McLaren's Porsche 911 rival...Check it out...

McLaren's P13 Sports Series is edging ever closer to its debut in the second quarter of 2015. 

Part of the Sports Series range, the coupe we spied testing is likely to first appear at the New York Motor Show in April. Spider convertible and track focused versions of the sub-650S model code-named P13 are likely to follow in its footsteps.

McLaren has now confirmed that its latest model, previously referred to only by its internal codename ‘P13’, will be known as the McLaren Sports Series,' it said. 'It will join the range below the 650S, bringing McLaren credentials and exclusivity to the sportscar segment for the first time.’

A detuned version of McLaren’s 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 with upwards of 450bhp will provide power. The carbon chassis shared with both of its bigger brothers should also make the Sport Series the lightest in its class.

It uses the same carbonfibre MonoCell as the bigger 650S family - and essentially the same 3.8-litre V8, although detuned for its more lowly merely-got-to-beat-a-911-Turbo status.

This is more of a daily driver, and McLaren has consequently made the sills slimmer to ease access, the cabin is roomier and there’s more luggage space too.

The nose has been crafted with the same contoured bonnet, as too have the muscular haunches and gaping door vents. Unlike the P1 and 650S, however, the exhausts have been moved to the lower section of the rear bumper.

Ford to build the new GT, race it at Le Mans

Ford will return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans with an all-new GT car in 2016, as part of a factory program that will also include a two-car GT Le Mans class effort in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship. Chip Ganassi Racing is expected to field a two-car GT-Le Mans entry for the entire TUSC season in 2016 as well as the Le Mans effort, with Scott Pruett and new team driver Joey Hand in the lead car.

The planned 2016 effort will mark Ford’s return to factory competition at Le Mans on the 50th anniversary of its first overall win in the twice-around-the-clock French endurance classic.


The race car should debut on track at the 2016 Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. The drivers of the other team car aren't known, but could be sourced indirectly from Multimatic, the Canadian company that is apparently leading the development of the new race car. There is also speculation that the car could be homologated later as a GT3, making it appealing to potential Ford Racing customers. 

Ford has a press conference scheduled for Monday, January 12 at the Detroit show, and the FIA's World Endurance Championship has a press conference scheduled for the following day.

2015 Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 Pirelli Edition

Lamborghini has announced production of an exclusive new special series, the Aventador LP700-4 Pirelli Edition, created to celebrate the long and ongoing history of collaboration with prestigious Italian tire manufacturer Pirelli. The partnership began back in 1963, the year the House of the Raging Bull was established, and since then all Lamborghini cars have been equipped with Pirelli tires. The two firms share not only their Italian origins but also, and above all, a constant quest for technological innovation.

The new Aventador Pirelli Edition, available in Coupé and Roadster versions, will be produced in a special series and is available to order now from dealers, for delivery early summer 2015. The super sports car maintains all its unique technical features, first and foremost the carbon fiber monocoque, the V12 engine, pushrod suspensions and the permanent all-wheel drive, which underlie the Aventador's global success. The special Pirelli series is enhanced by exclusive equipment specifically designed by the Lamborghini Centro Stile.

The exterior sports a two-tone color scheme in two options. The first is matte black for the roof, the pillars, the rearview mirrors, the engine hood, and the front, rear, side and moving air intakes, in contrast with six glossy finishes for the rest of the body (Giallo Spica, Rosso Mars, Bianco Isis, Nero Aldebaran, Grigio Liqueo, and Grigio Ater). The second option is glossy black for the upper parts of the car and the air intakes, in contrast with four matte finishes for the rest of the exterior (Bianco Canopus, Nero Nemesis, Grigio Adamas, and Grigio Titans).

Another distinctive element of the body is a thin red stripe that runs along the roof and the engine hood, the rearview mirrors, and the outer profiles of the air intakes, a stylistic feature designed to evoke the unmistakable Pirelli branding. The Pirelli logo, once again in red, is visible at the start of the two roof lines and on the tires.

Standard equipment for the exterior also includes the transparent engine hood, the engine compartment in carbon, glossy black Dione 20"/21"rims, P Zero tires with red logo and red calipers (yellow only in the case of the Rosso Mars exterior).

