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Audi TTS Competition celebrates 500k TTs sold

The Audi TTS Competition (pictured) celebrates 500k TTs built It started off as something of a hairdressers car, but over the course of its 15 year history – and two iterations – the Audi TT has grown to be a credible sport car and a decent seller for Audi. That’s meant a total of 500,000 TTs have been solid since the TT first hit showrooms back in 1998, so Audi are celebrating with a new limited edition model – the Audi TTS Competition. The TTS Competition will be limited to just 500 units and will come in a choice of either Imola Yellow and Nimbus Grey, as a coupe or a roadster.

Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid (2011) first official pictures

Porsche has released details of its updated 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the 2010 original nearly won last year's Nurburgring 24hr race before (ironically) it retired with petrol engine failure.  The 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the lowdown Before this report disappears in a chorus of ‘it looks the same as last year’s one’, let's outline where Porsche’s engineers have been busy. At the unfashionable end of the car remains a 4.0-litre flat-six engine producing approximately 470bhp. Up front are twin electric motors, now producing 75kW of power each (up from 60kW) and combined these give the GT3 R Hybrid a 197bhp electric boost, which can be programmed to activate automatically via the throttle pedal, or manually selected during overtaking. F1-derived hybrid tech for the 911 GT3 R Hybrid Power for the two electric motors doesn't come from batteries, but flywheel accumulator technology from Williams Hybrid Power, an offshoot of the Williams Formula 1 team. The flywheel, encased in a carbonfibre safety cell in the space where the passenger seat would be, spins at up to 40,000rpm and acts as a mechanical energy store for the electric motors. Regenerative braking feeds energy back into the flywheel system – no surprises there, as the technology is derived from Williams' exeprience with Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) in F1.

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 does 11s in quarter-mile

The 2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 officially joined the 11-second club. Chevrolet said on Friday that the ZL1 ran an 11.96-second quarter-mile at 117 mph. It's a testament to the most powerful Camaro ever produced by the company.