Road Strikers

Yet another FQ car from Mitsubishi - aren't these faux-rally cars a bit out of favour at the moment? True, but after ten minutes behind the wheel of the UK-only FQ360, you’ll wonder why. It's an absolute belter. Utterly driver-centric, unfeasibly fast, with incredible body control, excellent damping, and superb steering. To cap it all, it has four-doors-and-a-boot practicality. It may not be the flavour of the day, but there's no denying the Evo's supercar-slaying qualifications. Always the same with an Evo. What makes this one really special? Its sheer drivability, in a nutshell. While the majority of the FQ line-up major in frenetic redline acceleration, the 360's 4G63 2.0-litre engine has been retuned to deliver massive mid-range punch, without sacrificing any of its high-rev potency. A completely reprogrammed engine management system - three months of non-stop key-tapping by the boffins at Ralliart, Mitsubishi's go-even-faster department - as well as incl...

So here it is: the full loony-tune(d) Evo X. We’ve wondered what this car would feel like since we drove the standard model late last year. The new Evo X is a fine car, but its chassis is almost dismissive of the standard engine’s 291bhp. The FQ-360 GSR is the top of the range (official) Evo X. The engine is more powerful, the car is loaded with standard kit and there are a few bodywork additions. The FQ-360 is only available in the UK. Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X FQ-360... that's a bit of a mouthful! It is and it points to the fireworks under the bonnet. The Evo’s new die-cast aluminium 4B11 engine was designed to deliver greater torque at lower rpm and more power in standard form than the outgoing 4G63 motor. Combine this with a 12kg weight saving over the old cast-iron version and you’ve got a lower C-of-G and great basic template for some serious tuneability. HKS goodies (ECU remap, induction kit and new fuel pump assembly) result in a power jump from 291 to ...

One look at the Lancer Sportback and you might think that after styling the athletic and appealing Lancer Saloon, Mitsubishi’s designers suddenly ran short of talent. The hatch is  a bit of an eyesore, but we’d better get accustomed to its awkward lines - because four-door C-segment saloons aren’t exactly popular in Europe, Mitsubishi needed a hatchback version to compete. The company believes the five-door model will account for the vast proportion of Lancers sold in the UK. So how different is it from the saloon? It’s identical up to and including the rear doors. But to incorporate the hatchback, the roof drops away coupe-style at the rear, giving the car a stubby tail that’s out of proportion to the loner bonnet. And the awkwardly tacked-on roof spoiler completes a look that to our eyes bears more than a passing resemblance to the new-look Subaru Impreza. Not a great start then. Is the payoff massive versatility? The boot is 288-litres – n...

Mitsubishi calls the Lancer Sportback Ralliart the ‘missing link’. Which doesn't sound too promising. The missing link is a usually a put-down used to describe someone perhaps not as developed as they could be. What the Japanese maker actually means is that the Sportback – which uses the Ralliart badge in Europe for the first time – bridges the gap between boggo Lancers and its tarmac-melting Evo models. How does it manage that? The Ralliart version uses a detuned version of the Evo X’s die-cast aluminium two-litre turbo engine, underpinned by the basic running gear from the Evo IX. So, you get 240bhp as opposed to the nutty 300bhp and upwards of the Evo models. And instead of the Evo’s Active Yaw Control the Sportback has All-Wheel Control, which uses the active centre differential to split torque equally between limited slip diffs at the front and rear axles. The suspension has also been upgraded with thicker front anti-roll bars, higher spring ra...

Hold on a minute – isn’t that over 200bhp per litre for this Mitsubishi Evo X FQ-400? It certainly is. Mitsubishi UK – just like the 330 and 360, this is a UK-only model – has stuck with the same 2.0-litre four-cylinder 16-valve turbo, but the company has hooked up with well-respected Japanese tuner HKS – a kind of Oriental Cosworth – to unleash even more power. The extra go comes courtesy of high-flow fuel injectors; a new hybrid turbo that’s specially strengthened to deal with the faster turbine speeds and higher temperatures; a more capable intercooler; plus re-mapped engine management. Best of all, you’re still covered by the Mitsubishi three-year/36,000-mile warranty. Come on, though, who needs an even quicker FQ? Speed alone isn’t the point of the FQ-400 – it’s the way that power is delivered. You’d expect a small capacity turbo nutter to be laggy down low, yet it’s daily-driver tractable from very l...

