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Goodwood Festival of Speed McLaren debut

The annual Goodwood Festival of Speed starts on Thursday this week and we are hearing lots of rumours about what is going to debut and be seen by the massive festival crowd.

McLaren has announced a global premiere for the 2014 Goodwood Festival of Speed and has released this teaser image to whet our appetite. The global premiere will be a new track-focused version of one of McLaren’s supercars, developed by the automaker’s McLaren GT motorsport offshoot.

Rather than the highly-anticipated P1 GTR that was recently confirmed by McLaren, the global premiere is more likely to be a new 650S-based race car to replace the 12C GT3 or possibly a track-focused version of the 650S similar to the previous 12C GT Sprint. If you look carefully at the teaser, the design of the side intakes is more like the one on the 650S than on the P1.

The new car will be revealed on June 27 at the 2014 Goodwood Festival of Speed, where McLaren Formula One driver Jenson Button will drive it up the event’s famous hill climb.

McLaren will also have its full collection of cars on show as well as some race cars from its past, including an M7C F1 race car driven by McLaren founder Bruce McLaren. In addition to this, there will be a 650S unveiled that has been worked over by the men and women at the McLaren Special Operations personalization department.

This year’s festival is once again taking place on the grounds of Goodwood House in the UK, and runs from June 26-29.

Source: http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1092828_new-track-focused-mclaren-to-debut-at-goodwood-festival-of-speed

Jay Kay’s green Ferrari

If I say Ferrari, you think of a red car, correct? Yesterday we shared the story of the model Ferrari that may provide an insight into the future design, and it was red, as always.

It’s safe to say that the bulk of LaFerraris destined for production will be painted various shades of red, but at least one of the cars has received a bright green finish nicknamed, for obvious reasons, ‘Kermit Green’. This particular LaFerrari belongs to Jamiroquai lead singer Jay Kay, an avid car nut and owner of various exotics including previous special series Ferraris like the F40, F50 and Enzo.

A year ago that the singer visited the Ferrari factory in Maranello to take a look at the LaFerrari, and was likely among the car’s first owners. Interestingly, Ferrari released a photo back then showing Kay looking at a piece of green trim material while at the Tailor-Made department… now we know why.

Photos of the completed car, posted to enthusiast site FerrariChat (via The Supercar Kids), confirm it’s linked with the singer and that the green theme continues into the interior.

“It’s an amazing car and, just looking at it makes you want to drive it,” Kay said when first seeing the LaFerrari. “I think it’s hard to imagine such a concentration of style, technology, performance and excitement all in the one package.”

The green LaFerrari is expected to make an appearance at the 2014 Goodwood Festival of Speed running from the 26th to the 29th of this month.

Source: http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1092680_meet-the-green-ferrari-laferrari-of-jamiroquais-jay-kay

Does model reveal 2015 Porsche 911?

A Porsche always looks good, and the joke gift when someone says they want one is the model. If someone you know is interested in the new Porsche 911, you may actually be best to pick up the scale model for a design insight.

Porsche was meant to reveal its new 911 GT3 RS this summer but decided to delay its arrival following the discovery of a fault with the 3.8-liter flat-six engine in the 911 GT3 that the 911 GT3 RS was to share, albeit in uprated form. The German automaker is yet to announce when we might finally see the covers come off, but has the car already been revealed… in scale model form?

This photo of a 911 scale model was posted on the website 4WheelsNews and may potentially depict the new 911 GT3 RS. The scale model is clearly based on the latest 991-series 911 GT3, but some unique elements suggest that it is actually representing the more extreme RS variant.

Those elements include wheels styled like those fitted to prototypes for the new 911 GT3 RS, an oversized rear wing also like the one on previous prototypes, and some new vents on the front fenders not seen on the regular 911 GT3.

Hopefully we’ll find out soon, because it seems that with each passing month more and more rumors concerning the new 911 GT3 RS start to emerge. These include the possibility that the car will be turbocharged, and that it may also end up replacing the 911 GT2 as the most extreme 911 variant. We’ve also heard that it will come with Porsche’s PDK dual-clutch transmission only, as well as the automaker’s new rear-wheel-steering system.

Source: http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1028807_2015-porsche-911-gt3-rs-revealed-in-scale-model-form

Gran Turismo in real-life

Is your luxury car ownership confined to the walls of a video game? If you like Gran Turismo and have always wanted to own the car in real-life, now could be your chance.

Volkswagen’s new concept GTI Roadster, Vision Gran Turismo is meant to blur the line between “virtual and real worlds,” having originally been created for the Sony Playstation 3 Gran Turismo 6 video game.

The Golf GTI automobile is a two-seat convertible with a 3.0-liter V6 twin-turbocharged engine that gives 503hp and 413 lb-ft of torque, propelling the luxury car 0-60mph in 3.5 seconds to a top track speed of 192mph.

