Rhino Racing

My friend Mark has a Subaru Forester and my friend Yasuko is soon to be owning one as well. They are especially sought after in countries like Russia where reliability is more valuable than cache` for the most part. However, if I had know that they attract sumo wrestlers then I would have moved to get my own Suby long ago!

A company called Holden in Australia has been shoving Corvette v8 engines into their cars for the last decade. Of course they have are related to GM, but for the most part, they are a separate company. The Holden HSVR8 is resold in europe as the Vauxhall VXR8, and now in America as the Pontiac G8 GXP. Now the first time their creations came stateside was with the Pontiac GTO which was more than a bit disappointing aesthetically. However for this new chassis, GM stated they aimed for the BMW 5 series and it seems they have come pretty damn close. They advertise this sedan line as the most powerful sedan under $30,000USD, this G8GXP will sell for $35,000USD or a tad less, making it half the price of the BMW M5. I’m not sure I’ll buy one, but I will consider this one for sure. This is “driving excitement”.

The Pontiac G8 GXP

Spy Hunter - Pontiac G8 GT Commercial

5th Gear review the Vauxhall VXR8

Top Gear review of the Vauxhall VXR8

In short Autocar deems the Porsche 997TT at $140k to be equivalent to the Nissan GTR at $70k. The BMW e92 M3, similarly equipped at $70k had the brake pedal to the floor after a couple laps. In Japan the GTR even manages to be 1.3 million yen cheaper than the Corvette Z06.

I have lusted after the M3 for years, the GTR has always been a favorite but never ‘readily’ available until now. This is a great showdown!

Part 1

Part 2

A while back a company in Japan made a drivable replica of the motorcycle in the classic anime, Akira. There is lots of information on this bike including some lines from the movie that imply it was an electric hybrid. Art imitates life and life imitates art.

There is a Honda Civic for sale in Atlanta for $2,300 with only 939,899 miles. Everyone knows that cars really take a depreciation hit after the first one million miles, so clearly he is just playing it smart. That is approximately $7,000 in oil changes and maybe $60,000 in gas, given various assumptions. This will probably disappear off of CraigsList soon so I have captured the original post below, truly CraigsList quality writing. The fact remains that this is an impressive vehicle, with 80% of cars being “scrapped” within 10 years, this one is a statistical outlier for sure.

1995 HONDA CIVIC EX COUPE - $2300 - It is about time to part with my beloved Civic which I had since 1995 and put many - I mean M A N Y M I L E S O N IT.I M E A N I T ! ! !.It is very hard to believe I know, but the odometer never failed and that’s the actual miles - 930 000 ( Mostly Highway) miles ! .Yes it’s true Hondas go forever ! ! !.The car is still in excellent shape - still runs like new - there are absolutely no leaks or noises of any kind - doesnt even burn oil ! The body and the interior is perfect -I never had it in accident and I still have the original floormats.The reason of the HIGH MILEAGE is because I travel for business very often from Miami to Seattle and San Francisco.If you look at the car you wouldnt believe the mileage.I have all the records for the maintenance - I VE REPLACED THE TIMING BELT&THE WATER PUMP 8 TIMES THE CLUTCH 3 TIMES BUT HAS THE ORIGINAL ENGINE AND TRANSMISSION ! ! !I SPOIL MY BABY AND CHANGE THE OIL ( CASTROL ) EVERY 2500 MILES ! ! !One of the dashboardlights doesnt work sometimes but thats the only problem.The A/C is ICE COLD and the tires are 7 months old.There is not even a scratch on the car.If you are scared of the mileage - dont look at the odometer! .Personally I think that my car will drive until One Million and One Hundred - One Million and Two Hundred - I am very positive and my mechanic agrees.Any way if you have any questiones or you wish a testdrive just e mail me and I will call you.

Climb Dance, winner of four film awards in 1990, is a short stylized documentary by Jean-Louis Mourey. Good information on Mourey is hard to come by in english, but there is a lot of information on the subject of this film, Ari Vatanen, who is a rally champion turned politician. Climb Dance documents Vatanen’s record breaking* 14,000 foot acent in the 1988 Pikes Peak International Hillclimb. The tool used to carve this race to the top was a four wheel drive, four wheel steer, turbocharged Peugeot 405 T16. *There have been assertions that Bobby Unser actually won this race and Ari placed second; unconfirmed.

