much you can do at minifig scale, and come on, minifig-scale hypercars! It’s nice to see few—if any—unique parts. The stickers differentiate them pretty well.

Formula 1 Pit Stop Lego — Formula 1 Pit Spot Lego

October 2, 2014 0

GT-R…. ’nuff said!

Caption is pretty clear IMO…

September 29, 2014 0

Nissan’s Next GT-R to deliver 784hp

The Nissan GT-R is one of the fastest coupes on the planet. Boasting a 0-60 mph sprint time as low as 2.7 seconds that shreds far more expensive competition, it rivals the mighty Bugatti Veyron for pure off-the-line acceleration.

2015 Nissan GT R Nismo

Nissan GT R Nismo

Nissan product planners are under pressure to make the car, out since 2007, more desirable.
Why? Because Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, who initially took a lead role in green-lighting the GT-R, now says he has no interest in cars that don’t sell in volume and make money. Makes sense. You see, the GT-R is not doing well. Godzilla, as we’ve come to know it, is only selling an average of 90 cars in the U.S. and 60 units in Japan each month.

That’s why Nissan planners are making last-ditch efforts to make the GT-R a more saleable car in showrooms from Los Angeles to London to Tokyo. And to do that, they are pulling out all the stops.
They’re taking a GT-R-branded hybrid LMP1 to the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans next year to highlight improved environmental credentials. That translated, yes, the next-generation road-going GT-R will get a hybrid powertrain.

2015 Nissan GT R Nismo

Nissan GT R Nismo
The LM-spec race-ready “Nissan GT-R LM Nismo” will employ gas-electric technology and join other hybrids on the grid including front-runners Audi, Porsche, and Toyota.
Just as critical as a powerful, fuel-efficient powertrain however, is the car’s exterior styling. With the next car, Nissan wants to make amends. After all, the current GT-R has looks that do nothing to imply its performance.

Never meant to have a sexy exterior, the GT-R is a purpose-built scud missile for the road. When other cars were shopping for designer suits, the GT-R was taking steroids and pumping iron.

Nissan Concept 2020 Vision GT

Nissan Concept 2020 Vision GT
Nissan wants to change that. A source close to the company says the new street-spec car will not only employ full LMP-spec carbon fibre cowling, but take on a form similar to the Nissan Concept 2020 Vision Gran Turismo (pictured above and below), revealed at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in June.
While one Nissan designer hinted that this concept points toward a future GT-R design, the styling seems too radical for a road-going car and not radical enough for a race car. “You can expect to see the next-gen GT-R get a toned-down version of the 2020 Vision GT car,” said our source. Our artist’s rendering at the top of the page takes the 2020 Vision concept and tones it down with a more road-going treatment. It still looks like it belongs in a Transformers movie, but at least it’s edgier and boasts better proportions all round.

To keep costs down, Nissan will carry over several strategic components from the R35 GT-R to the new R36 model. The twin turbo 3.8-liter V-6, transaxle layout and 4WD powertrain will remain. What’s different is the electric motor that will be just aft of the engine.

Nissan Concept 2020 Vision GT
Nissan Concept 2020 Vision GT
The latest revision of the R35 GT-R packs a 550-hp punch with the current Nismo model producing 600 hp. Our insider confirms also that the car’s mammoth 442 lb-ft is about as much torque as the current six-speed DCT gearbox can take.
Adding an electric motor will boost maximum torque to the neighborhood of 737 lb-ft, requiring the total redesign of the next-generation car’s transmission, which will be an eight-speed. This will give engineers a chance to attack the current gearbox’s noise level and clunkiness at low speeds.

Our source says that the R36 GT-R’s V-6 will develop around 650 hp, with 134 hp coming from its electric motor, elevating total power output to a very healthy 784 hp. However, one problem that appears to be plaguing engineers is the cooling of the batteries used in the new hybrid system.

This is where the Le Mans experiment next year will pay off as engineers find ways to deal with the huge amounts of regenerative brake energy created under heavy braking, and then the sizable energy expended under hard acceleration.

Nissan bosses will no doubt be paying attention to similar battery cooling issues with new hybrid systems on this year’s F1 cars and Japan’s Super GT championship.
As our source said, “that is why the styling of the new GT-R will have to be so radically different. It’ll have to be penned to enable much more efficient cooling for the hybrid system as well as gain more efficient aerodynamics.”

But unlike many other carmakers who rely on electronics companies for their Li-ion batteries, Nissan designs and builds its own while co-developing next-generation hybrid systems with the Williams F1 team.

