Archive for April, 2008

TDC’s Top Three: Our Most Wanted Cars for the Summer of 2008

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The summer is near, and what better way to spend it then behind the wheel of some of the world’s greatest cars? Ok, so that’s not really an option for us, but if it were, here are three of the cars we’d most like to spend time with:

1. 2009 Corvette ZR1

Could there be a better way to spend your summer then by doing 205mph in America’s preeminent supercar? We think not. With 638hp on tap and a lowly hp to weight ratio of 5.25, the Corvette ZR1 is in other worldly territory .. territory previously only frequented by cars like the Porsche Carrera GT and Ferrari Enzo.

Even better then all of that? The car’s motor uses a sleeved aluminum block and completely forged internals: from the rods to the pistons to the crankshaft. What this means to you is that adding another 100+hp to the ZR1 will be potentially as easy and carefree as upping the boost a few PSI (thank of the ZR1’s LS9 motor the way we think of the Supra’s 2JZ-GTE: bullet proof). Here’s a TDC guarantee for you: full after market bolt-ons for this car will have it making 700+rwhp (roughly 740hp at the crank).

2. 2009 Nissan GTR

If your idea of summer fun is destroying your local road course’s track record, then the 480hp Nissan GT-R is the car for you. With enough technology and power to commandeer a small third world country, the Nissan GT-R is truly a world beater.

Reasons we want this car? A remarkable Nurburgring time of 7:38, 1/4 mile in 11.8 and a 0-60 of 3.5 seconds. Also, the car’s launch control system is guaranteed to keep us entertained at every red light in the country.

3. 2008 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG

With all the world beating and supercar destroying business taken care of by the Corvette ZR1 and Nissan GT-R, we’ll probably also need something a little more practical and family oriented for the summer. Right? WRONG! We’ll need something even MORE outlandish and impractical then either of those two previous cars! This is the summer after all, so we don’t have time for practicality! Thankfully the 457hp Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG clearly and unequivocally meets and satisfies our desire for the impractical and slightly nutty.

Why is this car so great? Because it masquerades as a nice civilized four door sedan, when in all actuality its as civilized as a D1 Grand Prix car! The 457hp will have you screaming around corners like Keiichi Tsuchiya, and the car’s four doors just means that all your friends will be there to cheer you on. Perfect.

RECAP: GMNext.com chat with Tadge Juechter

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2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1

The GMNext.com live chat with the Corvette ZR1’s chief engineer Tadge Juechter took place earlier today. No real new information was shared-as expected-but here are some of the most interesting tidbits (full transcript after the jump):

On the “most fuel efficient 600hp car” claim:

Tadge Juechter:
We have not run our fuel economy testing yet. It will be somewhat less than a Z06 and we expect a small gas guzzler tax. However, the ZR1 will be the most fuel efficient 600 hp car you can buy in the world.

On record breaking:

Tadge Juechter:
As you probably saw, we announced the top speed (2 way, 1 mile average) as 205 mph. The ZR1 has also been extremely durable in our testing, so the car certainly has the potential to take the World Speed Endurance Record. However, we are currently focused on a perfect launch and getting the ZR1 into production. We will talk about record attempts later.

On performance numbers:

Tadge Juechter:
We expect to announce pricing in May and all performance numbers will be run with production vehicles over the next two months.

Continue reading ‘RECAP: GMNext.com chat with Tadge Juechter’

VIDEO: GM’s HCCI gas engine aims to be greener then a hybrid

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GM’s effort to redesign the internal combustion engine is starting to produce some very real results. A fairly old technology, the homogeneous charge-compression ignition (HCCI), is now starting to look like a better solution to the energy crisis then alternative fuels.

So what makes the HCCI process different from spark or compression ignition? It delivers a more complete, efficient burn at temperatures too low for the formation of harmful nitrous oxides. As a result, the job of cleaning the exhaust becomes much easier, resulting in fewer greenhouse gases being expelled into the atmosphere. It also requires a much leaner air/fuel mixture (less fuel, more air) for detonation than in a standard four-stroke engine—hence the 25- to 30- percent bump in fuel economy. Plus, burning gasoline at a lower temperature means that considerably less energy is lost through the exhaust pipe, or transferred as waste heat into the engine’s cooling system.

Full Article: In Efficiency Lab, GM Rethinks the Old-School Engine

$1 per gallon Ethanol by 2009 says Coskata

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Direct from GMNext.com:

Coskata’s announcement last week that it will build a demonstration facility near Pittsburgh brings it one step closer to full ethanol production. The $25 million project will be located at the Westinghouse Plasma Center, and target production is set for 40,000 gallons of ethanol per year. In addition, Coskata has also pledged to “commission a full-scale, 50 million – 100 million gallon-per-year commercial plant by the year 2011.” (Granted, that’s just a drop in the bucket. Each year, the US consumes over 146 billion gallons of gasoline.)

