New Porsches for the Meltdown

Posted on Jun 27, 2024 in Racing | Comments Off on New Porsches for the Meltdown

Back in the Stone Age of foreign car imports to this country, we called it a “Porsh,” partly to Americanize a funny name. Today, the word “Porsche,” pronounced correctly by nearly everybody, typically ignites lust and longing in the heart of all lovers of Sportwagens. For good reason: Over the years Porsche cars have been about 90% great. Even the 914 I once...

NASCAR Unveils Car of Tomorrow

Posted on Aug 4, 2023 in Racing | Comments Off on NASCAR Unveils Car of Tomorrow

I’ll admit, I don’t know much about NASCAR. Like most people in the Northeast, I figure we’ll leave hockey to the Canadians and auto-racing to our friends down South. In any event, racing has made its annual trip to the forefront of the sports page as NASCAR introduces the Car of Tomorrow for 16 races in 2007 and 36 in 2008. The news comes nearly 6 years after...

Toyota and NASCAR – Oh What a Feeling!

Posted on Jun 18, 2023 in Racing | Comments Off on Toyota and NASCAR – Oh What a Feeling!

When the green flag dropped this weekend on The Great American Race in Daytona, NASCAR’s Nextel Cup Series had what, at first blush, must have seemed like a distinctly foreign new flavor. The 2007 Daytona 500 served as the Nextel Cup Series debut of Toyota as some of NASCAR’s established stars such as Michael Waltrip, Dale Jarett, Jeremy Mayfield, and Brian...

Hyundai N: The New Standard of Performance?

Posted on Dec 19, 2022 in Racing | Comments Off on Hyundai N: The New Standard of Performance?

Hyundai: maker of cheap, utilitarian cars or competitor to established high-performance brands? Most of us would agree that Hyundai, the South Korean automaker that introduced the 100,000-mile warranty, falls into the cheap, utilitarian category. The carmaker gained its fame for building inexpensive alternatives to the mainstream brands, but in the process...

Do We Really Need a New Ford GT?

Posted on Nov 26, 2022 in Racing | 1 comment

The last couple of days have been intense for fans of the Ford GT. Rumors are strong that the much-loved supercar could come racing back, with a debut coming as early as next month at theNorth American International Auto Show in Detroit. Why would Ford want to get back into the supercar business? There are plenty of reasons but the biggest two, in my opinion,...

What Car Could You Drive for 24 Hours?

Posted on Aug 21, 2022 in Racing | 1 comment

From June 19–22, over 150 cars and hundreds of drivers will race the ADAC Zurich Nürburgring 24 Hours endurance race on the Nordschleife (north loop) of the Nürburgring in central Germany. The Nürburgring, with a lap length of over 20 km, allows a driver to race in 150-minute intervals before being required to take a 2-hour break. A driver’s teammate then takes...

El Diablo: Miata Style

Posted on Jun 12, 2022 in Racing | Comments Off on El Diablo: Miata Style

An average car will run a quarter-mile drag race in 15–16 seconds. That’s not a blistering pace, but it’s just enough to give a slight rush while accelerating up an on-ramp before settling into a steady stream of 65-mile-an-hour commuters. The Mazda Miata, while relatively sporty and fun to drive, typically falls somewhere within that average time in stock,...

Costco Fulfills F1 Racing Dreams… For a Price

Posted on May 11, 2022 in Racing | 2 comments

Costco: the land where dreams come true. Assuming, of course, your dreams include 50-pound bags of sugar, gallons of mayonnaise and full access to all the toilet paper you’ll ever need. Bulk discounts on household staples are enough to keep some people coming back every Saturday. Every once in a while, though, Costco surprises by offering something so...

The Ultimate American Used Car: 1967 Ford GT40

Posted on Feb 28, 2022 in Racing | 1 comment

America’s first real supercar. One of America’s favorite big-screen auto-racing heroes. The most expensive American car ever sold. Thanks to some history with the one and only Steve McQueen, a 1967 Ford GT40 has sold for $11 million, making it the most expensive car ever built here in the land of recliners and football. At the 2012 Pebble Beach Concours...

Toyota Gets Serious About Performance with TMG Line

Posted on Jan 14, 2022 in Racing | 2 comments

The words “Toyota” and “performance” aren’t often spoken in the same sentence these days. Toyota, though, is getting serious about building performance cars, as the Lexus LFA, Lexus IS Fand Scion FR-S are tearing up tracks and backroads across the world. Now, it seems Toyota may want to take things even further by creating performance versions of existing...

Hypercar Hybrids from Porsche and Ferrari

Posted on Dec 17, 2021 in Racing | 4 comments

Design study for the F70 We have written about the incredible Porsche 918 hybrid before, with details here and here. Now, 918 Spyder prototypes have been spotted testing, looking a little like the old 917 race cars (see pix here). The 918 will produce some 770 hp from a V8 and “two independent electric motors, one on the front and one in the drive line, acting...

Shelby’s Gone. Any More Like Him?

Posted on Oct 8, 2021 in Racing | 2 comments

Shelby and the Ford GT40 Caroll Shelby (1923-2012), whom tgriffith wrote about today, was one of the last true Car Guys. There just won’t be any more like him. Here’s why. Shelby’s career began with sports-car racing, and there he made his greatest mark. He could never have created the Cobra or the muscle cars that followed had he not raced for Aston Martin,...