Nissan Race Car Teaser

Nissan Race Car Teaser
So all the pieces appear to be falling into place for a hotter-than-ever GT-R. Right? Maybe not. One unexpected development that may throw a wrench in the works is the untimely departure of Executive Vice President Andy Palmer, who resigned in August to take up the top job at Aston Martin. Palmer had been in charge of the GT-R project and was one of its strongest proponents.
Questions are already being asked. “Who will take over?” “Will they be able to convince Ghosn to see the project through?” We think so, although it might be slightly delayed.

If the R36 GT-R does get the green light, and we expect it will, keep an eye out for a concept version at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show and a production model in 2018.

Via MOTORTREND & Peter Lyon

Rendering courtesy of Holiday Auto magazine.

September 27, 2014 0

HONDA NSX SHAKEDOWN

We are rather excited about the coming of Honda’s new NSX. It’s been a long while since the S2000 came onto the market – the last time the noble brand pushed whole heartedly into the world of pure sports cars. It’s about time they picked up the challenge.Interesting to see then recently that the Honda (or is it Acura) NSX prototype lapped the 2.4-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, just prior to the running of the Honda Indy 200.

Understandably a lot of energy from the USA has been directed at the project. It is, after all an absolute key market for all luxury items. And we reckon the USA will be THE make or break territory for the new launch.

Ted Klaus, Chief engineer of Honda R&D Americas, Inc. said: “With leadership from our R&D and manufacturing teams here in Ohio, we are developing a next generation sports car that will be equally at home on the street and on the race track, so it is natural for us to showcase the prototype vehicle here at Mid-Ohio. It is exciting for us to see the prototype running on track, reflecting the great progress we’re making toward the 2015 global launch of the NSX, as we engineer a new sports-car experience for customers around the world.”

…and something North American too…
…and something North American too…

Corporate guff aside it’s interesting to see how the Acura brand articulates all that new, greener supercar technology to the Americans. Will they sneer at the six cylinder setup of the Honda NSX? Targeting next-generation supercar dynamic capabilities with advanced environmental performance, the NSX will be powered by a mid-mounted, direct-injected V-6 engine mated to Honda’s Sport Hybrid SH-AWD® (Super Handling All-Wheel Drive) system. Sport Hybrid SH-AWD® is, apparently, an all-new, three-motor high-performance hybrid system that combines torque vectoring all-wheel drive with advanced hybrid efficiency through the use of three electric motors – one motor integrated with the V6 engine and its all-new dual-clutch transmission (DCT) driving the rear wheels, and two motors driving the front wheels. The system enables instant delivery of negative or positive torque to the front wheels during cornering to achieve a new level of driving performance unparalleled by current AWD systems.

Key to all this positioning is that the NSX will be assembled in Marysville Ohio – playing to the very prevelant ‘Made in America’ movement that is making a serious impact on the internal economy of the post powerful nation on the planet. Globally sourced, Japanese engineered – and made in America. A potentially very powerful statement.

September 25, 2014 0

FORD GT40: THE BEAUTY

Words: Neil Siner

I didn’t have the Scalextric Le Mans 24 hour set, but my mate did. It was on that plastic blacktop in the early 80s that I first fell in love with the Ford GT40.

I guess it would have been a scaled down version of the Mark II that we fought over on those wet Saturday afternoons, the car’s strange mix of macho bulk and curvaceous lines already appealing to our burgeoning maleness.

It can be difficult to pin down the quality that draws us to an object but it’s fair to say that often that quality is a fleeting thing. Not so with the Ford GT40. It is a car that stands outside of time. From the 60’s racetrack to the contemporary road it has an enduring beauty the essence of which, I think, lies in its inception. Being the offspring of transatlantic progenitors the GT40 has that special beauty that is a by product of what geneticists refer to as ‘hybrid vigour’. American power and technology combined with British mechanical design has produced here something truly outstanding.
I’m still in love!

40 inches from tarmac to roof. Nothing looks anything like the Ford GT40
40 inches from tarmac to roof. Nothing looks anything like the Ford GT40

This was after all a car built from scratch, with the specific job of seeing off Ferraris. It is in its perfect utility and the fulfilment of its function that it finds such an iconic and timeless appeal. So what are these qualities teased out of its hybrid functionality that endow this machine with such beauty? To me they are manifested in the car’s visual contrasts. It is chunky, with super wide sills and deep wheel arches over 15 inch wheels. Yet it is also sleek and low slung, petite almost in its minimal height (the famous 40 inches of its nomenclature).

