Who said buying a project vehicle sight unseen was a bad idea? David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan say it all the time, but they usually include a version of, “Do as I say, not as I do,” somewhere while they walk up to their most recent sight-unseen purchase. But this is Roadkill, and it’s business as usual with this most amazing of project vehicles: Welcome the ultra-wide, couldn’t-be-more-’70s 2nd-gen Camaro to the Roadkill fleet!
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We know, it’s beautiful. Yes, that is (as near as makes no difference) three whole feet of tire section in the rear. No, it isn’t a Pro Street build. No, that doesn’t make it a Pro Touring build, either. So what is this shining example of 1970s ingenuity?
Beside [...]
Texans have good reason to be concerned with their energy grid after it failed spectacularly this winter. Happily, Ford owners and dealers came to the rescue with their F-150 PowerBoost hybrids, and now Tesla is building what appears to be a more permanent solution. According to a report by Bloomberg Green, a company called Gambit Energy Storage, which is a subsidiary of Tesla, is building a 100-megawatt energy storage facility about 40 miles south of Houston. Such a system could produce enough power to run roughly 20,000 homes on a hot summer day.
Tesla already has other mega-batteries in operation, including a 20-megawatt facility east of Los Angeles and a 100-megawatt unit in Australia. Such battery systems [...]
Talk about big shoes to fill. As the Lamborghini Countach entered its twilight years in the late 1980s, the company had the onerous task of designing a car that exceeded the visual, aural, and dynamic sucker-punch provided by its iconic neck-snapping V-12 super-wedge. The new Lambo had to vaporize eyebrows and buckle knees at a thousand feet if it was to be labeled as anything other than a letdown.
Yeah, well—you can see where this is going. Despite a top speed of over 200 mph—only the second production car to do so—and being far easier to drive than its pappy, the Diablo is a bit of a middle-child. As far as the big Lambos go—of which there has been only five to date—the Diablo is relatively unloved.
Everyone wants a crack at Tesla. Elon Musk’s all-electric brand has set the automotive world on fire for better part of the last decade, and it still delivers pace-setting EV performance, range, and speedy charge times that most longstanding automakers have trouble matching. But that isn’t going to stop Volkswagen from taking the fight to Tesla head-on, this time with “Project Trinity.”
Volkswagen just teased the new venture with some promising claims. Project Trinity will result in a sedan with “high range, extremely short charging times, and revolutionary production.” What this all means, of course, is still quite unclear. But it does leave room for a heck of a lot of speculation.
Let us peer once more into the (often flawed) automotive industry crystal ball. Right now, the only EV Americans can buy from VW is the ID4. At full tilt, with a 125-kW charger handy, that electrified SUV’s battery will charge from 5 percent [...]
Not your average hybrid
The 2021 Lamborghini Sián will catapult to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds and hit 220 mph, leaving in its wake a shock-and-awe wall of sound from its mighty 6.5-liter naturally aspirated V-12. The Sián is long and low and extreme, with a menacing, almost alien road presence that signals its status as a tarmac predator ready to pounce and devour random Ferraris. The Sián packs an 807-hp punch, making it the most powerful Lamborghini road car ever built. It’s also Lamborghini’s first-ever gasoline-electric hybrid. But we’re a long, long way from Toyota Prius territory here.
The limited-edition Sián is fundamentally an Aventador SVJ with more radical exterior styling and a redesigned interior that features a new center console with fewer switches and a portrait-oriented touchscreen. Just 19 roadsters and 63 coupes will be built, all constructed to celebrate the founding of Automobili Lamborghini in 1963. The coupe costs $2.64 million, and [...]