The plan is that the Pennsylvania facility will begin delivering ethanol in early 2009. Obviously that’s not tomorrow, but it is certainly in the foreseeable future.

And via Coskata.com:

Coskata is a biology-based renewable energy company. Our technology enables the low-cost production of ethanol from a wide variety of input material including biomass, municipal solid waste and other carbonaceous material. Using proprietary microorganisms and patented bioreactor designs, we will produce ethanol for under US$1.00 per gallon.

[Source: GMnext.com and Coskata.com]

VIDEO: Kazunori Yamauchi, creator of the Gran Turismo series, drives the Nissan GT-R

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Kazunori Yamauchi, creator of the legendary Gran Turismo video game franchise, drives the new Nissan GT-R down the Nurburgring attempting to hit 193mph.

Being an avid follower of the GT series (I even have a Tsukuba lap record in GT4), this brings my inner nerd much joy.

[Source: Youtube via Autospies]

President of Nissan Technical Center: Nissan GTR really does only make 480hp

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on April 28, 2008
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Motor Trend’s Angus MacKenzie has a recap of his last 24 hours participating in a Nissan 360 press event. One of his more interesting notes is that Motohiro Matsumura, president of Nissan Technical Center North America, promises that the Nissan GT-R really is only making 480hp. Motor Trend’s previous dyno test indicating a wheel horsepower rating of 430hp for the GTR was right; however their factored in drive-train loss of 15% was wrong, and as such, so was their claim of 507hp. Matsumura says the car actually has a remarkable drive-train loss of only 10% thanks to the use of ultra low friction ball bearings in the wheel hubs and transmission, as well as a very accurate alignment of the car’s AWD prop shafts.

MacKenzie says Motor Trend plans to examine Matsumura’s claim of a 10% drive-train loss with some coast down tests of the car in the near future.

[Source: Motortrend.com]

VIDEO: New 2010 BMW Z4 spied

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Motorauthority.com has some new spy footage of the 2010 BMW Z4 testing at the Nurburgring. And it is just testing, and not trying to set any lap records; just in case anyone is confused by the last five hundred million spy videos of multi-letter’d cars at the Nurburgring trying to do such things (I’m looking at you ZR1-GTR-GT2-LFA).

It could also be a Z4 M roadster… But who knows, other then the Bavarians.

MUST READ: Men’s Vogue and the Bugatti Veyron

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I was in a drug store the other day and happened upon the most recent copy of Men’s Vogue. To my surprise they had an absolutely fantastic article about the Bugatti Veyron, and how it may actually be the greatest car ever built; past, present or even future. Unfortunately, the use of “future” isn’t so much a proclamation of the Veyron’s omnipresent greatness, but more so a reality check as to the state of our world and the true cost of being the World’s Greatest Car.

Flash. It’s two years later, November 2007. There’s unease in Molsheim, a dully fastidious village about 20 minutes from Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of France, and the ancestral home of the Bugatti company. Even in a world awash with petrodollars and hedge fund billionaires, the Veyron has found only about 180 buyers for the projected 300 to be built. The Veyron project — named for Bugatti’s Le Mans–winning driver, Pierre Veyron — is estimated to have emptied more than half a billion euros from the coffers of VW Group, which resurrected the storied French marque a decade ago. And for what? As Ettore Bugatti himself found out in the 1930s with his Royale project — a stupendous ultra-luxury locomotive — these kinds of cost-is-no-object performance pieces almost never make any money. (See Porsche Carrera GT, Mercedes-Benz’s SLR McLaren or Maybach, et al.)

…

This is a time for lovers of fine automobiles to be alert. An age is passing. Fifty years from now, the Bugatti Veyron will seem like the final erotic death roll of a doomed technology. It occurs to me that we will not recognize the moment when we drive the finest automobile in all history — it’s something we can only realize in retrospect.

And yet, I’ve got a feeling.

As for the Bugatti losing it’s title of world’s fastest production car? Don’t think Bugatti is going down without a fight.

“We look forward to defending our title as the fastest car in the world,” says Dr. Paefgen, with the air of someone who’s just been asked to wrestle with a hobo. “We know what it took to build the Veyron, and I don’t think anyone can match it.”

If you even remotely consider yourself an automotive enthusiast, then I strongly suggest you read this article. This is one of the best journalistic pieces on any automotive topic I have read in years.

Full Article: Auto Erotic