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All posts in “News”

Watch the Difference in Straight Line Speed Of the McLaren Senna and 600LT

Hypercar vs. Supercar

It’s clear on paper who would win in a drag race between the McLaren Senna and the McLaren 600LT. Both cars are very fast cars, but the Senna is on a whole other level. While that is clear purely from the specifications and performance numbers, it can be hard to truly visualize this in real life.

Well, that’s where the guys over at Motorsport Magazine come in. They thought it best to really demonstrate the difference between the two cars. The publication wanted to showcase what makes the one so much faster than the other. The team took a McLaren Senna and a McLaren 600LT, both obviously stock cars, to a long stretch of road. According to Carscoops, the stretch measured 1,000 meters or .62 miles.

We all know the Senna with its 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 that makes 728 hp and 590 lb-ft of torque will win, but the McLaren 600LT with its 197 hp and 133 lb-ft of torque disadvantage does do its best to keep pace. However, there’s no chance with the Senna. The space between the cars is honestly a little surprising, even though after reviewing the specifications again, it shouldn’t be.

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May 9, 2019 / Comments Off

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BMW Alpina B5 Bi-Turbo Touring AWD Passes Porsche and AMG in New Ad

It’s a Wagon with 608 hp

The BMW Alpina B5 Bi-Turbo Touring AWD doesn’t look any more intimidating than any other wagon, but it hides a secret that you’re bound to find out about the moment you touch the throttle. The car has a 608 hp and 590 lb-ft of torque. The bi-turbo V8 engine also pushes power to all four wheels. The model is capable of sprinting from 0-60 mph in just 3.7 seconds and has a top speed of 200 mph.

That’s faster than many sports cars and even some supercars. To illustrate this, Alpina put together a little ad to troll both Porsche and AMG. In the ad, a Porsche GT3 RS and the AMG GT R are duking it out on a long stretch of a racetrack. As Motor1 rightly points out, it looks a lot like the Nurburgring. The Porsche and AMG are backed by some hardcore rock music and the typical engine noises and fast cutaways used to make the cars look even quicker.

Then comes the Aplina. It sort of saunters in and traditional Bavarian music plays. It’s a stark contrast and one that Alpina has to be happy with. The wagon takes off leaving the other two cars in the dust.

It’s a simple advertisement with a simple message, and it’s awesome to see a super high-speed wagon coming from at least one well-respected company in the industry. It’s a nice break from all of the SUV talk and all of the low-slung electric hypercars. There’s just something lovely about a super-fast station wagon.

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May 9, 2019 / Comments Off

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Watch the Porsche 911 Speedster Highlights Film and Long for the Car

This Is the 911 We Want

The Porsche 911 Speedster is one of Porsche’s most beautiful cars ever. The model takes everything we could love about the 911 and puts it into an open-top speedster that’s extremely fast. The company recently released a highlight video of the car showcasing all the best stuff.

The video also has some serious eye candy of the car taking on various beautiful-looking roads. Even if you don’t care about the specifications of the car, you should care very deeply about the beautiful scenes in the video shown below. Porsche knows how to hit all the emotional spots and it does so with ease with the 911 Speedster.

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For those of you that do care about the specifications, know this, it’s basically an open-top GT3. The car gets a 4.0-liter naturally aspirated flat-six-cylinder engine that produces 510 hp and 347 lb-ft of torque at a little over 6,000 rpm. The engine is mated to a good old-fashioned six-speed manual transmission.

The car also gets dynamic engine mounts, a motorsports (GT3-derived) chassis, Porsche ceramic composite brakes, rear axle steering, some special carbon-fiber-reinforced bucket seats, 20-inch wheels, and a focus on lightweight materials throughout the car. The speedster is truly special, and for that, Porsche is charging $274,500, according to CarBuzz.

May 8, 2019 / Comments Off

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Lamborghini Finds and Certifies the Miura P400 From the Original ‘The Italian Job’

After Five Decades

If you’ve ever seen the original “The Italian Job,” then you’ve probably drooled over the orange Miura P400 in the opening scenes. Then you probably cried when it was destroyed. However, the car wasn’t actually destroyed. The movie used an already wrecked Miura to shoot those scenes. The real car lived on, though nobody knew where. It was lost despite collectors trying to find it.

