VW Polo - Car of the year 2010
It’s been a while since I wrote anything… Busy time. Sorry for this silence. Some editorials will be here shortly. But for today… I just bumped into the “2010 Car of the year award” info on some website. And I’m shocked…The winner: VW Polo?
Car of the year award is considered to be “the Oscar” of auto industry. Group of 59 experts (auto journalists) from 23 countries, vote for the best car of the year. It’s that simple. But… in case of this year’s choice, if You check the particular points assigned to all of the nominated cars (here), You will see the problem.
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Subaru 216A
It’s been a while without any post. It’s just that, there actually were not many interesting news to write about recently (?) World went crazy for EVs, which aren’t quite my point of interest. Reading about another huge hybrid from BMW, Mercedes or Lexus are pretty boring. Hot hatches segment seems to be old-fashioned somehow… Too cheap to be hybrids… Too expensive during the “global crisis”…
But there is a light of hope. More news on Toybaru have just arrived… and they are promising. Read more…
Toyota FT-86
Some more news on the topic have just appeared. Toyota has just released the first official photos of the FT-86 model. As You probably know by now, I’m not Toyota’s biggest fan. So I find this car as a first step to change my opinion about this automaker. As You could read on Carsoblog some time ago – this near-production coupe will be co-developed by Toyota and Subaru. Also it will be sold under these two badges separately. And what is the best news and worth waiting for – it’s planned to make its world debut at the Tokyo Motor Show later this month. Read more…
2009 Mazda 3 MPS
Cool design, good suspension and precise handling, 5 seats, over 200 BHP under the hood, 6.1 seconds from 0-62 mph and a maximum speed of 250 km/h (155 mph). Sounds like a good hot hatch definition. Some time ago this performance would mean… Porsche, or BMW M3. Now you get that in a compact class. And Mazda just updated their player in this segment: New Mazda 3 MPS just arrived.
Previous model (dated back in 2007) was pretty controversial. It had the same 260 BHP 2.3 liter engine as the new one. But users were complaining about the handling and fuel consumption. Read more…
Audi TT-RS
Looks like Audi is not afraid of so called “world crisis”. What more: doesn’t seem to bother caring about brainwashed eco fashion. Their pretty expensive and well made cars are still selling good. And the company is trying to fill another niche on the market, presenting a new sporty model. There are rumours , that during the next Frankfurt Car Show Audi will show the RS3 model. It would be RS series smallest addition (along A4, A6 and TT). And finally a real deal hot hatch from Audi, that can probably spin this car segment a little. What is most interesting: the parameters of this hot hatch are pretty impressive.
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Is VW killing Porsche?
In modern motoring world, what was very unlikely to happen 2 years ago, now is becoming reality. As all car makers race to release as many electric/hybrid vehicles in the shortest period of time, you could feel this coming.
Porsche… brand that had only 1 model in production for the most of it’s existence time, stubbornly putting the engine in the wrong place of the car… at the same time proud brand, famous of it’s history, consistency, heritage, sport image… is testing a new model equipped with 2.0 liter engine. Read more…
Ford Focus RS in performance blue
Ford Focus RS is a pretty strong and fast car. It has over 300 HP and torque reaching 440 Nm (324 lb/ft). Not bad for a hatchback. You would assume that this is more than enough for a front wheel drive and a 2.5 liter engine. Tuners were not satisfied though… Graham Goode Racing prepared a performance solution that raises the maximum horsepower of the RS to 340, and torque to almost 540 Nm (398 lb/ft)! And the changes that were made to achieve that, were pretty simple. They reprogrammed the engine electronics using “Superchips” chip. There were no mechanical changes or body work done…
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5 stroke engine - made by Ilmor Engineering
Below You can find some “green” news (source: Automobilemag.com). As far as I don’t really like to publish purely technical content – as this blog should be about fun cars and performance, not some boring engineering stuff, not mentioning green propaganda. The topic described above might be a quite a milestone in the motoring world. Besides the “green” background, it also has one interesting aspect: 150 HP from a liter capacity. Enjoy! Read more…
From left to right: FR, Bocanegra and Cupra
4th generation Ibiza was released last spring. The car collected good reviews regarding quality and driving capabilities. VW is a respected producer – Seat = VW, therefore buying Ibiza was good value for money… but somehow time passed and there weren’t many of them on the streets. And I know the reason…
Seat is a VW brand that is meant to be sporty. Along it’s more boring co-producers (VW and Skoda) it always looks more aggressive and modern. And it gives good results. When talking about small Ibiza: 30% of it’s buyers chooses sport versions! So it seems strange that they waited so long to release these two to the public… but they finally arrived: FR and Cupra versions will be available to buy in few months.
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2011 Supra ? (FT-HS)
Not so long ago, we heard some rumours about Toyota and Subaru working on a small sports car (Toybaru). Now the car sites are presenting some more info about another sport concept from Toyota. (Or maybe it’s the same project?)
We saw the FT-HS prototype in 2007, and all Supra car enthusiasts looked at it with hope… as their beloved sport toy was withdrawn from production in 2002. Unfortunately Toyota officially stated that this project didn’t have the top priority. That was then…
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