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$3.6 million Aspark Owl electric supercar preorders begin

Japan’s Aspark is taking preorders for its battery-electric Owl at the Paris Motor Show, promising deliveries starting in mid-2020 for the supercar, first revealed a year ago in Frankfurt, that promises a sprint time of less than 2 seconds.

Bloomberg reports the Japanese engineering firm is taking nonrefundable deposits of 1 million euros — about $1.15 million at today’s conversion rate — and plans to build 50 examples. Total cost of the car will be the equivalent of $3.6 million.

Osaka-based Aspark’s Owl first turned heads at last year’s Frankfurt auto show, saying that its 0-62 mph time of 2 seconds was a key focus in developing the car. It’s now promising to hit that sprint in just 1.99 seconds. In February, the company released a video of the Owl launching in a brisk 1.87 seconds, which rivals the claims made for the next-generation Tesla Roadster, though the prototype was reportedly fitted with racing tires.

The latest specs, per Bloomberg, peg the Owl at 1,150 horsepower and 652 pound-feet of torque, with a dry weight of around 3,300 pounds. That’s up significantly from last year, when the company said it weighed less than 1,900 pounds, though engineers are reportedly still finalizing the powertrain and debating how many electric motors to use. Top speed remains 174 mph, and range is 186 miles on a full charge. You’ll reportedly have to wait another year or so to test-drive it, however.

It’s worth pointing out that the Owl’s specs are dwarfed by fellow electric supercars like the 1,914-hp Rimac C_Two, said to do 0-60 mph in just 1.85 seconds and have a top speed of 258 mph, with 404 miles of range. It’s also a relative bargain at a cool $2.1 million. The new Tesla Roadster, when it launches, will go 620 miles on a charge and be priced at just $250,000.

The Owl is on display this week at the Paris Motor Show.

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McLaren 720S Spider patent drawings prove droptop is in the works

McLaren announced recently that it would be launching many new models and variants through 2025. And some European patent drawings seem to reveal one of those models. They show a McLaren 720S without a roof, indicating that it will be a 720S Spider convertible.

That’s very literally what these drawings are, since it only shows what section of the coupe’s roof will be removed, and it doesn’t show any of the structure or folding roof that will take its place. The result is a little strange to look at, with proportions that, if we didn’t know there was an engine in the way, would almost suggest a rear seat. With the McLaren 570S Spider as a guide, though, we expect that there will be some long, curved cowls behind each of the seats to help retain the coupe’s profile, even when the roof is down. We also expect that it will use a folding metal roof like that of the 570S.

We also suspect that the 720S Spider will follow the 570S Spider’s lead in offering open-air driving without sacrificing performance. The 570S impressively had the same top speed (top up), the same fuel economy and roughly the same acceleration to 60 mph as its coupe twin, even with a 101-pound weight penalty. The 720S will probably be similar with a minor weight penalty, greater price, and almost identical performance.

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Pininfarina PF0 motor and battery tech comes from Rimac

During Monterey Car Week in August, Automobili Pininfarina showed its PF0 hyper GT to clientele, an event said to have almost claimed the electric beauty’s entire U.S. allotment of 50 cars. Another month brings another tranche of details. First, Autocar reports that Pininfarina has finally confessed to tapping Rimac for the powertrain. Company CEO Michael Perschke said having Rimac’s growing list of clients include most of the competitors, and Porsche buying a stake in the Croatian firm, made a convincing case. Rimac worked on the PF0 drive system with the Mahindra Racing Formula E team.

The company suggested Rimac connections a while ago. Observers considered the tease all but assured when the Italian design house and soon-to-be automaker announced power outputs for the PF0. Seems the final numbers will be 1,900 horsepower and 1,700 pound-feet of torque, which hew to the C_Two’s 1,914 hp and 1,696 lb-ft, as do the claimed sub-two-second dash to 62 miles per hour and 250-mph-plus top speed. Intriguingly, Pininfarina said the batteries will be housed behind the passenger compartment so as to keep the batteries between the wheels; normally, and especially in a car like this, there’s some mention of housing the batteries in the floor to keep the center of gravity low. The Rimac C_Two houses the bulk of its batteries in a module behind the seats, but the module extends forward into the coupe’s floor.

The Italians poached personnel from like-minded competitors. Christian Jung takes the role of Chief Technology Officer after doing seven years at Porsche, which included a stint as the engineering project lead on the Porsche Taycan, and a year at Faraday Future as the senior director of electronics. Peter Tutzer signed on as Senior Technical Advisor, with a resume including development of the Pagani Zonda’s chassis and packaging, and responsibility for the packaging and integration of the Bugatti Veyron’s chassis and aerodynamics.

Three SUVs to follow the PF0 are expected in the next five years. Since the PF0 won’t begin dynamic testing until next year, and won’t park itself in heated customer garages for another two years, we could be looking at a McLaren-esque yearly cadence of Pininfarina works come 2020. The first tall boy, codenamed PF-One, will pack a battery pack of around 140 kWh and electric motors good for around 940 horsepower to compete with the Lamborghini Urus. Those specs should translate into a sub-three-second run to 62 mph.

The second SUV will target the Porsche Cayenne, the third aims at the Porsche Macan – arguably the flag-bearers for the (more) affordable performance SUV segment. All three SUVs will utilize the same modular platform and drivetrain. If this near-term plan sounds expensive, that’s because it is, but still a lot cheaper than it could be: Mahindra has invested an initial $100 million in Pininfarina to carry off the scheme, with a planned spend of $446.5 million over the next five years.

