Mercedes-Benz S600 Guard by TOPCAR


TOPCAR has popped back into the TopSpeed offices, straight out of Russia, with an all-new bespoke vehicle. Last time we caught up with our Russian custom car friends they were getting their Panamera Stingray 9/25 ready for the 2012 Moscow International Automobile Salon. Now they have delivered us a little more comfort and loads of safety with their Guard upgrade kit for the 2005 through 2013 Mercedes-Benz S600.

TOPCAR began by stripping this S600 down and adding in bullet-proof glass and paneling to keep its occupants safe. While the armoring is cool and likely costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, we are interested mostly in what the armor is protecting. No, not the occupants, we are talking about that gorgeous interior!

The entire interior covering has been removed and replaced from headliner to floor ? yeah, we said the floor too ? with an elegant blend of lozenge-textured crocodile, Nappa, and Alcantara leather. Sure, using crocodile leather isn?t the most PETA-friendly thing in the world, but when you have the roughly $100K that TOPCAR put into the interior, you can tell PETA to go save a squirrel. Plus, we?re pretty sure their presence in Russia is nearly non-existent.

The crocodile leather wraps up the seats, doors, dashboard, and floor. Gracing the luggage compartment is diamond-quilted Nappa leather, making a comfortable ride for your golf clubs or whatever else you like to stick in your trunk. With our contact at TOPCAR volunteering that sometimes the term ?crazy Russian? is justified, we will leave the other trunk-dwelling objects to your imagination.

You also get a huge amount of custom Karelian birch wood trim to set off all of this beautifully crafted leather. To wrap up the package, TOPCAR replaced all of the Benz?s lowly chrome trim with gold-covered pieces. I mean, you can never rock crocodile leather with chrome trim after Labor Day, right?

?Wow? just about sums up this car. When it comes to tiptoeing the line between fantastically gorgeous and horrendously overdone, TOPCAR toed that line with the expertise we expected. Awesome job!

Mercedes-Benz S600 Guard by TOPCAR originally appeared on topspeed.com on Saturday, 22 September 2012 18:00 EST.

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Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/mercedes/2005-2013-mercedes-benz-s600-guard-by-topcar-ar135284.html

Raul Boesel Menato Boffa Bob Bondurant Felice Bonetto Jo Bonnier

The Modern Day Jewel In F1?s Crown?

This weekend will be the Marina Bay Circuit?s fifth race, since the inaugural event in 2008, and its popularity has increased every year. This pioneering circuit was the host of the first ever night Grand Prix. Races here are quite a sight, as the cars shimmer under the powerful floodlights against the backdrop of the [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/Rl1YH92qq5g/the-modern-day-jewel-in-f1s-crown

Silvio Moser Bill Moss Stirling Moss Gino Munaron David Murray

The season so far: pattern amid the unpredictability

This Formula 1 season has so far been a perfect storm of unpredictable results, thrilling races and a closely fought title battle.

Who would have predicted that a man who has not once had the fastest car would be leading the world championship as it neared its halfway stage?

Yet Fernando Alonso, whose Ferrari started the campaign more than a second off the pace, goes into this weekend's British Grand Prix with a 20-point lead.

Who would have predicted that the defending world champion, who took 15 pole positions in 19 races last year, would fail to get into the top 10 qualifying shoot-out?

New Pirelli tyre

Formula 1 teams will have the opportunity to test a new hard tyre compound that Pirelli are developing for the future during the practice sessions of the British Grand Prix. Photo: Getty

Yet that is exactly what happened to Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel in China - and very nearly again in Monaco.

Who would have predicted that last year's runner-up, a man who is renowned for his delicacy with tyres, would struggle for pace in a season in which the fragile Pirellis are the defining characteristic? Yet there is Jenson Button having a terrible time in the McLaren.

Who would have predicted that a driver who owes his place to sponsorship money and who was previously known best for inconsistency and mistakes would win a race? Williams's Pastor Maldonado did exactly that in Spain.

Or that it would take until the eighth grand prix for the season to have its first repeat winner? Step forward Alonso again.

F1 has been maligned for years as being boring and predictable - overtaking, people said, was too hard and working out who was going to win too easy.

No longer. There has been so much action in the eight races so far this season that you almost don't know where to look.

There are concerns that F1 has now gone too far the other way, that it is too unpredictable, that too much of a random element has been introduced by the fast-wearing, hard-to-operate Pirelli tyres that are at the root of this new direction.

In essence, the fear is that F1 has been turned from an exercise in precision engineering into a lottery.

