It wasn’t just road cars taking to the stage at Paris Motor Show – several brands also pulled the wraps off the latest racing versions of their big-selling models, including Audi, Porsche, Toyota and Hyundai. Audi’s hot new RS3 saloon was joined by a touring-car version that’ll be eligible to compete in series around the … [Read more…]
Research company Nanoflowcell, which revealed two electric car concepts powered by liquid-battery technology last year, is in talks with a “large manufacturer that is not German” about putting the Quantino concept into production. The German/Swiss company’s technology boss, Nunzio La Vecchia, said the car could be rebranded and the technology could be licensed for other … [Read more…]
There are ghosts in the machine – among many other things. Fans of Ayrton Senna will know that he played a significant role in developing the original Honda NSX, the lightweight, mid-engined supercar from Japan’s most dependably left-field automotive (and motorbike and lawnmower) company. A car that landed just when Porsche and Ferrari had both … [Read more…]
Hyundai RN30 If you’re going to preview a hot hatch, you might as well go a bit wild. And wild is exactly what Hyundai did with its RN30 concept. Okay, so the i30N that will make production will be milder, but as a flag in the ground of what Hyundai can do, the RN30 does … [Read more…]
FORD has dropped more hints of what’s in store for its next Fiesta ST hot hatch -revealed in our exclusive main image – and it’s likely that the all-new performance supermini will use a tuned version of the firm’s 1.0-litre three-cylinder EcoBoost engine in place of the current car’s 1.6 turbo. Ford’s head of small … [Read more…]
Drivers caught using a mobile phone behind the wheel will face six penalty points and a £200 fine as part of Government efforts to crack down on dangerous driving. But will it work? We’ve asked experts whether they think the new stricter penalties – due to come into force in early 2017 across England, Scotland … [Read more…]
JAGUAR’S Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division appears to be working on a hot version of the F-Pace 4×4. Spied testing at Germany’s Nurburgring race track for the first time, the high-performance SUV will go up against the likes of the Porsche Macan Turbo, and could arrive within the next 12 months. The F-Pace will be … [Read more…]
With so many hot hatches pumping out stats that until recently were supercar territory, the VW Golf GTI can sometimes be forgotten. I’m not saying that out of a lack of respect, it’s just that the new breed of hot hatches, even VW’s own R, are on a different level to what we classified as … [Read more…]
Located outside Queenstown on New Zealand’s South Island, the Southern Hemisphere Proving Ground is spoken of in the same way one speaks of a pilgrimage to the Nürburgring. Being 1600 metres above sea level but feeling 10 times higher than that, the 490 hectares of privately owned land is a strange place to be, almost … [Read more…]
The Kawasaki Ninja H2R got us excited when we first heard about it last year. The street-legal Ninja H2 and track-only Ninja H2R are the world’s first supercharged supersports production motorcycles. Designers from various companies (under the Kawasaki group) sat down to produce a supremely powerful supercharger for it. The bespoke supercharger was mated to … [Read more…]