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Lamborghini Polo Storico recently announced it found the car and certified it as chassis number #3586. According to Carscoops, Lamborghini didn’t have much to do with actually finding it. The owner brought it in. However, the company did do the arduous task of verifying it by searching through records and comparing what it did know about the car.

Apparently, after the car was used in the film, it was driven back to the factory and then delivered to its first owner. From there it changed hands several times. Fritz Kaiser, the car’s current owner, bought the car in 2018 and decided to have Lamborghini Polo Storico take a closer look at it. He has to be happy with the results.

May 8, 2019 / Comments Off

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The BMW M8 Competition Leaks

More Aggressive Than Ever

The new BMW 8-Series is out, and there are rumors and information floating around the web about upcoming variants of the new car. One of those variants yet to come out is the M8 Competition. It will be a hard-edged version of the car, and more sporty than ever. It just leaked.

According to CarBuzz, this isn’t the first time the car has leaked, but it’s the most recent and one of the closest shots to the car that has surfaced. The photo was posted to Eng. Abdalla Alhammadi’s Instagram profile. From there, the image spread like wildfire across various forums and new sites.

The image shows a red and black 8-Series that’s undoubtedly the M8 Competition. The picture was posted to Instagram with the caption, “New photo of BMW M8.” It’s unclear how the user was able to capture the image.

CarBuzz notes that when you compare this image with the previously leaked images and spy shots of the car, it’s clear that the M8 Competition will feature a lot of carbon fiber on the exterior of the car. It will also get a unique rear spoiler, unique rear diffuser, and black exhaust tips. The publication also notes that the roof will be carbon fiber across the model range.

BMW currently sells the M850i as the highest level of the car. That will change with this new version. There will also be other versions of the car as BMW continues to flesh out the model range.

May 7, 2019 / Comments Off

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McLaren Teases Its Upcoming Grand Touring Car

This Is the GT We’re Excited About

The reveal of McLaren’s next car under its Track25 plan will take place on May 15. The company says the car will be a new GT car and share much of itself with Speedtail Hyper-GT. That’s not a bad thing at all. McLaren has a page on its website that shows the images here and is likely where new information will appear as it is released to the public.

McLaren hasn’t given out a ton of information about the car. Carscoops reported that the company said the vehicle was meant to “redefine the rules of the Grand Tourer segment, introducing renowned McLaren engineering and dynamic attributes alongside high-quality materials and exceptional comfort.”

McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt said the car will have a level of agility “never experienced before in the segment.” That has us excited for what is to come. At the moment, all we have are a few shadowy images to go off of and the video shown below. As you can see, it’s a super sleek looking car, and might be one of McLaren’s best-looking models.

In the video below, it hints that the car won’t be held back by tradition. This could mean anything for the model, really. What that says to us is that it will be a dramatically different car than McLaren’s other models. This could be great, but McLaren’s current models are excellent, so we hope they don’t stray too far. It will be interesting to see this car in full detail on the 15th.

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May 7, 2019 / Comments Off

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Your Apple Watch Deserves a Strap This Robust

Never leave your Apple Watch behind

Your Apple Watch Deserves a Strap This Robust

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Porsche Releases More Images of the Concept 917

The Company Still Won’t Make It

The Porsche Concept 917 was never meant to go to production, as much as we want it to, and Porsche is still pretty adamant that it won’t move beyond the stage it’s currently at. However, the company released more images of the amazing concept car that pays homage to one of its best cars of all time.

The 917 turned 50 years old this year, so Porsche decided to dig up the concept 917 that it put away in 2013. Most people had no idea it existed and didn’t know that Porsche was even thinking of such a design concept. We reported that the concept is actually older than a lot of people thought a while back. That bright to light how much Porsche had kicked the idea around before putting it into storage.

As Carscoops points out, the car in the images shown here is actually nothing more than a foil-clad study. It’s a representation of the car as far as it got and not an actual car or even a fully-completed concept. That doesn’t stop us from wanting Porsche to make this model into a reality, even if it never actually races.

