Archive for the ‘General’ Category

The New Range Rover

Posted: August 15, 2012 by The Car Spy in General, Land Rover, New Models, Range Rover
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Forty-two years ago the very first Range Rover was launched and although the car was praised for its unique road-going/cross-country capabilities nobody could foresee how this unusual car was to pave the way for what is known today as the ‘SUV sector’ which has seen a huge rise in market share over the last ten years or so.

There is almost no premium brand that has not launched or put forward concepts for an SUV in the past few years and since the likes of Bentley, Lamborghini and Aston Martin are showing serious intentions to enter this market segment Land Rover is constantly looking over its shoulder to keep an eye on the rest of the field who are desperate to play catch-up.

The original ‘Classic’ Range Rover was essentially a very simple design that offered the best of both worlds in terms of the on and off-road driving experience. The fact that the original design remained virtually unchanged until 1996 is pretty remarkable and when the P38 generation came along it became evident that the workhorse image of the Classic was being replaced by a car that had much greater ambitions – luxury was the word now being used to describe life with a Rangie.

The third generation ‘L322’ further emphasised the view that Land Rover were determined to move the RR away from the inevitable offerings from BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Porsche and from its launch in 1994 the car has stubbornly held on to the title of Best 4×4 By far. Not only could the Range Rover still whip the competiton on any off-road course but it still had the presence of a battleship while cruising down the high street on the way to the supermarket. A bit like a Rolls Royce.

So today, after the usual frenzy of ‘leaked’ camouflaged images on the Internet Land Rover has officially announced details of L405 the fourth incarnation of the King of off-roaders.

Logically, the car still is instantly recognisable as a Range Rover. The upright body with the slab sides, the clamshell bonnet design and the ‘floating’ roof are all there and will probably be there for many generations to come – they are the design cues that essentially tell your brain that you are looking at a Range Rover.

LR are telling everybody that L405 is the most luxurious Range Rover yet. They say it is lighter and stronger (because of  the extensive use of aluminium) with much improved handling thanks to the newly designed four-corner air-suspension. It is also likely to be larger than the outgoing model. LR say there is 118mm more legroom for rear passengers and there will be a two-seat ‘Executive Class’ seating option which hints at where the new car will be heading – straight for the throats of Bentley, Mercedes and Rolls Royce.

Engine options will come in the form of the petrol Supercharged V8 plus TDV6 and TDV8 diesels. Already familiar power sources of the current model but good enough to be shoe-horned into the new model.

No confirmation yet on pricing but we expect that official news will be given at the Paris Motor Show at the end of September. LR are suggesting that they will be taking orders at that time too and deliveries are due to start in early 2013.

For further details of the new Range Rover or any other Land Rover model give The Car Spy a call on 01732 760699 or email sales@thecarspy.net

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The New Bentley Continental GT Speed

Posted: June 20, 2012 by The Car Spy in Bentley, General, New Cars
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Bentley claims to be the world’s largest producer of V12 engines so it seems very likely that the manufacturer will be sticking to a 12 cylinder option for its flagship models for some time yet.

The new Continental GT Speed therefore moves the game on for Bentley and in spite of upgrades to the performance and power of the car there are still improvements (some 12%) that have been made on the economy and emissions front by some smart re-engineering of the eight-speed gearbox.

The GT Speed will sprint to 60 mph in 4.0 seeconds and on to a top speed of 205 mph which is some achievement for a car that is not exactly low-slung. The torque output is enormous too at 800 Nm which means that there are very few road-going cars that could embarass this Bentley.

Uprated steering, suspension, lowered ride height, dark-tinted matrix front grille, lower air intakes, ‘rifled’ exhaust tailpipes and unique 21″ Speed wheels will single out the GT Speed from its other Continental stablemates and deliveries are expected to begin in October this year.

The GT Speed is destined to make its debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed at the end of this month and will be driven by none other than Juha Kankunnen who is likely to give the car a damn good thrashing up Goodwood Hill.

