Celebrating 50 Years of Queensland’s Lakeside Park [with Gallery]

Nestled somewhat innocuously behind a golf course in Pine Rivers Shire, South East Queensland, Australia, is historic Lakeside Park Raceway. It holds the distinction as the Queensland’s first permanent, purpose-built racetrack and has sat - for fifty years - on the banks of Lake Kurwongbah. It is a monument to both motorsport and Australia’s can-do attitude, having been built on a foundation of favors, borrowed equipment and volunteer labor - not to mention a former dairy farm.

It is 2.4 km (1.5 miles) of bitumen and yet, it is so much more. Several Aussie motorsport legends – including Dick Johnson, Tony Longhurst and Mick Doohan – cut their teeth at Lakeside. It may not share the prestige or recognition afforded to other tracks like Mount Panorama or Philip Island, but to those who know it Lakeside is just as beloved.

Read more »

VW Remembers its First Diesel-Powered Golf, we Compare it with its Modern Day Successors

In 1976, just two years after the introduction of the original Golf Mk1 that was designed to replace the Beetle, Volkswagen presented the first diesel version of its compact model, the Golf D. It was powered by a 1.5-liter four-cylinder diesel engine that put out 50HP at 5,000 rpm and 80Nm (59 lb-ft) of peak torque at 3,000 rpm.

The most economical Golf of its time returned a combined fuel economy of 6.5 lt /100km, equal to 36.2 mpg US and was able to complete the 0-100km/h (62mph) sprint in 19 seconds while reaching a top speed of 141 km/h (88 mph).

Over the years the Volkswagen Group invested in this particular engine technology and today, buyers of the current, sixth generation of the Golf can choose from a variety of diesel powerplants ranging in output from 105HP to 170HP. And the results are quite impressive when you compare the original Golf D from 1976 to its modern day successors.

Read more »

Zagato TZ3 Stradale: A Dodge Viper ACR Dressed as an Alfa Romeo

We don’t know if Fiat and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne’s future plans for the upcoming, next generation of the Dodge Viper include the development of a corresponding Alfa Romeo model based on the underpinnings of the muscle car, but famed Italian coachbuilder Zagato has given the formula a try with its new TZ3 Stradale.

You see, Zagato’s TZ3 Stradale is an Alfa Romeo bodied sports car based on the platform and mechanical hardware of the track-conquering Dodge Viper ACR, which features the same 600HP 8.4-liter V10 engine as the standard Viper SRT-10 along with a 6-speed manual gearbox and a race-spec suspension. All parts of the TZ3 Stradale’s carbon fiber body are new with the cherry topping being the classic Kamm-tail (K-tail) layout.

Read more »

Barely Driven BMW M1 with Less than 3,000 Miles on the Odo up for Sale on eBay

Today’s eBay find brings us a seemingly immaculate BMW M1 from 1980 that’s offered up for an undisclosed price. One of 455 (albeit some bring this number down to 451) examples ever built, this one is finished in a classic red hue with a black interior. Claimed to be in original condition, the seller says it has been driver a mere 4,418 kilometers or 2,747 miles since it left the Bavarian automaker’s factory some 31 years ago.

According to the eBay listing, the M1 was “garaged for all of its life and pampered” in a German private residence, before it was imported in the U.S. having surpassed the 25-year age requirement. At the time we wrote this article, the current bid on the car was US$130,500, but the reserve had not been met.

Read more »

Mercedes to Mark Unimog's 60th Birthday with Special Celebrations

This year, Mercedes-Benz's Unimog truck celebrates its 60th birthday and to honor this milestone, the German automaker will host a special anniversary party on June 4. Fans, club members, owners of classic vehicles, drivers and owners of current models are all invited to the event, which will be hosted at the Wörth plant in Germany where the Unimog is built today. Read more »

New Audi R8 Print Ad: "A Sporty Car Full of History"

Longtime VW Group advertising partner DBB has come up with a new print advertisement for the Audi R8 to highlight the brand’s rich sports car heritage. The print ad, which is the creative work of DDB Barcelona, plays on the tag-line “Audi R8: A sporty car full of history” and shows a cut of the R8 coupe incorporating three racing models from Audi’s past including the Ur-Quattro rally car, and what looks to be the NSU TT and Auto Union Type D. We’ll remind you that NSU and Auto Union merged in 1969 to create what we know today as the Audi brand.

Read more »

Steam Whistle Brewery’s “Retro Electro” Injects Some Green Cred into Some Detroit Old Iron

When I say, “Electric Pickup,” you no doubt think of either the Ssangyong Actyon Sports-derived Phoenix SUT or one of those toy-like, Chinese-built neighborhood electric vehicles. What you may not think of is a bright green 1958 Chevy Apache owed by Canada’s Steam Whistle Brewery and recharged via wind power.

