Nissan GT-R Smacks Ferrari 458 on the Highway

The Nissan GT-R is something like a poor-man's supercar – and there is nothing wrong with that in our book. It has beaten/embarrassed vehicles costing several times as much on more occasions that we can care to remember.
However, sometimes we tend to forget that being fast is as much about the car as it is about the driver. Case in point, a friendly road race between an SP Engineering-prepped Nissan GT-R and a Ferrari 458 Italia.
While the driver of the Godzilla has no problem tearing apart Maranello's V8-powered supercar in a straight-line duel on the highway, it’s a completely different story when the two cars enter a twisty side road… Watch the video for yourself after the break.

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Ferrari Brings F40 and 599 GTB Together for a Whimsical Duel

From time to time, automakers manage to overcome their crippling fear of being creative and actually produce something that's original and interesting for viewers. The video you're about to see is one such rare example.

Titled "Duel for the Crown – Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano", the short video, which is close to 4 minutes-long, shows Maranello's modern V12-powered gran turismo going up against the classic and still beautiful F40 that was built in limited numbers from 1987 to 1992.

Hop over the break to enjoy the clip and don't forget to power up the volume of your speakers...

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Video: Nissan GT-R Pwns Competition in Mega Drag Race with 11 Sports Cars

The latest Nissan GT-R has put another victory under its belt, this time in a drag race against ten of some of the world's most wanted sports cars at an empty airstrip.

The quarter-mile duel was organized by Motor Trend magazine. The eleven cars assembled were worth more than $1.5 million, and featured a combined 82 cylinders delivering over 5,000 horsepower and 4,000 lb-ft of torque.

The $89,950 and 530HP Nissan GT-R passed through the finish line first with a time of 11.2 seconds and an exit speed of 121.8mph (196km/h). It was followed by the $225,325 and 557HP Ferrari 458 Italia (11.3 seconds and 125.6mph or 202km/h) and the $198,600 and 560HP Audi R8 GT (11.5 seconds and 125.1mph or 201km/h).

The other cars that participated in the race were the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, Lexus LFA, Corvette Z06, Porsche 911 GT3 RS, Ford Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca, Porsche Cayman R, BMW 1-Series M Coupe and the Lotus Evora S (click on the image on your right to see the results).

Nissan, of course, was quick to issue a somewhatpompous press statement on the GT-R's win:

“We applaud Motor Trend’s editors for pulling off the automotive equivalent of the running of the bulls,” said Brian Carolin, senior vice president, Sales and Marketing, Nissan North America.

“Win or lose, it’s great fun and a great video – especially since we won. In all fairness, if we were running for pink slips, we would have had to bring at least two GT-Rs to match the cost of the competitors. We’ll settle for the title of baddest of the bad," he added.

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Formula 1 Qualifying Results

McLaren may have tried to secure some publicity by opening its only Italian showroom in Milan just before the local GP, but on the track, it was Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel who captured the spotlight with his 10th pole position of the year in Monza.

Vettel was almost half a second faster than Lewis Hamilton who beat his teammate, Jenson Button, by a mere 0.052 seconds. The Tifosi had to be content with Fernando Alonso’s fourth place –not a bad result, if you consider that he is one place ahead of the second Red Bull of Mark Webber.

Ferrari's Felipe Massa will start from sixth position, ahead of Renault’s Vitaly Petrov and the two Mercedes’ of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg. Bruno Senna, nephew of the late Ayrton, completes the top ten of the starting grid with the second Renault.

The race, which is the last Grand Prix in Europe for 2011 since Formula 1 moves to Asia for the next five races before the season finale at Brazil, starts on Sunday at 12:00 GMT.