0-60 in 1 second and the quarter mile in 7.80 seconds at 187mph.

Red Victor One is the name of this 1972 Vauxhall Victor that boasts the title of the fastest street legal 1/4 mile car in the world. Street legal according to the authorities in North Hampton, England. Andy Frost, who works automatic transmissions by trade, said he chose this car because it resembled American muscle cars, and at 5mpg, it certainly does. Andy reportedly swapped the original 4 cylander engine for a v6, and then two v8 later he settled on a chevy small block 350. As with most drag cars the engine is almost unrecognizable at 9.3 liters and twin turbos.

How tempted are you just to give it a bit of a squirt?

After some research I found a few other vehicles that were close. There were a Toyota Supra pushing just over 9 seconds in street tires. In 1994 there was a 1966 Chevelle which boasted a street legal 7.85 seconds at 172mph. This begs the question, what is street legal? Does Red Victor One pull 7.8 seconds on street tires? The chevy v8 in the Victor requires serious attention to the engine after every drag run and yet it can run on regular pump fuel. Where is the line here? I don’t know the answers, but Frost’s vehicle is certainly one of a kind.

The Car: Arguably the most powerful Audi TT in the world, GoTTzilla has some Atomic Breath under the hood. I am sure Godzilla is proud to have inspired the creation of such a monster TouristTrophy. The original powerplant was swapped for a HPA tuned bi-turbo 3.2 litre V6 producing about 700hp at the crank. Discussions on the VWVortex forums brought to light some dyno charts for this vehicle showing 515lbft torque and 545hp. The sponsors and owners of this car are a race team called Zilla-Moto whose site really doesn’t have much in the way of updated information. HPA has some decent information but the real gem in my research was an article from Road and Track. “Thunder Road: Standing Mile” tested about a dozen ‘vehicles’ from a Lola Champ Car to an F18 fighter to compare the numbers. GoTTzilla did well.

The Roar: The inspiration for this blog entry was a YouTube clip that PhatCashEnglish sent to me. It wasn’t the video, but rather the audio that made me drool. This car has incredible bellow from it’s exhaust. It’s almost artistic the way the TT stands in stark contrast to the serene landscape as it tears down this country road. This video is a 34 second litmus test that can used to deliniate the automotive enthusiasts from ‘the rest’.

Did that number get your attention? It certainly got my attention the 1st time I read what appears to be the first article on this topic,”The Most Powerful Diesel Engine in the World!“.

Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C : This turbocharged two-stroke diesel engine is the most powerful and most efficient prime-mover in the world today. Made by The Aioi Works of Japan’s Diesel United, Ltd, this engine is built in configurations from 6 to 14 cylinders with a maximum displacement of 25,480 liters. The engine does not appear to be revolutionary, though some features like a crosshead that helps reduce shearing forces on the piston. However the size of this engine is nothing short of amazing to landlubbers like myself, as well as incorperating some of the latest computer based engine managment systems available in this industry.

Economies of scale? : Weighing in at 2300 tons you don’t assume efficiency is a large factor in these massive engines. The brake specific fule consumption, or BSFC, is nearly 2 times that of a normal car or plane engine at 0.260 lbs/hp/hour. For example a realistic value for a passenger car engine is 0.53 pounds of fuel consumed for every horsepower generated during one hour of operation. Thermal efficiency is at 50% (typical for diesel engines) versus a passenger car engine at ~30%. But don’t let all this trim and fit talk cloud the fact that average claims on engines like these run at almost $250,000 a pop according to Marine Log.

Ships ahoy! : In case it wasnt apparent… these engines are exclusively for tankers/VLCC and other container ships. The largest container ship in use today is the Emma Maersk at nearly over 1000 feet in length or several college football stadiums. There was a larger ship but it was doomed to a relatively short future at sea due to extensive vibration issues related to faulty gear design.

The Dub Wheels brand “Pimpstar” is a computer controlled, LED light array, on chrome rims. The how is not nearly as hard to imagine as the why. Though I can’t help but imagine what kind of pictures I would put on my very own Pimpstar rims, clearly it would be rated “G”. I won’t have to worry about that problem though, since a set of 22″ rims starts at $12,000 and the 26″ rims go to almost $20k. I couldn’t find a website for Dub Wheels but it seems Custom Wheel is the closest thing to an official dealer. They even displayed them at SEMA at some point, as shown on CarTV.