Bentley History Lesson:

Did you know that inspiration for the GT Speed came from the legendary ‘Speed’ models that first appeared in 1923. The standard Bentley 3-litre had already established Bentley’s engineering superiority in terms of roadholding, handling and braking, but W.O. Bentley, the company’s founder, recognised the market potential for a more potent version aimed at the enthusiast driver who demanded superior performance. His response, the 3-litre ‘Speed Model’, complete with twin SU carburettors and a higher compression ratio engine, became one of the most coveted of all Bentleys. The first generation Continental GT Speed was introduced in 2007.

For further information on the GT Speed and other Bentley models give The Car Spy a call on 01732 760699 or email sales@thecarspy.net

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The new Mercedes Benz SLS AMG GT

Posted: June 7, 2012 by The Car Spy in General, Mercedes Benz, New Cars
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Many years ago you often used to hear the term ‘GT’ banded around to describe cars that were pretty damn quick in their day and were strictly speaking ‘Grand Tourers’ or ‘Gran Turismo’ type cars. Ferrari (of course) threw in the odd complementary ‘O’ or ‘Am’ to further describe a type of car that was built built for a purpose hence the 250 GTO for instance – the ‘O’ standing for ‘Omologato’. It all used to make perfect sense.

Then along came Ford.

In the UK it was probably the Cortina that kicked off Ford’s propensity to stick a GT badge on anything that had (slightly) wider wheels and mildly tuned suspension settings. Ford were up there with Coca Cola when it came to brilliant marketing ideas. They brought the glamour of the racing past to the man in the street with 2.2 kids with two letters of the alphabet and it worked a treat.

Along with the Cortina GT came the Anglia GT, Corsair GT, Classic GT, Consul GT accompanied by the Capri which not only had a GT badged version but you could add a bit of flavouring and get a GT XL or even a GT XLR – there must have been a time when the Ford marketing bods’ heads all exploded at once when they ran out of letters to play with.

To be fair to Ford though they did create the marvellously understated ‘Ford GT40’ which pretty much smashed the competition into oblivion (including Ferrari and Porsche) when it hit the tracks in the mid 60’s – still a devilishly handsome car today too. When the modern-day Ford GT was created it was almost as though the company was claiming back some historical rights to the use of the ‘GT’ label.

However, come the end of the 70’s the GT was no more at Ford and they turned their attention to the letters X and R which were just waiting to be molested by Joe in Marketing. The XR3i was born and leashed upon the world a series of XR-labelled cars from Ford for a another decade or so thereafter.

At the same time that Ford made their move away from the very two letters that it most closely associated its cars with VW decided that G and T just needed a little help in the form of a small letter ‘i’. The rest is history as they say.

Today ‘GT’ seems to be re-establishing itself in the way that it was meant to be used which is all very quaint and retrospective. A Bentley GT just sounds so right – if you had never seen the car you would know that it was a car that could could gobble up long distances at a fair rate of licks.

Therefore maybe the SLS should have had a GT badge on it from the very beginning since it might be a better suited Grand Tourer than a street racer to compete with the likes of the GT3 from Porsche. Yes there is an SLS GT3 but you can’t buy that from your local Benz dealer.

The GT credentials are there. The SLS has the long, pointy nose of those glamorous 1950’s and 1960’s GT’s and with its big, grunty lump of an engine it feels like it could sprint to the Moon and back without pausing for breath.

Nonetheless Mercedes has found it necessary to introduce a ‘GT’ version of the SLS anyway. Big headlines are 591hp power output which is well up from the 563hp of the ‘standard’ car, redeveloped suspension and re-worked transmission. Lots of carbon fibre appendages will justify the (inevitable) higher price when it is eventually in October this year.

The GT is dead, long live the GT!

For further details of the SLS AMG GT contact The Car Spy on 01732 760699 or email sales@thecarspy.net

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Renault Alpine vs Alpine Renault

Posted: May 27, 2012 by The Car Spy in Alpine Renault, Concept Cars, General, Renault Alpine
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Renault have just released details of a concept car they call the A110-50 and very pretty it looks too. With dashing looks and a svelte design that shouts ‘please make me – don’t leave me as a one-off concept!’

The fact is though that there have not been too many cars produced by Renault over the past decade or so that could call themselves ‘design icons’ although the company has often come up with some impressive-looking design concepts such as the Fluence, Nepta and DeZir.