The interiors of the Aventador Pirelli Edition are upholstered with black Alcantara with red contrast stitching. The red stripe on the body is also repeated on the inside, running along the interior ceiling and the seats, which feature the Lamborghini and Pirelli crests embroidered in red. Leather inserts adorn the door panels and the seat sides. And finally, to underscore its exclusiveness, each car will have a "Pirelli special series" plaque inside.

The plucky powertrain providing 515 kW (700 hp) at 8.250 U/min combined with the ultra-fast ISR transmission enables top-level performance for the Pirelli model: 0 to 100 km/h acceleration in just 2.9 seconds and top speed reaching 350 km/h.

Lamborghini and Pirelli for more than 50 years

The collaboration between Lamborghini and Pirelli dates back to 1963, the year in which Ferruccio Lamborghini turned to Pirelli to supply the tires for the first car of his newly established automotive company: the 350 GTV, presented as a prototype at the Turin Motor Show the same year.

Both this model and the street version presented the following year at the Geneva Motor Show, the 350 GT, sported Pirelli Cinturato HS tires, specifically developed at the time to equip sports cars that were already capable of reaching a top speed of 240 km/h. The abbreviation HS stood for High Speed, indicating the tire's ability to withstand the high speeds of the newly developed super sports cars of the '60s.

The year 1966 marked the definitive confirmation of the Lamborghini brand, with the introduction of the legendary Miura. Entering the Pirelli catalogue of 1967 --- along with the Lamborghini 350 GT and 400 GT - the latest member of the Sant'Agata Bolognese family was equipped with a new generation of Cinturato HS tires: the CN72, in the 205 VR 15 size. From the traditional tread pattern of the classic Cinturato CA67, the new tire brought a quieter and more comfortable design and was adopted as original equipment for all the subsequent Lamborghini models, including the Espada, which appeared in 1968. A few years later, when Lamborghini requested for the Miura a lower profile "Series 70", i.e. a tire with a much lower sidewall with respect to the width of the tread, designed to considerably improve cornering, Pirelli introduced the new Cinturato CN73 size 225/70 VR 15. This paved the way for the "low profile" tire that led to the Pirelli P7, chosen in 1971 as original equipment for the Lamborghini's new super sports car, the Countach, which dominated the entire decade of the '70s. Once again it was Lamborghini who christened on the road another new product in the Pirelli family. In 1988 the Countach "Anniversary" version - launched to mark the company's 25th anniversary - was one of the first supercars to be equipped with the new Pirelli P Zero tires.

But the partnership between Pirelli and Lamborghini has not been limited to technological aspects alone. Pirelli advertisements have often featured the supercars of the House of the Raging Bull. The Lamborghini Countach Anniversary, for example, was used in a series of Pirelli advertising campaigns aimed at the American and Southeast Asian markets, just like the Miura had starred in a campaign in 1970 for high-prestige original equipment with the eloquent title: "The Miura chose Pirelli Cinturato".

Meanwhile, between 1986 and 1988 Lamborghini produced the super-off-road vehicle LM002. For this precursor to modern luxury SUVs, Pirelli specially designed the Scorpion range of tires, with innovative features such as the use of Kevlar in the ply structure and run-flat construction. The LM002 participated in the 1988 Paris-Dakar Rally, marking the beginning of the Lamborghini/Pirelli duo in racing. The sporting collaboration between the two houses is still going strong, and Pirelli is the exclusive supplier of the one make series Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo.

1990 marked the arrival of the Lamborghini Diablo, built in 3000 units, all equipped with Pirelli PZero tires, while the early 2000s were dominated by the Murciélago (2002) and the Gallardo (2003), both fitted with PZero Rosso tires. In 2007, the Lamborghini Gallardo starred in the Pirelli film "Mission Zero" with Uma Thurman, and the same model launched Pirelli's Winter Sottozero II tire on the snows of Zermatt in 2008. In perusing this intensive album of memories, the images of today could not be left out, which continue to show Pirelli technology and safety side by side with the supercars of the House of the Raging Bull. The Veneno, a dream car created to celebrate Lamborghini's 50th anniversary, features specially developed Pirelli tires bearing a red logo that brings to mind the PZero Formula One tires. And then there's the latest entry, the Huracán, fitted with specially developed P Zero tires bearing a specific marking on the tire with the letter "L".

