Motor Mania

After more than a decade one of the most iconic American supercars is back, this time it has more then double the power. The new Saleen S7 Le Mans Edition kept pretty much the same look and it uses a similar engine: a twin-turbo 7.0 liter V8 which now has 1300 hp. This car is a great example to show how technologies have enhanced trough time, the old model was launched in the year 2000 and it produced "only" 550 hp, 17 years later a similar platform is able to reach huge numbers in terms of power.


 It seems like the rest of the car didn't evolve much, it has a  6-speed synchromesh gearbox, it uses a steel space-frame chassis and body panels made of a composite material, no carbon fiber or anything fancy. My guess is that all the budget was invested on the engine "forgetting" about the rest, tell us in the comments what do you think. In any case this is true a race car but without the disadvantage of a fully stripped interior in fact even if it comes with a roll cage it still maintains air conditioning. It also has a rear view camera, something that should always be present on cars that long. Only seven of those cars will be produced and each one will be sold for one million dollars.

Nowadays it is nearly "normal" to see a hypercars with 1000 plus horsepower, but one car has power figures that are literally shocking. We are talking about the Devel Sixteen, a monster that has 5007 hp and will be reaching speeds of over 500 km/h (310 mph). The fist time i came across this car on the web a couple years ago i thought it was some kind of joke especially because the first prototype looked very boxy and unrefined. Well, the guys at Devel are taking this thing very seriously in fact some weeks ago something closer to what could be the production version was presented at Dubai International Motor Show.

First prototype:




Latest version:



The look is quite different from what i saw time ago, it is surely more convincing. The engine is a 12.3 liter quad-turbo V16 made by Steve Morris Engines starting from two LS V8s which are basically joined in series.


Lately Devel also started a collaboration with M.A.T. (Manifattura Automobili Torino) whose CEO is Paolo Garella, the chief engineer who recently worked on the 2.7 million dollars Apollo Intensa Emozione, in the end you can't have a supercar without a touch of Italian magic.


There will be three versions of the Devel Sixteen: the first one will have a turbocharged LS V8 with 1500 hp, the second comes with a V16 tuned for 3000 hp and a top speed around 515 km/h (320 mph) and finally the 5007 hp version, which probably will not be street legal. The last version is the most expensive costing over 2 million dollars, which is less than i thought. The car still poses big challenges related to the high speeds at which it will be operating so there is still a lot of work before we can see the speed record broken anyway it is exciting to see that there have been some developments.

Even high performance vehicles today have been affected by the trend of engine downsizing, basically reducing the displacement and adding forced induction or hybrid systems to recover some power. There are however some companies who still preserve the purity of an internal combustion engine,  Apollo is one of them. The German auto maker founded by Roland Gumpert came out with a hypercar that goes in a completely different direction, a car which reunites the old and the new.

Finally after a very long wait, Automobili Lamborghini has revealed the production version of the Urus. The concept made its first appearance five years ago at Bejing Motor Show in 2012 after then it only appeared in some spy videos on the internet. The name Urus has an interesting origin, it is the name of the wild ancestor of  today's fighting bull that what Stephan Winkelmann, the president of the company, said when the concept was launched. He also claims that this vehicle is the precursor to a new car segment the Super SUV. The look is astonishing, at first glance you can immediately recognize the features of a true Lamborghini.
Let's get to the engine, under the hood we can find a bi-turbo 4.0 liter v8 delivering 650 hp and 850 Nm of torque. I haven't seen Lamborghini with a front mounted engine in a while. The top speed is 305 km/h, it is the fastest production SUV, super SUV to be precise, and it can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in just 3.6 seconds. It is a very vesatile car it features a lot of driving modes: STRADA (normal road), TERRA (off-read), NEVE (snow), SABBIA (sand), SPORT and last but not least CORSA (racing mode). Another cool feature is the rear wheel-steering system introduced with the Aventador S which works trough the whole speed range. The starting price is 206.000 euro it a lot but let's not forget it is still a Lamborghini.

Since the first model released in 1925 the Phantom has been defined several times as "the best car in the world" so surely it is not an easy task to enhance it. Despite that the engineers at Rolls-Royce as always came up with innovative ideas and technologies to maintain this title.
Let's start from the engine which is a newly developed 6.75 liter bi-turbo V12 producing 563 hp and 900 Nm (664 lb-ft)  of torque. The car can reach 100 km/h (62 mph) in 5.2 seconds and it has a top speed limited to 250 km/h (155 mph), not bad for a vehicle so heavy .
This car is all about smoothness, thanks to the self regulating suspension and an innovation coming from BMW, it is called satellite aided transmission and it's a system which adapts the gear shifts to the behavior of the driver and also to the geographical location. Another amazing feature are the powerful laser headlights which can project light up to 600 meters down the road.
The look is astonishing as always, the interior looks very elegant and sophisticated in the front while in the back it feels like a very roomy and luxurious lounge. And if you want to take it to another level you can choose to have a 3D-printed and gold plated map of your DNA on the dashboard. The price is still not known exactly and it changes a lot depending on the options but to get an idea the previous model was starting from 422,925$ (about 360000 euro).

After its first appearance a while back at Goodwood Festival of Speed the new Spyder variant of the 570s is finally available. Convertibles like this one may look very good but usually the performance is affected by the chassis, this because that the roof is an important element for the structural rigidity so if you take it off you have to compensate making the bottom more stiffer and consequently heavier. It was not the case with this car because also in the Coupé version the strength was concentrated in the bottom to lower the center of mass, this is what allowed to have an added weight of just 101 pounds (46 kg). The engine and transmission are the same in both versions: 3.8 liter twin-turbo V8 producing 562 hp, 443 lb-ft (570 Nm) of torque and a seven-speed gearbox. The 570s Spyder can accelerate from 0 to 62 mph (0 to 100 km/h) in 3.2 seconds and has a top speed of 204 mph (328 km/h). The roof unfolding takes just 15 seconds and it can be done at speeds up to 25 mph. The starting price will be 211,300$  (186,557 euro) which is 20,200$ more than the Coupé enough money to buy a new Ford Focus.




Pictures by McLaren

Let's make a leap into the future to the year 2019 when BMW is planning the release of a very special hypercar. We still know very little about this vehicle, it will come in two versions a hybrid and a fully electric which will be called E10. The hybrid will have a 3.0 liter engine and a total power output of 591 hp (600 PS) costing around 200,000 euro (about 230,000$) this according to the German magazine Auto Bild. This car has enough power to be an interesting competitor for a lot of cars especially the Audi R8.



pictures by Auto Bild

Even if this is an actual track car, with a roll cage behind the racing seats, the interior is still very rich it has not been striped of its elegance and essential parts to reduce the weight. There is a beautiful contrast between the roof covered in red leather and the bottom of the cockpit which is black. The GT2 RS will cost 285,220 euro in Europe while in the US it will have a starting price of 293,200 dollars.

At the Goodwood Festival of Speed  Aston Martin presented the new Vulcan AMR Pro. This is not a new model but it's an upgrade kit for the 24 lucky people who own one (the production was limited).
The engine is the same, as in the standard model launched back in 2015 at Geneva Motor Show, a 7 liter V12 with 804 hp but with shorter gears.
The main changes are in the aerodynamics in fact it now has a bigger wing and canards on the front bumper all contributing to a great increase in down force.
The price still has not been announced but it will not be cheap, if you spent 2.3 million dollars on this car you might as well spend some more to make it better.