Saleen is no stranger to GT racing, and its latest offering aims to bring the competition experience to drivers of varying skill levels. The company on Thursday in Las Vegas revealed its GT4 concept race car, based on the Saleen 1 (a.k.a. the Saleen S1) and intended to compete in SRO Motorsport Group’s GT4 series. Saleen plans to build the cars in Corona, California, beginning in November, and will open them to customer orders once SRO homologates the model for competition.
Saleen revealed the turbocharged race car during a press conference and demonstration event held at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and it said it designed its GT4 to compete in various series around the world as well as with SRO. The GT4 concept is based on the racing version of the Saleen 1, which debuted in the 2019 Saleen Cup single-make arrive-and-drive series. The GT4 boasts changes from the standard production [...]
Ignore the dogs. We’ve already seen photos of the upcoming Aston Martin DBX wearing trippy camouflage and bright red lipstick, but a new batch of undisguised detail shots provide fresh clues about the super-SUV. Bundled with a news blast covering accessories that can be optioned on the high-performance high-rider, the photos hint at its capabilities, as well as similarities and differences between other Aston Martins.
Take a moment to stretch before proceeding, because we’re about to reach.
The crew in Gaydon explicitly details the DBX’s cargo capacity as they describe the available Pet Pack. It’s listed as 632 liters, which converts to about 22.3 cubic feet. That’s comparable to other sporty fastback SUVs; the Lamborghini Urus holds up to 21.75 cubes of cargo, while the Porsche Cayenne Turbo Coupe offers 21.1. Oh, the Pet Pack brings a safety partition, rear bumper protector, accessories like brushed-metal food bowls and [...]
When you think “off-roading,” the first car that probably comes to mind—if you’re an American—is the Jeep Wrangler; an icon of go-anywhere, do-anything capability, especially in Rubicon trim. But if you live elsewhere in the world, you might think of the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen, another rugged SUV with military heritage that’s an off-road icon in its own right. Over the years, the G-Wagen has become better known as a luxury symbol than one of off-pavement prowess. Has the new Mercedes-Benz G550 gone soft? Watch it go rock crawling in Moab alongside the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon in this comparison video to find out.
Even though the G-Wagen may look more at home on Rodeo Drive than on the Rubicon Trail these days, our Head 2 Head crew wanted to find out just how capable the two rigs really are. Our hosts Jonny Lieberman and Jethro Bovingdon took the two body-on-frame trucks masquerading as SUVs to Utah for [...]
The 2020 Chevrolet Corvette goes on sale very soon. First customer deliveries are expected this spring. If you have $60,000 lying around, that should be enough to land a base model Corvette, but only in the first year. If you’d like a topless C8, expect to pay considerably more.
For this test flight, we used a 2020 Corvette Z51 provided to us by Chevrolet; check back in the next few days for the rest of MotorTrend’s Corvette Week, with more awesome C8 stories you’ll only find here.
Step 2: Location, location, locationOur lawyers advise us that you’re mostly on your own with this one. If you know a racetrack or private road that has the right change in elevation, we suggest going there first. If not, poke around auto enthusiast forums or Facebook groups; we know there are many quiet, back country roads all around the U.S. that [...]
Carbon fiber seems relatively good for the environment—it makes cars and planes so much lighter that they get way better gas mileage, right? True, but this simple analysis forgives the fact that cured carbon-fiber structures are extremely energy-intensive to produce. That’s why BMW sourced the carbon fiber for its i3 and i8 cars from Moses Lake, Washington, where hydroelectric energy drastically lowers the footprint of its carbon.
Now researchers at the Technical University of Munich have discovered a process that turns that notion on its head—CO2–negative carbon fiber. That’s right, producing polyacrylonitrile feedstock from algae and curing it using parabolic-reflected solar energy produces fibers that match the properties of hydrocarbon-derived fibers while leaving the atmosphere with less CO2 in it than if the carbon fiber had never been produced.
TUM’s algae bind CO2 in sugars and algae oil, then a special oil-forming yeast makes yeast oils from the algal sugars and cell walls. Enzymes attack [...]