May 3, 2019 / Comments Off

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Ford and SIXT Team Up for Shelby GT-S Rental Car

For When You Need a 600 HP Rental Car

Ford and Hertz are usually the two companies putting out some killer rental car, but now the rental car company SIXT wants in on the game. Ford worked with the company to come up with a new version of its Mustang muscle car. The result was the Shelby GT-S. It’s a supercharged orange and black rocket of a muscle car.

Under the hood of the Shelby GT-S lurks a supercharged 5.0-liter V8 engine. The makes 600 hp and is mated to Ford’s 10-speed automatic transmission. That transmission forces all that power to the rear wheels. If you want to do an awesome burnout in your rental car, we know what you should get.

In addition to the engine, the car gets retuned suspension, a cat-back exhaust, Brembo brakes. The exterior has been revamped, too. The hood features what’s called a “deep draw” for air intake. The fascia has been refined a little to make it more aggressive, there are 20-inch wheels, and Ford added a spoiler.

Only 20 of the models will be produced. The cars will be available in Southern California, Las Vegas, and Southern Florida. SIXT has 55 locations nationwide. The cars will do their rental car duty and then be up for sale at some point in the future. How much they will cost is yet to be seen.

May 3, 2019 / Comments Off

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Bugatti Should Build This Open-Top Chiron

A Rendering Well Crafted

Bugatti has made some of the most amazing cars of all time recently. From the Veyron to the Divo to the Chiron to the amazing one-off that is the La Voiture Noire. One thing that is missing from its lineup is an open top Chiron. The Instagram profile called Car News Network recently showed off a rendering of just that. Bugatti should make it.

The car in the photo shared by Car News Network was accompanied by a simple “What if?” caption along with the name for the car Chiron Gand Sport. What if, indeed. Honestly, it doesn’t seem all that far fetched. Bugatti could sell these things quite easily, but it’s unclear what cutting the roof off your Bugatti would actually do to the car. There would have to add in additional support to keep the structural integrity of the car. That would likely add a lot of weight.

Still, the rendering shared by the Car News Network is almost exactly what we’d like to see. As Carscoops points out, there isn’t actually much changed, or doesn’t appear to be. It’s just a roofless Chiron. It’s absolutely gorgeous. A Chiron Grand Sport could go for millions of dollars. It wouldn’t rival the high price of the La Voiture Noire, but it would be a pricey machine non-the-less. Bugatti should make this happen.

May 2, 2019 / Comments Off

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Watch the McLaren Senna Drive Around Regular Roads Then Honor Senna’s Legacy

A Fitting Tribute to the Man Who Inspired the Car

Henry Catchpole of Carfection takes the McLaren Senna on a drive through some British B-roads and around the countryside to see just how good the car actually is on the road or if it works at all. The McLaren Senna is a beast of a machine, and at first glance, you might expect it to not fit in on country roads. While it looks a little silly as Catchpole finds out, it’s actually reasonably well-suited for them.

Catchpole also digs into the history of the man the car is named after. He discusses his time spent living in England and how he managed to shock the world at Donington. The film seeks to honor one of Senna’s greatest ever moments, and one of the best moments in motorsports history—his iconic lap in the wet at the track and his subsequent win in an amazing fashion.

What’s interesting about the film is that it hits on what was important about Senna. Also important is how the new car named after him and driven on this track 25 years after his death works to encapsulate all that he was known for in the world of F1. The film is a heartfelt and well-produced one, and it’s worth the 12 minutes it takes to watch it.

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May 2, 2019 / Comments Off

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The Bugatti Chiron Sport ‘110 Ans’ Insurance Cost Is Outrageous

You Could Buy Another Nice Car for the Annual Cost

Anyone buying a Bugatti Chiron Sport “110 Ans” likely has more than enough money to pay for insurance for the hypercar. However, they might not have realized that it would cost $50,000 a year. Yep, that’s how much it insurance costs for the special edition Chiron Sport. According to ValuePenguin, the annual insurance estimate for the car rests at $50,000.

