In only their third year of participation in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Peugeot 908 diesel prototypes managed to maintain a very high pace and obliterated Audi’s decade-long dominance of the annual event held in France.
In August 1939 the safety pioneer Béla Barényi started his work in Sindelfingen. He invented for example the principle of the crumple zone, a trailblazing innovation which entered series production at Mercedes-Benz in 1959. With the help of its in-house accident research function, which was founded in 1969, Mercedes-Benz engineers in the following years have developed several innovations in passenger car safety. Mercedes-Benz is using the new S-Class ESF 2009 concept to celebrate this culture of development, with a look towards safety technology to come.
The BMW-owned Mini brand has unveiled a special edition Cooper S model in the United Kingdom with a stupidly long name. The Mini John Cooper Works World Championship 50 is supposed to evoke the birth of the brand and John Cooper’s Formula One title victory 50 years ago.
It looks like imported salvage cars in the UAE aren’t the only ones burning up. A rare and exotic McLaren F1 caught fire last week in the U.S. state of California, after it was taken out for a spin. Apparently the owner had let the car sit unused for six months before finally driving it on that fateful day. The rare supercar will now be sent back to the United Kingdom in the hopes of having the car restored.
German-based Gemballa, who like to refer to themselves as an auto manufacturer rather than a tuner, have now created the Avalanche GTR 650 EVO-R, as usual starting out with a Porsche. Based on the Porsche 911 Turbo, the Avalanche GTR 650 EVO-R seems to take a piece from the names of at least four other cars to make up its long name.
German tuner G-Power is offering a pure performance upgrade for the BMW M3 called the Tornado, which is essentially a supercharger for the V8. Apparently the G-Power M3 Tornado was tested in the UAE for hot-weather durability during development.
A member of the Swedespeed forums managed to take camera-phone photos of the 2010 Volvo C70 during the filming of a TV commercial for the facelifted convertible model.
The Romanian highway patrol is currently testing Seat Leon Cupra hatchbacks for use as police cars in the Eastern European country.
Three newly-developed direct-injection engines are now available for the European-spec BlueEfficiency version of the 2009 Mercedes-Benz C-Class. They are the most fuel-efficient engines ever for the C-Class, and developed using traditional technology rather than a hybrid system.
AC Schnitzer has unveiled their new range of mods for the 2009 versions of the Mini Cooper Convertible and the Mini Cooper S Convertible.