The new 2016 Audi TT is quite competent and good fun to drive, but 220 horsepower just doesn’t cut it for most enthusiasts in today’s performance environment. We’ve become spoiled rotten by affordable coupes and sports cars, many of which pack at least two more cylinders than the Audi. It’s a good thing, then, that Audi is once again offering a TTS model, perfect for aesthetes with a speed fetish. To be launched in America in mid-2015 as a 2016 model, it gets an estimated 292 horsepower and 270 lb-ft of torque from its EA888 turbocharged four-cylinder. (European models, such as the one we drove for this review, have slightly more power.) But while it brings no additional cylinders to the table, the 72 additional horsepower and 22 extra lb-ft are extracted from the turbo four without sacrifice. Just like the TT, the TTS’s EA888 is very responsive by turbocharged-engine standards, and it emits a slightly more pronounced variation of the same well-honed, misc...

The SSC Ultimate Aero is a mid-engined sports car that was produced by SSC North America (formerly known as Shelby SuperCars) from 2006 until 2013. The SSC Ultimate Aero held the title of the fastest production car in the world, according to the Guinness World Records, from 2007 (when it was officially timed at 256.14 mph (412.22 km/h)) until the introduction of the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport in 2010. However, in April 2013, the Guinness World Records disqualified the Veyron's record time, and reinstated the Ultimate Aero as the fastest production car ever; this change was reverted just five days later. The SSC Ultimate Aero was not sold with electronic driver aids such as ABS brakes or traction control, as according to Jerod Shelby, "Early design philosophy on the car was to make it a driver's car. I wanted a car that you not only throttled with your right foot but at times you could steer with your right foot." Development history 2004 - SSC Aero SC/8T №1 Protot...

Lamborghini is evolving its styling language, and it’s more evident than ever in the Veneno shown at the Geneva auto show. Based on the Aventador LP700-4, it will be built in exactly three units, plus the company's demonstrator car. What is the reason for showing another supercar, given that Lamborghini has not yet delivered its ultra-low-volume Sesto Elemento to customers? It's the company's 50th birthday, which it celebrates in May. And the Veneno—named after "one of the strongest and most aggressive fighting bulls ever," as Lamborghini informs us—presents the perfect way to celebrate. The fissured skin of the Veneno hides the Aventador's carbon-fiber monocoque, plus aluminum front and rear subframes. A pushrod suspension with horizontal spring-damper units betrays its racing aspirations. The interior is largely carried over from the Aventador and is clad in carbon fiber. The Veneno is fitted with Pirelli P Zero tires on 20-inch wheels up front and 22-inch ...

Valentino Balboni was destined to become Lambor­ghini’s chief test driver the moment his parents picked that name. Isn’t it perfect? Kids named Valentino Balboni don’t grow up to be obstetricians. The capitano, Ferruccio Lamborghini, hired Balboni in 1967 as a broom pusher for the service department. Balboni drove his first Miura in 1973—actually, “September 5, 1973, at 10:10 in the morning,” he says. “You never forget your first love.” Were the big boss alive today, he’d probably dope-slap Balboni for all the fuss he’s getting, especially now that 250 special Gallardos have been built in his honor. The limited-edition LP550-2 Valentino Balboni has a 5.2-liter V-10 making 542 horsepower (10 less than standard Gallardo LP560s) and bears one crucial distinction: It is rear-wheel drive only. Like the Miura and like Balboni himself—who, at 61, has segued into semi-retirement as the Audi-owned company’s customer-...

Care to shift for yourself but resolutely abstain from anything not built by Mercedes-Benz? Your choices, good eccentric sir, are excruciatingly limited. So limited, in fact, that the correct word is “choice,” not “choices.” The 2015 SLK250 is the only U.S.-market vehicle wearing the three-pointed star to offer a stick shift. Since buyers selecting the manual represent only a tiny percentage of SLK customers—themselves a tiny fraction of the buying populace, with just 4757 new SLKs sold in 2013 and 4353 moved in the first eleven months of 2014—this test was, for the most part, born from our sheer curiosity. ONE OF ONE, WITH SIX SPEEDS To put the SLK250’s position in the loneliest of light, it should be mentioned that not only is every other Mercedes-Benz sold in America automatic-only, but so, too, is the entire high-performance AMG lineup. We figure that Mercedes, considering the SLK’s overtly sporty competitors such as the Audi TT, the...

