the ultimate branding mistake

when we think of ferrari, we think of one of the most established marques in all of motoring history, with a history of succesful race cars and some of the most amazing road cars of all time. all in all a fairly impressive track record. however, the recently opened "ferrari world" in abu dabi, with its ferrari rollercoasters, simulators and endless red merchandise, has been criticesed for cheapening the brand. perhaps it is just a bit of harmless fun, but ferrari's appeal to a wider (and cheaper) audience can be seen as a real step in the wrong direction. 

super forward thinking

recently i found a picture of the willis building, which is an insurance office in ipswich, and is a truly remarkable peice of architecture. however what is the most surprising thing about the building is that it was built in the 1970s, but still looks modern today. it was designed by sir norman foster. 

not so exclusive afterall

as you can probably tell from my post "the ultimate supercar", i am not in any way a fan of the bugatti veyron. but i was surprised to find that the so-called ultimate supercar, supposed to be one of the most exclusive cars of all time, had popped up on autotrader. and not just one, but 4 at once. perhaps the ultimate car is not so exclusive afterall.

go comapre..... memorable or just scarring mentally?

the gocompare adverts are immediately recogniseable when they come on, for the right reasons or not. although they are generally regarded as one of the most irritating things on tv, they do stick in the mind. and is that not what adverts are designed to do? perhaps then, despite being the most irritating, it is one of the most successful.

the ultimate supercar?

whilst researching info about various cars old and new for a recent project, i decided to look up some information about my favorite cars of all time. i was born in the early 1990's, and so i grew up with the cars from that age, which command my preference over just about any modern cars. i'd take a mclaren f1 over the bugatti veyron any day. but whilst looking into it more closely, it seems some of the iconic cars from my childhood could hold their own or better with some of today's giants. the bugatti veyron, we are told endlessly is perhaps the greatest engineering achievement in the automotive world, but is it really?




we see in the clip above, the "ultimate" supercars of both era's squaring off in a 1 mile drag race, in which, for the first 1/2 at least the mclaren is winning, but eventually the veyron takes it. however, the mclarent in the video was perhaps not the "ultimate" supercar of its time, and certainly not the one i would have chosen to represent that period of time.
although the roadgoing mclaren f1 was quite an amazing car, there were examples that were faster still. the special LM edition mclaren f1 boasted an impressive 50 extra horsepower, and 100kg less weight, giving it much improved performance espcially over a short drag race.

                                          Mclaren f1 LM

however, even this, the ultimate mclaren f1 is not the car i would choose to represent the 1990s in such a race. the evidence for my choice comes in the form of the 1990s GT championships, in which the mclaren f1 GTR competed. up until 1997, the mclarens were the dominating force in this sport, but then mercedes introduced its CLK GTR. the GTR had been designed specifically to beat the mclarens and porsches, and after 2 seasons, and having won 17 of 22 races, no other team was keen to compete again. the mercedes was so fast it had effectively killed off an entire sport, but road going versions had to be produced.

the clk gtr roadcar was, and still is the most expensive production car of all time, at £1,175,000, for which customers got a race car with slight modifications to make it road legal,  and over 720bhp. this made it even faster than the mclaren, but because of its gearing and downforce-creating body, it maxed out at 215mph, 25 short of the mclaren, one of the main factors in its much lower recognition.
but even this is not the "ultimate" of road cars, as a special edition of the clk gtr was also produced. known as the supersports, it was given the original version of mercedes 7.3litre v12, had close to 750 horsepower, an added front splitter and even more torque, which gave performance figures that are truly astonishing.

to give an example, the bugatti veyron supersports can do a standing quarter mile time of 10 seconds, which is very impressive, but the CLK GTR SS, from the 1990s was able to do a standing quarter mile in just 9.2 seconds, a figure that remains unmatched by almost any roadcar since.

perhaps if that had been the drag race, the result would have been a liitle different

the definition of irony

segway boss jim heselden died in september, having driven one of his own segways into a river on his own estate. he was pronounced dead at the scene and the segway was found nearby.

the unreal made real?

In my last post i wrote about the amazing red bull x1 car designed for the gran turismo 5 playstation game. and, amazingly, IDC (industrial design consultancy) have created a real one! well, a model at least. the life size replica is over 4m long and 2.5m wide and is an almost perfect copy of the car in the game. it was unveiled at the release of the gt5 game.