Spied: 2008 Lexus LF-A - Car News

Though Lexus spokespeople continue to play dumb with us, pretending that the LF-A coupe that graced the show stand in Detroit in January of 2005 remains merely a concept and nothing more, we know much better, having camped out to see the numerous LF-A-derived prototypes lapping Germany’s famous Nürburgring test track during the last year or so.


While the most recent prototype, seen in these pictures, clearly has a lot in common with the slippery, elegant show car, it appears that several key aspects of the coupe’s styling have changed, perhaps to address initial criticisms that the silky concept LF-A had a bit too much Victoria’s Secret and not enough Hugo Boss in the look of its designer duds. Clearly, something had to be done for the LF-A to be taken seriously by the 911 crowd.

What we can tell by looking, then, by comparing it with the concept (below left) as well as earlier prototypes, is that the production LF-A (right) will have larger, triangular headlamps that will reach higher into the fenders than the demure, quad-lamp treatment seen on the concept. Also changed is the front air dam, which is more aggressive and contains a solid panel in the center where the concept had an aperture. Speaking of apertures, it seems that Lexus has added an additional air intake on the bodyside aft of the door to feed more air to the mid-mounted engine (which last we heard was a V-10 with a rumored 500 horsepower or so). In back, the huge, low-mounted rear grilles seem to have swollen in a most ungainly way, but the trio of center-mounted exhaust pipes remains intact.

Another interesting development is the installation of a massive, fixed rear wing (which would surely be scaled down for production) in place of the smaller version we saw on previous prototypes. Could it be that Lexus is trying to add even more top-end performance, now that Audi has shown us its 187-mph R8? Let’s hear it for one-upmanship!

Considering that Lexus won’t even acknowledge the presence of the prototype you see here, there is no official word on actual engine output, transmission choices, pricing, on-sale date, or anything else we’d really like to know, for that matter. However, our expert conjecture is that the V-10 will be mated to an eight-speed manumatic transaxle when the car goes on sale late next year or in early 2008 with a price tag of about $100K, making it the priciest Japanese car ever to be sold in the U.S.For More

Full Test: 2008 Chevrolet Corvette

With all the feverish excitement surrounding the Corvette Z06 and the absurdly powerful Corvette ZR1, you'd almost believe that the standard Corvette had virtually ceased to exist.

Indeed, it has not. And the 2008 Chevrolet Corvette we've just tested proves that while the standard Vette might sit in the shadow cast by its more publicity-friendly brethren, it has received something more valuable than media attention: performance.

We're going to run as many stories as we can about those two crazy-fast Corvette specials once they appear. But this page is devoted to the decidedly less sexy world of continuous improvement — the year-to-year ministrations that keep the Corvette viable. After all, there would be no Z06 and certainly no ZR1 without the standard car.

And considering that Chevy sells roughly one Corvette for every 10 Accords that Honda sells (and 10 times the number of S-Types that Jaguar sells), we're talking about a pretty impressive automobile.

Jet Chips

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Jet Chips PartsJet Chips and Power Chips can provide exclusive full range DST programming of the air/fuel ratio ignition advance other parameters. Each of these programs are track and dyno-tested to ensure maximum horsepower and torque. These chips have also been designed to replace stock ECU chips in your vehicle's ignition computer and or fuel injection. These can modify spark advance tables, air fuel ratio modification, torque converter lockup, shift movement in electronic transmission and other various parameters to optimize the torque and horsepower curve for each individual application.

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The Car

The Car

The Lotus Elise is a car, a very unique car. This section attempts to explain why.


Design - It was designed and built as a show case for the technologies developed at Lotus and to show how bright the engineers are. It was a reward, a fun project, and only a small number of cars were to be built. No one expected the success. Julian Thompson and Richard Rackham led the effort.

Body - The body also is innovative. The style is as if a tarp were thrown over the mechanicals. Little space is wasted, aerodynamics are considered, and some art applied. Even the construction of the body employed some new technologies.

Chassis - The chassis was an engineering marvel with the design of interlocking aluminium extrusions and the glued (bonded) pieces forming a rigid platform for the Lotus designed suspension.

Engines - The engines were sourced from Rover and Toyota and were selected because of their light weight and high specific output. They each have unique features and have been modified by Lotus for use in their cars. Later models were modified to increase their output and racing versions were developed.

Performance - The Elise was designed and built for performance. Few consessions were made if they compromised performance or the driver's experience. While people can scientifically measure the performance of the car, it is difficult to describe the driver's experience.

Series - As the car grows older, Lotus continues to evolve the design and release different series and models based on the original chassis and suspension.

Suspension - How the car handles and how it communicates to the driver are the first indication this car is different. It is this ability of the car and the driver involvement that makes the Elise so amazing. The suspension plays a large role in making the Elise unique.

Alternatives - You can often measure a car and how unique it is by looking for other cars that are similar. The Elise did not come to America for almost ten years and so we were always searching for alternatives and finding few. The alternative section is an attempt, sometime humorous, at proposing other cars that might amuse us while waiting for the perfect car.

Corvette

Spied: 2009 Corvette Stingray - Car News

650-hp boosted super-Vette is getting closer to reality.

From afar this Vette would appear to be just another Z06. Now rub your eyes and take a closer look, because these are the first spy shots of the highly anticipated, but yet unnamed super Corvette. The large hood bulge you see is rumored to be concealing a supercharged 6.2-liter V-8, and packing upwards of 650 horsepower. This engine will likely use an integrated intake-manifold intercooler and should sprint from 0 to 60 mph in less than 3.4 seconds. And, with the addition of more carbon fiber in the body and expanded use of polycarbonates, this super Vette could weigh less than the current Z06.

GM’s Performance Center in Wixom, Michigan will likely produce the powerplant, but expect only about 1500–2000 copies annually. Initially called the Blue Devil, there has been much speculation in the past several months about the name for this super Z06. Recently we hear that GM has scrapped the Blue Devil name in favor of Corvette SS (we hope not), Z07, or even reviving the Stingray nameplate. Whatever the name may be, expect this beast to carry a sticker around the $100,000 mark, which is by far the cheapest way to get 650 hp in a production car.

"Corvette Sting Ray: One of the 25 Most Beautiful Cars Ever"

The 25 Most Beautiful Cars Ever. When you think about that statement, as I did before reading the story, you have to immediately think Corvette Sting Ray. So did the editors of Automobile Magazine. They've collected 25 of the most beautiful cars ever designed and you guessed it, the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray.

Here's what Automobile said about the Sting Ray, "The 1963 Corvette coupe, the Cindy Crawford of sports cars, would be just another fair fastback without its cleft rear window. GM design boss Bill Mitchell used the thin band of bodywork to sweep his signature windsplit from the top of the windshield to the tail--and to assert his dominance over Corvette chief engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov, who hated it. (It was gone for '64.) The split rear glass was considered a radical design gesture in its day, but Corvette stylists experimented with even more extreme proposals. One sculpted in 1957 by Peter Brock, code-named the Q-Corvette, featured doors that hinged up and forward from a split windshield."

A big thank you to Automobile Magazine for featuring, and acknowledging, a classic piece of American history, the Sting Ray.