Etc : Car News And Reviews

Google Street View adds another tour to their mapping of supercar manufacturers (we previously saw the McLaren Technology Centre), this time with the Pagani workshop and showroom in in Modena, Italy. Now you can dream of your next Pagani supercar or take a look at Pagani’s racing history from the comfort of your living room.

Toyota’s new Sports Drive Logger, which goes on sale on June 2, 2014, allows drivers to capture detailed performance information, including GPS position, vehicle speed, engine revolutions, accelerator pedal stroke, steering angle, brake operation signals, and more in real time while driving.

Let’s hop in the wayback machine to Top Gear Series 6, in which the guys took a look at the speedy Vauxhall VXR. During their time at the track, they spent some time with Japan’s D1 Drifters, who not only showed off their impressive powersliding skills with their own cars, they took on the VXR to see if it could keep up with the big boys.

It’s April 1st, so pretty much anything you read on the Internet needs to be taken with a very large grain of salt. Take for example, BMW’s announcement that it’s working on a new technology which can make cars that are driving slowly feel like they are driving fast.

Is that a Ford Fusion or an Aston Martin Rapide coming your way? If you find yourself trying to identify cars by their headlights or taillights when driving at night, have we got a game for you.

Go for a thrilling ride with Volkswagen Polo driver Andreas Mikkelsen and co-driver Mikko Markkula in this first-person footage of their dizzying, dirt- and gravel-covered rollercoaster ride through the hills of Guanajuato. Be sure to watch it in full screen HD for the maximum experience. 

Exotics Racing is an on-track driving experience with locations in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. They give us ordinary humans the chance to drive in dream cars at a high speed. I visited the Las Vegas location to get into some of the cars I’ve wanted to drive for some time.

Daredevil driver Guerlain Chicherit’s attempt to set the world record for the longest ramp jump went horribly wrong when his Monster Energy/Team Toyo MINI Countryman went nose-first into the landing ramp and cartwheeled end-over-end to a stop.

Local Motors has announced a first in the automotive world: it will build a 3D-printed production vehicle and deliver it to the first customer live at the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) 2014 in Chicago in September 2014.

As we already know, Formula 1 cars have been forced to make changes this year both for safety and fuel efficiency reasons. And while the technology inside of 2014’s F1 cars is impressive, we have to say they’ve lost something important – their sound.

Mitsubishi Motors brought together members of the press and challenged them to maximize the mileage they could eke out of a Mitsubishi Mirage by making only very minor modifications to their cars from production form. It seems nearly every contestant in the Mitsubishi Motors Extreme MPG Hypermiling Challenge tried to optimize the car’s aerodynamics by duct taping over gaps at the front of the car between the hood and the fenders and covering over some sections on their vehicle’s front fascia.

A recent trend in car finishing is to coat entire vehicles in spray-on Plasti Dip. The guys at DipYourCar specialize in application tools and color additives for the rubberized coating, and are now showing off an incredible finish that can actually change colors as you walk around the car.

Full-serve gas stations are but a distant memory for most of the U.S., but in Tokyo, the tradition is alive and well. In this video by Steve’s POV, he gets a chance to spend some time working the pumps, and shows us some of the services that are offered to drivers when they gas up.

This Sunday, March 16, driver Guerlain Chicherit will drive his Monster Energy/Team Toyo MINI Countryman down a giant ramp in the French alpine town of Tignes in an attempt to set the world record for the longest ramp jump. 

This 50-year-old farmer from the Chinese city of Zhengzhou is a better grandfather than you’ll ever be. He built his grandson this mini replica Lamborghini from scrap metal. The car has an electric motor that can run for 35 miles between charges as speeds up to 26 mph, rear-view mirrors, a stereo system and can even go in reverse.