Author Archives: Alexandru Cascatau

783bhp Corvette C6 by Loma Performance

One of the meanest looking Corvette's out there

One of the meanest looking Corvette’s out there

So, German tuner Loma Performance (some guys I’ve personally never heard of) have been busy at bolting two turbochargers to a Corvette C6 and taking its horsepower figure up to 783. But don’t worry because they’ve also been working on other upgrades. The new car gets a rebuilt gearbox plus a new carbon fibre clutch to cope with the power as well as carbon fibre driveshafts. Now that’s all impressive stuff but if you ask me, the normal C6 already had plenty of power for what it’s suspension/chassis could manage so you would think this new one gets racing shocks and other sensible modifications. Well, no, it just gets the new OZ wheels, ceramic brakes and that new body kit. Who cares tough? Because just look at it. It’s amazing to look at, and the name is even better: Blackforce One. It sounds like a jet fighter. And it goes like one as well: 0-60 is dealt with in 3.4 seconds and you will be accelerating all the way up to 205mph. You will be able to choose from 300 different types of leather for the seats for the interior and you get some lovely Alcantara as well. The road going monster will be launched at the Essen Motor Show, will cost a whopping 190,000 euros and only 25 will be built.

Source: Autocar

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Ferrari is working on an Enzo successor

Well, about time we say because it’s been quite a large gap between the Enzo and this. Of course, that may be explained by the fact that they did the 458 as well, or that they haven’t been going bonkers in such a long time.

It will presumably be called the F70 (the Enzo was actually called the F60 but in order to celebrate Ferrari’s 60 years anniversary, it received the founder’s name). You might remember my last article about the rumours of Ferrari developing turbocharging and it seems I guessed right, the new limited edition model might just receive a twin-turbo V8, or a natural aspirated V10, or anything in fact. We don’t know, it’s all a guess at best.

As Ferrari usually do, they take their last edition limited edition model (Enzo here), and make a mad, ready for the track version of it (FXX here) and then they make better what they could make better, throw in a bit of F1 technology and there you are – the new model arrives. So normally the new F70 should get FXX bits and F1 technology and the new turbo system perhaps.

But what Ferrari are trying to do now is keep the weight down, they don’t want to have a million horsepower engine with 2 tons of car. The new engine is expected to produce as much power as the Enzo but with a new body weighing only 1000kg. That means a power to weight ratio of more than 600hp/tonne. That’s more than a Bugatti Veyron. Another reason for concentration on reducing weight is CO2, as the Italian car company wants to reduce the CO2 output on its vehicles.

Now that is great news, so climb out of your Priuses eco-mentalists and get the new limited edition rampaging stallion. Well, probably not, as they will only make 399 and you can’t just go to the factory and say “I want one”, you have to be invited by Ferrari.

Source: Autoblog

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Great news! Dacia is set to race the Duster

The new Duster racer is quite a beautiful machine.

Well great news indeed (at least for me), as Dacia has announced that it is set to race its Duster model in an ice racing series called Trophee Andros.

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Ferrari Builds Fiat 500 Endurace Racer

Just look at that back spoiler! It could easily go on a jumbo-jet.

Well since the Fiat 500 was launched we had the privilege to witness quite a few mad versions of it: first it was the 500 Abarth which was quite frisky with 135 horsepower but then someone decided that what they actually needed was more power, so they did a 160 bhp model. Now for a car this small 160 horses is quite insane.  But no. We then got the  Assetto Corse which was a stripped-out , rollcaged version for touring car racing. By this version we already had 3 hot 500’s. But then we got more: they’ve made a Ferrari tribute model, a rallying 500 and now we’ve got this: The Fiat 500 GT endurance racer. You might think it’s a cute, cheap, italian city car. With a 1.4 litre engine you might think it’s slow as well but mad people at work have managed to extract a whopping 360 horsepower out of it! That’s 250 bhp per litre of displacement! Not even a Ferrari can manage that! Tully bonkers! It’s built for endurance racing by a guy called Romeo Ferraris (that I think explains the article title) and it will debut at the 6 Hours of Vallelunga endurance race on November 22. Now I love small, Italian cars and this has to be the absolute ultimate really. I’m just curious what wil it do in the race. Even if it fails spectacularly, I don’t care because it’s just a brilliant piece of engineering.

Source: Autoblog

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Ferrari Developing Turbocharging

Ferrari F430 engine

More Ferrari news on the blog today, apparently the Maranello manufacturer is planning to turbocharge some of its future models. With the 458 now launched we can only guess that this could appear in their road cars as soon as the next model. Or maybe even in the next limited edition one. Ferrari engine developer Jean-Jacques stated: “Turbocharging will come eventually, but we need to solve the issue of turbo lag.” I have a question for Mr. Jean-Jacques: do you remember the F40? That had 2 turbos and far from no lag. It’s been 22 years since the last turbocharged road-legal Ferrari (I may not be right) and I would like to say a turbocharged one is more than welcome. Just imagine the power. Their engines turn out already more than 100bhp/litre of displacement, just imagine what turbos will do. The Frenchman also said that they won’t be using the Fiat turbo technology anytime soon but they did bolt some turbos to a F430. It’s also said that they won’t use turbos anytime soon.

Source: Autocar

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New hardcore 911 racer

Porsche 911 GT3 R

Well we quite like a track racer here on The Blog of Cars and today we have a really, really good one. Porsche has launched its hardcore, ready for the track version of the 911 GT3 called the 911 GT3 R.

Well you might think that’s one S worse than the 911 GT3 RS street car, but you’d be wrong. This one comes with a luxury interior equipped with…urm…a seat, pedals, oh, and a steering wheel. It has a 4.0-litre six-cylinder boxer engine which churns out 480 bhp. The grunt goes to the rear wheels through a six-speed sequential racing ‘box. This is a replacement for the old 911 GT3 Cup S which, it turns out, was too much of a slouch. New modifications include a wider track and flared wheel arches. It also features LED lights and weighs in at just 1200 kg. Then there’s ABS and traction control which should make this stripped-out track car easier to handle for beginners.

Porsche 911 GT3 R

The only niggle I have with this car (Indeed it seems this new Alex guy hates something from every car) is that it’s just too heavy. That would be ok if it would be more powerful but with “only” 480 bhp it’s just not light enough. Don’t get me wrong I’m not in any way suggesting this is slow but for a track car, it’s not that fast. You can buy road cars that are faster. What I say doesn’t matter though because this is just an awesome car to start your racing career with. Provided you have 280,000 Euros in your wallet.

Source: Autocar

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Mitsubishi Recalls 30,000 Lancers

Well the reason is that apparently, Mitsubishi has found a problem with the front impact sensors. For those of you who don’t know, the impact sensors are there to detect the force of a collision and therefore decide if the airbags should be deployed or not. The 29.353 Lancers and EVO’s they are recalling were sold in “salt belt regions”* and actually I have absolutely no idea what that means. I mean it obviously has something to do with salt. Anyway, they say that melted snow and road salt can stick to the front impact sensors and corrode them so they could fail to deploy the airbags in the case of a serious crash. Apparently these salty regions are the following: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia. So, if you own an Lancer built between 2008-’09 and you live somewhere in the above states, call your Mitsu driver and get those sensors replaced.

Source: Inside Line

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