Smokey Nagata took a Supra to Nardo to flog it around the track and remind Toyota about what it could be doing with its time. Now, a freethinking designer with some serious rendering skills has upped Smokey's Supra by kitting out an LF-A in a similar garb. The result is this, the TOP SECRET LF-A Nardo 400 Supercar Concept.
Created by Jon Sibal, the car is an LF-A with some "Nagata san flavor," customized graphics, and a hunger for the 400 km/hr mark. We'll take it standing still. We don't know how many more people will need to nudge Toyota before the company will give us a sports car again. But if Toyota asked itself "What kind of bada** statement can we make to get back into the sports car game?", this kind of car could the answer. Toyota? Anyone?
Smokey Nagata likes to smoke his tires on freeways all over the world. While his stunts may not be lawful or even sane, he continues to find new territory in which to get his thrills. After being arrested in England and New Zealand, he has finally taken his action off the streets and onto the Nardo Ring test track in Italy. Reportedly, the twin turbo V12 Top Secret Supra, driven by Smokey, achieved a top speed of 222 mph (358 km/h) at Nardo. While certainly a mind-numbing velocity, it falls just a tad short of the 248 mph (400 km/h) goal.
The Top Secret Supra project is intended to present the Supra as the kind of supercar some feel Toyota should be selling. Its V12 powerplant is sourced from a Toyota Century (a Japanese market luxury sedan), and extra power beyond its stock 276 horses, many airflow aids have been added. These range from custom plenums and piping to dual HKS GT2540 turbochargers. All in all, the engine's output has been tuned somewhere north of 1,000 hp. To learn more information on the car check out this feature from Super Street Magazine.
Only days before heading to bankruptcy court, Italian engineering firm and carrozzeria Bertone revealed that it was about to pull a last-minute trick out of its sleeve in an announcement later that day. But when the announcement didn't come, the industry was left wondering if, after 95 years in business, Bertone was about to slip away.
The company's chairwoman and family scion Lili Bertone, however, announced last night that her company would be sold to Gruppo Prototipo chief Domenico Reviglio. Likewise based in Turin, Gruppo Prototipo focuses on testing pre-production vehicle prototypes. It owns the famous Nardo high-speed test facility, and since the late '90s has been the sub-contractor for most of the Fiat Group's testing requirements.
The announcement came as a surprise to the Italian business community, which widely believed negotiations with business mogul Gianmario Rossignolo were near conclusion. Previous negotiations with Fiat had fallen through, and Bertone has a workforce of 1,300 to support despite the lack of contracts to sustain the company. The Italian government, meanwhile, has opted to extend the two-year financial protection it had granted Bertone for an additional two months.
Looking at this custom Porsche, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Swiss army had ordered up a fleet of military-spec 911s. Then you'd quickly realize that while it may be a versatile sports car, the 911 would not be the Porsche most utile for military applications, compared with, say, the Cayenne.
In reality what you're looking at is a "civilian" 911 tuned by aftermarket specialist, Sportec. Never mind the 800-horsepower engine this brat is packin', the real highlight is the original paint job. This 911 Sportec SPR1 is decked out in matte green, with dark wheels and a Swiss flag painted on the roof. The paramilitary hue might make it even harder to spot as it sprints to sixty in three seconds flat, that is assuming the Swiss machine can shift out of neutral.
Follow the jump to watch the video of the Porsche 911 Sportec SPR1 undergoing high-speed testing at Nardo.
Going fast can't be rushed. It sounds downright oxymoronic, but it might as well be the golden rule when it comes to breaking top speed records.
9ff is one of those outfits that bridges the gap between aftermarket tuning house and specialty manufacturer. Their latest project, dubbed GT9, has been a long time coming, and we've been eagerly awaiting the very special car's attempt at unseating the likes of the SSC Aero, Koenigsegg CCX and Bugatti Veyron from their respective places at the top of the speed-trial time sheets. 9ff has yet to take the GT9 to Nardo for its official run, but have in the meantime given us an appetizer to keep our mouths watering.
As you may recall, the GT9 starts with a Porsche 911 GT3, and goes to work on it like a Tarantino character with a razor blade and "Stuck in the Middle" playing on the radio. A new rear subframe is fitted from carbon-Kevlar, mounting the 987hp 4.2-liter twin-turbo flat-six in the middle instead of the rear, and stretching the custom body by 300 mm (about a foot) while chopping the sleek roofline by 120 mm.
The near-record-ready GT9 was on display at the Essen motor show when it was apparently revealed that the asking price has jumped from an anticipated €400k to nearly €600k. But with the Porsche Carrera GT long since out of production, 9ff shouldn't have any trouble selling the limited run of 20...so long as it meets its ambitious performance goals.
Click image for a gallery of the record-setting LP640
You see, this is how it's done. Real top speed records are set by teams of professionals in controlled environments, and they're verified by precision instrumentation. That's why Edo Competition's mark of 214 mph in a lightly-modified Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 at Nardo counts, and the YouTube-ified "219 mph" trip computer banzai run on an Arizona freeway by a former dentist and his buddies does not.
