Porsche 911 Turbo

This is Porsche’s new 911 Turbo, with an enlarged and twin-turbocharged engine producing more power, plus the option of a twin-clutch gearbox that features proper gearshift paddles.

What’s the new engine in this new Porsche 911 Turbo?

Unbelievably, it’s the first entirely new engine in the 35-year history of the Turbo. Essentially it’s the same direct-injection 3.8-litre flat-six that you’ll find in regular 911s, but now fitted with variable geometry twin turbos to give a healthy 493bhp, a 20bhp increase over the current car.

Porsche also claims CO2 emissions are down by around 18%, fuel consumption is improved, the 0-62mph time is cut to 3.4 seconds and the top speed is up two notches to 194mph.

A six-speed manual is still standard, but for the first time the seven-speed double-clutch PDK gearbox is available. And the good news for enthusiasts is that although the counter-intuitive rocker switches are standard, customers can opt for proper steering wheel-mounted paddles. Spec the optional Sport Chrono Package and whether you pick the paddles or switches, the steering wheel also comes with an integrated display for the Launch Control and Sport/SportPlus modes.

Other tweaks include new front and rear lights, a mildly revised interior in line with the rest of the 911 range, and changes to the four-wheel drive hardware.

The new 911 Turbo will officially be unveiled at the Frankfurt motor show in September, before going on sale in November 2009. The coupe version will cost £101,823 (up from £99,679) and the cabriolet is priced at £109,048, a £3144 increase.

Porsche 913

Forgetting the Panamera, Cayenne and Macan, Porsche offer a pretty well-rounded sports car range. Starting with the Boxster and Cayman, and moving up the multitude of variations of the Porsche 911, all the way up to the 918 Spyder supercar. But there is a HUGE price gap between the top of the range 911 Turbo ($250,000 will all the options ticked), to the 918 Spyder ($800,000). Somewhere in that range Porsche could surely offer something to compete with the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini. Something like the 913 possibly? Conceived by the fertile mind of Rene Garcia, a professional 3D modeller who has created conceptual vehicles and highly detailed models for some of the biggest movies of the past decade, including the Matrix Trilogy, Transformers, the latest Star Trekthrillers and The Avengers, the Porsche 913 is an exquisitely rendered design in every detail. It has a bit of the 918 Spyder about it, but there’s also a lot of originality to the design. It looks like a Porsche, but a

Lamborghini Canto – What the Murcielago could have been?

Back in the late 1990s, when Lamborghini were starting to realise they needed a replacement for the ageing Diablo, they started reviewing design proposals from various automotive design firms. Zagato’s offering was the Zagato L147 SuperDiablo, or as it was to be later known, the Lamborghini Canto. The Lamborghini Canto first appeared in 1998, it arrived only two years after another Zagato designed Lamborghini concept had been unveiled, the Diablo-based Raptor. The cars shared a number of similar features, including the wraparound windows, triangular lateral air intakes, and trademark double-bubble roof. However of the two, the earlier Raptor was probably the better looking. Clearly Ferdinand Piech – head of the Volkswagen Group – thought so too. After VW bought Lamborghini in 1999, one of his first decisions was to review the Canto’s development and redesign the concept. The car was re-engineered and the rear extensively restyled to include smaller air intakes. The engine was also up

BMW GINA

The BMW GINA changes the design rulebook concept which features clever use of materials and technology. The GINA acronym stands for 'Geometry In "N" Adaptions'. The 'N' stands for infinite. Quite logical really... While at first glance the BMW GINA appears to be nothing more than a modified and stretched BMW Z4. As soon as the doors are opened it reveals its true nature. Covering the lightweight spaceframe of the BMW GINA are not conventional metal bodypanels, but instead an elastic, rubber-like material is stretched across the structural members and wire frame to form an attractive design which follows BMW's flame surfacing styling philosophy. This elastic material has given BMW's designers more options when designing various moving parts of the GINA concept. The doors for example have no shut line along their front edge as the material just moves with the door. At the rear the electro-hydraulic adjustable spoiler rises and lowers under the skin of

Road Strikers

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