And there is unease in certain quarters that the drivers are always having to race "within themselves", with tyre life their biggest concern.

Yet through the fog of uncertainty and apparent haphazardness, a pattern has emerged.

As the competitive edge swung wildly from one team to another in the opening races, it was revealing that the positions at the top of the championship were very quickly occupied by the best drivers - Alonso, Vettel, his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber and McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Button.

The list of different winners continued, until Alonso's spectacular win in Valencia last time out, but through it all the big hitters continued to be the ones who scored most consistently.

Despite that, there has undoubtedly been a welcome element of unpredictability, and the top teams have not had it their own way.

So while Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Lotus - the teams who have won every world title for the last 15 years - have all figured at the front, Williams and Sauber have also been up there mixing it with them. As, on occasion, have Force India.

This is partly to do with the tyres. This year's Pirellis have been deliberately designed with an unusually narrow operating-temperature window. Getting - and keeping - them there is far from easy, and the big teams do not have exclusivity on clever engineers.

The unusually great importance of the tyres has so far lessened the effect of aerodynamics - for so long the determining factor in F1.

Just as importantly, the regulations have now been pretty stable for the last four years. When that happens the field always tends to close up. Both Sauber and Williams have serious engineering resources of their own, and have clearly built very good cars.

Through all of this, one man has stood out above all others.

Alonso has long been considered within F1 as the greatest all-round talent, and this year the Spaniard has driven with a blend of precision, aggression, opportunism, consistency and pace that is close to perfection.

He has taken two stunning wins and scored consistently elsewhere. In fact, had Ferrari's strategy brains been a little sharper, he may have had four victories by now - that's half the races. And all without anything close to the best car.

Of the two wins he has taken, Alonso himself rates the wet race in Malaysia as the better.

For me, though, the one in Valencia shades it, for the skill and determination he showed in battling up to second place from 11th on the grid before Vettel's retirement from the lead handed him the win.

Some of the overtaking moves Alonso pulled on the way to that win were utterly breathtaking in their audacity, the way he balanced risk and reward and made it pay off.

Hamilton's season has been almost as good, but he has been let down by a number of operational errors from McLaren, ranging from bungled pit stops to refuelling errors in qualifying. He now faces an uphill battle to get back on terms with his old rival.

Alonso has long regarded Hamilton as the man he fears most in this title battle, but one wonders if he might change his mind following Valencia.

After two years of domination, Red Bull have stumbled a little this year. Yet operationally they have still been the best team and their car has always been among the strongest on race day.

After a difficult first three races, either Vettel or Webber have now been on pole for four of the last five.

Before retiring with alternator failure in Valencia the German put in a performance as crushing as any in his title-winning years (2010 and 2011), thanks to a major aerodynamic upgrade at the rear of his car.

Up and down the pit lane, rivals fear Red Bull have moved their car up to another level.

The confirmation - or otherwise - of that will come at Silverstone this weekend. Its blend of high-speed corners provide one of the most stringent tests of a car's quality on the calendar.

Last year, following a one-off rule change that hampered Red Bull more than anyone else, the British Grand Prix was won by Alonso.

But if the Red Bull proves as effective around the sweepers of Northamptonshire as it did at the point-and-squirt right-angles of Valencia, even Alonso at his most perfect will find it hard to fend it off.

Both this weekend and for the rest of the year.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/07/andrew_benson_the_season_so_fa.html

Oswald Karch Narain Karthikeyan Ukyo Katayama Ken Kavanagh Rupert Keegan

Porsche 911 Turbo S RSR by Champion Motorsport


If the Porsche 911 Turbo S just isn?t enough car for you, allow us to first congratulate you on being an extreme automotive enthusiast and then introduce you to the 620-horsepower 911 GT2 RS and its $195,000 price tag. If the GT2 RS is still not enough for you, all you have left is to heavily modify its already powerful engine to squeeze a little more muscle from it, or step up to the track-only Porsche GT3 RSR.

Well, with the extreme rarity of the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR and its ?410,000 ($535,214 at the current exchange rates) price, the opportunity that you can ever get your hands on one is slim to none with the latter being much more likely. However, for the Porsche lovers that still want to have their cake and rub Lamborghini’s nose in it too, Champion Motorsport, based out of Pompano Beach, FL, has the answer for you: the 2011 Porsche 911 Turbo S RSR.

Click past the jump to read all about the 2011 911 Turbo S RSR and find out if it lives up to the hype.

Porsche 911 Turbo S RSR by Champion Motorsport originally appeared on topspeed.com on Tuesday, 18 September 2012 19:00 EST.