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Video: Canadian Police Confiscate 13 Supercars after Youngsters Speed Race

Ocean’s 13 got away with stealing diamonds, earning millions of cash and ruining their adversary’s life. British Columbia’s 13, 12 young men and one woman, all under 21 years old, got away with racing each other, reaching speeds of over 125 mph (200 km/h) on a metro Vancouver highway with a $196 fine each.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced that the cars impounded had a combined value of $2 million. These are the supercars that were temporarily seized: 

2007 Ferrari 599

2010 Lamborghini Gallardo

2010 Lamborghini Gallardo

2009 Lamborghini Gallardo

2009 Audi R8

2012 Nissan GT-R

2010 Nissan GT-R

2010 Nissan GT-R

2010 Maserati Turismo

2010 Maserati Turismo

2011 Mercedes SL63

2011 Mercedes SLS

2005 Aston Martin DB9

According to a police report, two drivers would block traffic behind them by running side-by-side clearing the road ahead, while the rest would race each other.
“These drivers seemed to be looking for attention. Well, they definitely got the attention of the police” commented Lower Mainland District Regional Police Service spokeswoman, Cpl. Holly Marks.
However, the 13 offenders, of which only was the registered owner of the vehicle he was driving, will get away just with the ticket after being charged with “driving without reasonable consideration.” That’s because they didn’t actually get caught on the act, but the police acted on reports based from eye witnesses.
According to the Vancouver Star, if the police had been able to charge them with more sever offenses, they could have forfeited their vehicles!
Now, the young drivers will only have to pay the ticket and the costs of towing and storing their cars, which were impounded for seven days.
Guess when you drive a 599 Fiorano, a Gallardo or an SLS AMG, after this punishment you’ll just laugh your way to the impound yard…

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How to Overkill a Ferrari 458 Italia

Electric lamps are so passé these days. The way of the future is LEDs or Light-emitting diodes that can be found just about everywhere. Lately, LEDs have taken the automotive industry by storm with carmakers offering them either optionally or standard on most of their models.But it’s not only regular carmakers that have adopted the new lighting technology; so has the tuning industry which discovered a new toy to attract consumers. The results, as you can see from this example of a Ferrari 458 Italia slathered in LEDs, aren’t always graceful. Video follows after the break.

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Ferrari 458 Italia Xbox 360 Steering Wheel Brings Maranello Magic to your Playroom

Chances are most of us will never have the opportunity to drive, let alone own, a Ferrari 458 Italia. But a racing game for a gaming console like Microsoft’s Xbox 360, is certainly within the reach of most.

Even though you will have to do without the hand-stitched cream leather of the interior, the actual G’s squeezing your body in corners and, of course, the gorgeous bodywork, Thrustmaster wants to bring the 458 experience closer to with the Ferrari 458 Italia Racing Wheel for the Xbox 360.

Apart from being sanctioned by Ferrari itself, the 11-inch diameter steering wheel features a rubberized grip, built-in paddles and the Manettino dial for changing certain game settings. In other words, it gets as close to the real thing as possible, even offering progressive “Bungee Cord” resistance to the driver’s inputs.

The 458 steering wheel comes bundled with a pedal base that features a long-stroke accelerator pedal, a resistant brake pedal and a wide footrest.

Now, if you already own a Sony PS3 or a PC instead of Microsoft’s console and feel left-out of all the fun, Thrustmaster offers the TH8 RS gear shift, which also connects via USB to the PS3 and PC-compatible T500 RS steering wheel. It offers a sequential or a traditional H-pattern as well as a 360o rotation feature in order to customize it according to your preferences.

The 458 steering wheel and the TH8 RS gearshift are expected to reach U.S. stores in October with a suggested retail price of $180 and $90 respectively. So, ladies and gentlemen, you have plenty of time to fasten your seatbelts…

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New Ferrari 458 Italia Spider with a Retractable Hardtop

Behold the new Ferrari 458 Italia Spider, the world's first mid-rear engined convertible with a retractable hard top that was officially unveiled today ahead of its world premiere at the Frankfurt Motor Show in mid-September.

The Spider features a newly developed, single-piece aluminium hardtop that automatically tucks away just ahead of the engine bay with a tonneau cover that features two buttresses completing the design.

Ferrari says that the aluminium structure offers a number of advantages over the traditional folding soft-top, including a reduction of 25 kg in weight and a faster deployment time of just 14 seconds.

In addition, the company says that the small piece allowed the designers to include "a generous" rear bench for luggage behind the two seats.

The 458 Spider includes an adjustable electric wind stop designed to slow and diffuse the air in the cockpit, with the Italian company claiming that it enables "normal conversation to be held even at speeds over 200 km/h (124mph)".