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John Hennessey aiming to take Venom F5 to 311 mph

John Hennessey has said that “We believe our car is capable of going well beyond 300 mph” when speaking of his Venom F5, and we thought 301 miles per hour was his target. Turns out it’s not – what he means is 310.6856 mph — or a nice, round 500 kilometers per hour. Eleven extra ticks might not seem like much when you’re already doing 300, but every additional mile per hour is another battle.

Hennessey’s already said the Venom F5 has a drag coefficient of 0.33. Using that figure and the calculator at Wallace Racing to work out horsepower needed for a given speed, a 3,000-pound car with a frontal area of 20 square feet would need 1,216.51 hp just to move air out of the way. That doesn’t include overcoming rolling resistance or other factors. To go 311 mph, the same car would need 1,355.29 hp. That’s 139 additional ponies, more power than found in many small cars on sale today. Hennessey’s numbers guys figure the Venom F5 will need 1,520 hp to do 300 mph, so they’re looking at another couple hundred horses to hit 311.

Not that it should be a problem. During Pebble Beach we were told that 7.6-liter twin-turbo, pushrod V8 is currently rated at 1,600 hp at 7,200 rpm, and the company plans to hold that redline. Previously, though, the tuner said the motor’s been turned up beyond 2,000 hp.

The Texas firm will begin testing prototypes sometime in 2019, with high-speed validation runs expected to commence toward the end of that year. The first effort will focus on breaking 300 mph, then, “After we break 300 we’ll see how much faster we can go.” Assuming that happens, the 311-mph run might require changes beyond a horsepower hike, such as aero modifications, but eventual customer cars will be outfitted to the same spec as the 300-mph car.

On top of that, Hennessey has plans for an internal-combustion-engined car that could hold its own in a drag race with the coming, second-gen Tesla Roadster. He told Motor Authority that “[If] Dodge can make a 4,000-pound Demon go 0-60 in 2.3 seconds,” he’s confident about getting “a tire on the F5 … that will be running in the high 1-second range, 1.8, 1.9 second range….”

And remember, the SSC Tuatara is out there, too, with its 1,750-hp engine. After Jerrod Shelby said his coupe is the only one with a real shot at 300 mph, we figure he’ll be out to break any mark Hennessey sets. The next two years should prove interesting in the top speed wars.

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Mercedes-AMG One won’t challenge Nurburgring record lap time

In March, Autocar reported that Mercedes-AMG had investigated challenging the outright Nürburgring lap record. Mercedes was said to have studied the fastest two laps, both set by racing driver Stefan Bellof in a Porsche 956, with the intent of setting a new benchmark using the AMG Project One, which will now be called merely the AMG One. Apparently AMG believed it could be done, the hardest part being “finding the right driver.” AMG boss Tobia Moers still believes the One could win the day even after the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo obliterated the old mark by nearly a minute. But Moers quashed the attempt, telling Australian site Motoring, “Could we beat the Porsche’s ‘Ring time? We could, probably,” then adding, “I just don’t know what we’d do it for.”

Moers admits the Porsche run “was impressive,” and a One victory “would be close.” To give the One a chance at the title, engineers could rework the aero, yank out the air conditioning, and put on different tires. But Moers can’t see the point of a fully homologated production car challenging a race car that’s been upgraded beyond any legal race spec. “Theirs is a racing car that isn’t actually fit to race anywhere, in any class, anywhere. It doesn’t have any rules,” he said. At one point there had been rumor of a track-only version of the One, which might have made more sense to field, but such plans, if there really were any, were axed.

For a quick rundown of the figures, Bellof’s 35-year-old record stood at 6:11.13, set during qualifying for the Nürburgring 1000 KM race. The 956 produced 630 hp in its most powerful guise from a 2.5-liter, twin-turbo V6. The upgraded 919 Hybrid Evo put out not less than 1,160 hp from the combined efforts of its 2.0-liter V4 ICE and electric motor. Having had its aero tweaked and been stripped of its A/C, windshield wipers, and jack system, it averaged 147 miles per hour around the ‘Ring, hitting a top speed of 229 mph, to set a lap time of 5:19.55. We’re still waiting on final specs for the AMG One, but it’s expected to make more than 1,021 horsepower from its 1.6-liter turbocharged V6 and four electric motors, and post a top speed beyond 218 mph.

We can see Moers’ point. Now that the One’s been placed in the ring with the 919 Hybrid Evo, Mercedes takes the biggest risk. If the One doesn’t set a new best lap, it looks like the Mercedes-AMG hypercar lost, and explanations of the lopsided competition won’t get trumpeted as much as the mark in the L column. Every One is already sold, and has given new dimension to the brand a year before the first customer delivery.

And yet, we think the challenge is all the more worthwhile if Moers really believes the AMG One can do it. To have a fully homologated road car from the sporty division of a luxury car brand beat a dedicated, unrestricted effort from the legendary racing division of a legendary sports brand at the world’s most iconic lap-record track? We’d buy tickets to that show.