Sony asked the car brand to create a real version of the virtual GTI to mark the Gran Turismo’s 15th anniversary. An in-house competition was launched, asking young Volkswagen designers to submit designs to be judged by Klaus Bischoff (Head of Design) and Kazunori Yamauchi (Director of Polyphony Digital and Vice-President of Sony Computer Entertainment and the inventor of the Gran Turismo series).

“The Vision GT project offered a wonderful opportunity to sketch out extreme ideas and design elements of the GTI that are portrayed as vibrantly, dynamically and emotionally as possible,” says Bischoff. “Further development of an unmistakable design and a love for detail reflect the high standards shared by the Volkswagen GTI and the Gran Turismo by Sony PlayStation product brands.”

Source: http://www.justluxe.com/lifestyle/luxury-cars/feature-1955398.php

Seizing supercars

It seems odd that there are many people who can afford a supercar, but then cannot or will not pay for insurance. London’s police are getting serious with these offenders.

Police have seized some of world’s fastest and most desirable supercars in a crackdown on uninsured drivers, including a classic Bentley, a Tron-style Lamborghini – and also a £1million crane.

Scotland Yard has impounded 100,000 uninsured vehicles in London since October 2011, among them valuable McLarens, Bentleys and BMWs.

In November 2013, a six-litre Bentley Continental GTC was seized in Bromley after the driver was found to be uninsured, and in October last year, a £400,000 customised Lamborghini Aventador was taken off the road when the motorist’s insurance policy was found to not cover such an expensive vehicle.

Other supercars seized in the last year include a Lamborghini Gallardo, Porsche Boxsters and a Lamborghini Spyder.

Uninsured drivers face six penalty points and a £300, and they could also see their cars either sold at auction or crushed if they fail to reclaim them in time.

A police spokesperson said: ‘It needs to be stressed that the MPS does not just focus on high value cars but any vehicle that is not being driven in accordance with the law.

‘High value cars are not automatically sent to be crushed. If the owner doesn’t come and collect them within a designated time, they will be auctioned off.

‘Uninsured drivers are five times more likely to be involved in a road collision, and many are more likely to be involved in criminal activity.’

Since Operation Cubo began, the Met has raised more than £5.5 million at auction by selling seized vehicles, including selling a bright orange Aventador for £218,000.

MPS Commander Stephen Watson said: ‘Operation Cubo is strong, visible action that demonstrates the MPS’ commitment and determination to serving the public and making London’s streets safer.

‘Working alongside our partners we have achieved significant results through large scale seizures of uninsured and un-roadworthy vehicles.’

He added: ‘While in addition making numerous arrests of suspects wanted in connection to a variety of offences, some of which impact negatively on our communities such as drugs and firearms related.

‘We are targeting criminals by denying them the use of the roads so it’s much harder for them to commit crime.

‘We have arrested robbers, burglars and rapists as a result of Operation Cubo and will continue to arrest these people as they attempt to travel around the capital.

‘We’re also helping to make London’s roads safer for all that use them and will continue our efforts.’

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2656122/Crackdown-uninsured-drivers-sees-100-000-vehicles-seized-London-3-years.html

Gumball 3000 in Spain

The Gumball 3000 finished in Ibiza last week and news from the South of Spain shows just how compliant the drivers were of the local laws.

Guardia Civil officers in the Comunidad Valenciana dished out over 100 speeding fines during a cross-continental luxury car race.

The Gumball 3000, which started on June 4 in Miami and finished on Thursday, June 12 in Ibiza, covers 5,000 kilometres across the USA, the UK, France and Spain and involves top-of-the-range vehicles of a very high cc.

During the Spanish part of the race, the speed limit was set at 120 kilometres per hour, meaning getting into the lead was more a question of skill, cornering and overtaking than who could go the fastest.

But one driver was caught at 214 kilometres per hour (around 135mph), another carried out dangerous manoeuvres including ‘undertaking’ and using the acceleration lane.

Another was found to be over the alcohol limit and a fourth had been taking drugs, whilst four other cars were found to have speed-camera detectors installed, which is illegal in Spain.

More than 90 others were fined for breaking the speed limit.

The DJ Joel “Deadmau5” Zimmerman finally won the race in his Nyan Cat Ferrari 458.

Source: http://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/24495/police-fine-over-100-drivers-during-gumball-3000-international-luxury-car-race

TOP SAFETY PICK+ earned by Mercedes-Benz E-Class

Its always nice to know which luxury cars are not only stylish and fast, but are also the best performing in the safety categories as well.

The 2014 Mercedes-Benz E-Class, a large luxury car, earns the IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK+ award, thanks to a good rating in the challenging small overlap front crash test and a standard front crash prevention system.

