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Porsche released a lighthearted video today in honor of Valentine’s Day, but really as a way to show the automaker’s love for the V-8 engine.Porsche introduced a V-8 in the 928 in 1977. Back then, the engine produced 240 horsepower. The V-8 in the 2021 Panamera Turbo spits out up to 620 hp.It may be Valentine’s Day, but apparently Porsche is not expressing its feelings for all-electric powertrains or V-6s. Nope, today Porsche is in love with V-8 engines. And to prove it, the company has released a short video gushing over its own special history with V-8 engines. Just wait until Porsche learns that the V-8 doesn’t have any monogamous feelings toward Porsche.
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The video explains how Porsche has been using V-8 engines for 45 years, starting with the 928 in 1977. “Eight cylinders, 90 degrees from one another in the form of a V,” the video says. “It was love at first sight.” The video then runs through a bit of Porsche V-8 history, from the Cayenne to the Panamera to racing on the Nürburgring to that time the V-8 went to college and experimented with electric power in the 918 Spyder. That vehicle “made us fall in love all over again,” the narrator says. “Now, on to a new challenge and a new era combining ideas old and new as our hybrid V-8s take to the track.”

Porsche has expressed its love for the V-8 before, like five years ago for the 40th anniversary. Then, the company explained how this first V-8, part of the 4.5-liter lightweight alloy engine in the 928, was not the first Porsche to use eight cylinders, but it was the first to arrange the cylinders in a new shape. A heart-like V, of course. Porsche said that engine had a “conspicuously low compression ratio of 8.5:1” and could use 91-octane gasoline.Porsche’s original V-8 engine produced 240 horsepower at 5500 rpm, while the second version—found in the 928S in 1979—displaced 4.7 liters and produced 300 hp. Things have come a little way since then. The V-8 in the 2021 Panamera Turbo S produces a maximum of 620 horsepower.Someday, Porsche may be over the V-8. But not today.

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Lego has released other McLaren models and some F1 cars, but this will be the first time we get an official Lego Technic version of a Formula 1 car.Decked out in McLaren’s 2021 livery, the new 1432-piece model features the kinds of Technic touches builders appreciate, like moving pistons in the engine, a working steering wheel, and F1’s DRS spoiler.The new set goes on sale next month at a price of $180.Just in time for McLaren’s reveal of the actual new MCL36 F1 race car with 2022 colors, which happened this week, Lego has taken the wraps off a large new Technic set that showcases the team’s 2021 livery (although the box confusingly calls it McLaren’s 2022 F1 car) while still able to fit on your display shelf.

Lego

McLaren’s drivers for the new MCL36 will be Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo in the upcoming season. The MCL36 is powered by a Mercedes-AMG F1 M13 E Performance engine while the Lego version uses ABS plastic to create details like moving pistons in the V6 engine as well as wheels that can be steered from the cockpit. The 1432-piece model is over five inches tall, 25.5 inches long, and 10.5 inches wide and comes with a sheet of sponsor stickers to complete the authentic feeling. Detailed Lego fans will recognize the F1 car’s massive tires from the official set for Batman’s Tumbler vehicle.

Lego

Lego and McLaren released a short video showing Norris and Ricciardo appreciating the plastic model’s active suspension and the inclusion of the Drag Reduction System spoiler. DRS was introduced in 2011 to make F1 races more exciting by allowing drivers a bit of a speed boost under certain circumstances. Ricciardo also playfully jokes that the toy model is just about the right size for Norris. “I would say everything would fit but your head,” Ricciardo said. Riccirado also said that, while he doesn’t want to brag, he could probably build the model in about six weeks.
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Lego has released at least seven other sets based on McLaren cars, according to fan site Brickset. These have included the Elva, 720S, and Senna as Speed Champion (i.e., smaller, more kid-friendly sets) as well as a more complicated Technic set for the Senna GTR that was released in 2021. Lego has also released over two dozen non-Technic sets based on F1 vehicles, many wearing Ferrari colors or Lego’s fictional Octan company.

LEGO Technic McLaren Senna GTR 42123 Toy Car Model Building Kit; Build and Display an Authentic McLaren Supercar, New 2021 (830 Pieces)

LEGO
amazon.com

$60.93

The McLaren is the first Lego Technic version of a Formula 1 car, but given the work that went into the new set, we expect Lego F1 fans to build their own models based on this design before too long. The new McLaren F1 Lego set will be available March 1 and will cost $179.99 in the U.S.
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Over the past few years, some people who rented cars from Hertz found themselves arrested when the company told police they had stolen the cars even though they claim they were legitimate renters and returned the vehicles on time.It seems now that these cases were mostly mistakes created by Hertz’s computer system when it couldn’t physically locate a car or maybe even if someone’s payment didn’t go through.Thanks in part to a CBS News investigation, a Delaware bankruptcy court judge ruled this week that Hertz will have to make thousands of pages of documents in the case public.File this bit of news under “We’ll learn more soon.” A Delaware bankruptcy court judge ruled this week that Hertz will have to back up, publicly, its claims that as many as thousands of people rented its cars and then stole them.The judge was ruling in a case brought by 230 customers who said they were wrongly arrested after Hertz told police they had stolen the vehicles—even though they claim they correctly returned them. Attorneys in the case say the 230 people involved in the case represent a larger group of about 8000 people whom Hertz accused of stealing its cars. Hertz itself pegs the number of thefts each year somewhere in the middle.