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Typhoon Jebi destroys 51 Ferraris at dealership in Japan

The strongest typhoon to hit Japan in a quarter-century destroyed an estimated $9 million worth of Ferraris at an authorized dealership on Rokko Island, an artificial island in the city of Kobe, after sending three feet of storm surge into the showroom.

According to Yahoo Japan, the storm surge from Typhoon Jebi destroyed 51 of 53 new and used Ferraris housed at the dealership, including some that had already been purchased. Employees reportedly tried to cover the entrance with tarps and sandbags, to no avail. Salt water reportedly seeped into the engine bays, so the vehicles were trucked away to be scrapped. The dealership will reportedly look to insurance to recoup its losses.

Typhoon Jebi slammed into Japan’s west coast Sept. 4 with winds as high as 135 mph, leaving at least 11 dead and hundreds injured. It forced the closure of Kansai International Airport for three days due to flooding and after a tanker smashed into a bridge connecting the island airport to the mainland, damaging the bridge’s girders. Around 3,000 passengers had to spend the night at the airport.

Separately, about 100 cars at a seaside dealership in Nishinomiya in Hyogo prefecture burned after their electrical systems shorted out from sea water, reports said.

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VW Group plan puts Porsche in charge of a ‘super-premium’ division

An Automobile report looks into what’s happening on the organizational and technical sides of the Volkswagen Group, and what those changes could mean for the premium brands. The wide-angle view is that Porsche appears to have been anointed to “coordinate the future activities” at Audi, Bentley, Bugatti and Lamborghini. Audi would cede Lamborghini guardianship to Stuttgart, and Ducati — via a new concern called Ducati Enterprises — would become the shepherd for VW’s other Italian investments. Executives target Jan. 1, 2019, to complete the reshuffle.

VW wants to save a boodle by tying up four of its five top-tier brands, and putting the one with the highest ROI in charge. Porsche, within its own house, wants to reduce expenditures by $2.3 billion per year over for four years, the savings already earmarked for improving internal processes like R&D and production. Having Porsche share those gains as well as lead development of platforms, components and future-tech strategies for the sister sports car brands could benefit everyone.

In the near-term, the brands have their own plans:

Bugatti CEO Stephan Winkelmann is said to want a Chiron Superleggera, a roofless and “completely reskinned” Chiron Aperta, and a track-only Chiron SS. The Superleggera could take the Chiron Sport‘s and Divo‘s Jenny Craig routines even further. The Aperta seems a natural successor to the Veyron Grand Sport, a natural evolution of the recently introduced Sky View roof, and a reskin might include numerous Divo cues. It’s also said Bugatti’s considering “an all-electric high-end model” in conjunction with Porsche, Rimac, and Dallara, but name one supercar or hypercar manufacturer that isn’t considering a lightning-fast EV.

Lamborghini, deep into work on follow-ups for the Huracán and Aventador, might get a bit of a bump with the new plan. The carbon “monofuselage” for the next V12 flagship is said to be too far developed and too complex to scrap. It puts two electric motors on the front axle, batteries in the middle, and a naturally aspirated V12 with around 770 horsepower plus another e-motor with 402 horsepower in back.

The Huracán is said to get a version of the same carbon architecture at the moment, but the corporate reorganization might press pause on it. Automobile says options include continuing the Huracán/Audi R8 twinning, but that depends on Audi saying “Ja” to a third-gen R8 with Lamborghini bones. Beyond that, the Huracán could move to the Mimo II platform created by Porsche for the in-limbo-since-2011 mid-engined 960, or the entire premium group could get a new aluminum architecture for a “modular multi-brand sports car.”

Bentley and Audi need the most help at the moment. The UK carmaker needs to flesh out its current financial issues and vision for the future, and the latter relies in large part on the former. Audi remains in upheaval — the Automobile piece calls the brand “seriously overstaffed and worryingly over budget.” — and we can’t know when that will end. The ex-CEO who made the brand VW’s highest earner remains in jail, and we wouldn’t be surprised by any new bombshell that drops when he gets his days, or weeks, in court.

A total reintegration, if it all comes off, means monumental work. Yet according to a Bloomberg corporate analyst, potential rewards from going all the way with the plan might make it impossible to resist. Bloomberg said that if VW created a premium group and floated it on the markets, the result “could be valued at more than 120 billion euros,” when the stock market capitalization of the entire VW Group right now is 67 billion euros.

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Third-gen Audi R8 to be an all-electric, high-horsepower supercar?

Schroedinger would be proud of the impossible-to-know state of the Audi R8. In March we heard that there’d be no third generation for one of the most well-known sports cars of the era. Most, however, did expect an R8 V6 to bow this year at the New York Auto Show. If the downsized coupe actually exists as a production proposition, it skipped out on NYC. But three months later, a report said the six-pot two-door would come with the 2019 R8 refresh. While we await provable info on that, Autocar reports that a third-generation R8 is on the way around 2022, and it will be an all-electric offering aiming its rings at the genuine supercar crowd.

Autocar, going on what “senior company sources have hinted,” said we could be looking at “perhaps as much as 1,000 bhp,” and a return of the R8 E-tron badge on a rocket “likely to have a 0-62 mph time of about 2.0 sec.”

