BMW’s M3 is the car that started this whole sports sedan genre. The Audi RS4, various fast, small Mercs, the Lexus IS-F, and a bunch of contenders – all of these owe their existence to the M3.
The M3 started out as a homologation special. BMW wanted to take its 3-series racing and needed some cars with motorsports bits. M (for motorsport) division whipped up a few cars overnight and boom, the E30 M3 was born. Rear wheel drive, limited-slip diff, high-revving naturally aspirated motor, excellent dynamics and uncompromised driver-focussed design. A simple recipe that has led to great success.
So, here. Have some photos of the one of most practical all-round performance cars – and one we love to bits.
Perhaps you are lucky enough to own a Ferrari and perhaps you thought that the F430′s 4.3 V8 still lacked some poke? If you were in Europe or the USA, it would be easy power upgrade-deasy, just pop on over to an exhaust shop, find a reputable tuner, hand over a huge wad of cash and you’d be going places a little quicker than you previously did.
Apart from it being black, it looks like a regular Ferrari F430.
South Africa on the other hand is a somewhat different kettle of fish. When it comes to supercars, agents hold tight reigns on the sale and service of these machines and so it makes finding something special like this all the more impressive. It’s good to know that at some point in the past couple of years, there was a South African brave enough to explore the realms of euro-tuned supercars and to him we salute. *salute*
The Novitec Rosso Ferrari F430 gives the standard 4.3l V8 typically producing 360kW (483hp) @8500rpm and 465Nm (343lb-ft) of torque @5250rom a nice little bump up to 707hp or 520kW @ 8350rpm and 712Nm @6300rpm with the help of twin-superchargers. That’s no fucking joke. Seriously. This particular one has ticked almost the entire Novitec catalogue off, wheels, brakes, interior, carbon bits everywhere… If 520Kw was too much the previous owner could have cocked about and just put in the 656hp SuperSport upgrade or gone with an exhaust like most Ferrari owners. Nah, notafuck, this guy went the whole hog; all in; the whole enchilada; all chips on black; and he did it so you don’t have to. It’s for sale at a dealership in Fourways, Johannesburg, RSC Auto for around the same price as what you would pay for a regular F430 of the same vintage ZAR2 100 000. You won’t find many trick Ferraris like this, this side of the UAE. We suspect that an upgrade like this cost no less than R1 000 000 and so to us, this car sounds like the bargain of the decade (and a little bit more special than that boring old red Ferrari you see at show meets)
There was a time where Americans had to wait until Big Game Day to see what the country’s most creative marketers had been working on to air in the singularly most expensive advertisement slots on prime-time TV. But with that ‘internet thing’ you can’t keep anything under wraps anymore. A full couple of days ahead of the big day most of the adverts are available online so there isn’t really any reason to have to hang in there and watch the game unless, of course, you like the American version of rugby. We’ve collected and put all of the auto manufacturers’ Superbowl 2012 ads right here in one place. Aren’t we a nice bunch? Be amazed, be appalled, be disappointed. Let us know what you think?
It looks as if Toyota invests as much creativity in its ads as it does in designing dull and boring family cars. The one’s titled ‘It’s Reinvented!’ but we’re still trying to figure out what, you can’t reinvent boring obscure rubbish.
Another one from Toyota although, as with its cars, Lexus is more exciting than its parent, if only just a little bit. Lexus has even gone as far as calling its advert, ‘Beast,’ in the way that people ironically call their lapdogs ‘Beast.’ Very edgy for Lexus.
Hyundai: Hey, it’s different we guess. Hyundai has included people from its plant in here, so it gets a couple of points for company involvement, but the alignment to ‘Rocky,’ yeah, we’re just not so sure.
Hyundai, then, provides us then with a the perfect segue into the adverts involving movies, movie references and old movie stars. No one seems to have realised that if they’d include Ryan Gosling, ladies will be in the dealership while the men watch the game.
Honda’s piss-take on Ferris Beuller’s Day Off gets Matthew Broderick clearly looking 25 years older than he did in the originalFerris Bueller’s Day Off and and places him in an ad that he will surely regret one day. What are out-of-work actors supposed to do, we suppose? We’d certainly fake an illness to spend a day in a Ferrari 250, notsomuch in a Honda CR-V.
Honda redeems itself (only slightly) with this remotely funny advert involving the Saab-loving, in the Seinfeld series at least, Jerry Seinfeld and car-nut funny man, Jay Leno. But it’s actually only the sound of the NSX that makes this advert worth watching — a pure tease.
Volkswagen’s ‘The Force’ advert last year with mini-Darth took the ad world by storm (49 million views on YouTube to-date) and went viral by virtue of the fact that it was cute and clever. VW had some pretty big shoes to fill and showed some promise with the teaser, “The Bark Side”…
…but ultimately let the side down with, “The Dog Strikes Back.” Poor form after last year’s great success.
Volkswagen shows that its alright to use pets, and so Suzuki also gets in the action with some pooches, these being some huskies in for a head-bopping time…
These are the ones that are actually quite good. Cadillac is first up with ‘Green Hell,’ a reference to the Nurburgring that unashamedly punts its performance credentials and actually communicates the values of the car. Imagine that? There’s the crafty inclusion of the advertising boards stating “Wir sind Opel,” “We are Opel” for the english types, which is important because this is the BMW 3-series/Mercedes-Benz C-Class/Audi A4 competitor. It’s clearly intent on telling the Germans that Cadillac is no longer a fat American pig and it’s roots, in fact, lie very close to home.
The former king of Superbowl ads, Budweiser has once again produced a hit and it only gets a mention here because there’s a car in it, a very famous car. And that’s what makes it funny and causes a smile to crack across even the most hardened 30 year-old’s face. The younger kids probably won’t get it, though.
Vampires are the rage. Everyone loves them, don’t they? Even Volvo. Audi pulls off a clever ad and actually ties it into one of its product’s selling features, the LED headlamps. Amazing what sticking to the basics can do, of all the leaked adverts so far, this is one of the best in our opinion.
Update: Chevrolet has held out until now so showcase five ads for Big Game Day and all of them are BRILLIANT, well four of them are. In our humble opinion, of course.
Chervrolet Sonic’s Bug Advert hits the cute spot with this one…
Chervrolet’s Volt advert gets the message across succinctly, “Smartest car in the galaxy” while dispelling the myth that electric cars have a very limited range. Clever.
Hitting the youth market and doing something clever, simple and effective but more of a teaser for the full new Chev/OK Go video on Sunday.
A very funny graduation video for Chev’s Superbowl Sunday madness.
Very emotive, brilliant. Very Clever. The advert for the Chevy Sonic.
Lamborghini’s latest ultra-mad all-about-the-numbers hypercar is a real hit. Despite a name we’ve poked fun at, it really is a mad piece of design – the way supercars should be. It’s also the car that was requested by ZA Car Show Twitter fan matt_stretch91, who qualified his request with “most insane tail pipes you’ll see in a while!”. We agree. So here, have a selection of badass photos from Flickr’s best photographers, of the 700hp, 8500RPM raging bull.
The answer might not be as obvious as you think, unless you’re the wiseass who said, “A bungie jumper with a Hot Wheels in his pocket!”
Instead, this is an electric car. From Finland. But despite its massive acceleration – 9.4g, to be exact – it only tops out at a paltry 160km/h. Yes, it’s a serious slot car from the Finnish national league. Hand-wound motors and specialised… everything means that this little lightweight, light-speed racecar is capable of feats that the human body simply can’t handle. Such as lapping a 45 meter circuit in just two seconds. Click on the video to see what we mean.
11:51 am 
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