Edo's LP640 was fitted with a rear wing and sported a reprogrammed ECU, high-flow air filters, and high-performance catalytic converters. Engine output in that guise was bumped up to 663 horsepower. According to the GPS-based measuring system used on all the cars at the Nardo high-speed event, Edo's machine (complete with Calvin sticker) topped out at 214.8 mph. That is the official fastest top speed ever recorded by a Lamborghini. They're going back next year, too, with 700 horses behind the driver and a goal of 224+ mph.
Click on the images to view in high-speed and high-resolution
Remember the Maybach Exelero? The ultra-premium marque from Merceceds-Benz built it almost two years ago as a high-speed test vehicle based on its Maybach 57 luxury sedan, but unfortunately never offered production versions to the public. To the rescue comes Brabus, those whacky German tuners who give the go-fast treatment to everything produced by the three-pointed star, from the Smart ForTwo all the way up to this 730-hp limousine.
Like the Exelero, Brabus' monster is based on the Maybach 57 and was built in order to achieve the highest speeds attainable. To get there, Brabus tuned the Maybach's twin-turbo V12 to the same standard as the CLS-based Brabus Rocket speed record car: that means boosting power from 550 hp to 730, thanks to an increase in displacement from 5.5 liters to 6.3, coupled with a new crankshaft, pistons, cylinder heads... the works. The turbos were beefed up, and along with the intercoolers, a custom exhaust was installed and the ECU was reprogrammed.
The result is a top speed of 330.2 km/h (205.2 mph in American speak) achieved at the same Nardo test track in Italy where the Exelero was put through its places. A far cry from the 218.4 mph achieved by the Exelero, but not to shabby in its own right. And here you thought the S versions of the Maybach 57 and 62 were obscene enough....
Check out the images in the gallery below, and the press release after the jump.
Click the image above for more shots of the GP3.10 hammering around Nardo.
You might recall the AC Schnitzer crew trotting out a particularly gaudy BMW 3-series coupe in Frankfurt called the GP3.10, powered by a V10 engine pulled from the M5/M6 running off liquefied petroleum. While the styling of the Bimmer caused a few of us to inadvertently gag while patrolling the floor in Germany, its performance potential – 552 hp and 400 lb.-ft. of torque – showed promise.
Fast forward a few months later, and according to the Schnitzer folks, the GP3.10 set the world record for the fastest gas-powered car in the world. The coupe was brought out to the 13-mile Nardo test track in Southern Italy where it laid down a terminal velocity of 318.1 km/h, or 197 mph. While that's a feat unto itself, even more surprising is AC Schnitzer's claim that some of the technology will filter down to the tuner's products in the future.
OK, so it might not be World's Fastest Car or even World's Fastest Coupe, but the AC Schnitzer Tension just accomplished something pretty remarkable. It sped its way around the Southern Italian top speed track known as Nardo at a breathtaking 331.78 km/h. That, my friends, makes it the fastest BMW on record. That's 206.158 mph, in case you, like most of us, can't do the conversion in your head. The test was run by Continental AG and AutoBild magazine.
A GPS system recorded the speeds on the 13 km oval, which along with Ehra-Lessien in Germany, is regularly used for high speed testing. The successful run at 200 mph makes the AC Schnitzer Tension the fastest BMW in the world, which is impressive, as it packs just over 400 horsepower and is fully street legal as well. As we told you back in September, the Tension sports many changes including a Schnitzer-specific motor. Powering this particular Tension was AC Schnitzer's 411 hp, 5.1-liter engine that they claim offers "a true alternative to the M5 or M6." We just saw one at the VIP Auto Fashion Show in L.A. and we liked it in silver and black much better than some of the other combos we've seen. Looks purposeful and wicked. Sounds mean, too.
These engineers at Brabus sure are tough guys to please. Apparently, the top speed record they set at Nardo with the Brabus Rocket wasn't good enough. Some of you may recall that back in June, we reported that the Rocket maxed out at 362.4 km/h (225.18 mph) on a top speed attempt at the Italian track. That was good enough to snare the uber-CLS the lofty title of "Fastest Sedan in the World."
But for some of the techs, this apparently wasn't enough. We can just envision the engineering team tossing and turning at night, knowing that the car's capable of even more than what it gave that day. (Not that it matters to customers, whose cars are limited to a mere 217 mph top end.) Ultimately, it was determined that the nagging feelings should be put to the test, and once again, the car and its support team trekked to Italy.
And you know what? The suspicions were confirmed, as the Rocket officially achieved a new top speed of 365.7 km/h (227.23 mph). Sure, no customer will ever take one that high, but knowing those extra 10 mph are in there somewhere adds to the sheer badassedness of the car. Heh. Like it didn't have enough of that already.
Officially Official: 2010 Ford Mustang!
2010 Ford Mustang revealed early on Ford's own website!
2009 Nissan 370Z rolls out early in So. Cal
VIDEO: 2009 Nissan 370Z revealed early in So. Cal.
BRABUS begins business of tuning the Tesla Roadster
In the Autoblog Garage: 2009 HUMMER H3T Alpha
In the Autoblog Garage: 2009 Mercedes Benz C63 AMG
In the Autoblog Garage: 2009 Hyundai Genesis
In the Autoblog Garage: 2009 Chevrolet Traverse LT
