Author Archives: Will@FluxAuto

Porsche 551 “Baby Boxster” Project Lives

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Automobile Magazine's Porsche 551 Speculative Rendering

Automobile Magazine just released this story saying that the project to make a 2 seat entry level sports car was still alive at Porsche. We first heard about this project a few years ago when Volkswagen had announced the Bluesport roadster concept. The idea was that the car would be co-developed by VW and Porsche to save on development costs while still providing each brand with their own model. The economic collapse then effectively killed everybody’s niche market sports car ideas. The word is that the project is now back on for after Porsche has finished development on all new 991 model 911 variants, the 918 Spyder and their new 960 Ferrari fighter and several other projects. Head over to Automobile Magazine to read all the specific details.

2013 Nissan GT-R vs. 2012 Porsche 911 Turbo S: Motor Trend Head 2 Head

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Motor Trend pits their new 2013 Nissan GT-R Black Edition long term test car up against the 2012 Porsche 911 Turbo S. This may not seem like a natural comparison, but both of these cars have twin turbocharged 3.8 liter V6’s powering all wheel drive systems. Nissan has been incrementally upgrading the GT-R every year since its release. Starting in 2012, they really killed the car’s natural tendency to understeer and a lot of people declared that they had given the car a soul. The 911 Turbo S costs $71,000 more than the GT-R. Even though the naturally aspirated 911 moved to the new 991 chassis this year, the turbo is still on last year’s 997 chassis. Johnny Lieberman flogs both cars on Mulholland drive, then drag races them and hits the standard performance tests.


Source: Motor Trend on YouTube

Oil and the Economy

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Epipheo put together this simple and effective explanation on how our economy is tied to oil. Every time we start to thrive, the US increases its demand for oil which drives the price up and slows our growth. The video advocates the starting of a “third industrial revolution.” This revolution would be the development of electric cars and multiple clean and renewable energy sources to ween us off our oil and fossil fuel dependence. I started this site and the electric vehicle conversion project because I believe that gear heads need to contribute and stake their claim in this third industrial revolution. It’ll leave us behind if we let it.


Source: Epipheo via Gizmodo

The Chibikart

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The Chibikart is the brainchild of Charles Guan, a student going for his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He’s been tinkering with robots since 2000 when he was inspired by the Battle Bots tournaments. The Chibikart is the latest of his collection of awesome projects. It’s driven by 4 custom wound hub motors in 100mm skate wheels.

In the center of the frame is a 300 watt-hour battery pack made by A123 Systems which is a company started by an MIT professor. They supply lithium-ion batteries for a lot of high performance R&D electric vehicles, the Fisker Karma and the upcoming Chevy Spark.

Charles estimates the kart will hit 21 mph with him on it, but has yet to do any top speed trials. It definitely looks like it has some pep in the hooning video:


You should definitely head over to Charles’s blog called E To The Pi Plus One to see all of the details on the build of the Chibikart and his other projects.

Source: Gizmodo

Ducati MS4R by Paulo Tesio

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Meet the Ducati MS4R built in Italy by Paulo Tesio. The bike started life as a Ducati Monster S4R. Paulo made CAD models of the MS4R so that a CNC machine could make the foam molds used to lay the fiberglass pieces. I really like the girder style fork covers. It also has a new rear seat frame that is interchangeable with the stock one. Paulo went on to say that he might produce more of these kits if there was a demand for it.

Head over to Racing Cafe to see the rest of the pictures.