No, this isn’t a late April Fool’s Day joke: this is serious. And being green is serious business for Steam Whistle, which – among other things – uses renewable energy, recycles damn-near everything and supports various environmental causes as a sideline to its beer brewing enterprise.

Brewery manager Mike Kiraly came up with the idea of electrifying the ol’ girl and even uses it as his daily driver. He explains his brainwave: “What if we could take a sexy vintage ride, save it from the metal scrap heap and outfit it with a zero-tailpipe-emissions engine. Old-school style combined with a modern conscience.”

Read more »

Mercedes-Benz Launches 125th Anniversary Scale Models and Merchandise

Mercedes-Benz announced the introduction of new collection with special scale models and branded products to mark the 125th birthday of the motor car. The lineup includes a dedicated range of scale models of legendary vehicles produced over the years by the Stuttgart-based carmaker. Read more »

It Came from eBay Hell: Porsche 959 Speedster Replica

In 1986, the Porsche 959 was the world’s fastest street legal product car. Some 337 of these road-going monsters were built but not one of them was a factory-finished convertible. Regardless of what you may have heard or seen on forums, such a vehicle was never sanctioned by Porsche. There was a one-off “Speedster” built by Auto-Becker for the 1989 Frankfurt Motor Show but that’s about it.

So is this done and dusted? Of course not; this is the internet we’re talking about. 959 Speedsters are sighted by Porsche enthusiasts as much as Elvis Presley or the Loch Ness monster. If you believe what you’ve read, these things are everywhere. And I do mean everywhere, even in New Zealand.

So our seller throws in the usual platitudes we’ve come to expect from this sort of posting like, “This is one very rare and special car,” and that it was “professionally built”.

Read more »

Fiat Crafts Furniture Pieces Inspired by the Original 500

At this week’s 50th Furniture Fair in Milan, Italy, Fiat previewed the “Fiat 500 Design Collection”, an initiative by the firm’s marketing boss Lapo Elkann and furniture maker Meritalia. The collection is a tribute to the original Fiat 500 and includes a sofa, a table and a console, all inspired by the 1970's Fiat 500. Each of the three pieces sports a plate that says: “Lapo and Meritalia pay tribute to the Fiat 500”. Read more »

Insane, Tire-Shredding Suzuki Might Boy Mini Ute with LS1-V8 [Video]

Come on, admit it, tire-smoking burnouts are a blast to watch. Even more so when the vehicle in question is a Japanese kei car stuffed with a GM-sourced LS1 V8. Enter the world of the Curupt, a wildly modified Suzuki Might Boy that comes to us from the land of Down Under.

Largely unknown to most of the world, the Suzuki Mighty Boy is a toy-sized pickup truck-style model from the glorious 1980s that was sold in Japan as well as Australia and Cyprus between 1985 and 1988. Despite its promising name, the fact that it was based on the Giugiaro-designed Suzuki Curve kei car meant the Mighty Boy was anything but ‘mighty’ as power came from a puny 0.5-liter three-cylinder engine delivering around 28 ponies.

Read more »

It Came from eBay Hell: Thunder Ranch Riot with Scat Crate Engine

If Geo had asked Isuzu to design them a car that would appeal to California’s surfer crowd in the mid-1990s, chances are it’d look a lot like the Thunder Ranch Riot. A fibreglass bodied, Volkswagen Beetle-based turnkey kit car, the Riot looks like a Geo Storm that’s been cut, shut and had Dodge Viper parts tacked on to its exterior. And it can be all yours for the low, low price of US$12,000.

Read more »

Las Vegas Classic Car Showroom Selling Half a VW Beetle: What Would you do With it?

When I was in high school, my teacher had the front half of a mid-‘80s Mitsubishi Sigma (sold stateside as the Gallant) that he used for teaching students car maintenance. It was blocked off behind the front seats with wooden slats and had two castor wheels at the back so it could easily be moved around.

All well and good, but what use would be the other, engine-less half? I mean, it’d just be a steel shell with a generous (if not altogether compact) lockable storage area. This is the question posed by this rather interesting automotive oddity: a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle “Front End Display”.

Read more »

A Perfect Match: A Short Film from BMW Classic about a Man and his 1602

If you’re the kind of type that falls in love with his wheels no matter what anybody else says or believes, then we’re pretty sure you’re going to be fond of BMW Classic’s new short film called “A Perfect Match”.

The movie, which was awarded the Golden Dolphin at the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards, follows the story of a man called Jack and his search for appropriate replacement for his battered down BMW 1602. The reason? Blame the lack of an air conditioning system that has made his life unbearable in the hot summer days and nights of Los Angeles. You may or may not suspect what’s going to happen half-way through the film, but either way, we won't spoil the end. To view the film, simply follow the break below.

