Chevrolet/pontiac Blue Dot 429 Glass Tail Lens on 2040-parts.com

Ferrari A1GP car completes wind tunnel testing

By Tom Richards Motor Industry 04 August 2008 18:35 Ferrari likes to win, and so, not content with having to fight McLaren for the Formula 1 championship, it is venturing into the A1GP series. From the start of the 2008/09 season all A1GP cars will be Ferrari powered, thus guaranteeing the Prancing Horse victory. With a driver, but without fuel, the new A1GP car weighs 695kg, while the 4.5-litre V8 engine kicks out 600bhp and 406lb ft.

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.

Porsche 911 Carrera 4 (2012) first official pictures

Porsche has a new four-wheel drive - but it's not the Macan crossover, or an SUV of any description. The new-generation 911 has had the all-paw treatment, growing wider wings and fatter tyres in the process. It's also lost around 65kg compared with the old 997 Carrera 4, and Porsche claims it's a good deal faster too.