To some drivers, a special engine can make a car special. An NSX owner will happily tell you his engine has titanium connecting rods. The Corvette ZR1 has a special viewing window built into the hood to help generate conversation. Those driving an SLK55 AMG of the latest vintage might not know it, but the 415-hp V-8 tucked under the roadster’s hood might well be the most special engine in Mercedes-Benz’s lineup. All Alone in the World Mercedes puts the AMG stamp on nearly every vehicle in its portfolio. Currently, the “63” AMG cars get a naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V-8 (five models) or a twin-turbo 5.5-liter V-8 (six models). The three “65” AMGs, however few are sold, get a behemoth 6.0-liter V-12 that’s force-fed an air diet by, again, two turbochargers. But the SLK55 AMG stands as the only AMG model with its own engine, a naturally aspirated 5.5-liter V-8 internally known as M152. This torquey V-8 is closely related to the twin-turbo V-8 i...

Mercedes-Benz’s technical director in the 1950s, Rudi Uhlenhaut, had what is arguably the coolest company car in history. It was a gullwing version of the W196S 300SLR race car powered by a 306-hp, 3.0-liter version of Mercedes’ Formula 1 straight-eight engine. His daily driver sprang from his own genius, and the car is now widely known as the Uhlenhaut Coupe. We just spent a week with the 21st-century edition Uhlenhaut Coupe. The 2014 SLS AMG Black Series doesn’t have a straight-eight, but it does have the most potent 6.2-liter V-8 ­Mercedes-Benz has ever built. This is likely the last naturally aspirated gasp of the brand’s heavy-breathing M159 engine we’ll ever hear. As a retirement gift, AMG has given the engine new camshafts, specially coated bucket tappets, a more efficient intake tract, more-durable crankshaft bearings, and a titanium exhaust system that shaves 29 pounds. The mighty V-8 goes out barking, spitting, and spinning all the way up t...

Many cars have challenged the perpetually great BMW M3 over the years, with the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG sedan—introduced in 2008—among those that have come closest to knocking off the M3’s crown. With the C-class coupe debuting this year, AMG’s newest product was a bit of a no-brainer. Still, we don’t see the C63 AMG coupe so much as a two-door version of a sedan but rather as the M3’s most formidable and natural competitor yet. Both M3 and C63 are based on a famous German luxury brand’s cheaper U.S. offering. Both demand an ante about 50 percent higher than that of their entry-level siblings. Both are available as sedans and (now) coupes. (In Germany, the lucky Hunde can even buy a C63 station wagon.) Both offer seven-speed automated transmissions (the C63’s is standard). Both have more than 400 hp—but only one has way more. Hello, My Name Is Torque The C63 AMG’s 451 hp surpasses the M3’s output by 37 ponies. If, howeve...

The Maserati MC12 is a limited production two-seater supercar produced by Italian car maker Maserati to allow a racing variant to compete in the FIA GT Championship. The car was nicknamed by Ferrari and Maserati as the Ferrari Enzo Second Generation. The car entered production in 2004 with 25 cars produced. A further 25 were produced in 2005 making a total of 50 cars available for customers, each of which was pre-sold for €600,000.[5][8] Maserati designed and built the car on the chassis of the Ferrari Enzo, due to this Ferrari and Maserati nicknamed the car as the Ferrari Enzo Second Generation. The final car is much larger and has a lower drag coefficient.[8] The MC12 is longer, wider and taller and has a sharper nose and smoother curves than the Enzo Ferrari, which has faster acceleration, better braking performance (shorter braking distance) and a higher top speed. The top speed of the Maserati MC12 is 330 kilometres per hour (205 mph) whereas the top speed of the Enzo Ferrar...

The night I was scheduled to leave for Maranello, Italy, to drive the LaFerrari, Car and Driver hosted a party in New York for the annual auto show. The guests included three racing heroes you’d recognize from the Kodachromes: David Hobbs, Sam Posey, and Brian Redman. These gents hail from the golden age of motorsport, when every race weekend seemed to darken into an orgy of gore and fire. I apologized in advance to Redman for having to leave the party early. I told him that duty called, and that I was off to drive this car, the latest in a line of rolling laboratory experiments stretching back through the Enzo, F50, F40, and 288 GTO. I also confessed that I was slightly terrified to tangle with the thing. He sized me up and said, “You should be.” I’ve driven cars that have tried to kill me before, but none with such a vast résumé of homicidal know-how. Some have threatened to slide off the road without warning, some have tried to collapse my organs w...

