German Car Blog, Performance, Tuning, Motorsport, and Modification News

Remember that source we quoted who revealed to us that the C63 Black Series would get the M156 V8? You know, over a month before anyone else got this information? Well, this same source told us the car was a given for the United States. Additionally, the car will be debuting new super sticky Dunlop tires and the motor will share some SLS similarities namely it looks like the internals. Considering the track record of this inside source thus far we are not going to doubt them this time and any worries people had of the car only going to Canada or not coming at all should be dismissed. ...

The Porsche 997 GT3 RS 4.0 is ridiculously awesome. The Autobahn is ridiculously awesome. Seems these two things almost belong together. This is a cool little video of a GT3 RS 4.0 being topped out on the Autobahn and hitting 320 kilometers per hour (top speed is quoted as 310) or 198.8 miles per hour. The Porsche speedo may be a tad optimistic but not bad for a stock car right? Lucky Germans with Autbahn and no speed limits.
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This is a rendering from Theophiluschin who tends to do a lot of these interesting takes on cars. We have all heard rumors of a BMW X4 and it will likely come just not any time soon. Several recent reports have stated the car has either been cancelled for this generation or significantly delayed. It was supposed to arrive in 2012. BMW will be doing a different take on it and making it much more sporty. The car will share X3 similarities but the rear will look nothing like it so this is pretty much a rendering of a what a X6 style X3 would look like and not an X4.

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New models of bicycles that is, not cars. The "RS" stands for racing which we take it the bike will be good for. Especially considering that the frame will be a carbon fiber monocoque. The brakes are also hydraulic discs, very nice. The bike S is basically the same thing except the frame is aluminum instead of carbon fiber. It also has a Shimano shifting system with less gears. The bikes will be on sale in September for what we guess will be a ton of money.
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Well, unfortuntately, BMW was not able to continue its streak of winning every race this season. The M3's both had the fastest overall laps out of anyone else in the GT class but the number 4 Chevrolet C6R took the win followed by the number 62 Ferrari 458 Italia. The M3 did lead for most of the race but a penalty on Dirk Werner in the number 56 car cost him the lead. It was a penalty for tapping Spencer Pumpelly in the GTC class who arguably should have gotten out of Werner's way. Unfortunate circumstances but clearly the BMW's were the fastest cars on the track. ...

Hamilton won in style at an exciting Nurburgring today. He managed to come on top with a three way battle with Fernando Alonso, and Mark Webber that lasted till the end of the final pitstop at the closing stage of the race. All three drivers managed to lead the race at one point in the final 10 laps, with the distance between all three never going above 2 seconds. But Hamilton managed finish first after over taking Alonso on the first corner exit his pitstop. Vettel had a forgetful race as he fought with Ferrari's Massa for fourth place. Massa was able to hold of Vettel's attacks until they pitted for medium tires on the last lap. Red Bull's pit crew proved to be quicker and released him a full second faster than Massa's crew. Adrian Sutil took six spot after opting for one less stop than the rest. Nico Rosberg took seventh after having a battle with Massa at the beginning of the race. Michael Schumacher who started tenth on the grid managed to come in position over take Rosberg early in the race, fell victim to the wet astro turf and spun his car at the entrance to the corner named after him. Schumacher dropped to eleventh after that and fought his way back to take eight place. Kobayashi and Petrov round up the last 2 places in the top ten. ...

How is this for high-tech weather testing? Want to see how a car will do in a category 5 hurricane? No problem. Want to see how it will do in 150+ degree heat? Mercedes certainly does. Just look at the SLK in the photo. They even test the cars to -40 degrees Fahrenheit literally freezing them. This climate testing is all part of a new facility in Southern Germany Mercedes built to test prototypes in controlled conditions before they ever even hit the road for testing in order to anticipate and correct problems before real world situations. Yes, awesome. ...

Webber for the second race in a row was able to take pole postion in Germany. Hamilton was suprised with second after Mclaren's horrible runs on friday. Vettel for the first time in 15 races will be out of the first grid row in third place followed by Alonso and Massa. Qualifying was a mixed bag for Mercedes GP this week. Nico Rosberg took sixth spot behind the top 3 teams, while Schumacher finished last in the top ten shootout after squeezing in the third round. This was a bit disappointing for him after finishing in the top 5 in the practice sessions. Schumacher suffered a KERS failure in practice 3 that was fixed for the qualifying session but was still 1.2sec off his teammate.
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A 12 cylinder A8 is now available. The $134,475 car is powered by a 6.3 liter W12 with 500 horsepower and 463 pound-feet of torque. The motor is naturally aspirated, unlike its V12 rivals from Mercedes and BMW. No doubt a great car that is richly appointed but it likely makes sense to get the upcoming S8 with the turbo V8 and save yourself the cash. Although, it's hard not to like a big naturally aspirated motor especially with 12 cylinders. Oh, and it is coming to the USA. ...