A third-gen, electric R8 would mark the third attempt at a battery-powered halo car for Audi, and — if this is the rumor that becomes fact — would be the first one with a genuine chance for success. The Ingolstadt carmaker developed an electric first-gen R8, canceling the project in 2013 before going to market. Audi tried again with the second-gen coupe in 2015 and got all the way to showrooms, but the car was handicapped by an output of 376 horsepower and 605 pound-feet of torque, and a 204-mile range — performance that couldn’t surpass the Tesla Model S — attached to a seven-figure price. Company execs pulled the car from the market after one year and fewer than 100 sales.

The recent PB18 concept from Pebble Beach is a good place to start thinking about a potential R8 EV. The PB18 contained three electric motors, 764 horsepower and 612 pound-feet of torque, and a simulated 62-mph sprint of “scarcely more than two seconds” on the way to a 186-mph top speed. Coincidentally, the PB18 fit the same dimensions as the current Audi R8, though the PB18’s body was shaped into a two-door shooting brake. Autocar wrote that the “E-tron GT will feature a two-door, four-seat design and offer more than 800 bhp,” and that its technology could be ported to the third-gen R8.

This raises a bit more confusion. Peter Oberndorfer, Audi’s global head of product and technology communications, told Motoring in March that the E-tron GT would be “a very sporty four-door car, not the successor to the R8.” Our guess is that even though the PB18 was a two-door, that it contains more clues about the E-tron GT, expected to arrive in 2020, than any R8.

Yet the PB18 featured a 95-kWh solid-state battery pack, and Audi’s known to want solid-state juice for any sports car. As Oberndorfer told Motoring in that same interview, “[If] you go very fast you need a lot of battery and don’t want to spend three days going from the Nürburgring to Munich or the other way around. …” Solid-state power could get the R8 the output and recharging times to make sense, and an R8 EV could provide the same halo service for the new E-tron division as the original R8 did for the regular Audi lineup.

We’re still not ready to put any faith in this yet. In March, the carmaker’s R&D boss said Audi Sport hadn’t come up with any plan for a next-gen R8. If Audi’s really settled now on an all-electric R8 to bow in just four years, we think Audi Sport would have had a roadmap laid out in March; look at how long the Porsche Taycan has been publicly under development, and how long we still have to wait for it. When Slashgear queried its sources, the outlet said, “So we’re hearing, things are still very much at the discussion phase as to what Audi might do for the new R8’s powertrain,” including the possibility of a V10-powered coupe and an electric R8 E-tron.

At this rate, we’re going to run out of our monthly allotment of salt to use on other rumors before September’s out.

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Koenigsegg sees new Tesla Roadster as the ‘gauntlet’ thrown down

Christian von Koenigsegg, the man behind the company that holds the current record for world’s fastest car, does not like to be outdone. So he did not particularly enjoy hearing the numbers regarding the forthcoming next-generation Tesla Roadster and its vaunted 1.9-second 0-60 mph time.

“We kind of had our future mapped out, and then we heard about the new Tesla Roadster and its insane acceleration numbers, and we thought ‘Damn, that’s put the gauntlet down,'” the Koenigsegg founder and CEO told Top Gear.

As he told the site, he enlisted his engineers to start running numbers, and within a couple of days, they’d figured out a solution. “The simplest way of putting it is like this: It’s combining direct drive with the hybridization we have in a different format with free-valve engine technology, in a peculiar layout,” von Koenigsegg said. He said the powertrain could take a car from 0-250 mph in 14 seconds “or something like this,” and said he wants to make a combustion engine with a higher power density than an electric powertrain “for as long as possible.”

His talk about hybrids brings to mind the Koenigsegg Regera plug-in hybrid, which weighs just 3,505 pounds and puts out more than 1,500 horsepower. It does 0-62 mph in 2.8 seconds — impressive, but a full 0.9 seconds less than the Roadster’s purported time. And not surprising for a company that is all about maximizing ponies, Koenigsegg likes to geek out over the details of things like the design of the 1,160-hp Agera RS engine. Could he be talking about the same vehicle as the successor to the Agera RS, rumored to be called Ragnarok?

Tesla, meanwhile, unveiled said Roadster at Grand Basel in Switzerland — or rather, it showed off what appeared to be a white, empty design shell that had been shown last year at Tesla’s shareholder meeting.

And don’t forget that the mad scientists over at Hennessey are tinkering with the 7.6-liter V8 for the Venom F5, the key to its quest to hit 300 mph. So buckle your seat belts, boys and girls: Things are about to get very fast.

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Koenigsegg Agera successor could be named … Ragnarok?

Koenigsegg has already given the very Nordic names Thor and Väder to its final two examples of its outgoing Agera RS supercar, so why not double down on that lineage and name the successor Ragnarok, after the violent Norse armageddon?

That’s the name The Supercar Blog, citing an unnamed source “close to Koenigsegg,” reports is likely to be used for the car replacing the Agera, which will be revealed at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. We saw this mythical supercar teased in a silhouette sketch that shows a large rear wing and diffuser, and founder Christian von Koenigsegg said the car will be “more capable than the Agera RS,” which produces 1,160 horsepower from its twin-turbo 5.0-liter V8.

Separately, a rumor from the McLaren Life forum suggests the upcoming speed demon will offer 1,440 horsepower, some hybridization, a higher engine redline of 9,000 rpm and a target weight of less than 1,200 kg (about 2,645 pounds). By comparison, the all-carbon-fiber Agera RS Gryphon does 1,360 hp and weighs 3,075 pounds. The name Ragnarok has also floated around on that forum for a couple months as a possible name.