As I’m driving through hairpin corners in the Dolomite Mountains of the South Tyrol region of Italy, the Ferrari FF’s two-door wagon body style is the last thing on my mind, which is interesting because it’s probably the first thing anyone else would notice about the latest four-seater from Maranello. Instead, my most pressing thought, besides not dropping a $300,000 GT car off a cliff, is the FF’s four-wheel-drive system, which has so tamed the 651-hp V-12 engine that a tail-out hero photo of a drifting FF requires serious commitment with the stability control fully switched off. When the back end finally does come around, though, it does so in a predictable, gentle manner. In sport mode, the sportiest of the five chassis settings accessible via the steering-wheel-mounted manettino knob, the back of the car hardly wiggles on dry pavement. But the first roadgoing Ferrari to put power to all four wheels doesn’t understeer like so many other four-wheel-drive...

The front straight at VIR doesn’t usually tell you much. But in the case of the F12, that track section is highly revealing, about both you and the car. Holding a 730-hp 6.3-liter V-12 wide open for 12 seconds of straightaway will either focus your vision or reduce you to a quivering space chimp. Keep the throttle open if you dare, and watch the little red dots at the top of the steering-wheel rim illuminate one by one as the machine vibrates harder toward the V-12’s 8250-rpm power peak. Tug the right paddle as the last red LED glows. The shift spasms through the car, and the F12 bawls toward its 157.4-mph peak speed. Now then, BRAKE! There’s a slight kink in the straight, roughly at the start/finish line. It doesn’t amount to much in slower cars, where you won’t notice that the paving crew left a ripple in the asphalt as the car leans hard through the wide right bend. But burn through the kink at 149 mph in an F12 and that ripple becomes a railroad cross...

Can you feel the generational shift? That change in the supercar game comes from Ferrari, which has unveiled its new eight-cylinder, mid-engine sports-car standard-bearer, and the successor to the much-loved 458 Italia sees the insane-revving, naturally aspirated V-8 retired in favor of a turbocharged unit. This follows Ferrari’s recent promise that all of its future engines will be turbocharged or hybridized. POWER AND SPEED The new engine is smaller than its predecessor, and its displacement of 488 cubic centimeters per cylinder gives the car its name: 488GTB. Multiplied by eight, that works out to 3902 cc for the new 90-degree V-8, which is mated to, as was the 458’s V-8, a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. Despite the 0.6-liter reduction in displacement, the new engine makes more power: 661 horsepower at 8000 rpm, versus 597 horsepower at 9000 rpm for the 458 Speciale. Torque, predictably, is greater as well, reaching 561 lb-ft at a low 3000 rpm, far eclipsing the 458...

The “A” in the new Ferrari 458 Speciale A’s name doesn’t stand for “awesome,” but it could. The “A” actually is for Aperta, the Italian word for “open.” Based, of course, on the 458 Italia, this version of the 458 Spider gets the same special upgrades as the transcendent Speciale coupe. That means 597 horsepower and 398 lb-ft of torque from the naturally aspirated 4.5-liter V-8—it hasn’t gone turbocharged yet—making it the most powerful spider ever to emerge from Maranello. The power increase comes courtesy of a 14:1 compression ratio, a new manifold and airbox rendered from carbon fiber, higher lift for both the intake and exhaust valves, new pistons, and reworked intake runners and ports. The gearbox is a revised seven-speed dual-clutch automatic with shifts so quick that they could bend both space and time. The Speciale A sports an aluminum lid that retracts or raises in just 14 seconds; the price paid fo...

By 1954, Ferrari had already used four-cylinder engines for three years, but decided to enlarge the design to 3-liters for the 750 Monza. It typcially raced alongside the smaller 2-liter 500 Mondial and the V12-powered Ferraris which ran for overall victory. It's hard to believe Ferrari would ever replace the V12, but after the 1950 season in F1, a four cylinder was on the drawing board. Motivation came from HWMs driven by Stirling Moss that were powered by four-cylinder ALTA engines. The performance of this car and the upcoming 2-liter limit on engine capacity was influenced both Enzo Ferrari and designer Aurelio Lampredi to make their own four-banger. For the 1951 season, Lampredi was given a the task to design a 2.0 and 2.5 four cylinder engines that used the same interchangeable parts. He was convinced that the low rpm torque curve would offer an advantage on twisty circuits. After 100 days, the first prototype engine was complete and ready. It had a DOHC, chain-driven valvet...