15 Inch wheels – small by today’s standards.
15 Inch wheels – small by today’s standards.

To my mind, it is in this incongruity of manly power and bulk combined with sensual curves, that the GT40 finds its true and lasting appeal. Like some beautiful automotive dominatrix, it looks like it wants to rough you up and seduce you at the same time.

So maybe it’s just the submissive in me but thirty years or so after we first met on those adolescent afternoons,

September 22, 2014 0

KILLER COBRA: SHELBY AND THE SNAKE

Words: Charles Bamber
If you had been an American MG owner in the early to mid sixties, you would have been pretty smug and self satisfied with your exotic, excitingly nippy little English runabout.

But imagine the day you first heard about the advert of the 427 Cobra. The English built frame now had 427 cubic inch engine (that’s 7 litres) and Road and Track magazine reckoned it could accelerate from zero to sixty in less than four seconds and from zero to 100MPH and back to zero again in less than 14.

The word humiliation wouldn’t even have nearly covered it.

Flared arches – the toughest ’65er on the streets

Thing was, that platonic ideal of an MG owner had been punching above its weight on the twisties and rutted orange grove roads of Southern California. The underpowered 356 Porsches were no match for the MG’s handling and the other competitor – the 286 Cobra was regularly outrun. The archaic leaf suspension on the early Cobras, you see, meant that the 300 horses it was able to transmit to the rear tyres were hardly ever translated into manageable power. But with the 427, not only had the small block 286 been replaced by a bloodcurdling, NASCAR-developed engine that produced close to 500HP – it also came with an all-new all-round independent suspension system with anti dive and anti-squat characteristics. Your little English sports car is, in short, instantly outmoded.

NASCAR developed behemoth

In 1965 the violent sort of changes in velocity pioneered by the third iteration of the Cobra would have been hard to come by on the race track. But this was street legal. Things in the world of American sports cars would never be the same again.

But despite its half century old reputation as a killer beast — at low speeds the Cobra 427 could still be a pussycat. Read the road tests of the day and you’ll be surprised to be told that the 11.5 inch Ford clutch was found to be no more challenging than a normal domestic unit. The production 427’s transmission was a standard Ford four-speed synchro box – so it was smooth and relatively easy to handle too.

That vulnerable rear end…

But it was when you buried the throttle and let the snake free that the 427 Cobra earned its reparation as a widow maker. The MK3 Cobra featured the flared arches that first appeared on the earlier racing versions of the 289. It also came with a genius aesthetic touch in the form of those black painted knock-off magnesium wheels from Halibrand. The 427 would notoriously break traction in the up-shift and even in fourth gear lead foots over 100 MPH. That power-to-weight ratio was so astronomic, slewing of the rear end under heavy throttle was standard. You needed phat rims and serious rubber to take the battering. So though even a learner driver could have toddled round in the beast safely enough, you wouldn’t have let your 17 year old push it over 2000 revs.

Five point harnesses might be more desirable

The imperatives of success at the 24 Hours of Le Mans can be blamed for the factory Cobra’s premature demise. By 1966 the Ford establishment had been determined to challenge Ferrari’s dominance in endurance racing – and they famously set Carroll Shelby and his team the challenge to produce an endurance racer that could become that Ferrari slayer. Even with its beautiful power and a stretched drive ratio, the format of the Cobra meant that it would only be good for around 170 MPH – and success at La Sarthe meant the ability to crack 200. Enter, of course the GT40.

Long, low -427 logo proud

But it’s the simple, purposeful format of the Cobra that accounts for its enduring appeal. Look at it. It’s squat, to the point. Front and rear over hangs are short, and the roadster setup and the long accommodating bonnet meant that the driving experience is classic as well as adrenalin-inducing. It’s low slung and rather wide, too – and it’s no surprise that the only things that come close to the sort of power induced rattle and hum experienced by the man in the cockpit are the more brutally appointed TVRs.

The straightforward format of the Cobra – and the fact that only a couple of hundred original 427s were ever built – mean that throughout the subsequent decades a large cottage industry has developed in producing continuation cars, replicas and assimilations of the car’s stripped down simplicity.

Original versions of these cars are now regularly fetching 7 figures at auction. Incredible when you consider the rather crude componentry of which they are composed. Never mind.

There’s always that Outlaw MGB.

Five point harnesses might be more desirable

Long, low -427 logo proud