Should we take these rumors seriously? Who knows. But it’s fun to speculate. Last fall, you’ll recall, the Agera RS set a record for highest average top speed of 277.87 mph in the Nevada desert, and the chase is on for the holy grail of a 300-mph hypercar.

For reference’s sake, the opening events of Ragnarok from “The Norse Myths” reads like so: “First of all Midgard” — that’s the world inhabited by man — “will be wrenched and racked by wars for three winters. Fathers will slaughter sons; brothers will be drenched in one another’s blood. Mothers will desert their menfolk and seduce their own sons; brothers will bed with sisters.” You get the idea.

Those unpleasantries aside, it’s certainly fun to imagine a “Mad Max”-style dystopian movie called “War of the Supercars” starring a Koenigsegg Ragnarok.

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McLaren divulges Ultimate Series Speedtail hypercar will make more than 986 hp

With as much as we know about the McLaren Speedtail, we’re still missing the finest, most important details. Now that hypercars are no longer unicorns but regularly released products, upper three- and four-digit horsepower figures need to be placed in the context of the segment and technical aspects to make the most impact. However, the latest morsel of news on the Speedtail is another step in the right direction. McLaren Automotive CEO Mike Flewitt told TopGear magazine at an owner’s club gathering that the next Ultimate Series champion would produce “more than 1,000 PS,” meaning at least 986 horsepower.

Flewitt would only say about the rest of the engine that it will employ a recognizable architecture and “a slightly different hybrid application” than in the P1. We’ll take that as euphemism for the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 that features throughout the Sports and Super Series ranges, making 426 hp in the 570S GT4 and 710 hp in the 720S. The P1 used a 3.8-liter twin-turbo V8 making 727 hp, helped by an electric motor adding another 176 hp, for 903 in total.

We’re not sure how much any owner will feel the 83 hp difference between his P1 and his Speedtail, but Flewitt said the company’s focused “on attributes rather than engines.” What an owner will register is the Speedtail being much faster than the P1; the latter was limited to 217 miles per hour, the English automaker has already pledged the Speedtail will be the fastest-ever McLaren, which means eclipsing the 243 mph that the F1 achieved.

It’s likely that the 106 Speedtail owners will also note the three-seat coupe is more comfortable than both than its spiritual inspiration the F1, and the P1. Flewitt said his team’s developed a hypercar that’s “super comfortable, super to drive,” and a “better driving proposition” than some of the multi-million-dollar competition going for top speed records.

Speaking of top speed records, the McLaren Speedtail won’t be going for any. The horsepower wars might not be over, but when an Aston Martin road car makes 1,130 hp, the battle’s effectively been won by everyone who can take the field. Upstarts are turning their armaments on the physical walls of top speed, and Flewitt wants none of it. On Hennessey’s hunt for 300 mph with the Venom F5, Flewitt demurred, “I might come out with John and take the opportunity to do a high speed run with our car, but we’re not chasing a top speed for the sake of it,” adding that his Speedtail “is more rounded than that.”

McLaren’s latest wonder doesn’t start deliveries until next year, but we’ve heard there’ll be more Speedtail news coming in October.

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Pininfarina teases rear aspect of PF0 hypercar, what other drivers will see

The Pininfarina design consultancy and manufacturing house has been on a slow march to the reveal of its first eponymous product under the Automobili Pininfarina banner. Finally, we get our first realistic glimpse of the electric hypercar codenamed PF0 that will be revealed at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. We’ve been briefed on some of the specs, including a sub-2-second quantum leap from 0 to 60 miles per hour, a top speed homing in on 250 mph, and a 300-mile range or more. But during the recent Pebble Beach festivities, Autoweek joined potential customers invited to preview the coupe, and provides notable details.

The design is said to be 85- or 90-percent finalized, currently sporting a clean profile “vaguely similar to Ferrari 488, but nearly free of all scoops, splitters, vents, winglets and buttresses.” The full-width LED across the front of the car that we’ve seen in a previous teaser rendering contrasts with the complex rear end in the latest glimpse above. Out back, the wing gets split in two and features both taillights and active aero flaps on the trailing edges. We trust AW’s word on the lack of buttresses, but in a previous rendering, the split rear wing appears to form the tail of buttress-like structures that rise from the PF0’s side sills.

The magazine said “Dihedral doors like on the McLaren 720S cut deep into the roof.” They open to reveal thin sills and a cabin that is “fairly accurate” when compared with previous artwork, specifically concerning the dashboard’s shape and driver-centric layout. One of the most interesting features of the cockpit is the customization available; AW said buyers will be able to choose different color combos for the driver and passenger areas.

The four electric motors will produce 1,900 horsepower and close to 1,700 lb-ft of torque. Ex-Formula 1 and current Formula E driver Nick Heidfeld is assisting with turning all that gumption into usable driving dynamics. The entire electric powertrain has been developed with assistance from the Mahindra Racing Formula E team fielded by Mahindra & Mahindra, the Indian conglomerate that owns a controlling stake in Pininfarina. Other tech partners are contributing to the project, and we’ve been told that Rimac is lending some kind of hand.

When asked why the novice automaker chose an electric powertrain instead of a massively powerful electrically-assisted ICE as is common in the segment – and what a world we live in that hypercars are now a “segment” – CEO Michael Perschke said, “If you want a brand that’s relevant in 2050, you don’t start with a drivetrain that’s been used since 1890.”

