Subaru WRX and WRX STI Special Edition


With the 2012 SEMA Show kicking off, we’ve seen a number of vehicles dressed to impress, including Subaru and its WRX and WRX STI Special Edition featuring an "Orange and Black" custom paint scheme. It will be limited to only 200 WRX sedans and 100 WRX STI sedans and will go on sale in spring of 2013.

The WRX’s Tangerine Orange exterior paint is combined with jet black custom wheels, black front fender badges, and black exterior mirrors. On demand, customera can also get black exterior graphics. The same paint scheme continues on the interior where the black trim is combined with orange stitching on the seats, doors, shift boot, and custom trimmed floor mats.

Both models are powered by a Subaru Boxer engine, with the WRX delivering a total of 265 HP and the WRX STI pumping out 305 HP. Both models are also offered with Subaru’s Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive system.

Subaru WRX and WRX STI Special Edition originally appeared on topspeed.com on Thursday, 1 November 2012 12:00 EST.

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Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/subaru/2013-subaru-wrx-and-wrx-sti-special-edition-ar137210.html

Aldo Gordini Horace Gould JeanMarc Gounon Emmanuel de Graffenried Lucas di Grassi

Rolls Royce Ghost

The 2013 Rolls Royce Ghost will embrace very subtle revisions to the interior upholstery and the infotainment system of the car. What possibly can they upgrade or facelift? It?s already the perfect car, but it will be seeing similar revisions already found in the Phantom Series 2, apart from the day-time LEDs.

Revisions in the 2013 Ghost were mostly concentrated on the infotainment system of the car. It features an all new, advanced amplifier with the addition of ?exciter? speakers. Sounds exciting? The upholstery now comes with natural grain leather and cross-banded wood veneers. If this is an option they are introducing now, what was the type of leather they were using? Printed leather? Certainly that wouldn?t go along with Rolls Royce?s reputation of building hand-made cars out of exclusive materials.

On the outside, a new alloy wheel option will be available for customers who aren?t satisfied with the current options along with an all new, cool feature called the Comfort Access Boot. This feature lets you open the boot using your feet with the help of a sensor under the rear bumper, should both hands be full. It?s a neat feature that doesn?t require the hassle of taking the key out of the pocket while juggling shopping bags, but in a Rolls Royce?

Though it cannot be considered an incremental upgrade at all, except the cool boot feature, the 2013 Rolls Royce Ghost is, nevertheless, a car that sticks true to the Rolls Royce tradition of absolute perfection, immaculate ride, and supreme refinement. What is your take on the 2013 Rolls Royce Ghost? Let us know in the comments section.

Rolls Royce Ghost originally appeared on topspeed.com on Wednesday, 31 October 2012 17:00 EST.

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Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/rolls-royce/2013-rolls-royce-ghost-ar137207.html

Tommy Byrne Giulio Cabianca Phil Cade Alex Caffi John CampbellJones

Four and half hours after the race?

Four and a half hours after the race, direct from the F1 Paddock in New Delhi, we bring you a 75-page PDF e-magazine, with all the inside stories about the Indian Grand Prix, including full qualifying and race coverage, all the action in the F1 Paddock. If you dream of being part of F1, this [...]

Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/four-and-half-hours-after-the-race/

Luigi Fagioli Jack Fairman Juan Manuel Fangio Nino Farina Walt Faulkner

Rolls Royce Ghost

The 2013 Rolls Royce Ghost will embrace very subtle revisions to the interior upholstery and the infotainment system of the car. What possibly can they upgrade or facelift? It?s already the perfect car, but it will be seeing similar revisions already found in the Phantom Series 2, apart from the day-time LEDs.

Revisions in the 2013 Ghost were mostly concentrated on the infotainment system of the car. It features an all new, advanced amplifier with the addition of ?exciter? speakers. Sounds exciting? The upholstery now comes with natural grain leather and cross-banded wood veneers. If this is an option they are introducing now, what was the type of leather they were using? Printed leather? Certainly that wouldn?t go along with Rolls Royce?s reputation of building hand-made cars out of exclusive materials.

On the outside, a new alloy wheel option will be available for customers who aren?t satisfied with the current options along with an all new, cool feature called the Comfort Access Boot. This feature lets you open the boot using your feet with the help of a sensor under the rear bumper, should both hands be full. It?s a neat feature that doesn?t require the hassle of taking the key out of the pocket while juggling shopping bags, but in a Rolls Royce?

Though it cannot be considered an incremental upgrade at all, except the cool boot feature, the 2013 Rolls Royce Ghost is, nevertheless, a car that sticks true to the Rolls Royce tradition of absolute perfection, immaculate ride, and supreme refinement. What is your take on the 2013 Rolls Royce Ghost? Let us know in the comments section.

Rolls Royce Ghost originally appeared on topspeed.com on Wednesday, 31 October 2012 17:00 EST.

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Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/rolls-royce/2013-rolls-royce-ghost-ar137207.html

Giovanna Amati George Amick Red Amick Chris Amon Bob Anderson

Raikkonen favourite to taste victory in Belgium

At Spa-Francorchamps

In this remarkable season of unpredictability and uncertainty, of seven winners in 11 races, of the most open title battle in years, Formula 1 is still waiting for one big result.