*Source - www.netcarshow.com

Galpin-Fisker Rocket 2015 Ford Mustang

When renowned designer Henrik Fisker approached his longtime friend and colleague, Galpin Auto Sports manager Beau Boeckmann, with advanced design sketches for a super-tuner 2015 Ford Mustang, the two wasted no time. And in Less than four months, the 725 horsepower Galpin-Fisker 'Rocket' is turning heads at the 2014 Los Angeles auto show. These tw muscle car maniacs are now preparing to put this monster into production.

The Rocket was designed by Henrik Fisker, who has a pretty good track record of designing striking cars. He's worked on the BMW Z8, Aston Martin DB8 and 9, and, of course, the Fisker Karma, which, for all its troubles, was at the very least a remarkable design.

Rocket’s design also builds heavily on the modern lines and cues on the 2015 Ford Mustang GT on which it is based. The familiar Mustang logo gallops across a hexagonal carbon-fiber grille, split horizontally by an aluminum bar. The Galpin-Fisker Rocket’s new face sits on top of a carbon-fiber front splitter, which is matched with enlarged front intakes and two massive hood scoops that help cool the car’s 725-hp V-8 engine. Custom side skirts, flared fenders, brake-cooling side skirts (for the 15-inch Brembos), a rear diffuser, and a rear decklid spoiler are also included to improve aerodynamics and downforce.

“My favorite Mustang is the 1968 Shelby GT500 that had this long hood and huge air intakes,” said Fisker, in a statement. “It gave me butterflies the first time I saw it. We wanted to recreate that feeling with this car.”

As impressive as the car looks in person, what’s even more impressive is the time frame in which it went from idea to reality. Once the ball started rolling on the Rocket, the partners were dead-set on bringing the car to life. “When [Fisker] showed me that design, I literally got chills,” Boeckmann told AUTOMOBILE at the Los Angeles auto show. Galpin Auto Sports would then unveil a one-off tuner 2015 Ford Mustang at SEMA, with the same supercharged, 725-hp V-8 engine.

Hennessey Venom F5

The Hennessey Venom GT made quite a splash when it set a  Guinness World Record for the fastest production car from 0–300 kilometres per hour (0–186 mph) with an average acceleration time of 13.63 seconds. Also, the car set an unofficial record for 0–200 mph (0–322 km/h) acceleration at 14.51 seconds, beating the Koenigsegg Agera R's time of 17.68 seconds, making it the unofficial fastest accelerating car in the world. 


Here is its successor, the Hennessey Venom F5....

Why is it called F5? Here's the answer...The name F5 is derived from a top speed tornado. The Fujita scale pegs the strongest tornado as an F5, with windspeed of about 261 to 318 mph, which is in the region of the speed barrier that the Venom F5 was designed to break. Thus the name F5...


The new supercar from Hennessey Performance, Venom F5, will have an all-new design that is not only a powerful and unique but a vehicle that will achieve even higher performance through improved aerodynamics than its predecessor.


The next-generation twin-turbo powertrain is still under development, but turbo size for the longitudinally mounted V8 is increased, and the fuel system and intercooler capacity are upgraded to handle the demands of increased boost. Hard numbers for power are not yet available, but it’s conceivable that output could exceed 1400 bhp.


With extensive use of carbon fiber and aluminum, weight will remain under 1300 kg (2866 lb.), just slightly more than the Venom GT’s 1244-kg curb weight. So it’s highly probable the F5 will eclipse the Venom GT’s current acceleration records too, which stand at 14.51 seconds to 200 mph, and 13.63 seconds to 186 mph (300 km/h).


The Venom F5 will be unveiled in 2015 with deliveries to customers in late 2016. At least 30 Venom F5s will be produced for sale worldwide, at a price higher than that of the Venom GT, which currently sells for $1.2 million. The Venom GT will continue to be offered; at present, 16 cars of the 29-car total production run have been sold.