“Of the more than 25 million rental transactions by Hertz in the United States per year, 0.014 percent fall into the rare situation where vehicles are reported to the authorities after exhaustive attempts to reach the customer,” Hertz said in a statement provided to CBS News, which did the math to translate that to an average of 3500 customers stealing Hertz vehicles each year.”The vast majority of these cases involve renters who were many weeks or even months overdue returning vehicles and who stopped communicating with us well beyond the scheduled due date,” the company said in a statement to the Washington Post. Everyone seems to agree that there aren’t actually thousands of people stealing Hertz rental cars each year. The problems are more bureaucratic, such as when Hertz doesn’t know where a particular car physically is and so thinks it is missing. These kinds of problems can pop up if renters switch cars during a rental, or if they extend their rental period. The Post said that even problems with credit or debit cards can generate a theft report in Hertz’s system, which then are sent over to local law enforcement.”We’re having police act as a strong arm for private corporations and private vehicles, when this is not what taxpayer dollars are supposed to be used for.” Francis Alexander Malofiy, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, told the Post.

So, soon, the public will get to see some of these reports and other data. Hertz, which emerged from its 2020 bankruptcy filing last year, had provided the information to the court under seal. The judge ruled this week that this information will now be released, in part because CBS News filed an objection to keeping this information from the public. CBS reported that within these reports lie the number of “theft” reports that the company admits were mistakes.
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The sight of a BMW police car in the U.K. is not unusual at all: 3-series, 5-series, and X5 SUVs are all relatively commonplace.However, you won’t see them doing the high-speed pursuit work they were intended for, now that a series of engine fires have happened.One town has resorted to Peugeots with 1.2-liter engines to take their place. We feel sure that will be only temporary.American gearheads visiting Europe are often quick to notice the radically different police vehicles working on the other side of the Atlantic. Plenty of police interceptors come from mainstream automakers, but European forces also often use upmarket brands, especially for high-speed duties. In the U.K. these are often BMWs, with 3-series, 5-series and X5 vehicles regularly seen patroling Britain’s motorway network in police livery.

BMW 530d Police Interceptor.
BMW U.K.

But now some have been restricted to light duties following a recent history of catastrophic fires that have affected BMWs fitted with the company’s N57 3.0-liter straight-six diesel engine. Some police forces, including Durham in the northeast of England, have reportedly ordered N57-equipped cars not to be used for high-speed pursuits. As BMWs are primarily used as interceptors and to transport firearms officers—keep in mind, police in Britain are not routinely armed—the enforced light duties mean that less appropriate cars are now being used instead. According to one media report, in Durham that means Peugeots equipped with 1.2-liter turbocharged engines are being used by traffic cops. Some other British police services have apparently chosen to dispose of N57-equipped BMWs in their fleets early.The hiatus is understandable after a series of fires involving police BMWs. While we don’t know if the N57 was a common factor to all, media reports in the U.K. have documented numerous infernos in recent years (in Kent in 2016, Liverpool in 2019, southeast London in 2019, and Swindon in 2021 for example). The most serious fire happened in December 2020 when a police officer in Cumbria, Nick Dumphries, died after the BMW he was driving caught fire as he responded to an emergency call. BMW hasn’t confirmed the exact nature of the issue but has said it won’t affect the many privately owned cars fitted with the N57 engine.

“This issue is associated with the particular way in which the police operate these high-performance vehicles. This unique usage profile puts extra strain on some components and therefore BMW has specified a special servicing program for these vehicles,” the company said in a statement. “There is no need for action on any civilian vehicles.”BMW was first named as a “key supplier” to police forces in the U.K. in 2010 by the National Policing Improvement Agency. The 330d Saloon Interceptor pictured above was particularly selected as a “high-performance pursuit vehicle” at the time. The N57 engine has been superseded by the newer B57, meaning the newest at-risk car is now more than three years old, and volumes will diminish as police fleets replace older models. Many constabularies are choosing to move away from BMW altogether, and these days police-liveried Volvos an increasingly common sight on Britain’s roads. And, yes, the Swedish company does indeed remove the 112-mph speed limiter that is fitted to all the cars it sells to civilians.

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This ex–SpeedSource/Mazda Lola B12/80 competed in the IMSA prototype class from 2014 to 2016, and now it’s up for auction on Bring a Trailer.Important detail: It doesn’t come with an engine. Bidding is currently at $52,888, and the auction ends on Monday, February 14. This 2014 Lola/Mazda IMSA prototype racer, our pick of the day from the auction site Bring a Trailer—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos—is most intriguing for what it doesn’t have: an engine. But it has pretty much everything else you need to go racing, including pushrod-actuated Multimatic DSSV dampers, carbon-carbon brakes with AP Racing calipers, and an XTrac 1059 sequential gearbox. But as it sits, it’s just a human-scale Pinewood Derby racer. And that’s part of the fun—daydreaming about what kind of powerplant you’d stuff into the space between the cabin and the rear wheels.