The E-Class also earns good ratings in the moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint evaluations.

Beginning with 2014 models manufactured after January, Mercedes strengthened the foot well area of the occupant compartment to improve protection in small overlap front crashes. These changes apply to the 4-door E-Class models.

In the small overlap test, the driver’s space was maintained well. Injury measures recorded on the driver dummy indicated that lower leg injuries would be possible in a real-world crash of this severity. The dummy’s head was reasonably controlled by the frontal airbag, but it rotated around and hit the vehicle’s A-pillar because the head and torso moved too far forward. The side curtain airbag deployed to protect the head from contact with other side structures. Despite the head contact, risk of significant injuries to the head and chest was low.

The Institute added the small overlap evaluation to its testing line-up in 2012. In the crash, 25 percent of a vehicle’s front end on the driver side strikes a 5-foot-tall rigid barrier at 40 mph. It replicates what happens when the front corner of a vehicle strikes another vehicle or object like a tree or a utility pole.

A standard forward collision warning system, called Collision Prevention Assist, earns the E-Class a basic rating for front crash prevention. When equipped with the optional Pre-Safe Brake system, the E-Class earns a superior rating for front crash prevention.

The E-Class is the fourth large luxury car to earn the Institute’s highest award for 2014. To qualify for TOP SAFETY PICK+, a vehicle must earn a good or acceptable rating for small overlap protection, a good rating in the Institute’s other four tests, and a basic, advanced or superior rating for front crash prevention.

Source http://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle/2014/06/06/mercedes-benz-e-class-earns-top-safety-pick-a-514589.html#.U5cR-mdOV1s

 

Who will win the luxury car race BMW or Audi?

BMW held onto the lead in global luxury-car sales as demand for 5-Series sedans and X5 sport-utility vehicles helped edge out Audi AG.

BMW delivered about 1,000 more vehicles than Volkswagen AG (VOW)’s Audi in May as the race for the top spot tightened, according to figures from the carmakers. Through the first five months of 2014, Audi’s sales climbed 12 percent, outpacing BMW’s 11 percent gain. That helped the world’s second-largest maker of premium cars cut Munich-based BMW’s lead to about 8,200 autos from 11,000 a year ago.

Audi has been closing the gap to BMW in recent years with an expanded model line-up in a bid to become the best-selling luxury-auto brand by the end of the decade. In April, the VW unit rolled out a sedan version of the A3 in the U.S., helping sales there jump 26 percent last month. BMW responded with the 2-Series compact coupe, which went on sale in March.

“BMW is more geared into the second half and into 2015” in terms of model introductions, Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst at ISI Group in London, said by phone. “They report stronger growth right now than I would have thought, given the product outline.”

Deliveries last month of BMW autos rose 10 percent to 153,023 vehicles, as 5-Series sales gained 11 percent and X5 demand surged 63 percent. Including the Mini and Rolls-Royce brands, sales rose 6.8 percent last month, with five-month demand increasing 7.4 percent to just under 826,900 deliveries.

Delivery Target

“The BMW group continued to achieve record sales in May, keeping us well on track to sell over 2 million vehicles in 2014,” Ian Robertson, head of sales and marketing, said in a statement today.

Global sales by Ingolstadt, Germany-based Audi climbed 11 percent to 152,000 cars in May, lifted by a 43 percent surge for A3 models and a 21 percent gain in demand for the Q3 compact SUV. Daimler AG (DAI)’s Mercedes-Benz, which also has a target of overtaking BMW in sales by the end of this decade, increased deliveries 10 percent in May to 134,031, buoyed by demand for the C-Class sedan and GLA compact SUV.

BMW declined as much as 1.1 percent and was trading down 0.6 percent at 92.02 euros at 12:59 p.m. in Frankfurt. VW fell 0.3 percent, while Daimler rose 0.3 percent.

Chinese Push

Surging demand for premium models in China and the U.S., the world’s two largest auto markets, is propelling growth at the three German carmakers, which are all targeting record deliveries for 2014. The competition is heating up after Audi briefly passed the BMW brand in sales at the beginning of this year, while new compact models have generated gains at Mercedes.

The five-month sales lead by BMW over Mercedes was about 80,700 vehicles, narrowing from a year-earlier difference of 88,300 autos. BMW introduced the plug-in hybrid i8 last week, its first sports car in more than three decades. In addition to the 4-Series coupe and X4 SUV already on sale, BMW plans to introduce a variant of the 2-Series, the van-like Active Tourer, this year.

BMW is likely to remain ahead of Audi in deliveries through 2015, said Ellinghorst. Even so, a race among the luxury-car makers to maintain volume at the expense of pricing is undermining profitability and brand perception.