Out of the 150 examples Pininfarina plans to hand-build in its Cambiano home base, at a price hovering around $2 million each, 50 are allotted for North America. The striptease will undoubtedly continue before the Geneva and the reveal of the coupe’s real name next year, but deliveries won’t begin until the end of 2020.

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John Cena’s former 2017 Ford GT heads to auction at Monterey

The now-infamous 647-horsepower Liquid Blue 2017 Ford GT formerly owned (and then flipped) by actor and wrestling star John Cena is once again for sale, this time destined for the auction block this weekend at Monterey Car Week. And in a twist, Jalopnikreports it’s being auctioned by the same dealer Ford also sued for flipping it.

Chico, Calif.-based New Autos Inc. is sending the car to the Russo and Steele Collector Automobile Auction Saturday night in downtown Monterey, advertising it as one of just 138 produced for 2017, the first model year, and with the VIN number 77, a nod to Cena’s birth year.

Ford late last year sued Cena for flipping his GT for a profit shortly after he acquired it for $466,376.50, citing a clause barring a sale of any of the first 500 models for 24 months. The two sides later settled for an undisclosed amount that reportedly was to go to charity.

New Autos is apparently eager to trumpet the car’s clean legal bill of health. “This is the only 2017 Ford GT for sale that is unencumbered by past, present or future lawsuits from Ford,” Bernie Knaus, the president of New Autos Inc., said in a release. He added, “Whoever buys it will get an incredible car with no legal issues attached, since it was already settled.”

Jalopnik spoke with Knaus, who told them Cena sold the GT to a 78-year-old wealthy farmer in California who wanted one last great supercar and is reportedly a big Ford fan, with a large collection of F-Series pickups doing duty on his farm. He’s apparently no longer able to use the car and decided to sell it with a scant 625 miles on the odometer.

“He says, ‘Bernie, I don’t need to sell the car. But it’s getting to the point where I can’t get in the car, and it’s too difficult to drive,'” Knaus told the site. “He has some back issues, (but) he got the dream of owning it.

“This was gong to be his last great car for himself, and he wanted it to be an American car. That was critical. And not only an American car, but he wanted it to be a Ford.”

Ford recently decided to re-open the application process for the 2019 Ford GT in the fourth quarter of this year but remains committed to the quota of 1,000 examples over four build years through 2020.

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Cosworth briefly crows that Aston Valkyrie’s 6.5L V12 has record horsepower

It’s only natural that Cosworth would want the world to know that it’s building the world’s most powerful naturally-aspirated engine for the Aston Martin Valkyrie and Valkyrie AMR Pro. The timing of when the world should know about it, that’s at issue. Yesterday the English engine maker’s official Twitter account posted a picture of the barely-there coupe and the line, “We’re famous for breaking records and our latest engine, the Aston Martin Valkyrie 6.5-litre V12, will be the world’s most powerful naturally aspirated road engine with 1,130bhp.” Two tags accompanied the post, #Cosworth and #AstonMartinValkyrie. About 90 minutes later, the tweet disappeared.

The likely issue is that Cosworth got ahead of Aston Martin’s official confirmation of Valkyrie outputs, something we’re more used to from patent offices and Chinese model makers. The question is what output is Cosworth really talking about, and which car.

All of last year, however, various reports had the street-legal Valkyrie making 1,130 hp. A Road & Track report attributed “nearly 1,000 hp” coming from the NA V12, the remaining 130 from a kinetic energy recovery system working the front axle. Hence, we’re not sure if Cosworth’s talking about its own engine alone at 1,130 hp, or its engine with the KERS. But then there’s this: At the launch of the Valkyrie AMR Pro during the Geneva Motor Show this year, Aston Martin said the track-only Valkyrie AMR Pro would enjoy “a combined power output of more than 1100 bhp — more than the Valkyrie road car and a figure than comfortably exceeds the magic 1:1 power-to-weight ratio.”

The truth’s a mystery for now, which is just as Aston Martin would want it. If Cosworth’s engine really does make 1,130 hp on its own, that would be monstrous, and it would mean the automaker’s been playing a serious game of English understatement. Even if Cosworth included the hybrid help, however, an NA V12 with 1,000 ponies would take the crown. The only competition is the 6.5-liter V12 in the Ferrari 812 Superfast, and that’s 211 horses adrift. The quad-digit figures expected from Mercedes-AMG Project One and McLaren Speedtail require turbochargers, as does the just-teased V8 going into the Shelby Tuatara.

With the first of 150 Valkyrie road car deliveries scheduled for next year, we probably don’t have that much longer to wait to find out.

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New Bentley boss nixes any new sports cars in its money-losing lineup

Adrian Hallmark took over the helm at Bentley on February 1 this year. Volkswagen poached him from Jaguar, where he headed the brand’s global strategy. Or perhaps we should say re-poached him, since Hallmark served as Bentley’s board member in charge of sales and marketing from 1999 to 2005, and helped guide the original Continental GT to market. He’s now responsible getting Bentley in better shape financially and sales-wise, and positioning it for growth. Among the products necessary to do that, Hallmark recently told Autocar that flashy coupes won’t cut it. “I’ll tell you what we won’t be building,” he said, “and that’s sports cars.”

