Tiff Needell does a head to head track battle to find out which front engine rear drive European super roadster is the fastest. He pits the Mercedes Benz SLS AMG Roadster against the Aston Martin DBS Volante on a rainy track to see which one could post the fastest time.
Between Top Gear, Chris Harris and this guy from Car and Driver, the British are cranking out some excellent car reviewers. It’s a good thing for Car and Driver, too. The rest of their videos on YouTube are pretty much garbage. Here they are testing the latest iteration of the Ariel Atom with the supercharged Honda Type-R engine. I really liked the shots from different points of the car where you can see the components working as it drives. It might just be me, but it looks like they’ve made the suspension setup a lot more progressive. He’s able to do a lot of gratuitous sliding where it used to be more of a grip-grip-snap car. Just more proof that a fast lap time doesn’t necessarily mean the car’s a lot of fun.
BMW Canada recreated high speed bullet footage on a much larger scale using the new twin turbo 552 horsepower M5. The water balloons breaking are especially awesome.
This video from one of the European race car sound video guys hit YouTube this past weekend. It was taken at Ferrari’s private test track, Fiorano Circuit, near the Ferrari factory in Maranello. Here’s a picture of the track:
It looks like the videographer was hiding out in the cluster of trees above the center of the picture. His or her hard work brought us some footage of a Ferrari California test mule with what is most likely a turbo V6 that is being developed for Maserati.
Source: YouTube user Marchettino
The Toyota FT-86 (aka the Toyota GT-86, Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ) has three stages of Vehicle Stability Control: on, sport and off. These guys get to try out all of the settings on the skid pad at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. The facility has a water barrier slalom similar to the one they have at the Porsche Experience Center. Thankfully the three settings are all quite different and will be pretty useful.