When Porsche do it, I can cope. Aston Martin I can deal with. But a four-door saloon from Lamborghini? That just sounds blasphemous. However crippling economic climates demand stranger things, and so feast your eyes on the Lamborghini Estoque concept: a four-door, five meter long, V8-powered monster of a vehicle, predicted to hit showrooms in 2011 with a price-tag around $130,000.
Prepare to see these clear polycarbonate wheels appearing on your favourite car-modding show: apparently the next step beyond ridiculously large alloy wheels is to do away with the wheel altogether. Made of Lexan or some other polycarbonate variant, they give you the opportunity to show off those lovely brake disks you’re so very proud of.
Somewhere here there’s an “Emperor’s New Clothes” joke trying to be made, but I can’t quite fathom it. Still, the price is no joke: at $2,000 a wheel the contents of your wallet better not be transparent!
Clear Polycarbonate Wheels [Forsprung]
It was criticised for being expensive, impractical and unsafe, but having been a happy Smart ForTwo owner I can tell you that only one of those was true. Yes, it suffered from Mercedes-style inflated prices, but it was super-economical, surprisingly capacious and capable of crashing into an S-Class without anyone dying. In fact, I only sold it so I could get my hands on the sadly-discontinued Smart Roadster. It’s with all that in mind that I’m very excited to see the latest official photos of the new ForTwo, the model that for the first time will be sanctioned by Smart and Mercedes to appear on US soil.
Holy Lord in his pants, what on Eath is this?! A British sports car with a hybrid engine? The Connaught Type-D H is four-seat 2.0 litre V10 that can manage 42mpg and 0-60 in 6.5s, thanks to an electric motor that kicks in when the car is stationary, so that the main petrol engine can cut out. Hit the accelerator, the electric motor starts up the petrol one and away you go. At 850kg this is a very light sports car, especially given the luxury interior, though I can’t help but think that the 140mph top speed, although comfortably sufficient, isn’t as sky-high as the specs might lead you to suspect.
When I’m not stroking cellphones or diddling Tablet PCs I’m often to be found gaping in childish lust at some of the bigger, petrol powered toys available today. So it’s a sight to make me more than a little moist seeing Michelin’s display at this year’s SEMA show – no resorting to diamanté-clad convertibles or scantily clad and gravity-defyingly-busty babes, oh no, just a few million dollars worth of supercar piled high.
The Boy Genius Report seems to be cornering the market in high-tech luxury gadget reviews, with their latest being a hands-on with Bentley’s Flying Spur saloon and, more specifically, its factory-fit cellphone. Controlled via a knob in the armrest and a choice of three displays, there’s even a SIM slot so that you can take advantage of the car’s built-in aerial for 2-3x better reception.
Do you know what, I hate public transport. Whether it’s bad karma or just standard fare, I always seem to end up sat next to the drooling, odorous weird person. So given the choice of taking my car (where I can listen to my own choice of music and not have to worry about someone twenty stone heavier than me taking up seven-eighths of the seat) or fitting in with current eco-policy and taking a bus, train or tram, pretty much 100% of the time I’ll have the car keys clenched so hard in my hand that they leave permanent imprints. That is, until I saw this:
Over here in the UK it’s not uncommon to see the odd Lotus Elise and – more rarely – Exige bombing down the motorway or whipping around country lanes. The constantly evolving sportscar is renowned for having close-to-perfect handling and sweet, sweet driving dynamics, and has a loyal following amongst owners and enthusiasts. So it always comes as something of a surprise that drivers in the USA are less blessed when it comes to model choice – hence the unbridled excitement of Jalopnik and Autoblog (amongst many) at the news that the hardcore Exige S, the supercharged variant of the coupé, is heading across the Atlantic.
You know it’s a slow news day, perhaps, when articles about car keys start appearing, but Edmunds latest Top 10 is all about fabulous fobs that appeal to the fashionista gadget lover.
Ranging from Bentley’s chunky, knurled example (that tops their chart despite being, in reality, a blinged-up VW key), through the slot-in cards of BMW and Volvo, all the way to “is it really locked?” transponder keys as used in the latest models from Lexus, author Nate Chapnick lets no hyperbole go wasted in finding the “most noteworthy”.
I’m thinking about starting a petition to make concept designers legally obliged to comfort members of the public upset when all their fancy promises turn out – when in the metal – to be shockingly poor. Hopefully the designer of the Porsche Panamera, the “four-door coupé” that will take on the Maserati Quattroporte and any number of sodding fast Mercedes, will not end up footing thousands of therapy bills – worryingly likely should this heavily disguised test mule be close in shape to the end product.
Compared to the original sketches, the mule is lumpy and weighty around the hips. The Bentley-a-like C-pillar arrangement is just that little bit too pointy and awkward, even when you look beyond the disguising sticky-tape.
My fingers are crossed to the point of causing crippling pain that further evolutions of shape are in the works.
SlashGear Japan