Bring a Trailer

That XTrac gearbox is rated for 590 pound-feet of torque, which means there are lots of possibilities as to what you might bolt to it. A Mazda rotary would be appropriate, of course. Or how about an LS7? Or maybe something like this. You probably won’t use an engine of the sort that originally powered the car at the 2014 24 Hours of Daytona—a four-cylinder diesel. That was back when Mazda was promoting its Skyactiv diesels as the future, a future that never quite materialized. This car spent two seasons as a diesel before racing a final season with a turbocharged gas four-cylinder. We’d also guess that whoever wins this car won’t install a turbo four. Unlike Mazda, we don’t have to think on-brand, here. “Siri, will a Lamborghini V-10 fit in a Lola B12/80 chassis?”

This car, chassis MM07, never finished better than fourth place in any given race (that was with the gas engine). But you’ll definitely win your local track day if you show up with this monster, turn the key, and unleash the ragged blat of a Metzger air-cooled Porsche flat-six. Or an Alfa Romeo 2.9-liter turbo V-6. Or . . . Okay, you get the idea. But we’re just saying that if you’re already shelling out the money for this delectable assemblage of road-course-slaying hardware, you may as well spend another $40,000 for a 10,000-rpm, 600-hp naturally aspirated four-rotor rotary. That is all.

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Valentine’s Day is coming up and we decided to celebrate by choosing hypothetical gifts for each other. On this week’s episode of Window Shop, the contestants were each assigned to shop for someone else with the goal of finding a car that could serve as an automotive soulmate. The budget was set at $50,000 with the stipulation that we could stretch to $100,000 if the car was red or pink.This meant carefully considering the tastes of our fellow window shoppers. Road & Track senior editor John Pearley Huffman, shopping for cars director Tony Quiroga, kicked things off and immediately broke the rules with a nice low-mileage Toyota Land Cruiser in silver that went way over budget considering the color-based rules. Senior editor Joey Capparella went next and chose an obscure luxury sedan with a name you may not recognize for contributor Jonathan Ramsey (we won’t ruin the surprise).Ramsey found a Porsche 911 in a specific color for Pearley and then deputy testing director K.C. Colwell went the JDM direction for noted Japanese car enthusiast Capparella. And finally, Quiroga selected a supercharged Lotus Elise—the only red car of the episode—for deputy testing director K.C. Colwell.We voted based on who we thought selected the best gift and, as always, chaos ensued while we tried to determine a winner. Check out the episode in full above and a happy Valentine’s Day to all.

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Aston Martin’s front-engined sports cars, the Vantage, DB11, and DBS, are all set for major revisions for 2023. That’s according to chairman Lawrence Stroll, as first reported by Autocar.One of the most important changes is a new infotainment system, which trades the clunky trackpad for a fresh touchscreen interface.The alterations will be so drastic that they will be, in Stroll’s words, effectively “all-new cars,” but the DBS will retain its 5.2-liter V-12. Aston Martin revealed its all-new AMR22 race car for the upcoming Formula 1 season yesterday. It sported a new livery with lime green accents that echoes the paint job on the Valkyrie Pro. But along with showing off Aston Martin’s latest F1 challenger, chairman Lawrence Stroll also dropped some details about major updates to the brand’s front-engine sports cars, as reported by the U.K. publication Autocar.

Aston Martin

Stroll reportedly said that the changes to the Vantage, DB11, and DBS for the 2023 model year would be so extensive that they would be like “all-new cars.” Significantly, Aston Martin will ditch the Mercedes-Benz–based trackpad infotainment system for more modern touchscreens. A previous agreement had laden Aston Martins with a version of the Mercedes COMAND infotainment system that was originally launched in 1998 and was last overhauled in 2016, although Mercedes itself switched to the new MBUX system in 2018.”How can you have an Aston Martin that sells for £150,000 [about $204,000] with three-year-old technology?” Stroll said. “It is a silly thing the previous management agreed to.” It appears the updated Aston Martin infotainment will be based on the newer MBUX system, with Stroll emphasizing that Aston Martin will distinguish its interface from the Mercedes platform with “our own faces, our own voices—a proper English accent.”

The updates to the front-engine sports cars will also include revisions to the suspension, engines, and gearboxes. Stroll confirmed that the DBS will retain its 5.2-liter V-12. The 4.0-liter V-8 found in the Vantage and DB11 will likely receive the latest tech from AMG. The current Vantage and DB11 can make up to 528 horsepower, but the a newer version of the same engine found in the recently-revealed Mercedes-AMG SL63 is rated at 577 ponies. Some design changes are also expected, with Stroll quoted as saying “there’s no similarity at all to the current cars” except for “some carryover” on the rear end. The updated sports cars should be revealed towards the end of the year, and the move is part of a push to sell 4000 front-engined sports cars per year.
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