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Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/porsche/2011-porsche-911-turbo-s-rsr-by-champion-motorsport-ar130895.html

Alain Prost Tom Pryce David Purley Clive Puzey Dieter Quester

Paralympic gold medalist Zanardi eyes DTM with BMW

With fresh Paralympic gold around his neck, Alex Zanardi is eyeing the German touring car series DTM as his next goal. Since losing his legs in a 2011 crash, the former F1 driver has completed the l...

Source: http://feeds.worldcarfans.com/~r/worldcarfans/Jxfz/~3/_Svup3OJjFA/paralympic-gold-medalist-zanardi-eyes-dtm-with-bmw

Jack Turner Toni Ulmen Bobby Unser Jerry Unser Alberto Uria

F1 fans? guide to the 2012 Singapore Grand Prix | 2012 Singapore Grand Prix

F1 fans’ guide to the 2012 Singapore Grand Prix is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.

F1 Fanatic readers who've been to the Singapore Grand Prix have raved about the experience. Here are some tips and memories from those who've been to F1's night race.

F1 fans’ guide to the 2012 Singapore Grand Prix is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/f1fanatic/~3/wLKkAT1RmtM/

Emanuele Naspetti Massimo Natili Brian Naylor Mike Nazaruk Tiff Needell

Smooth Button masters F1's greatest test

At the circuit widely regarded as the greatest test of a racing driver in the world, Jenson Button took a victory in the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday that was probably the most dominant this season.

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, who finished second to Button after an impressive performance of his own, had an even bigger margin of superiority in Valencia but he was unable to make it count because his car failed.

Button had no such trouble. He stamped his authority on the weekend from the start of qualifying and never looked back, as all hell broke loose behind his McLaren.

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The frightening first-corner pile-up helped him in that it took out a potential threat in world championship leader Fernando Alonso's Ferrari. The Spaniard was up to third place from fifth on the grid before being assaulted by the flying Lotus of Romain Grosjean, who had collided with the other McLaren of Lewis Hamilton.

But before the race Alonso had entertained no prospect of battling for victory, and while he would almost certainly have finished on the podium, there is no reason to believe he would have troubled Button.

The Englishman also comfortably saw off in the opening laps the challenge of Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen, hotly tipped before the weekend.

Raikkonen was left to battle entertainingly with rivals including Vettel and Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher, on whom the Finn pulled an astoundingly brave pass into the 180mph swerves of Eau Rouge which was almost a carbon copy of Red Bull driver Mark Webber's move on Alonso last year.

Button, meanwhile, was serene out front, never looking under the remotest threat.

For Button, this was a far cry from the struggles he has encountered in what has not overall been one of his better seasons.

A strong start included a dominant victory in the opening race in Australia and second place in China.

But after that he tailed off badly, struggling with this year's big Formula 1 quandary - getting the temperamental Pirelli tyres into the right operating window.

The 32-year-old had a sequence of weak races and even at other times has generally been firmly in Hamilton's shade.

Those struggles were ultimately solved by some head-scratching on set-up at McLaren, but they were undoubtedly influenced by Button's smooth, unflustered driving style.

Button's weakness - one of which he is well aware - is that he struggles when the car is not to his liking. Unlike Alonso and Hamilton, he finds it difficult to adapt his style to different circumstances.

The flip side of that is that when he gets the car's balance right, he is close to unbeatable. It is a similar situation to that of two former McLaren drivers - Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

Senna, like Hamilton, was usually faster, but when Prost, whose style was similar to Button's, got his car in the sweet spot he was matchless.

"I obviously have a style where it's quite difficult to find a car that works for me in qualifying," Button said on Saturday, "but when it does we can get pole position."

Perhaps an elegant style that does not upset the car or over-work the tyres was exactly what was needed through the demanding corners of Spa's challenging middle sector.

That was McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe's view, certainly.

"It could well be," Lowe said, "because it's made up of these longer flowing corners rather than the short, stop-start ones. So that may well be something he can work with well, just tucking it all up and smooth lines."

Was this the secret to Button's performance in qualifying, when he was a remarkable 0.8 seconds quicker than team-mate Lewis Hamilton?

In a well-publicised series of tweets after qualifying, Hamilton blamed this on the team's collective decision - with which he agreed when it was made - to run his car on a set-up with higher downforce.

This is a perfectly valid decision at Spa -it was a route that Raikkonen also took - and in pure lap time the two differing approaches should balance themselves out. But for them to do so, the driver with the higher downforce set-up has to make up in the middle sector the time he has lost on the straights.