Read more »

Auto Art: 1938 Hispano-Suiza H-6C Xenia by Dubonnet

If you’re familiar with classic cars, you’ll know that the interwar models of Spanish firm Hispano-Suiza are among the most coveted and collectable of them all. These weren’t just cars: these were automotive works of art.

The Hispano-Suiza H-6C of 1932 was a fairly ordinary looking two-seat convertible, but in the hands of race car driver and ex-WWI fighter pilot Andre Dubonnet, it became something all the more special.

With the assistance of specialist coachbuilder Jacques Saoutchik and engineer Antoine-Marie Chedru, the H-6C received a four-wheel independent suspension setup and a sleek, aircraft-inspired body that featured gullwing windows and suicide doors.

Read more »

Motoring Icons: A Tribute to BMW’s 1500 / 1800 / 2000 Series

In 1961 at the 40th Annual Frankfurt International Motor Show in Germany, Bavarian automaker BMW lifted the wraps off of two very special prototypes: the first of its 1500 “Neue Klasse” mid-sizers. For years, Beamer had been working on a new model to slot between its entry-level one and two cylinder cars and its more expensive, luxury-geared six and eight cylinder ones.

The result was a stylish four door sedan fitted with a 75 hp (56 kW) inline four, front disc brakes and weighing in at 2,095 lb (950 kg).

The design of the saloon was reminiscent of Italian cars, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given that, when developing the design of the 1500, BMW’s chief stylist Wilhelm Hofmeister had sought the advice of Giovanni Michelotti, who had already collaborated on the 700.

Read more »

Toyota Sells One-Millionth Prius Hybrid in the States

The Toyota Prius, a car that is often credited for bringing hybrid-electric technology to the masses, has managed to rack up its one-millionth sale in the USA. The announcement comes shortly after Toyota achieved two more milestones that started with global Prius sales topping the two million mark in October 2010 and overall global Toyota hybrid sales passing three million last month.

Read more »

Video Tour of the Unmade BMW M Cars Including the M3 Tourer and Compact, Ur-Roadster and M5 Cabriolet

It is by far, the most sacred place for a BMW M fan. We’re talking about the BMW M Division’s underground facility where the company stores copies of all the production cars and prototypes it has ever built, including a variety of never before seen in public vehicles. In a surprising but much welcomed move, the German automaker recently opened the doors of the special M garage to the members of the press and select enthusiasts revealing an array of models that most had only heard about.

We already brought you a video of the wild M8 Coupe with the 580-horsepower V12 engine that was eventually used on the McLaren F1, but now we have several videos showcasing the entire lineup of M cars.

These include the E46 M3 Touring (BMW for station wagon), the E36 M3 Compact powered by the same 321HP straight-six from the M3 Coupe of the time, the E34 M5 Cabriolet with open-top seating for four, an M3 powered E30 ute and possibly the strangest creation yet, the so called Ur-Roadster. The latter is said to have been developed after the Z1 with power being delivered by the E30 M3’s 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine.

Read more »

Meet the Mefistofele, Fiat's 21.7-liter Record-Breaking Car from Hell

The story of the Mefistofele started in 1908, when Fiat introduced the SB4 chain-driven Grand Prix racer. After seeing it race, Sir Ernest Eldridge from Britain bought the car with the aim of turning it into speed record breaker.

However, there was one problem: the original car's 18.0-liter engine was considered rather small by Eldridge, who decided to replace it with a massive airplane powerplant (you can read a similar story here). He opted for a liquid-cooled Fiat-built 21.7-liter inline six-cylinder unit (type A-12 Bis) that developed 320 horsepower at 1,800 rpm after various upgrades such as the fitting of four valves and four spark plugs on each cylinder.

The story goes that in order to accommodate the long and heavy engine, Eldridge lengthened the SB4's chassis using parts from a London bus. The car was chain-driven and had brakes only at the rear, which made it a handful for even the most experienced of drivers. Interestingly, experts fail to understand even today the mechanism that allowed the car to reverse, since there is no trace of it left.

Read more »

VIDEO: New Dodge Charger Ad Inaugurates Fast and Furious Five Partnership

If you’re a car buff, chances are you’ve heard about the next chapter in the Fast and Furious franchise that’s scheduled for release in theaters towards the end of April (see the trailer here). Being that the movie series is popular among car enthusiasts, the Chrysler Group decided to team up with Universal Pictures for a multi-tiered partnership.

Aside from providing 2010 and 2011 model year Dodge Charger vehicles used in numerous chase scenes throughout the Fast Five movie, the Detroit automaker is also sponsoring a Dodge/Fast Five advertisement that will air for the first time on Saturday, April 2 during the Final Four basketball tournaments. However, you can get a sneak peak right after the jump.

Read more »