Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts

July 4, 2013

Holden Picks Up a Lap Record at The Nürburgring

7 comments:

I'm sure it all started with Top Gear and Sabine Schmitz uttering the famous "I can do zat in a fan",  now everyone wants a 'Ring lap record,

Electric cars, vans and now, pick-up trucks.  
More accurately, UTES as these grandsons of the Chevy El Camino are called in Austraila and New Zealand,  the only places in the world where they exist.



So Holden, GM's antipodean subsidiary and the only remaining American car company manufacturing  in Australia after Ford's recent  departure,  travelled to literally the far side of the earth to get some of that Eifel glory.

Their weapon was the Holden VF UTE, specifically an SS-V Redline, a pick-up with 6 liter 360 hp engine that got "Nürburgring" suspension, steering and brakes.


The time?  8:19.47.  That's not too shabby for something with a truck bed.  The e46 M3 scored 8:22,  the first generation Cayman S was 8:25.    While the truck is available with a manual gearbox, it's interesting they chose the automatic for the record run.



Extra credit to Holden for including this Nürburgring love video, Save The Ring!



Why should you care if an Australian market only coupe pick-up holds the record as the fastest El Camino in Germany?   Well, the Holden VF Commodore SS is sold in the US as the Chevy SS with a 415 hp v8, RWD and a limited slip differential.

If they don't mess it up (5 sec's 0-60 with a 415 hp v8?  How much does it weigh?)  it might be a pretty cool sleeper.

(H/T Mike!)

March 14, 2013

V8 Supercar Of The Future In Action.

1 comment:
T-Bone MacDonald/Flickr


Aussie Attractions
Busy week end of racing this one, 12 hours of Sebring on this side of the world, , Formula 1 and V8 Supercars on the other.

The Clipsall 500 in Adelaide was the debut for the V8 Supercar "Car of the Future".   Moving to something between DTM and FIA GTE, V8 Supercars have dropped their live axles and gained two new manufacturers with the addition of Mercedes and Nissan. The Merc, with it's awesome sounding flat plane crank V8 is a crowd favorite already.



Here are some race highlights



If you want more, check out those amazing V8 Supercar shocks working the high curbs.



February 9, 2013

Bathurst 12 Hour: Ferrari too fast, gets penalized for it.

5 comments:


The Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 458 had its best time taken away and 50 kilos of ballast added after setting a time faster than minimum time benchmark while qualifying for the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour. Perhaps someone Australian can explain to us how that works and why a delta time system is used rather than  straight fastest time.

October 18, 2011

Machine

3 comments:


Love it, makes me want to grow a beard and move to Australia.
.

August 23, 2011

Clown car show, Aussie style

3 comments:


"For those of you just tuning in at home, this actually IS professional motor racing...".
With apologies to all you Legends racers out there... but this is makes "I was seventh" seem reasonable and professional!

For NASA folks, can you imagine Chris Cobetto pulling this?

(thanks Gordon!)

December 6, 2010

V8 Supercars+3 title contenders+Slicks+Rain=

2 comments:
Final Race week end of the Australian V8 Supercar series in Sydney. Three title contenders, James Courtney, Mark Winterbottom and Jamie Whincup are running in the top three spots when rain starts at the end of a safety car period, what do you do?

Taking a page out of Mark Webber's book, the three leaders choose to go for it...



Somehow James Courtney's crew ( the Jim Beam car) managed to get him back out on track so he could score enough point to allow him to win the championship in race 2, Sunday. If you ever doubted racing is a team sport, check out this crews heroic efforts after the jump. (thanks Julian Melville!)


January 20, 2008

You know you are racing in Australia when...

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Kangaroo dodging aside, Mount Panorama has one of the world's most awesome and I imagine, intimidating tracks. Coverage of the Bathurst 1000 race is just fantastic, check out these next two clips: the first a great on board with multiple cameras and telemetry (check out the well advised "let me see if I still have brakes" pumps...) and the second is a ripping qualifying lap by five time winner Mark Skaife....amazing stuff. Enjoy!




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