We do not need to remind you that BMW has won every ALMS race this season do we? Well, let's just say the M3's have been dominating thus far. Dominating to the point they received a "weight adjustment" to attempt to balance things out. Well, even with any adjustments the cars still appear to be very strong having taken the front row for the ALMS race on Sunday (7/25/11). The number 45 Flying Lizard Porsche GT3 RSR qualified in third but was nearly 2/10's off the time of the second M3. Good luck to BMW Motorsport, let's keep the strong showing going.
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We really like the new CLS. Car is simply hot. It looks good, modern, and edgy out of the box so improving on it is not exactly easy. We think Lorinser did improve on it though with their new body kit. It consists of front and rear bumper add-on pieces, side skirts, a trunk spoiler, roof spoiler, and vented fenders. Usually we aren't fans of the Lorinser fenders but in this application they don't even look all that bad. Overall, a very nice take on the new CLS. ...

The Panamera is a controversial car. The styling seems to be hate or it love it. What is hard to deny though is that this is a hell of a performance sedan. This new official video from Porsche makes the new Panamera Turbo S hard not to like. A quick refresher, the Turbo S has a 50 horsepower bump to 560 thanks to new tuning and larger turbos. The only downside? The $174k sticker price which is much higher than the already stupid expensive $136,000 Panamera Turbo.

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We know the Audi Q6 coming. One of the reasons that Audi will be opening a USA plant is due to the Q6. The car will likely share the Cayenne platform which it will borrow heavily from. Audi simply is not content sitting around and allowing BMW to have the market all to itself with the X6 in the "coupe" style SUV segment. We will be seeing many more models like this from Audi and even possibly a Q4 as they continue their determined march toward taking the top luxury sport from BMW. ...

BMW announced it will offer a $550 performance edition option for the E90 3 series a few weeks ago. The E82 135i will be getting this same package which only makes sense. The same BMW performance software is available for the 135i just like the 335i. Along with the power gain of 20 horses on the N55 turbo six cylinder, black kidney grills come with the package as well along with some badges. It is also available as a retrofit for N55 cars. ...

Yes, the Mercedes SLS roadster is one hot ride. Here is a bit of a refresher from the official reveal. The car has the same drivetrain as the coupe with the exact same transmission and motor, no changes. The folding soft top adds only a 40 kilogram weight penalty. Mercedes juxtaposes the coupe against the convertible in the video for some very cool footage, hard to decide which one to like more.

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This is rather interesting. Schumacher has been criticized heavily in his comeback as he is not performing as expected and outperformed routinely by 26 year old teammate Nico Rosberg. Schumacher is under contract for 3 years total which means he has another year if he wants it. The comments from Mercedes GP president Ross Brawn are a bit troubling though as he stated, "He has a three-year contract with Mercedes, and we are very happy with him. But if he feels that he doesn't want to do it anymore, then we need to talk about it. You can't force somebody to do something." We have no idea where those comments came from but perhaps Schumacher has lost some heart? Something definitely isn't right at Mercedes GP as Brawn also stated, "Perhaps the situation would be a little easier for Michael if he had a teammate who was not so incredibly strong. But both can learn many things from each other, and everyone is up to the challenge.”
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EPL (European Performance Labs) in conjunction with Heffner performance has released a HPFP (high pressure fuel pump) upgrade for Audi R8 4.2 V8. As you should know, the R8 4.2 is direct injected. Direct injected cars have some difficulty upgrading their fueling but EPL has figured out a solution for the R8. EPL ECU tuning combined with two upgraded fuel pumps allow the Heffner R8 V8 twin turbo to now hit 8.5 psi no longer being fuel starved. This provided an additional 50 horsepower at the wheels. ...

Call it whatever you want, but Porsche Design has created one nice smoking apparatus. Porsche Design does a lot of varied things from luggage, to watches, to shoes, to clothing; quite a diverse lineup. We did not realize how diverse until they released this pipe. The device is two feet tall and uses aluminum and tecflex which is a long flexible material (plastic). Unfortunately, this is only available at the Porsche Design store in London at first but will spread to other stores later. Somebody at Porsche had to be smoking something when they came up with this. ...

Well, the rumors about the new naturally aspirated 5.5 liter were true. The SLK55 will be getting an M157 5.5 liter variant but it will be missing the twin turbos. Bummer? We think so, but we all know the reason for it. The SLK with the twin turbo V8 would have simply stomped everything else in the lineup silly so this move is really to protect the other cars. A detuned twin turbo motor that could be uncorked similar to how the detuned C63 can be opened up with a tune is what we would want but this should still be a good amount of power. ...