This episode of Big Muscle on Drive is a casual tribute to the Shelby Cobra. The host spends the day driving and falling in love with a Cobra replica project car. It’s 450 hp in a 2200 pound short wheelbase chassis with a finish that doesn’t have to be worried about. It’s really nothing more profound than a call to build awesome cars and enjoy them.
Pickuptrucks.com ran this head to head comparison of the two top factory built offroad pickup trucks, the Ford SVT Raptor vs. the Mopar Ram Rummer. It’s an important to make the distinction that the Ram Rummer is built by Mopar and not by Dodge. The guys over at Pickuptrucks.com say it’s almost like a factory vs. aftermarket comparison. The Raptor is something that you buy off of the showroom floor whereas the Ram Runner is a purpose built vehicle assembled with a Dodge Ram and lots of MOPAR add-on parts. They turn both trucks over to champion desert racer Chad Ragland to take them through a pretty gnarly timed course. Head over to Pikcuptrucks.com for all the detailed specs and results.
I came across another one of Motor Trend’s random gratuitous drag races. This is the 2012 Nissan GT-R vs. the 2011 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 vs. the 2011 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500. One of the interesting stats to note is that the Corvette is the only car without forced induction, but weighs in under 3300 pounds while the other two are north of 3800. Enjoy:
Source: Motor Trend on YouTube
It’s not hard to see why Ford was able to survive without having to take government bailout money. They’ve always had huge customer sales with their F-150 trucks and fleet sales of the Crown Victoria and Ford Ranger. They’re also innovating well as evident by their EcoBoost technology. That being said, the key to continued success is to not be afraid of reinventing yourself while you are at the peak of your success. Ford has ended production of both the Crown Vic and the Ranger as part of a large corporate restructuring. I believe the last Crown Victorias were purchased by a police department while the last Rangers were bought up by Orkin. This is a video documenting the trip of the last Ford Ranger down the assembly line at the Twin Cities Assembly Plant in St. Paul Minnesota. It’s pretty cool to see the line workers take pride in the quality product that they produced.
This is the final lap of the 2010 Gold Coast round of the Australian V8 Supercar series. Series champion, Jamie Whincup, has to hold off a hard charging Shane Van Gisbergen to win the race. They make some contact, but it’s still classy racing. This is why I like this series so much.
Source: KimiRa1kkonen on YouTube