The phrase "cost is no object" was redefined last week when an aftermarket tuner dropped close to a cool million on a license plate. Yes, a license plate. The "F1" plate was first registered in the UK 104 years ago, when it was more likely a two-digit coincidence than a vanity plate, and until recently was used on a Volvo S80 owned by the chairman of the Essex County Council. F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone and former F1 driver Eddie Irvine had tried to snatch it up in 2005 at Goodwood, but failed to meet the reserve.
Last week at auction, Afzal Kahn, head of the Kahn Design and Project Kahn aftermarket tuning house, placed the winning bid of £375k, which comes to more than £440k with tax (the equivalent of about $873,000). The price beat the previous record of £331k paid at a Bonhams auction in 2006 for the "M1" plate, but may yet be beat when the UK's oldest registration plate "A1" goes under the hammer in the near future. Kahn will reportedly (and fittingly) put the F1 plate on his custom Mercedes SLR McLaren. How does he feel about blowing that much cash on a license plate? "It's every man's dream to have his perfect car with a number plate like this." Uh, we'll keep dreaming, thanks.
click above for more images of the Lexus LF-A Concept
A Lexus LF-A mule has unofficially recorded a lap time on the Nordschleife of 7 minutes, 24 seconds. This is not in dispute. What is in dispute is how many seconds faster the LF-A's lap time is than that of the 2008 Porsche 911 GT2, the previous "King of the 'Ring" record holder. Wikipedia notes that the fastest 911 GT2 driven around the Ring posted a lap time of 7 minutes, 32 seconds and was driven by Walter Röhrl, Porsche's company test driver and accomplished WRC driver and road racing pilot. Porsche was so proud of the feat that it produced a snazzy video of the run that you can watch here. AutoExpress, however, which reported on the LF-A's remarkable lap time, claims that the fastest 911 GT2 lap time on the Nurburgring is 7 minutes, 25 seconds, but we could find no evidence on the web of a stock 911 GT2 ever posting a time that fast. Also note that a handful of other cars have posted lap times, but all are either tuner cars or limited production boutique cars like the Pagani Zonda F.
Nevertheless, the Lexus LF-A's time is remarkable and puts it in a class normally populated by purpose-built tuner cars. Its 4.8L V10 churns out a reported 552bhp while slapping the needle against a 9,000 rpm redline. A 210 mph top speed is said to be the car's upper bound, which makes us shake our heads. This is, after all, the brand that brought us the sarcophagus of a car that is the LS sedan. The production LF-A should be able to repeat the performance, but we'll have to wait a while longer while the Lexus supercar finishes baking in the oven. In the meantime, for Pete's sake, someone ship a Corvette ZR1 to Germany!
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.
Performance figures don't give an accurate picture of just how well a car performs overall. A given car may be the fastest to sixty, but that doesn't mean it has the highest top speed, tightest cornering or sharpest brakes. Lap times around a given track paint a more accurate, comprehensive picture of a car's abilities, but picking one track as the gold standard is dicey business. That's where Top Gear's Power Lap board comes into play.
Although weather conditions can vary, BBC's Top Gear puts all the cars through the paces at the same test track outside their studio, and what's more is that they're driven – or at least, so we're lead to believe – by the same driver: The Stig.
The latest high-performance supercar to make a run for the top of the record board is the Caparo T1, which, at 1:10.6, easily trounced the previous record holder, the Koenigsegg CCX, by an astonishing seven seconds. Unfortunately the Caparo was disqualified because, in its track set-up, it lacked the adjustable ride height to enable it to clear a requisite speed-bump. Caparo insists they deserve a second chance with a road-spec version. If the show's producers give the Ultima GTR an official run, meanwhile, the Caparo's reign as king of the Power Lap could be short-lived, adjustable shocks or not.
Ultima, one of several dozen independent British sportscar companies and makers of the GTR, could only take so much rejection. The cottage automaker claims it offered its road-legal race-car to the producers at BBC's hit TV show Top Gear several times, only to be repeatedly refused. So Ultima took things into its own hands, brought its latest fire-breather to the same converted airstrip that TG uses for a test track, retained a Stig of its own, and undertook to beat the fastest lap on the track.
Aside from the occasional exception like the Renault F1 car, the current record holder on Top Gear's power-lap board is the Koenigsegg CCX (which Top Gear can't spell). After the Stig famously spun the Swedish supercar off the track, the designers mounted a new rear wing to keep the tail planted, and the CCX set a fastest lap of 1:17.6, which was enough to beat the Ferrari Enzo, Maserati MC12 and Pagani Zonda that previously sat atop the chart.
