Category Archives: Automotive News

I don’t follow current events unless you count knowing who builds the awesomest cars in the world a current event.

Aston Martin V8 Vantage S vs. Morgan Aero Coupe – Car and Driver

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Car and Driver’s European Correspondent, Jethro Bovingdon, sets up a British sport coupe showdown. It’s old school vs. new school with the Morgan Aero Coupe taking on the Aston Martin V8 Vantage S. The Aero Coupe is the most performance oriented model from a 100 year old company that still uses ash wood in the frames of some of their cars (if you want to call the 3-Wheeler a car). It’s simple and light giving it a good power to weight ratio with a BMW V8 under the hood. As with anything made by the hands of skilled craftsmen, the Morgan Aero Coupe is not inexpensive. The price tag is in the same neighborhood as the Aston Martin V8 Vantage S. Jethro takes both cars out on track to see how each car takes a different approach at similar concepts.


Source: CAR and DRIVER on YouTube

Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG vs. Bentley Mulsanne – Motor Trend

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I have no delusions in thinking that the DIY auto enthusiast crowd will ever be shopping for $200k-$300k cars like these. It is still interesting to see what’s out there, though. Motor Trend’s Johnny Lieberman pits the Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG against the Bentley Mulsanne after Rolls Royce declined to participate in the showdown. He gets it, too. Johnny ends up showing us what is cool about both cars without taking things too seriously as evident by his joke about the “Peasant Crusher” suspension settings while wearing a tuxedo t-shirt. Even if the fancy luxury stuff doesn’t do it for you, both cars make over 700 ft-lbs of torque. They may not be what we usually talk about here at Flux Auto, but these cars are still extreme ways of expressing the automobile.


Source: Motor Trend on YouTube

2013 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 and ZR-1

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GM is rumored to be debuting the all-new 2014 C7 Chevrolet Corvette at the Detroit Auto Show in January to be on sale summer or fall 2013. To celebrate the end of the C6 dynasty, Car and Driver’s Technical Editor, Michael Austin, rounds up the best of the special editions for a fond tribute. He rounds up the 505 horsepower Z06 and the 628 horsepower ZR-1 for some exercise around the track while talking about what makes each car so special.


Source: Car and Driver on YouTube

2013 Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2

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Car and Driver’s European correspondent, Jethro Bovingdon, brings us what he calls the last of the old school supercars. He’s talking about Lamborghini’s “base model” Gallardo with a true manual transmission and two-wheel drive. Lamborghini first made a two-wheel drive Gallardo to celebrate the retirement of their chief test driver, Valentino Balboni. It seems that car was popular enough to warrant them making it a regular part of the lineup. Even though the Balboni car was rear wheel drive, the suspension was set up very conservative to provide the stability of natural understeer. It seems that problem has been remedied for the LP550-2. Jethro says there is a slight touch of understeer that’s very easy to overcome to put the car into a drift which he demonstrates several times. The other “less is more” feature of the car is the open-gate manual transmission which turns out to be the last of its kind in the age of the modern supercar. It’s a shame that most of the people buying these cars prefer the short shift times to the experience and mastery of shifting your own gears with a clutch. Hopefully they will make a retro novelty comeback sometime in the future.


Source: Car and Driver on YouTube

2012 Car of the Year – evo TV

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This is probably one of the rowdier Car of the Year competitions that you’ll see. Basically evo rounded up the significant new performance cars of this year and got Tiff Needell and Dickie Meaden to pair them up and go head to head out on track. These are the matchups they ended up picking:

  1. Porsche Boxster S vs. Lotus Exige S
  2. Toyota GT-86 vs. Morgan 3 Wheeler
  3. BMW M135i vs. Porsche 911 Carrera
  4. Mercedes C63 AMG Black vs. BMW Alpina B3 GT3
  5. Pagani Huayra vs. McLaren MP4-12C
The guys basically go for feel and fun more so than technical stats and lap times. They do put the lap times in order at the very end to show some surprising performance from some of the cars.


Source: evo TV on YouTube