A victory for the revived Lotus team has looked inevitable since the start of the year. And as the world championship re-starts in Belgium this weekend following a month-long summer break, the expectation is that this could be their race.

The car, from the team formerly known as Renault that won two world championships with Fernando Alonso in 2005-6, has been fast all season. Its best result has been four second places. But the momentum seems to be with them.

Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus pushed Lewis Hamilton's winning McLaren all the way in Hungary five weeks ago. The Finn has a stunning record at the stunning Spa-Francorchamps track that hosts this race and Lotus have been working on a technical trick that could give them a key advantage on the demanding track that swoops and twists around the contours of the Ardennes mountains.

Kimi Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen has won the Belgian Grand Prix four times. Photo: Getty

The 32-year-old Finn seems to have a special affinity with the circuit regarded as arguably the biggest test for a racing driver anywhere in the world. He has taken four victories here - and either won or retired from every single race he has competed at Spa since 2004.

Raikkonen's all-action style, based on fast corner entry in a car with good front-end bite, seems perfectly suited to Spa's cascade of long, fast corners.

Two of his wins - for McLaren in 2004 and Ferrari in 2009 - came in years when his machinery was otherwise uncompetitive. The other two were dominant victories from the front in 2005 and 2007.

But Raikkonen's position as arguably the favourite for victory this weekend is not founded just on his renowned Spa specialism. He is widely expected to have the car to do the job.

Lotus have come agonisingly close to victory twice already this year - in Bahrain in April and at the last race, in Hungary at the end of July.

Both times it was Raikkonen who challenged only to just fall short, behind Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel in Bahrain and Hamilton in Hungary. But the Finn, who returned to F1 this season after two unproductive years in world rallying, has actually been Lotus's weaker driver for most of the year.

His team-mate, the Franco-Swiss Romain Grosjean, who is in his first full season, has generally had a marginal advantage - to the point that around the European Grand Prix in Valencia at the end of June there were murmurings of dissatisfaction with the Finn, who won the world championship for Ferrari in 2007.

Raikkonen ultimately finished second to Alonso in Valencia, but had been off the pace of Grosjean all weekend - indeed the younger man was pushing the Ferrari hard when his alternator failed late in the race.

When, following the race, Raikkonen expressed his frustration at it taking so long for Lotus to win, one team member privately expressed the view that he would be better focused on beating Grosjean before moaning about not winning yet.

Since then, though, Raikkonen has upped his game and in the race in Hungary he was fantastic, the middle stint there that lifted him from fifth place to potential victor one of the most impressive pieces of driving all season.

Had Raikkonen not made a mess of qualifying, and taken the front row slot he should have earned rather than the fifth place he did, he might well have won. The same can be said of Bahrain, where a decision to save tyres for the race left him down in 11th place on the grid and with too much to do.

Grosjean, too, must be considered a potential Spa winner. Despite making too many errors, he has been all confidence and commitment this year.

He has looked a different driver on his return to F1 in 2012 from the haunted figure who was demoralised by Alonso during his first half-season at Renault in 2009, after which he was dropped.

The high expectations for Lotus at Spa are partly based on the car's inherent qualifies - a factor in its general competitiveness this year has been strong performance in fast corners, and Spa is full of them.

As well as that, though, is that innovation mentioned earlier. In Hungary, and in Germany the week before, Lotus trialled a clever system aimed at boosting the team's straight-line speed without compromising its performance in other areas.

Like the DRS overtaking aid featured on all the cars, the Lotus system affects the rear wing to reduce drag.

It works by channelling air from scoops behind the driver's head to the rear wing, which this extra air then 'stalls', reducing the downforce the wing creates and therefore its drag, boosting straight-line speed.

What is not clear is when exactly the Lotus system comes into play.

Is it independent of the DRS, as some believe, and therefore active above a pre-set car velocity and usable at all times, including in the race when DRS use is restricted to a specific zone?

Or is it, as BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson believes, linked to the DRS and simply an extra boost to the car's speed when that system is employed, like the system Mercedes have been using but without the inherent compromises that team have discovered?

Either way, it could be a significant boost to Lotus's chances in Spa. Lotus have yet to use the system outside free practice, and this weekend they will again try it out on Friday before making a decision whether to race it.

For all the talk of Lotus, though, a win for them is a very long way from a foregone conclusion. Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren will be as strong as ever on a track that should suit all their cars.

In fact, it will be a particularly interesting weekend all round.

Which teams have made best use of the mid-season break to develop their cars?

Have Ferrari made the step forward in performance they seemed in Hungary to need if Alonso - unquestionably the stand-out driver of the season so far - is to hang on to his championship lead?

Can McLaren maintain the upward momentum they showed in Germany and Hungary after a brief slump?

Will Red Bull finally unlock the potential of what has looked, on balance, overall the fastest car?

The climax of one of the sport's greatest seasons, a hyper-intense period of nine races in three months, starts here.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/08/raikkonen_favourite_to_taste_v.html

John Rhodes Alex Ribeiro Ken Richardson Fritz Riess Jim Rigsby