“All these guys are defining themselves by volume and not by price realization,” he said. “You can’t call yourself a premium brand if you give away your product with a 20 percent to 30 percent discount.”

Source http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-10/bmw-holds-off-audi-as-race-for-luxury-car-lead-tightens.html

New luxury car room to be opened in Cambodia by Rolls Royce

Some of the poorest countries in the world are attracting luxury car manufacturers to their cities. Rolls Royce will soon be marketing their cars in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars announced Monday that it has joined with a Cambodian business partner to open a showroom in the Cambodian capital next month.

Rolls-Royce Asia-Pacific regional manager Paul Harris said his company signed a deal with HGB Group Co., Ltd. because it believed demand would grow along with Cambodia’s economy.

Cambodia’s average per capita annual income, according to the World Bank, is just over $1,000, a bit less than one-half of 1 percent of the cost of the cheapest Rolls-Royce.

However, a small but wealthy elite lives in the capital of the mostly rural nation, and it is not unusual to see various models of high-end Lexus automobiles passing by pedicabs in the city’s dusty streets.

Harris said five Rolls-Royces have been sold in Cambodia since 2005.

“Nobody would believe that such a luxury car would come to Cambodia,” said Minister for Industry and Handcrafts Cham Prasidh, who was present for the announcement.

Cheaper Japanese models still dominate the market, but the upgrading of roads – which had suffered from war and neglect – and the rise in people’s living standards mean other car manufacturers from various countries are now entering the Cambodian market, he said.

Source http://www.live5news.com/story/25726203/roll-royce-to-open-luxury-car-showroom-in-cambodia

Brazil’s luxury car market grows in an otherwise slowing economy

Last Thursday was the kick off for the 2014 World Cup, so to celebrate we are bringing you some news on luxury cars in Brazil.

Brazil’s economy may be weakening but sales of some luxury car marques in the country are soaring in a sign of the enormous pent-up wealth in Latin America’s biggest country.

Germany’s Audi said sales in the first five months of this year more than doubled compared with the same period last year to a record of more than 5000 units while those of BMW were up 24-25 per cent in the same interval to 6,100.

“There is a lot of wealth and a lot of money in Brazil still,” said Jörg Hofmann, chief executive officer of Audi Brasil. “The so-called ‘A’ social class has been growing for the last 10 years.”

More than a decade of economic growth gave rise to a new lower middle-class in Brazil but it has also fuelled the fortunes of the wealthy.

Still one of the world’s most unequal countries, Brazil has a relatively small population of “high-net-worth individuals”, those with more than $1m to invest, but their collective fortune is ranked third of any country in the world, estimated at about $4,000bn by Cap Gemini and RBC Wealth Management.

Sales of luxury cars have boomed in emerging markets in recent years and are growing in developed markets such as the US in a sign that high-income groups have weathered the global financial crisis better than the middle classes.

In Brazil, the world’s fourth largest car market, general car sales in the first five months of the year fell 13.3 per cent compared with a year earlier as the economy slowed and tax breaks were lifted.

Luxury car makers in Brazil argued that their market, on the other hand, was benefitting from under-penetration for their products compared with other countries, their liberation from some import-related taxes and good strategy.

“The penetration of the premium segment in relation to the total industry is very low – it represents 1.5 -1.6 per cent of sales, while in Russia that number is 10 per cent and in China it is also increasing,” said Martin Fritsches, director of sales at BMW Brasil. “There is a huge potential.”

He said the three big German producers, which also included Mercedes Benz, together with Porche and Land Rover grew sales about 21 per cent in the first five months.

BMW was expanding throughout the country with plans to have 48 “points of sale” in place by the end of the year, many in the booming Northeast, compared with only 21 four years ago.

BMW’s sales had also been helped by government moves to grant it higher tax-free quotas to import cars because of its plans to build a new plant in the country.

The €200m facility will have capacity of 32,000 units per year and will produce the company’s best-selling Series 1, Series 3, X1, X3, and Mini Countryman models.

Audi’s Hoffman said his company was targetting the market with the compact A3 sedan hatchback and Q3 compact SUV with plans to open a factory next year.

In the meantime, the company is doubling dealer networks with post-sales facilities around the country to build market share before the factory reaches full capacity of 26,000 units in 2020.

São Paulo BMW customer Paulo Roberto Ferreira Henneberg, who works in software, said he was buying a 435i M Sport for R$290,000, of which he would pay off financing of R$90,000 in 10 monthly installments.

“Even though you know that in Brazil the cost is very high because of taxes, once you come to buy … you end up being seduced,” Henneberg said of luxury cars. He now has six BMWs in his collection.

Source http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/06/06/luxury-car-sales-zoom-as-brazil-slows/?hubRefSrc=permalink