Posted on 20 March 2012. Tags: aston martin db4, car, look, mercedes benz slr
Ask any car enthusiast and they can likely give you a dozen or so of list of the top best sports cars ever made. You would think that the new ones are worth buying but the highly coveted ones were manufactured way back.
Check out my top picks of the best sports car ever made:
1. Lotus Elise Series 2
If you are going to buy a car to impress your friends, this will certainly evoke a lot of bells and whistles. It has an imposing and aggressive design that will stand out when included in an array of cars. If you have a penchant for small cars, this one combines a small frame with super performance that can go up to 60mph in just 4.7 seconds.
2. Porsche 911
This brand of car has perpetually been raising the bars when it comes to quality, design and performance. The 911 model is one of the best Porsche has to offer. Every inch speaks of being a sports vehicle meant for full speed racing. How fast can it go? It can travel up to 60mph in 4 seconds.
3. Nissan Skyline
Nissan is one of the front runners in the racing car business most especially in Japan. This one has a rather tamed look compared to the previous models but it has very low suspension that enables it to round those sharp corners with ease. It can also go for as far as 60mph in just 4 seconds.
4. Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato
For something that is a little bit classic, this model of Aston Martin is definitely a good choice. It was first introduced to the car loving public way back in 1960. You will love its vintage look with its rounded hood. And despite the fact that it is vintage, performance-wise, it is still one to impress. It can go as far as 60mpg in a little over 6 seconds. In its time, it was probably the king of the road. Continue Reading
Posted in Automotive
Posted on 15 March 2012. Tags: car, ferrari 599 gtb fiorano, magnetorheological dampers, mph
With the return of the legendary ‘GTO’ badge to a Ferrari for 2010, the question being asked by most people familiar with sports cars and Ferrari in particular is, ‘is this the best sports car in the world?’
The model lucky enough to get the GTO treatment and wear the badge is Ferrari’s two seat flagship the 599 GTB Fiorano. The Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano was introduced in 2006 to replace the 575 Maranello. In it’s first year the 599 won the Evo car of the year, Evo being the premiere Magazine in Britain focusing on driver oriented cars and a global authority on performance cars.
So the 599 GTB was already a great supercar when it first appeared in 2006, featuring a 5999cc V12 positioned at the front of the car longitudinally. It develops 611bhp and 448lb ft of torque and all of that power is transmitted to the rear wheels via a 6 speed manual transmission or Ferrari’s 6 speed ‘F1 Superfast’ automated manual transmission with paddle shifters.
The 599 GTB also features magnetorheological dampers which are dampers filled with magnetorheological fluid and controlled by a magnetic field. So by varying the strength of the electromagnet emitting the magnetic field you can adapt individual dampers to continuously altering conditions. This semi active suspension is critical on the 599 GTB in compensating for the basic physics of having the engine out in front of you feeding the driving wheels behind you.
The 599 GTB Fiorano is capable of reaching 60mph from rest in 3.5 seconds and can go on to reach 100mph 2.9 secs later, so from 0 to 100mph in 7.4 secs. It also has a top speed of 205mph.
The only 2 other cars to wear the GTO badge were the race bred 250 GTO in 1962 band the 288 GTO in 1984, both of which are rare and extremely sought after these days. GTO stands for Gran Turismo Omologata and derives from the 2 previous models which were built as homologation specials to allow Ferrari to race them. Continue Reading
Posted in Automotive
Posted on 20 February 2012. Tags: american sports car, car, plymouth superbird, Shelby
They’re all around us, but when did the first sports car find its roots on American soil?
The best sports cars that have defined the American way of “bigger is better” seem to come from several eras starting with the hot rods of the 30′s. While most of these brute forces did not see their true potentials until the muscle car era of the 60′s and 70′s led to the birth of the “garage mechanic”, the pure styling of a 1930′s Ford or Chevy is plain and simple, yet sporty.
Some will argue that the first American sports car came from the 50′s with either the 1953 Corvette or the 1954 T-bird(if you are talking to a Ford fanatic who pretends that Chevy doesn’t even exist).
Without a doubt the 60′s and early 70′s(before the embargo did a number on sports cars) were a Golden Age of top sports cars, starting with the least likely of candidates – The Pontiac Tempest. No matter which muscle car is your favorite, maybe you’re a Chevelle fan or you like the Charger or you are into the super muscle cars such as the Buick 442, Plymouth Superbird or Dodge Challenger, you can’t argue that the first muscle car was the Pontiac GTO. Thanks to John DeLorean, the same mind behind the brand bearing his name(made famous in the Back To the Future movies), the muscle car was born from a plain old full-size American coupe, thus proving the American “bigger is better” motto. The engines themselves were all about “Cubes Are King” and the numbers were astounding- 396, 400, 426 and 454! Compare those to today’s numbers such as the 350 of the C4 and C5 Corvette and it is staggering.
Detroit also brought some style worthy of the Louvre in the Shelby Cobra and the Ford GT40(as well as the Ford powered, Italian designed Detamaso Pantera) and a car that sits among the Top 10 most expensive in the much coveted, hand-built Shelby Daytona, of which only 6 were built! Continue Reading
Posted in Automotive