As the McLaren telemetry of which Hamilton so unwisely tweeted a picture on race morning proved, however, that was not the case. Hamilton was not fast enough through sector two - indeed his time through there on his final qualifying lap was 0.3secs slower than his best in the session.

The McLaren telemetry

Hamilton tweeted a photo of the McLaren telemetry, prompting a rebuke from his team.

That was the real reason why he was slower than Button in Spa qualifying - not the fact he was down on straight-line speed, which was always going to be the case once he went with the set-up he did.

It's worth pointing out in this context that Hamilton was also significantly slower than Button in final practice - a fact that led him to take the gamble on the different set-up.

How Hamilton would have fared in the race will never be known, because of the accident with Grosjean.

It was a scary moment - Grosjean's flying Lotus narrowly missed Alonso's head - and the incident underlined once again why F1 bosses are so keen to introduce some kind of more effective driver head protection in the future.

From the point of view of a disinterested observer, the only plus point of the accident, which also took out the two impressive Saubers, was that it has narrowed Alonso's lead in the championship. Vettel is now within a race victory of the Spaniard.

Despite this, to his immense credit, Alonso was a picture of measured calm after the race.

Invited to criticise Grosjean, he refused. Although, being the wise owl he is, he not only had at his fingertips the statistics of Grosjean's first-lap crashes this season, but slipped them into his answer.

"I am not angry [at Grosjean]," he said. "No-one did this on purpose, they were fighting, two aggressive drivers on the start, Lewis and Romain and this time it was us in the wrong place at the wrong time and we were hit.

"It's true also that in 12 races, Romain had seven crashes at the start, so..."

It was, Alonso pointed out, a good opportunity for governing body the FIA to make a point about driving standards this season, which Williams's Pastor Maldonado has also seemed to be waging a campaign to lower.

It was an opportunity the stewards did not decline.

Grosjean will now watch next weekend's Italian Grand Prix from the sidelines after being given a one-race suspension, the first time a driver has been banned since Michael Schumacher in 1994. Maldonado has a 10-place grid penalty for jumping the start and causing his own, independent, accident.

Earlier this year, triple world champion Jackie Stewart, who is an advisor to Lotus, offered to sit down with Grosjean and give him some advice about the way he approached his races.

Stewart is famous not only for his campaign for safety in F1 but also for his impeccable driving standards during his career. He has helped many drivers in his time, but Grosjean turned him down.

On Sunday evening, I was contacted by an old friend, the two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 and former IndyCar champion Gil de Ferran, who was involved in F1 a few years ago as a senior figure in the Honda team.

That coaching, De Ferran said, "seems like a great idea".

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/09/smooth_button_masters_f1_great.html

Christian Danner Jorge Daponte Anthony Davidson Jimmy Davies Colin Davis

Let's celebrate a great British Grand Prix

I must confess, at the start of the year I wasn't sure what to expect from Formula 1 in 2012. The question for me was: how could a sport that has enthralled us so much in recent seasons deliver again - while at the same time hold its own in a year so packed with stunning sporting spectacles?

We've had the European Football Championship, now followed swiftly by Wimbledon and then almost immediately the London Olympics will be upon us. It's a veritable feast for those sports lovers keen to sit down on the sofa in June and not get up again until late August (if I wasn't working I'd be one of them!).

Among such sporting riches I wondered just how F1 would make its voice heard. Well, here we are, almost at the midway point of the season and it seems I needn't have worried.

Due to the fact that my brain has probably only a hundredth of the power of Adrian Newey's and works at roughly a tenth of the speed of Sebastian Vettel's, there are many things I still can't work out about this sport. One of them: just how does it manage to keep on delivering storylines that even Brookside in its heyday would have been proud of?!

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Jake and the team arrive in Silverstone last year.

Since the BBC team and I got involved it's been one drama after another. In 2009 alone we had the Brawn GP 'phoenix-from-the-flames' act, Felipe Massa's nasty accident in Hungary and then Jenson keeping us all guessing until we got to Brazil.

2010 then delivered arguably the most competitive season the sport has ever seen with five drivers in with a shout of the title, and the least fancied of the lot eventually winning it.

Meanwhile, last year was all about the record-breaking domination of our back-to-back champion, as Seb found his feet in the sport - and his place in the history books - with the most amazing performances week after week that all of us, bar Mark Webber, just watched in awe.

And then 2012 arrived. The year of the Union Flag. The year we all celebrate being British, and the Queen being on the throne almost as long as this sport has existed. The year that Wayne Rooney and England would chase glory in the east of Europe, while the likes of Chris Hoy and Usain Bolt would do the same in the east of London.

