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

When it comes to Volkswagen and Audi tuning, APR really is the big dog. The way they go about their business, racing, community support, product releases, they set the standard. Drive visited APR which is located in Alabama. They also sampled APR's Stage III TT-RS which we recently reported hit 0-60 in 2.8 seconds and that it dyno'd in the 517 all wheel horsepower range. That TT-RS is supposedly up to the 560 wheel horsepower range according to Drive. ...

Just to preface both Evolve and Cobb are vendors on BimmerBoost for good reasons, they have great tunes powering some very fast BMW's. What you see here in this video are two very different tuned vehicles. The E60 M5 with a Stage I Evolve tune and Eisenmann race exhaust for its naturally aspirated 5.0 liter V10 is the camera car. The E82 135i has the Cobb Stage II aggressive with downpipes and a twin turbo N54 3.0 liter I6. ...

Hot on the heels of the Insideline C63 Black Series test Motortrend now provides their results. It even looks like this is the exact same test car which likely will be passed around to many automotive journalists. Motortrend hit a 12.1@117.6 which is more along the lines of what we expect versus the 12.2@115 that Insideline hit. Chalk this slight difference up to the change in test locations as well as the weather. ...

Like it or not electric automotive performance is a field set to rapidly expand in the next decade. Most of us do not yet take electric cars seriously as a performance alternative to internal combustion but here is an electric hill climb race car that should get enthusiasts to at least entertain the notion of electric performance. The electric E36 M3 rally driver Bill Caswell drives in the video below features a single Warp 11 electric motor for a claimed output approaching 700 horses. At that power level the juice only lasts about 12 minutes. ...

The Audi R8 LMS Ultra showed impressively yet again taking the victory at the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and finishing 1-2. The two leading cars were less than a lap apart from each other for the entire race up until the last hour. The cars had to work their way up trailing early on trailing BMW Z4 GT3's but were able to sort things out racing very well in the rain. Remember, the R8 LMS Ultra does not have the all wheel drive of the street car. BMW managed to get on the podium in third place. ...

BMW has done an absolutely spectacular job in ALMS the past two years with the M3 winning the GT class two years in a row. So why not continue? The problem lies in the M3 exiting production shortly as the F30 3 Series is already here. Not to mention new technical regulations curbing the M3's dominance. BMW is considering the possibility of homologating the Z4 GT3 for ALMS duty. This raises another problem as the Z4 does not currently have a variant with a V8. It also does not have an M variant. ...

The Mercedes Works team went into the last race before the summer break in damage limitation mode after a horrible qualifying session that saw both drivers knocked out of Q2. Schumacher's woes started even before the race could start. After all the driver lined up on the grid for the start. Charlie Whiting, the race director had some issues with the race lights and Michael turned his engine off thinking the start was aborted. He was pushed into the pits to have his car restarted and start the race from the pitlane. ...

The Mercedes AMG team so far is having a race weekend to forget. The team struggled with Fridays practice sessions and continued with qualifying. In Q1, The Merc team started off slow on the hard compound tires, setting times far off the pace setter. With 5 mins left in the first session, both Rosberg and Schumacher switched to the softer tires to avoid early elimination. Rosberg and Schumcher finished the session in 4th and 12th respectively. Lewis Hamilton in his Mclaren Mercedes continued his dominance this weekend and finished in 1st and the last 5 drivers are out. ...

The BMW S1000RR is an absolutely awesome high performance bike that BMW Motorrad created in part to race in the Superbike World Championship. It is this continued desire to race in various series that has led to this HP4 edition. The bike has the same power output as the standard S1000RR but with a different torque map, dynamic dampening control, launch control, and lighter weight. ...

Now it is important to point out the Stage III upgrade from APR is still in the Beta stage but we expect a release fairly soon. APR has hit 517 horsepower to the wheels with the upgraded turbo and full exhaust on the stock fuel system, stock internals, and the stock intercooler. For anyone thinking they may have trouble putting that power down APR just demonstrated 0-60 in 2.8 seconds on a VBOX. ...