Despite this latent creativity the company always seem to slip back into producing good but vanilla-flavoured motor cars that of course they hope will appeal to the widest market possible. However, to be fair, today there are some notable exceptions such as the Clio Cup and Megane Coupe RS – two cars that would feature highly on list a list of brilliant ‘driver’s cars’ but not too highly on a list of memorable car designs.

Back to the A110-50. This one-off concept car is finished in Alpine Blue and features a carbon fibre bodywork. The technical underpinnings of the car are heavily dependent on the Megane Trophy which is no bad thing and features the 3.5 V6 24 valve engine which produces 400 hp at 7200 rpm.

Much attention has been paid to the development of the aerodynamics of the A110-50 with the inclusion of a front splitter, rear diffuser and adjustable rear wing using the science of Computational Fluid Dynamics as found in the labs of F1 teams – enough said!

There is plenty more techno-babble to support the raison d’etre behind Renault’s A110-50 but perhaps more interestingly it nods retrospectively and pays homage to the original Alpine A110 from (almost) 50 years ago – hence the ‘A110-50’ moniker.

The Alpine A110 ‘Berlinette’ as it was called, was never originally a Renault, it just bought their engines and made them more powerful. The car was made from 1961 to 1977 in the Alpine factory in Dieppe – yes the very same place you sail into from Newhaven to buy your cheap booze. It is also where RenaultSport models are built today.

The Berlinette certainly looked the part and one can’t help feeling that with the right financial muscle and commitment the car could have been a direct competitor for Porsche’s 911 to this very day so successful was the competition record of this car. The A110 took the honours in several major rally events including the Monte Carlo in 1971.

Renault eventually did take control of Alpine in the early 1970’s and the works team blitzed the competition by winning the very first World Rally Championship in 1973. However the A110’s success was cut short by the arrival of the Lancia Stratos the following year. That car moved the game on way beyond the capabilities of the A110 but the Berlinette had already written its entry in the history of truly great rally cars.

Will Renault turn the A110-50 into a reality? The car would certainly give the company a healthy dose of street credibility but at what price? The A110-50 would not be a cheap car to make and Renault do not have a good track record selling expensive cars to the general public – think Vel Satis and Avantime. Maybe the new car should be more than just a nostalgic look back at the past but a car that captures the spirit of the original Berlinette at an affordable price – now that would be interesting.

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Arrinera and Lee Noble get ready to launch a ‘Polish Aventador’

Posted: May 16, 2012 by The Car Spy in Arrinera, General, New Cars
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It seems that cars in Poland have come along way since the Polski-Fiat era and local company Arrinera Automotive SA and the UK’s very own Lee Noble (originator of Noble Cars) are developing a two-seater ‘supercar’ with performance and styling that seem set to rival the mighty Aventador.

Details are a little sketchy at the moment but the new car has a 6.2 litre GM-sourced V8 which delivers 650 horses and gets the car to 100 kph in 3.2 seconds. Top speed is a claimed 340 kph (212 mph). Impressive numbers indeed.

Carbon/Kevlar fibre is used extensively in the construction of the car and there is more than a hint of Lamborghini styling in the striking shape which really is no bad thing.

Lee Noble has masterminded the suspension application which means it will be able to put all of the power down without scaring the wits out of the driver (well, not too much anyway).

Another technical highlight is the Thermal Vision Camera which the company says ‘monitors the area in front of the car at the distance of a few hundred metres, detecting objects with a temperature exceeding the ambient temperature, which are displayed in the central screen’. Erm…not sure how handy that will be at 200 mph but ho hum.

Most striking of all, however, is that the price of joining the 200 mph club in this Polish supercar is projected to be 116,740 Euros. That is less than £100,000 which puts it at about the same price as a well-specified new 911 in the UK! Really? If that becomes a reality the car will be the supercar bargain of the decade and probably the century to-date!

A video (with naff corporate background music – maybe Steppenwolf would have been more palatable and relevant!) has been released to kick-off the pre-launch promotional hype as follows:-

More images of the Arrinera too:-

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