• video
• design

A peak at Porsche’s 75th birthday present to itself, a concept that re-imagines the classic 356 for modern times.

• design
• video

Eight short videos by Ford Performance documenting the two-and-a-half year gestation of their third generation Ford Focus RS.

• E01: Project Kickoff Featuring Ken Block
• E02: Design and Development
• E03: Hitting the Road
• E04: Test-track Trials
• E05: Arctic Extremes
• E06: Power Struggle
• E07: Close Scrutiny
• E08: Final Chapter

Great to see this kind of behind the scenes action from Ford, especially for such an important car for the marque.

• design
• marques
• news

CAR Magazine has the scoop on early talks of a collaboration between BMW and McLaren to develop a proper supercar for the Munich marque.

BMW is developing a mid-engined supercar with a V8 engine – and is in talks with McLaren to put the car into production. CAR can reveal that the top secret flagship is scheduled for a Frankfurt show unveiling in exactly two years’ time, if talks with Britain’s supercar specialists are successfully concluded.

Last time these two got together, they made McLaren F1 babies. Good times ahead if this story holds any water.

• design
• profile

Road & Track profile the lost and dark art of mechanical fuel injection.

Wes Ingram and his business partner, Herb Sanborn, collaborate on rebuilding and modifying mechanical injection pumps for vintage Alfa Romeos… We visited them in their Washington shop, Ingram Enterprises, because it’s one of the only centers for such work. Also because SPICA injection—found on every U.S.-market Alfa from 1969 to 1981 is widely maligned. And thus a good way to illustrate the tech’s darkness and light.

Loads more info on their website, Ingram Enterprises.

• design
• marques

GRRC get the skinny on the latest flight of a Bugatti aeroplane design from the 1930’s that never actually flew in period due to the outbreak of WWII.

Ettore Bugatti and his designer, the Belgian aero engineer Louis de Monge, set out to make the fastest, most aerodynamic and advanced racing aircraft in the skies in the 1930s – obviously as a Bugatti nothing less would do. It was designed to get close to 500mph, but on half the power of rivals. In planes as with cars, Bugatti’s way was innovative engineering over brute force every time.

Incredible.

More info…

• design
• motorsport

Mark Hughes for Motor Sport:

The turbo’s compressor is too small – part of that ‘size zero’ concept – and cannot be made to run fast enough to compensate in terms of creating enough heat to give the ersH something to work with. But whether the breakthrough even comes next season could depend upon what happens with the engine homologation regulations. As things currently stand, the engine token system reverts in 2016 to how it was in 2014. i.e. tokens cannot be spent during the season

Fascinating analysis of the underlying design issues holding McLaren-Honda back in F1 this season.

• design

A story for the ages of a scorned Soichiro Honda taking a 1973 Chevrolet Impala V8 and modifying it to run without catalytic converters yet still pass a smog test using some clever Honda engineering.

• design

For those who like to travel with their Mono:

Dubbed the Marine Edition, the special Mono has been modified to be stored aboard luxury yachts instead of on land. Modifications include a special anti-corrosion coating to protect against salty climates, as well as a strengthened chassis with lifting points for yacht cranes.

That’s another automotive niche filled.

• design
• interview
• video

eGarage interview Paolo Feraboli, Director of Automobili Lamborghini’s Seattle-based Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory (ACSL), where the automaker pushes the envelope of composite material research and development.

Love this quote from Feraboli shown at the beginning of the video:

I believe Ferruccio chose the bull not only because it was his zodiac sign… also because his competitor had the prancing horse and he wanted to be different and better… but there is more to it than that… there is the fact that you cannot tame the bull… you can tame the horse, but you cannot tame the bull.

More information: lambolab.org

• design
• news

Hot on the heals of the Bertone auction, another Italian design house appears likely to change hands shortly, with Indian manufacturer Mahindra said to be close to acquiring Pininfarina:

The takeover of Turin-based Pininfarina, the creator of the Ferrari 458 Spider roadster, marks a move by Mahindra to add flair following its acquisitions of South Korean carmaker Ssangyong and the scooter unit of French auto manufacturer PSA Peugeot Citroen. The designer already cooperates with Mumbai- based Mahindra on SUV development and worked with it on the TUV300 compact SUV, which the company introduce later this week.

Pininfarina has been unprofitable for 10 of the past 11 years while struggling with debt. It shut a floundering division that built cars for other manufacturers three years ago. Chairman Paolo Pininfarina, a grandson of the company’s founder, said on April 22 that a new investor will provide “financial solidity and bolster growth in coming years.”

via Road and Track

• collections
• design
• for sale

Bertone is to be sold next week as court-ordered bankruptcy proceedings wind up the legendary Italian automotive design house.

Bertone - the carrozzeria behind the likes of the Lamborghini Miura and Countach, the Alfa GTV, and Fiats like the Dino and X1/9 - was declared bankrupt last year. The full story of the demise of this great design house is a desperately sad, internecine disaster, so convoluted that it really can’t be told here.

Now the courts in Milan have ordered the assets of the bankrupt ‘Bertone Cento’ company be sold at an online auction next week. Among these is the Bertone brand itself, which the auctioneer values at £2.2 million.

Those with pockets deep enough will snag not only the Bertone brand but with it a motley collection of one-off prototypes and design studies that form the Bertone museum in Italy.

Will be very interesting to see where it goes. The end of an era or the beginning of a new one?

• design
• motorsport

Racecar Engineering have updated their technical analysis of the so-far problematic Nissan NISMO LMP car.