And among the flotillas, the flypast and the flag waving, Formula 1's job was to remind the British public that if you want to celebrate Britain, then celebrate this sport!

In an age of low profits and high anxiety, it's only natural that we lean on the things we know and trust, and we should include Formula 1 in that bracket. To most of us, it's always been here.

We should not only celebrate it because it employs thousands and contributes millions to the British economy each year. We shouldn't just feel pride because eight of the current teams are based on these shores, or that this was the country where Formula 1 actually began - but because in times like this, what we need is a bit of escapism, something to entertain us. And this sport is currently doing both.

And best of all, this weekend it's the British Grand Prix!

I have incredibly fond memories of this race, and we always try to find a way on the show to tell the story of you, the F1 fans, who attend in your thousands. And whether it's chants of 'BBC' from the grandstand or 'Eddie, Eddie, Eddie' as the crowds gather round us in our pre-show build-up, we appreciate the support you've shown us over the years.

Having arrived on a three-man tandem bike and hovered overhead in a helicopter in the past, we've decided on a quintessentially British, extrovert way of arriving for this year's grand prix. If you're there on the Thursday you won't miss us! I suggest that sometime late-morning you look to the skies and give us a wave... that's all I'm saying.

However, it's the drivers who will again provide the real entertainment this year. And after the British fans braved the rain of 2011 and despite there being no British winner since 2008, I truly hope that this year is a race to remember. As well as a grand prix that lives up to the high standards this season has set.

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Will 2012 match up to Mansell's classic win in 1986?

If Valencia is anything to go by then it looks like Silverstone will be a cracker. We won't have the sweltering conditions that some races have given us, but with another mixed-up grid full of mixed-up strategies, once again I hope it will have us guessing until the very end.

And we're also at a crucial stage of the season as far as the title is concerned. Can Fernando Alonso now string some success together and build a championship lead? Meanwhile Mark Webber can really show what consistency can do. If Lotus really harbour title aspirations then now is the time to start turning pace into wins, and what kind of form will Michael be in now he's bagged his first podium since 2006?

And that leaves the three lions. Paul Di Resta continues to show flashes of brilliance and stunning raw speed - surely it's just a matter of time until he makes a move to a big team. But he's also got the likes of Sergio Perez and Romain Grosjean battling for the crown of top rookie.

Is Jenson going to be cut adrift after struggling on Saturdays and having to fight for scraps in recent races? And as for Lewis, he may well arrive at Silverstone like a bear with a sore head after the way his Valencia race ended, but I predict he will make it British Grand Prix win number two on Sunday.

So, if you can't make it to the race then don't take down your Jubilee bunting and put the fizz back under the stairs just yet. Chill a bottle, settle down in front of the TV and watch a British love affair unfold that is every bit as special as we've seen so far this summer.

And if you are coming to the race, then make sure you bring that Union Flag. This feels like a year that we've fallen in love with being British again, so as the world tunes in to see what Northamptonshire has to offer on Sunday, let's help make it a race to remember.

And after the race, head to Luffield for the grand prix party, as we're hosting the F1 Forum live on stage and we want you to be part of the show.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jakehumphrey/2012/07/lets_celebrate_a_great_british.html

Pierre Levegh Bayliss Levrett Jackie Lewis Stuart LewisEvans Guy Ligier

Audi SQ5 TDI Exclusive Concept


At the 2012 Paris Motor Show, Audi will be bringing along a special edition SQ5 TDI model called the Executive Concept.

To be fair, we’re looking forward to seeing this car on the showroom floor for a number of reasons including a unique body color that we haven’t seen before from an Audi. The concept also promises a luxurious interior befitting its "Exclusive Concept" designation.

Other than that, there’s not a whole lot to be excited about when it comes to the SQ TDI Exclusive Concept. (Wait until you hear how much it’s going to cost).

In any case, the car is scheduled to make an appearance in Paris, which, in itself, is worthy of coverage. It won’t be the sexiest or the most eye-popping of the cars headed to France, but we’re still interested to see if Audi can change our minds on our initial underwhelming opinion of this production-ready, limited-run concept.

Find out more about the Audi SQ5 TDI Exclusive Concept after the jump.

Audi SQ5 TDI Exclusive Concept originally appeared on topspeed.com on Saturday, 15 September 2012 03:00 EST.

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Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/audi/2013-audi-sq5-tdi-exclusive-concept-ar134907.html

Mika Häkkinen Bruce Halford Jim Hall Duncan Hamilton Lewis Hamilton