That means we can forget about the gorgeous EXP 10 Speed 6 coupe that had a rumored place in the lineup after a sub-Bentayga CUV, and the EXP 12 Speed 6e battery-electric convertible. Hallmark cited a few issues with the segment, the first being that the segment hasn’t yet recovered from the recession, and the buyer demographic that’s left goes up in age every year, clearly a losing game. The kinds of younger buyers who would buy Bentleys, athletes and entertainers, are deterred from the purchase by contractual limitations like injury clauses or aversion to paparazzi photos. As well, in China, wealthy buyers get SUVs or limousines, but Hallmark believes Bentley hasn’t adopted the the proper strategy there to take advantage.

This is far more than about sports cars for Bentley, though; a recent article in German newspaper Handelsblatt outlined a number of situations the carmaker needs to rectify, including the finding that Bentley’s “losing money hand over fist instead of racking up the hefty margins more typical of the class.” A German study claimed that whereas Ferrari makes around $80,000 on every car it sells, and Porsche makes a little more than $19,000 on each car (last year it was a little more than $17,000) Bentley loses a little more than $19,000 on each unit. The English manufacturer has posted an operating loss of roughly $92 million through the first six months of 2018, the latest figures in a decline that began in 2014. That financial timeline, however, coincides with Bentley’s $1.1B investment in new technologies, which the carmaker cites as the reason for profitability woes.

Beyond that, Handelsblatt claimed VW insiders said the recent Continental GT launch was the “worst production ramp-up of all time.” Bentayga sales are down a little in Europe, quite a bit in the U.S., and overall brand sales are down nearly ten percent globally this year. Bentley needs to invest its electrification plans — it wants electrified versions of all its models by 2025 — and that’s going to be expensive. The report said those insiders want Porsche to have a bigger hand in helping Bentley get on track and move forward.

That would tie in well with Hallmark’s experience, too, since he did a stint in charge of Porsche UK. He told Autocar that in addition to V8 models throughout the lineup, he’d like to crib from Porsche’s proficiency in creating special editions with more luxury or performance, and Stuttgart’s success in making its hybrid models the most desirable. Bentley wants to crack 15,000 to 20,000 units globally. The most it has achieved in the past five years is around 11,300.

Somehow, though, while tiny, independent Aston Martin gets stronger than its ever been with a growing lineup of incredible sports cars, Bentley has to walk away from the segment that made it what it is today.

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Patents hint at active aerodynamics for C8 Chevy Corvette

In May of 2016, General Motors filed patent applications for an active aerodynamic system. The patent papers featured drawings of a C7 Chevrolet Corvette, and described aero aids that the system could operate on, including a front splitter, air dam, grille shutters, and rear diffuser. That patent was published nearly a year later, in March 2017. Last month, GM had another three patents published for specific active aero mechanisms: active side skirts, active spoilers, and downforce-generating ducts. The application again used C7 Corvette drawings, leading people to believe that the C8 is in line for the aero gadgets.

The previous patent described the use of a sensor to measure body height, and a controller used to adjust various aero surfaces to maintain the ideal height relative relative to a reference plane. One special feature of that system was that it accounted for suspension action and tire deflection.

The latest patent app goes into the features such a system might control. The active side skirts would be able to extend toward the road in order to contain airflow under the car and streamline airflow around the rear wheels. The active spoiler could raise and lower the entire structure by moving stanchions within rails set into the fenders, as well as pivot just the wing portion. And get this, one image in the patent app shows a movable spoiler on the roof. The downforce-generating ducts, potentially placed on the roof and the lower portion of the vehicle, would hasten airflow past the car, and could otherwise be used to produce a venturi effect. Should the mid-engined Corvette wear such appurtenances, America’s sports car would get more ammo to join a tech conversation dominated by European marques.

After pulling a no-show at this year’s Detroit Auto Show, rumors say we’ll see the C8 in Detroit next year. Or who knows, we might be seeing three – a standard flavor with an evolution of the current 6.2-liter V8, one with the new 5.5-liter flat-plane-crank V8, and a twin-turbo version of that V8 with about 800 horsepower. Best to wait and see, though; looks like whatever we’re getting, and whenever we get it, it’ll be pretty good.

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Tourist in Dubai nets more than $47,000 in speeding fines in four hours

Before I went to Dubai last fall, I imagined a sea of supercars running rampant with few repercussions. I couldn’t have been more wrong (at least when it comes to the repercussions bit). Speed cameras in Dubai are no joke. The drivers, though occasionally erratic, steadfastly follow speed limits. And the penalties for breaking the law in the United Arab Emirates are quite severe. Apparently, a 25-year-old British tourist was expecting more freedom when he racked up more than $47,000 in fines in a rented Lamborghini Huracan in fewer than four hours.

The list of fines is impressive in its own way. All the infractions occurred between 2:31 a.m. and 6:26 a.m. on July 31, the day after he rented the car. He was caught driving between 78 and 143 mph on two stretches of road — 32 times on Sheikh Zayed Road and once on Garn Al Sabkha Road. That’s nearly twice the legal limit in some areas. Several of the fines were fewer than two minutes apart. Once, he managed to rack up two fines in under a minute.

Rather than waiting for a ticket in the mail, the fines were immediately sent to the registered owner, in this case Saeed Ali Rent a Car. The tourist paid just over $1,600 to rent the Lamborghini for two days. He left his passport with the rental agency as a guarantee. The tourist listed his address as a hotel. Because there’s a disagreement over who pays the fees, according to The National, he’s still in possession of the car, and the rental agency has his passport.