To be fair, the Bugatti Chiron Sport “110 Ans” is an expensive car. The MSRP is over $3.2 million, and some dealers are charging even more than that. According to Carscoops, one dealer in Munich, Germany has the price for a build slot set at $4.5 million.

If you’re dropping that kind of money on a new Bugatti, then the $50,000 in insurance costs per year probably don’t worry you that much. However, if you’re not used to dropping millions of dollars on a car, then the $50,000 a year sounds completely ludicrous.

The insurance was calculated using a 30-year-old male living in New York City who wants full coverage on the vehicle. There’s room to reason that the $50,000 annual cost could be dropped depending on the location and information of the person. With that said, it’s probably not going to bring the cost down too much. If you had your eye set on the new Bugatti, hopefully, you’ll be able to pay your insurance.

May 1, 2019 / Comments Off

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2020 Toyota 86 Hakone Edition Is a Killer Green Machine

Named After the Hakone Turnpike

The dark green 86 you see before you is the special edition of the car called the Hakone Edition that’s named for one of Japan’s best roads to drive. The car is designed to pay homage to international racing, according to Toyota. However, the company didn’t touch the 86 for the Hakone Edition from a performance standpoint, but it sure took the car to new heights in the styling department.

The company added a deep, dark green color to the exterior along with some additional equipment to complete the look. It has some 17-inch wheels with a bronze finish and a rear spoiler painted black.

Inside, the car gets two-tone leather and Alcantara seats. The armrest between the seats also has the two-tone treatment. Additionally, there’s tan contrast stitching and some embroidered 86 badges.

The car still has the 2.0-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine with 205 hp and 156 lb-ft of torque. Buyers have a choice between a six-speed manual or an automatic transmission. The car also comes equipped with all of the best goodies of the 86 line, including LED lighting, a dual-exhaust system with chrome tips, and a remote keyless entry system.

This special edition of the 86 will be available in the fall of this year. Pricing has not yet been announced, but it’s bound to be a significant upcharge from the standard model.

April 30, 2019 / Comments Off

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Here’s Why the BMW E30 M3 Sport Evo Will Always Be Amazing

A True BMW Legend

There are few cars that have a bigger fanbase than the BMW E30 M3 Sport Evo. The car is simply a legendary car and it’s what started the M3 on its current path of greatness. The guys over at Carfection somehow got their hands on a slew of M3s from multiple generations and decided to put together a multi-episode video series on the car, and its impact on the world of motorsports and motoring in general.

The E30 M3 Sport Evo famously shares only its hood with the standard car. The vehicle was tweaked in every way to build it into one of the best racing cars out there. The engine was a naturally aspirated four-cylinder that was built to rev out. The transmission for the Euro-spec cars was a dogleg five-speed. Other areas of the world got the traditional H-pattern transmission.

BMW only made 600 of these cars, and that makes them exceedingly rare, though not the rarest of the special editions out there. The car that the publication gets its hands on happens to be a single-owner vehicle. It’s a stunning example. When compared to modern cars, the E30 M3 is really quite slow, but that doesn’t make it any less of a legend, and as the presenter says in the video below, it still lives up to its reputation.

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April 29, 2019 / Comments Off

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Citizen Has Made the World’s Most Accurate Light-Powered Watch, Though It Doesn’t Come Cheap

Like most world records, “the world’s most accurate watch” is a moving target and almost always requires some qualification. The technology was announced in 2018, but the wristwatch to contain the super-accurate Citizen Caliber 0100 quartz movement debuted at Baselworld 2019. It’s accurate to within one second per year, powered by light with Citizen’s Eco Drive technology, and prices start at over $7,000.

To put this in perspective, most quartz watches measure their accuracy per month, and even the most accurate traditional mechanical watches measure per day. Citizen beats high-end quartz watches like those from Grand Seiko with estimates of +/- five seconds per year. The difference between five seconds and one second per year might sound insignificant, but consider it five times more precise, and refinements at this level get exponentially more complicated. While some watches use various external sources via the likes of radio signals or internet to regularly synchronize with atomic clocks (and some have even managed to make an atomic clock semi-wearable on the wrist), Citizen can claim to have the most accurate, light-powered, autonomous movement.