Ultima drove the GTR720 to the track in full road trim and set a fast lap of 1:12.8, which easily beat the Koenigsegg. In fact, Ultima claims that at that rate, the GTR would lap an Enzo every 12 laps. Dang. Shame it would also beat the Ferrari in an ugly contest, though. Ultima says another visit in the more powerful 800-hp version is in the works.
This will be excellent when you go to buy that used Mercedes. Rather than searching high and low for that needle-in-a-haystack owner who kept meticulous records and the car serviced to a T, Mercedes is rolling out a Digital Service Booklet. Mercedes says it will be more convenient and efficient to build a digital record of a vehicle's service history than trying to track it on dead trees.
The DSB rollout will spread gradually throughout the entire Mercedes range, and owners will be supplied with a folder to house DSB printouts. With service data centralized, you no longer have to rely on your dealer to keep records of your car, which means you can pretty much get the car serviced at any MBZ dealer and they'll know just what's been done to your car. We wish our doctors and specialists could get it together the same way.
You can make a car that accelerates. You can make a car that brakes. You can make one that handles. One that corners. One with a high top speed. But to make one that does it all is a different story entirely. That's why automakers go to the Nürburgring. Its northern loop is twenty-two kilometers of twists, turns, dips, straights, chicanes...even a carousel. And it's got a new champion.
The Pagani Zonda F recently lapped the track that claimed Lauda's ears in a scant 7:27:82, edging out the previous ruler, the Porsche Carrera GT (which it also rivals for carbon-fiber content in its construction). The Zonda's hot lap shaved a mere two milliseconds off the Carrera's time, but those are two milliseconds the German supercar evidently couldn't muster on its own home track. How embarrassing, ja?
The specific model that hit the high time was a Clubsport version, which itself will be trumped by the even more extreme Zonda R before designer Horacio Pagani goes back to the drawing board for the Zonda's successor.
Click the Fusion for high-res images from Bonneville
Matt Zuehlk and his team comprised of engineers and technicians from Ford, Roush and Ballard Power Systems finally hit the Bonneville Salt Flats this past weekend after months of preparation and weeks of vehicle integration testing. On Sunday, Driver Rick Byrnes made a qualification run at over 161 mph with the hydrogen fuel cell-powered Fusion.
Now the team will be spending the rest of this week working their way up to over 200 mph as they try to establish a land speed record for a production-bodied fuel cell car. The Ford team is also working with the Ohio State University team who are trying to get their Buckeye Bullet 2 streamliner up over 350mph.
Continental has entered the Guinness Book of World Records with a top speed of 242 mph (388 km/h). We're definitely not talking about the behemoth Bentley, as powerful as it is. The record now officially belongs to Continental Tires for its ContiSportContact Vmax, which has been officially certified by those stout-chugging judges as the world's fastest production road tire.
The rubber was tested on the 9ff-modified Porsche 911 that took the world record for the fastest street-legal road car. A custom 9ff cabrio also took the record for the world's fastest convertible with a high end of 237.8 mph (380.5 km/h). Both cars are owned by 9ff chief Jan Fatthauer, and the top speed runs were certified by Guinness.
If you're thinking that the Bugatti Veyron (and the purpose-made Michelin rubber on its wheels) can hit a higher speed, you may be right, but the Veyron has yet to try for the official record, and its tires were specially made for the Bugatti, while the Continentals are offered to the public as standard production road tires. As much as the car's own capabilities, how it makes contact with the road (i.e., its tires) often dictates a car's limits. Just keeping the tires from melting (as they do on the Veyron after just 12 minutes at its 253-mph top speed) is a feat in and of itself.
click on above image for more high-res pics of the SSC Ultimate Aero TT
Back in March, SSC went for the mantle of World's Fastest Production Car with its Ultimate Aero TT. The attemptfailed due to a number of factors, one of which was bad weather, but SSC is still determined to take the title away from the Koenigsegg CCR, which is the current record holder with an official run up to 242 mph. (The Bugatti Veyron has reportedly gone 253 mph in an unofficial run.)
Winding Road recently spoke with Junus Khan, SSC's marketing director, who claims that the Ultimate Aero TT hit 241.4 mph during a transmission temperature test on May 22. At the time, the driver was reportedly using only 71 percent of the car's available throttle, which implies it's got plenty of reserve to break the official record of 242 mph. With 1,183 bhp on tap behind the driver's head, we're sure the SSC Ultimate Aero TT will shatter the record soon once the company organizes another official attempt. Khan says they'll be going for it in the "very near future."
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