Talk about a bold claim. Now Speedriven has done some great work so do not get us wrong but 1200+ horsepower out of the M275 is a very bold claim to make. The 1200+ HP Anarchy package includes Garret Tial Turbos, custom Speedriven manifolds, custom air to water intercoolers, custom intake, fuel pump, larger injectors, transmission upgrade, and all associated hardware. The Anarchy package retails for $32,000. ...

By now you should know that the Nurburgring is bankrupt. A lot of rumors are going around as to who will bail the track out with Formula 1 head Bernie Ecclestone throwing his hat into the mix. It was reported he might buy the track outright or host a Formula 1 race foregoing sanctioning fees to help out the track. As it turns out according to a newspaper report by Die Rheinpfalz, Ecclestone is not willing to forego any sanctioning fees or organize any Formula 1 race on the Nurburgring at his expense. Classy guy, eh? ...

This is the Panamera Cyrano tuning program from Hamann. Hamann has revised the body kit giving the front fascia larger air intakes and including the oh so trendy LED's that everyone else is. The extended fenders have also been widened. An optional carbon fiber hood rounds out the package. The engine output is bumped up to 603 horses (although no dyno is provided). We doubt this will be a very popular kit or package in the United States where superior power options exist for less money as well as many other body piece options. ...

Eurocharged is very well known for their Mercedes tuning but they also tune for a variety of other platforms such as Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Bentley, basically you name it. That includes BMW and recently Eurocharged did a custom dyno tune for a 1M. The dyno readout here is in killowatts and newton meters so we have converted the figures to units you are all more familiar with (horsepower and pound-feet). ...

Lotus had some very big plans with planned expansion of the model lineup. Those plans fizzled (no surprise really) as they were far too ambitious and expensive. Proton currently owns Lotus so VW would have to consider either a minority or majority stake in the Malaysian company to have any control over Lotus. Volkswagen is flush with cash and is seeking world domination but going after Lotus might just be a waste of resources. The idea is likely to get control of Proton for Asian vehicle production with Lotus just being a part of a larger puzzle. If anyone could turn Lotus around though, it would be VW. ...

]Here is a very interesting new Mercedes crossover. This is the first we have heard of the GLG but Autobild is saying that the model is coming. It is expect to share the A-Class platform which means it will be a front wheel drive with optional 4matic. So, it will not exactly be the sturdy offroad capable vehicle the G-Class is. There will be an off-road package but will anyone take a crossover based on a front wheel drive platform seriously as an off-road vehicle? ...

There are two races in the video versus the same Porsche 996 Turbo. The first video is an outside the car view, which, well, sucks. We are still able to see the 996 Turbo is able to take the 2011 GTR with undisclosed bolt ons. The second red GTR is a 2012 Black Edition with mid pipes and an Ivey Tune. The 996 Turbo beats both and was running 25 psi on its upgraded turbos with E85. The GTR ripped it out of the hole and on the first couple shifts only for the horsepower advantage of the 911 Turbo to take over. ...

Here is the new APR RSC Audi TT-RS exhaust system. The system is modular and consists of several pieces. One can get just the full turbo back exhaust, the downpipe, or just the catback. The full turbo back exhaust including downpipe will obviously offer the largest power gains. APR says the exhaust plus Stage II software on 93 octane will provides gains of 99 horsepower and 113 pound-feet of torque at the crank. ...

The C63 AMG Black Series Coupe obviously looks like it means business. As it should, it is a Black Series and the aeryodynamics are designed to be functional with track performance in mind. The car is not cheap with an as tested price of $129,725. You expect incredible performance at that level and well the car is good but tough to defend for the money. Insideline gets a 12.2@115 out of it which is not bad but certainly not really superior to the standard C63 or one with a P31 performance package for that matter. ...