While the Spider sports the same powertrain as the coupe and which combines a high-revving, 570HP 4.5-liter V8 with a dual-clutch F1 paddle-shift transmission and Ferrari's E-Diff, the Italian firm's engineers recalibrated certain features such as its accelerator pedal mapping, the damping of the multilink suspension and the exhaust to improve feel with the top down.

The new Ferrari 458 Spider will go on sale early next year.

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Ferrari Gives Up on 2011 Championship to Prepare Next Year’s Car

Truth to be said, Scuderia Ferrari had a bad start in the F1 season this year. Nevertheless, changes to the personnel and, more importantly, to the Ferrari F1 car's aerodynamic package gradually improved its pace considerably, yielding a win in Great Britain and four podium finishes for Fernando Alonso.
But even with Felippe Massa saying that nothing's over and Luca di Montezemolo claiming that he expects more wins in 2011, team principal Stefano Domenicali revealed to the Telegraph that the Scuderia will stop developing this year’s car in September.
From this point on, Ferrari will concentrate all of its resources on next year’s car. And, given Red Bull’s huge points advantage, no one can really blame them.
“OK, if you have to do some fine tuning you can do it. But otherwise you will lose a lot of time on development of the new car. The more time we can spend on the wind tunnel the better” said Domenicali. “What I really want to avoid is another difficult winter like the last two years," he added.

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Van Bumps Ferrari 360 Modena Spider into the Sea after Brake Failure

When it comes to exotic sports cars like the Ferrari 360 Modena Spider and accidents, more often than not, mishaps are the result of speeding or bad road conditions, sometimes even both.
But that's not the case here as the Ferrari Modena Spider pictured half dipped into the sea was actually parked on the road when this accident occurred.
The incident took place at the Croatian island of Pag located in the northern Adriatic Sea on Monday morning when the driver of a van bumped into the Ferrari pushing the drop-top model into the sea.
According to the local media, the driver of the van said that his brakes didn't work.
For more pictures of the incident, check out the links below.

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Ferrari to Drop the Top on New 458 Italia Spider

Emerging from the rumormill are talks about Ferrari getting ready to reveal a convertible version of its new 458 Italia supercar at next month's 2011 Frankfurt auto show.
According to the report from Germany's Auto Motor und Sport magazine, like its predecessor, the 458 Italia Spider will be offered with an electrically operated cloth convertible top that disappears behind the front seats.
Under the hood, the 458 Italia Spider will sport the same 4.5-liter V8 engine with direct injection technology found in the coupe model.
The V8 delivers 570 horsepower at 9,000 rpm and a peak torque of 540Nm or 398.2 lb-ft at 6,000 rpm. All that grunt will be sent to the rear wheels through Ferrari's highly-acclaimed 7-speed F1 dual-clutch gearbox.
Expect to see the Spider version in showrooms in 2012. 
 

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Ferrari's Montezemolo Expects More Wins this Season

Ferrari president, Luca di Montezemolo, has stated that he expects the Scuderia to win more races this season. And this despite the fact that in the 11 first races of the year they have won only once, with Fernando Alonso in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Alonso lies fourth at the Drivers’ championship and his teammate Fernando Massa sixth, trailing championship leader Sebastian Vettel by 89 and 164 points respectively with just eight races remaining. In the Constructors’ championship, Ferrari is in third position, with 215 points, trailing Red Bull (383) and McLaren (280).
Still, di Montezemolo came out with a positive mood after a meeting with team principal Stefano Domenicali, technical director Pat Fry and engine boss Luca Marmorini:
“I can see the right spirit in the team after a very difficult start to the season. Domenicali and his crew seem very determined, concentrating on their tasks for the second part of the year which I am sure will feature Ferrari in the role of a key player. I expect we will pick up wins to add to the historically very significant victory achieved at Silverstone”.
Ferrari’s boss does have a point since the 150 Italia seems to be much more competitive after recent aerodynamic changes, with Alonso being on the podium in the five of the last six races.
No one mentioned the championship, though. This, despite the fact that everything is still possible, seems to be going the way of Red Bull –unless McLaren and Lewis Hamilton can prove them wrong. But the Scuderia is satisfied with the progress after its worst start of the year in many seasons –and can surely play a big role in deciding the championships.

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