We really want this crazy thing to succeed, it just needs continued backing to allow it to be developed to its full potential.

• design

Automotive photographer James Lipman showcases the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe.

Jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

• design
• motorsport

Designer Peter Stevens reflects on turning the McLaren F1 into the GTR and taking it to Le Mans back in 1995:

It has often been repeated that the car was not designed to be a racecar, but I always thought that, with the GT regulations of that time, it was clearly well suited to become a competitive racer. The road version had gone from early sketch ideas to a finished design that was expensive, but with a wonderful engine from BMW it was well received by the press, public and customers. Two of those customers, Thomas Bscher and Ray Bellm suggested to McLaren that the F1 would make a good racecar for the BPR. McLaren quickly developed a race version, which, by the company’s own admission, was little changed from the road car

Don’t miss this article for early design sketches of what would become the iconic supercar.

• design
• for sale

Bonhams have the one-off Italdesign Maserati Boomerang coupé on the block at their upcoming Chantilly sale on 5 September 2015.

First seen as a concept car at the Turin Motor Show in 1971, the Maserati Boomerang was a typically adventurous work by the man who would later be judged ‘Car Designer of the Century’: Giorgetto Giugiaro.

By the time of its appearance at the Geneva Salon in March 1972, the Boomerang would for the next few years be displayed regularly, appearing at the Paris, London and Barcelona international motor shows and receiving unanimous praise.

There’s no mistaking the Boomerang’s wacky instruments (and stalks!) within the steering wheel party piece. Concept cars rarely show up on the open market, road-legal and registered examples even less so.

Bidding range estimate on application. If you have to ask…

UPDATE: Sold for €3,289,500 (source)

• design
• video

As his first job at McLaren Automotive Mark Roberts, now Design Operations Manager, was given the task of illustrating the owner’s handbook for their forthcoming McLaren F1 supercar.

Hardly anyone’s ever seen it. It’s only a few lucky owners of the car who’s ever seen these things and I’m sure those owners would just go and put it on their bookshelf. It’s not the sort of thing they’d have onboard in their car. I like to think of it as an art book; it’s like a nice coffee table book that you can look through that happens to be very informative for the owner as well.

I knew it was going to be something special but, just like the car, we had no idea how legendary the whole program was going to be.

• design
• motorsport
• video

Team principal and technical director for Nissan/NISMO’s 2015 Le Mans tilt, Ben Bowlby, tells us why their GT-R LM NISMO is front-wheel drive and why this makes them a hot contender for outright victory at La Sarthe this weekend.

• design
• interview
• video

Bugatti Design Director Achim Anscheidt tells us about his personal ‘fixie bike’ Porsche 911.

Based on a 1981 SC chassis, Anscheidt had all hanging panels remade in kevlar, replaced glass with plastic, removed the heater, and stripped out the interior to bring it down to featherweight 820kg.

• design
• motorsport

After spate of new car announcments and a glut of boring livery designs for 2015, Stuart Taylor for Sidepodcast ponders what could have been.

• builders
• design
• video

Four years to hand-build from scratch what looks and sounds to be a very accurate replica to the classic 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO.

In a shed in Oamaru, New Zealand by three Kiwi blokes, no less.

• design

Peter Stevens, designer of the McLaren F1, on why hand-formed models still have a place in today’s automotive design studio:

It is important to remember that the computer, whilst being a useful tool, is just a box filled with wires, plastic and sand; there are no ideas inside that enclosure. They are in the designer’s head and in the sculptor’s hands.

Worth a view for the included clay model photos alone.

• design
• interview

The September 2014 issue of CAR magazine features an in-depth interview with two key designers of the iconic McLaren F1: Peter Stephens and Gordon Murray.

Gordon Murray on getting commitment from suppliers for the project:

“We’re going to build the best engineered car in the world and the best driver’s car in the world, can’t tell you a thing about it at all, but if you want to come on board I need all this stuff for free”.

• design
• marques

Great little back story of the colour scheme used for McLaren’s recently shown P1 GTR concept.

Speaks volumes about the quality of the McLaren F1 chassis that they took a road-car, modified it to GTR-spec, used it as a development hack to test the GTR concept, took it to Le Mans and won first time out.

• video
• design

An update on the development of Mercedes-AMG’s successor to the SLS, the Mercedes-AMG GT.

• motorsport
• design

A glimpse into the development of Audi’s mid-engined answer to the Lancia Delta ECV and Toyota 222D from 1986.

Also known as the Audi Sport Quattro RS 002 or Quattro Sport E2.

via Jalopnik

• design
• profile

Mike Burroughs picks a favourite at this year’s Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este:

With a 180-degree pillarless cockpit, retracting headlights, a glass engine canopy, and an open tail end allowing for voyeuristic automotive upskirting, the Abarth 2000 is one of a kind.

Perfect.

• design
• video
• interview

Profile of Anders Warming, Head of MINI Design.

• design
• video

Four minutes of San Diego traffic cut and shut, and rearranged by colour.

See also: Behind the scenes / More

via Waxy.org

• design
• video

Autocar’s Steve Sutcliffe speaks to Ferrari design boss, Flavio Manzone at the Ferrari Museum in Maranello to uncover the design secrets of the new LaFerrari hypercar.

See also.

• design
• interview

A long chat with Hans-Bruno Starke, head of body and trim for BMW M and Peter Schmidt, chassis development engineer, about development of the venerable E46 M3 CSL.