Spyshots

Our friends over at Autogespot believe they have pictures of the 8C GTA out on a highspeed test at the Nurburgring. If rumours are to be believed the car could have over 500bhp and be used to celebrate the Italian brand’s centeniary in 2010. Take a look at the pictures.

Read the rest

Yesterday we reported on the facelift version of the 997 911 GT3 testing somewhere in the mountains. Today we have something totally new thanks to Car, some spyshots of the brand new 2011 911 testing at the Nurburgring. Not only have they managed to get pictures of the development mule, they also managed to get some interesting information on the plans at Porsche for the new model from Porsches Research and Development Chief Wolfgang Dürheimer.

Read the rest

After revamping much of the lower range models of the 911 family, Porsche have started to turn there attention to the higher end. We’ve already seen the spyshots of the facelifted GT3 RS testing at the infamous Nurburgring, now we get some juicy pictures of a standard GT3 overlooking a set of rather exciting roads somewhere in the mountains. It’s joined by the GT3 that is available at the moment and the GT3RS as it undergoes some sort of pre-production development. Differences that show in these current set of pictures include the redesigned rear facias with new rear lights and a new exhaust pipe. There also appears to be a new rear wing that blends design features of the old GT3 and the GT3RS. Enjoy these pictures.

Read the rest

More spy shots of the Mercedes Benz or AMG, SLC or SLS have emerged today. These pictures confirm nothing new for us but do show the car during extensive testing at the Nurburgring. Although added to the long list of possible names for the car is ‘SSKL’, another historic racing name that could be revived for the project. It will be shown in full production kit during the 2010 Geneva Autoshow with a concept at Frankfurt next year. Enjoy these pictures.

Read the rest

These are believed to be pictures of a new Ferrari Enzo Successor (known as the FX70 within Ferrari) in it’s development stages running around Maranello. They follow up from some pictures which where released in July which also claimed to be a development mule for the new flagship model. The differences between the two sets however is that one is running a modified F360 shell (the earlier pictures) and the later is running a modified F430 shell.

Read the rest

I turns out the ‘new Ferrari‘ we reported on yesterday is in fact a custom build from Ferrari’s custom coachbuild program. This could be one of the first models to come from the program, most likely commissioned by a millionaire investor. Fioravanti, the design studio which the car came from, was one of the original 3 companies announced when the program first began and has a strong link with Ferrari. Founder, Leonardo Fioravanti, worked for 24 years with Pininfarina, a Ferrari favourite also in the program. The car itself looks to have completely changed, looks-wise, were not sure whether the conversion included a power upgrade, but by the looks of the F430 Scuderia wheels on the car at the moment, we reckon that the whole thing was built on a Scuderia platform. It also has a resemblance to the new california, see for yourself in these new spy pictures.

Read the rest

New spy shots have emerged of the SLC development mule, Mercedes replacement model for the SLR. The high performance supercar will be the companies first solo venture since it’s split from McLaren. The car is expected to have a 6.3 Litre AMG engine produced upwards of 600hp with a 0-62mph time of under 3.8 seconds. The most interesting ideas to come from these lastest pictures however are the gullwing doors which appear to make the car a direct derivative from the 300SL.

Read the rest

Our friends at Fast Lane Daily have provided fresh speculation to the rumour that the next generation Pagani Zonda will use the SL65 AMG Black Series six-litre V12 by scooping some spy shots of the two development mules side-by-side. We have previously reported on the Zonda, back when we were unsure what the new engine could be, now however it seems more than likely that 661hp Black Series engine possibly in a higher state of tune. We look forward to seeing the final production ready versions of both cars.

It turns out we were not the only ones to catch an Aston Martin testing in the Alps this weekend. One of our friends on PureGT stumbled upon this Aston Martin Rapide at an Italian petrolstation. The licenseplate suggests it’s the same Aston Martin Rapide mule that was filmed while testing on the Nurburgring two months ago.

The V12 version of the Aston Martin Rapide spotted here will have an estimated output of 500 hp or more. The car was totally full of test gear including screens and computers monitoring everything from engine and parts temperatures to performance. A huge pipe is sticking out the front passenger side window which might have something to do with cooling of the V12. There was a big difference in temperatures between the bottom of the mountains and the top, making it ideal circumstances to test all systems in the new Rapide.

Read the rest

Aston Martin confirmed the production of the V12 Vantage RS soon after they revealed the V12 Vantage RS concept at the Geneva Auto Salon in March of this year. All we could tell you then was that the production of this 600 hp V12 Vantage RS would start as early as 2009 and be see only a very limited number of V12 RS models build.

This weekend an Aston Martin DBS popped up in our rear view mirror on the way to the top of the famous Stelvio pass in Italy. Only moments later the infra-red DBS was overtaken by a black Aston Martin that looked very similar to the DBS but moments later turned out to be the Aston Martin V12 Vantage RS. The RS we spotted looks exactly the same as the RS concept car presented by Aston Martin at the Geneva Auto Salon and we didn’t see any external test gear or electronics.

The V12 Vantage RS looked as production ready as it could be and didn’t struggle at all going up the Stelvio pass. We look forward to see it go into production soon and can’t wait to drive one up the Stelvio ourselves.

Porsche only recently revealed their facelifted 997 carrera, s and 4 models, and already spyshots of an early Porsche 998 mule have surfaced. The Porsche 998 model is planned for 2011 so it’s still in the early development stages using a 997 body to hide the new 998 platform.

Read the rest

As a follow up on yesterdays McLaren SLR Speedster article, we now have pictures and video to prove that Mercedes and McLaren are working on this stripped out, limited edition SLR Speedster. The pictures were taken somewhere in the middle of Germany and show a heavily disguised and heavily chopped version of the SLR Roadster. It’s therefore not difficult to see where the weight losses will come from with no windows, windscreen or roof.

Read the rest