The brand explains that one thing they did differently for the Caliber 0100 was to replace the quartz crystal’s typical tuning-fork shape with something called an “AT cut” (previously used in watches only very rarely). This has a number of benefits for stability and resistance to temperature and position changes, but it also oscillates at 8 megahertz rather than the 32 kilohertz of the traditional shape (256 times faster). Citizen goes into the technical details of how it all works in this video, and there’s a lot more cool stuff going on with this watch if you care to put on your nerd glasses.

Citizen combined other technologies such as an integrated circuit designed to correct minor temperature-caused deviations. One cool feature of the new watches is that the brand displays the movement through a case back window, which is very uncommon for quartz watches. The wristwatches containing this remarkable movement measure 37.5mm wide and a thin 9.1mm with 50m of water-resistance. Versions in hardened titanium cases will be priced $7,400 and limited to 200 pieces for a mother of pearl dial and 500 pieces for the black dial model. A white gold case version will cost $16,800, and all will be available in Fall 2019.

Gear Patrol also recommends:
Longines Conquest V.H.P. Watch ($1,300)
Grand Seiko Spring Drive GMT SBGE227 Watch ($5,600)
Breitling Professional Chronospace Military Watch ($6,110)

April 26, 2019 / Comments Off

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Watch the Dodge Demon Rage to 211 MPH

We Knew It was Fast on the 1/4 Mile, but Dang

So, the Dodge Demon is electronically limited to 168 mph. Take that limiter away and the big 6.2-liter supercharged V8 engine can make the car go a heck of a lot faster. How fast? Well, some guys took one of the cars minus its speed limiter to the Johnny Bohmer Proving Grounds, which is a lovely little place in Florida to find out.

The description of the video below says previous attempts without all of the goodies included in the Demon Box that comes with the car for the low price of one extra dollar yielded the result of 203 mph. That’s insanely fast.

The video attempt below takes things even further, though. It lets the Demon stretch its legs a little more to 211 mph. The car was equipped with the Demon Box equipment, and we assume running high octane gasoline to get the result.

The car seems to have no problem whatsoever reaching 200 mph. It then keeps ticking up the speedometer to 211 mph where it holds for a couple of seconds before the driver seems to run out of runway. The car appeared to have no more to give, though, even if there was more runway available.

You can watch the full run below.

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April 26, 2019 / Comments Off

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Watch the Upcoming 2020 Mercedes-AMG GT R Black Series at the Nürburgring

Mercedes-AMG Has an Amazing Car

The 2020 Mercedes-AMG GT R Black Series is the range-topping coupe for the manufacturer. According to Car Magazine, the vehicle is supposed to be the fastest-accelerating Mercedes-AMG of all time. It will be beaten, of course, by the AMG One hypercar. However, it’s still going to be one amazing machine.

Recently, the YouTube channel Automotive Mike spotted the 2020 Mercedes-AMG GT R Black Series testing at the Nürburgring. The film shows the car driving around on public roads around the track and then it shows a few minutes of the car taking on the various corners at the illustrious racetrack.

The car features a heavy camo wrap so you can’t see many of the details of the model. One thing you can tell is that it’s going to sound really wonderful. The test driver of the car is, at times in the video, really getting after it on the track. This kind of rigorous testing is exactly what Mercedes-Benz needs to do to see just what the car can do and where it needs to be tweaked.

The Black Series is bound to have more horsepower than the other versions of the AMG GT. Currently, the top-of-the-line AMG GT R has 577 hp. The Black Series should have well over 600 hp, making it the true sharp end of the stick for the automaker.

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April 26, 2019 / Comments Off

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Look How Crazy the Franco Scribante Racing Hillclimb Nissan GT-R Is

Despite All the Wings, They Still Plan to Drive It

The wild Nissan GT-R you see here is ready to take on the Jaguar Simola Hillclimb in South Africa in May. The obviously heavily modified car was built by Franco Scribante Racing. The team added, among other things, some of the most outlandish aerodynamic elements to the exterior of the car. Most notably the wings.