The rental company doesn’t want to take the car back because it knows it will be stuck with the bill to get it out of impound. The impound fees totaled more than $27,000, more than the cost of the speeding fines themselves. The rental company filed a motion for a travel ban, but it was denied. It has since contacted the British embassy, letting the embassy know that the passport is in their possession in case the tourist claims it’s lost.

One way or the other, someone is going to have to pay.

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Mercedes-AMG wants to prevent Project One owners from flipping them

Mercedes-AMG will include contract language in its exclusive upcoming Formula One-sourced Project One hypercar when it starts delivering to customers early next year prohibiting the new owners from flipping the $2.6 million car for a quick profit.

Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport reports the move is similar to what Ford is doing with its GT supercar and Porsche, with its 911 GT3 Touring after customers began flipping the 911 R. It also says all 275 examples of the 1,000-horsepower-plus Project One are sold and that Mercedes-AMG has undertaken the first test drives using camouflaged prototypes on closed race tracks in England and Spain.

Late last year, Ford sued wrestler and actor John Cena for violating the terms of his purchase contract, which involved an application process, for the $450,000 supercar. The two sides in June settled outside of court for an undisclosed amount that Ford will reportedly donate to charity. Meanwhile, another 2017 Ford GT is on Mecum’s Monterey sale bill. It’s headed for the block Aug. 23-25.

Similar attempts have already been made with the Project One. Motor 1 reports someone tried to sell a build slot last November for the equivalent of $5.2 million, nearly double the asking price, and a newer listing not yet removed is similarly asking $5.2 million, with a mid-year 2019 delivery date.

The Project One, which debuted as a concept last fall in Frankfurt, boasts some eye-popping specs, with its mid-mounted 1.6-liter single-turbo V6 doing more than 1,000 horsepower, a top speed of more than 217 miles per hour and going from 0-124 mph in just 6 seconds. It can also operate as a zero-emission electric car for 15.5 miles, thanks to its lithium-ion battery powering two 120-kilowatt electric motors, plus two smaller ones driving the front wheels. Owners will have to take the car in every 31,000 miles or so to have the gas engine rebuilt.

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Aston Martin likely to resurrect Vanquish name for Ferrari fighter

Aston Martin recently hosted press drives for the new DBS Superleggera in Germany. On the sidelines, Motoring spoke to the carmaker’s chief creative officer, Marek Reichman. Answering the question of whether the coming mid-engined rival to the Ferrari 488, Lamborghini Huracán, and McLaren 720 S could revive a very important name for the brand, Reichman responded, “Without saying yes, that sounds like a plausible solution for a beautiful name like Vanquish.”

The Vanquish named first appeared from 2001 to 2007, returning from 2012 until retiring again this year on the Vanquish S (pictured). Although it’s historically been used on the most powerful vehicles in Aston Martin’s range, and both of them V12s, the latest flagship switched to two erstwhile monikers in combining DBS and Supeleggera. Reichman said the switcheroo “better reflected [the DBS‘] positioning than Vanquish.” The future V-named coupe will be out to conquer every vehicle in the segment, not just in the family line-up.

Still light on details at the moment, we expect the Mercedes-AMG-sourced 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 behind the seats, boosted by an electric motor. Reichman didn’t shoot down the possibility of using an electric motor for e-AWD capability and all-electric driving. That motivation will power a body expected to go heavy on carbon fiber, active aerodynamics, and the wind-cheating prowess gained from partner Red Bull Racing and aerodynamicist Adrian Newey. After iterating through 12 scale models and three full-sized mock-ups so far, the creative honcho said the final car will “be the most beautiful mid-engined car on the road.”

The coming Vanquish will be car number five of Aston Martin’s Second Century plan, aiming to deliver seven cars in seven years. The Aston Martin SUV will be the fourth when it enters production late next year, after the DB11, Vantage, and DBS Superleggera. The mid-engined screamer follows in 2020.

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Aston Martin SUV production to start in late 2019

Aston Martin has confirmed it’s upcoming SUV will begin production at a new factory beginning in late-2019. The high end sport-utility will be similar in size and design to the DBX Concept, which Aston Martin first exhibited in Monterey back in 2015. Since it first debuted three years, the market for exotic and hugely expensive sport-utilities has gotten red-hot and highly competitive. New models in this rarefied segment of the sport-utility world now include the Lamborghini Urus, Rolls-Royce Cullinan, and Bentley Bentayga.

The plant where Aston will build its SUV is based in St. Athan, Wales, on the site of a former Royal Air Force base. A total of three former aircraft hangars are being combined, to create this new facility.

This factory is only part of a larger expansion plan that will add roughly 1,000 new employees to Aston Martin’s ranks, stationed throughout its existing facilities in Gaydon and Newport Pagnell, along with the new St. Athan-based site.

“We are delighted at the progress being made at the St Athan site. The team have done a fantastic job in advancing the facility and I was incredibly proud to chair our first Board meeting at the new plant,” said Andy Palmer, Aston Martin’s president and CEO.

Showing how important adding a truck is to its future business model, Aston confirmed a total of 150 employees will be assigned solely to “pre-production preparations” related to the company’s upcoming SUV.

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