NASCAR Unveils Car of Tomorrow
Posted on Aug 4, 2023 in Racing | Comments Off on NASCAR Unveils Car of Tomorrow
I’ll admit, I don’t know much about NASCAR. Like most people in the Northeast, I figure we’ll leave hockey to the Canadians and auto-racing to our friends down South. In any event, racing has made its annual trip to the forefront of the sports page as NASCAR introduces the Car of Tomorrow for 16 races in 2007 and 36 in 2008. The news comes nearly 6 years after...
Read MoreToyota and NASCAR – Oh What a Feeling!
Posted on Jun 18, 2023 in Racing | Comments Off on Toyota and NASCAR – Oh What a Feeling!
When the green flag dropped this weekend on The Great American Race in Daytona, NASCAR’s Nextel Cup Series had what, at first blush, must have seemed like a distinctly foreign new flavor. The 2007 Daytona 500 served as the Nextel Cup Series debut of Toyota as some of NASCAR’s established stars such as Michael Waltrip, Dale Jarett, Jeremy Mayfield, and Brian...
Read MoreHyundai N: The New Standard of Performance?
Posted on Dec 19, 2022 in Racing | Comments Off on Hyundai N: The New Standard of Performance?
Hyundai: maker of cheap, utilitarian cars or competitor to established high-performance brands? Most of us would agree that Hyundai, the South Korean automaker that introduced the 100,000-mile warranty, falls into the cheap, utilitarian category. The carmaker gained its fame for building inexpensive alternatives to the mainstream brands, but in the process...
Read MoreDo We Really Need a New Ford GT?
Posted on Nov 26, 2022 in Racing | 1 comment
The last couple of days have been intense for fans of the Ford GT. Rumors are strong that the much-loved supercar could come racing back, with a debut coming as early as next month at theNorth American International Auto Show in Detroit. Why would Ford want to get back into the supercar business? There are plenty of reasons but the biggest two, in my opinion,...
Read MoreWhat Car Could You Drive for 24 Hours?
Posted on Aug 21, 2022 in Racing | 1 comment
From June 19–22, over 150 cars and hundreds of drivers will race the ADAC Zurich Nürburgring 24 Hours endurance race on the Nordschleife (north loop) of the Nürburgring in central Germany. The Nürburgring, with a lap length of over 20 km, allows a driver to race in 150-minute intervals before being required to take a 2-hour break. A driver’s teammate then takes...
Read MoreEl Diablo: Miata Style
Posted on Jun 12, 2022 in Racing | Comments Off on El Diablo: Miata Style
An average car will run a quarter-mile drag race in 15–16 seconds. That’s not a blistering pace, but it’s just enough to give a slight rush while accelerating up an on-ramp before settling into a steady stream of 65-mile-an-hour commuters. The Mazda Miata, while relatively sporty and fun to drive, typically falls somewhere within that average time in stock,...
Read MoreCostco Fulfills F1 Racing Dreams… For a Price
Posted on May 11, 2022 in Racing | 2 comments
Costco: the land where dreams come true. Assuming, of course, your dreams include 50-pound bags of sugar, gallons of mayonnaise and full access to all the toilet paper you’ll ever need. Bulk discounts on household staples are enough to keep some people coming back every Saturday. Every once in a while, though, Costco surprises by offering something so...
Read MoreThe Ultimate American Used Car: 1967 Ford GT40
Posted on Feb 28, 2022 in Racing | 1 comment
America’s first real supercar. One of America’s favorite big-screen auto-racing heroes. The most expensive American car ever sold. Thanks to some history with the one and only Steve McQueen, a 1967 Ford GT40 has sold for $11 million, making it the most expensive car ever built here in the land of recliners and football. At the 2012 Pebble Beach Concours...
Read MoreToyota Gets Serious About Performance with TMG Line
Posted on Jan 14, 2022 in Racing | 2 comments
The words “Toyota” and “performance” aren’t often spoken in the same sentence these days. Toyota, though, is getting serious about building performance cars, as the Lexus LFA, Lexus IS Fand Scion FR-S are tearing up tracks and backroads across the world. Now, it seems Toyota may want to take things even further by creating performance versions of existing...
Read MoreHypercar Hybrids from Porsche and Ferrari
Posted on Dec 17, 2021 in Racing | 4 comments
Design study for the F70 We have written about the incredible Porsche 918 hybrid before, with details here and here. Now, 918 Spyder prototypes have been spotted testing, looking a little like the old 917 race cars (see pix here). The 918 will produce some 770 hp from a V8 and “two independent electric motors, one on the front and one in the drive line, acting...
Read MoreShelby’s Gone. Any More Like Him?
Posted on Oct 8, 2021 in Racing | 2 comments
Shelby and the Ford GT40 Caroll Shelby (1923-2012), whom tgriffith wrote about today, was one of the last true Car Guys. There just won’t be any more like him. Here’s why. Shelby’s career began with sports-car racing, and there he made his greatest mark. He could never have created the Cobra or the muscle cars that followed had he not raced for Aston Martin,...
Read MoreF.A. Porsche Dies, and Germany Is Winning the Car Wars
Posted on Aug 19, 2021 in Racing | 1 comment
2012 Porsche 911 Cabriolet World War II was of course not the end for Germany, though the country was pulverized. The three Porsches, all named Ferdinand, were still alive, but it was Ferry, son of the founder, who brought the car company to fame and success in the late 1940s. His Porsche 356 took the prototype Volkswagen—created under Hitler in the 1930s but...
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