The car has a massive front splitter and then an even bigger wing at the front. Then it gets another big wing at the rear of the car. all of this should help smash the car down into the tarmac when it’s at high speeds, which is exactly what the team wants. Carscoops was the first outlet to post a story about the car and Jalopnik dug a little deeper, revealing the vehicle has other changes, too.

It gets upgrades to its 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6 that makes it good for 1,600 hp to the wheels. The team built the car in collaboration with Dodson Motorsport. They went to Pikes Peak last year. This year the team is ready to take on the Jaguar Simola Hillclimb in South Africa. Jalopnik notes the team has been working 18-hour days to prepare for the race.

April 25, 2019 / Comments Off

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Prepare Your Ears for the Sonorous Lamborghini Centenario

If Sound Can be Pornographic, This is It

The Lamborghini Centenario often gets written off as a tarted up Aventador, but it’s really much more than that. The car offers a full carbon fiber chassis and body panels. It was made in extremely low numbers and cost an obscene $1.9 million in 2016. Today, the cars are going for well over $2.5 million and some low mileage examples fetch more than that.

The car features a 759 hp naturally aspirated 60-degree V12 engine with a displacement of 6.5-liters. That paired with its low weight, aerodynamic shape, and dashing and angularly aggressive good looks make it a truly special car. The vehicle is was a force to be reckoned with when it first came out. Today it’s a legendary car from Lamborghini, with only 20 being made.

One of the nearly countless reasons it’s an amazing car is its exhaust note. You can go on all you want about Ferrari’s V12s and how they sound, and they do sound wonderful, but the Lamborghini Centenario’s engine’s song is perhaps the most beautifully angry thing we’ve ever heard. You can listen to it in the video below and see the car from all angles and up close, too.

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April 25, 2019 / Comments Off

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Check Out This 9-Second Audi TT RS

This TT Is Not Like Others

The Audi TT RS is a notable sports car. The standard vehicle makes a strong 400 hp from a 2.5-liter turbocharged five-cylinder engine. That’s pretty impressive, but it pales in comparison to the TT RS in the video below. That car was fitted with a TTE700 Hybrid Turbo, new fuel injectors, a bigger intercooler, and some new software for the engine. The car now puts out 734 hp to all four wheels.

The video below was taken by the YouTube page VeeDubRacing, and shows the car pull a 9.7-second time on the drag strip. According to the video description, the company APR UK built this car. The boss of that company told his team they had three days to turn the regular TT RS into a 9-second car. It’s pretty clear they pulled it off.

On the car’s 9.7-second run it hit 144 mph. This run took place at the Santa Pod Raceway in the UK. The car did its sub-10-second runs on some sticky Hoosier tires and appears to have a good day for it.

the 2.5-liter five-cylinder engine in the TT RS is known for being an excellent engine and one that you can get impressive power numbers out of with minimal modifications. You can believe it could put out more than 734 hp. It’d be interesting to see just how far this engine and the TT RS, in general, could be pushed.

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April 24, 2019 / Comments Off

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All posts in “News”

Hypercar vs. Supercar

It’s a Wagon with 608 hp

This Is the 911 We Want

After Five Decades

More Aggressive Than Ever

This Is the GT We’re Excited About

Your Apple Watch Deserves a Strap This Robust

The Company Still Won’t Make It

For When You Need a 600 HP Rental Car

A Rendering Well Crafted

A Fitting Tribute to the Man Who Inspired the Car

You Could Buy Another Nice Car for the Annual Cost

Named After the Hakone Turnpike

A True BMW Legend

Gear Patrol also recommends:Longines Conquest V.H.P. Watch ($1,300)Grand Seiko Spring Drive GMT SBGE227 Watch ($5,600)Breitling Professional Chronospace Military Watch ($6,110)

We Knew It was Fast on the 1/4 Mile, but Dang

Mercedes-AMG Has an Amazing Car

Despite All the Wings, They Still Plan to Drive It

If Sound Can be Pornographic, This is It

This TT Is Not Like Others

Gear Patrol also recommends:
Longines Conquest V.H.P. Watch ($1,300)
Grand Seiko Spring Drive GMT SBGE227 Watch ($5,600)
Breitling Professional Chronospace Military Watch ($6,110)