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Video shows Audi R18 'long tail' e-tron quattro's blistering Monza run

Audi has had a pretty solid run at the 24 Hours of Le Mans over the past decade, but we're glad they keep pushing the envelope. That's how they keep devising road-going spaceships like the staggeringly fast R18 e-tron quatto equipped with a “long tail” aerodynamic package. This quick video of the “long tail” hybrid testing at Monza gives us a preview of what we can expect at Spa next month -- and hints at what we'll see at Le Mans in June.

New techniques cut cost of carbon fiber

Carbon fiber, once so costly that it was the preferred material only for fighter planes and supercars, is catching the attention of weight-conscious automakers. Carbon fiber's cost is falling dramatically, thanks to production advances that let suppliers speed the material's finicky, and costly, curing process. One technological breakthrough that makes carbon-fiber auto parts more affordable may come from a process used to make carbon-fiber golf clubs.

Ferrari Enzo successor to make 920 hp

About a decade and a half after Porsche eschewed its lightness-and-small-displacement strategy and built a five-liter sports racer to take down Ferrari at Le Mans, a different sort of war kicked off between the two marques: a battle for supremacy in the super-supercar market. In 1984, Ferrari built a radically modified twin-turbo 308 GTB with an eye toward Group B road-racing rules. Porsche countered the resultant 288 GTO with the mighty 959, which launched at about the same time as the 288's successor, the practically skeletal and infinitely loopier F40.