Motor News

The DS E-Tense Performance is a slinky electric supercar concept created by the luxury division of Citroen.The concept utilizes the two electric motors from the DS Techeetah Formula E race car, good for a combined 805 horsepower.The E-Tense Performance won’t reach production but will be track-tested by DS Techeetah’s two championship-winning drivers. Striking, isn’t it? Meet the DS E-Tense Performance, a concept which clothes the electric powertrain from a Formula E race car in a svelte coupe body topped off with a vivid green paint job. The E-Tense Performance serves as a sporty vision of an electric future for DS, the luxury arm of Citroen spun off in 2015. Unlike most concept cars, it will actually be put to the test around the track.
The Performance is an evolution of the E-Tense concept revealed at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show. The muscular, low-slung body remains mostly the same, but the headlights are replaced by cameras and pointy T-shaped LED running lights. The gaping chrome grille of the original is swapped out for a black rectangular element featuring a 3D-effect DS logo, while vents and intakes are chiseled into the bodywork and a beefy diffuser dominates the rear end. The styling is made even more eye-catching by the beetle-influenced color, which changes shades depending on the angle at which you view it.

Underneath the spectacular design is a carbon monocoque and two electric motors from the DS Techeetah race car which competes in Formula E. With a motor on each axle, the E-Tense Performance puts down 805 horsepower, and DS claims it sprints to 62 mph in around 2.0 seconds. DS didn’t reveal the battery’s size, but says it is “housed in a carbon-aluminum composite envelope” and is positioned in a central-rear location for ideal weight distribution.
While the E-Tense Performance isn’t bound for production, the car will be tested by DS Techeetah’s two Formula-E-championship-winning drivers, Jean-Éric Vergne and Antonio Felix da Costa, in the coming months. The data collected from these tests will influence future DS vehicles, all of which will be electric starting in 2024. None of these vehicles is expected to ever reach our shores, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still drool over the E-Tense Performance and wonder, “What if?”
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The 2002 Ford SVT Focus shown here has a current bid of $5500 on the Bring a Trailer auction website.The car shows just over 18,000 miles on the odometer. Bidding ends Thursday, February 10.Here we have a car on Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos) that is at the far opposite end of the attainability spectrum from our last Find of the Day, a 1987 Porsche 959. Whereas that ultra-rare Porsche supercar has crested $1.8 million and rising, bids for this equally red Ford hot hatch sits at just $5500 at this writing.

Bring a Trailer

Bring a Trailer

We’ll grant that, once you get past the exterior hue, the two cars don’t have a whole lot in common, but that’s not to say this Focus is without its merits. Ford’s SVT (Special Vehicle Team) in-house tuner shop has turned out some worthy enthusiast machines. The original Focus was lauded for its chassis tuning, and the SVT version further benefited from enhanced springs, shocks, anti-roll bars, and bushings. It also boasted four-wheel disc brakes with ABS. Output of its Zetec 2.0-liter four was increased to 170 horsepower thanks to a unique intake, exhaust header, forged connecting rods, cast aluminum pistons, a variable intake system, and a higher compression ratio. The engine is paired here with a six-speed manual transmission.

Bring a Trailer

Bring a Trailer

This example has just over 18,000 miles and was sold new in the state of Washington. It remained with its original owner until last year when it reportedly was donated. The receiving charity sent the car to auction, where the seller purchased it. An entry on the Carfax report indicates water damage, but the seller said he believes that was a clerical error. (You can read the discussion of it in the comments on Bring a Trailer’s bidding page.) In a period C/D comparison test, a 2002 SVT Focus beat a Honda Civic Si and a Volkswagen GTI. In that test, we said of the Focus: “It is simply in a handling class all by itself.” Unfortunately, whereas Volkswagen and Honda have stayed with their sport compacts, Ford let the flame die out on the SVT Focus. That could make this lesser-known hot hatch a relative bargain and a find for enthusiasts in the know.

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Rolls-Royce’s Spectre EV will feature a revised version of the Spirit of Ecstasy that it claims is more aerodynamic.The updated hood ornament is 0.7 inch shorter than today’s silver lady and includes updates to the design of the piece.Roll-Royce will retain the current ornament on its range of gas-powered vehicles.Even Rolls-Royce’s Spirit of Ecstasy requires a little cosmetic surgery every now and then, as the British brand revealed an updated look for its illustrious hood ornament. At 3.3 inches tall, the latest version of the Spirit of Ecstasy is almost 0.7 inch shorter than today’s version.

Rolls-Royce did more than just miniaturize the decorative piece; it also subtly restyled the silver lady, altering her flowing robes ever so slightly (that’s right, those are robes, not wings) and adjusting her stance. As a result, the flying . . . er, robed lady no longer stands with her feet together and legs straight. Instead, her legs are now slightly bent, with one positioned ahead of the other. Below you can compare the new hood ornament (left) with the old one, shown on the Cullinan.

Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce’s plans to fit the new Spirit of Ecstasy to the 2024 Spectre electric vehicle, and it claims the ornament’s more aerodynamic shape plays a role in the coefficient of drag (Cd) of 0.26 (a figure equal to that of the likes of the since-discontinued BMW i8 hybrid sports car) recorded by prototypes of the upcoming battery-powered coupe. Alas, Rolls failed to disclose the Cd of Spectre prototypes fitted with today’s Spirit of Ecstasy. As such, it’s difficult to determine the real role the silver lady’s cosmetic upgrades provide in the wind tunnel, and, in turn, if it helps noticeably improve the two-door EV’s energy consumption at speed.

Regardless, we wager its effects are not especially significant considering Rolls is opting to maintain the current Spirit of Ecstasy on its gas-powered Phantom, Ghost, and Cullinan models, none of which is a poster child for fuel efficiency. The new ornament, meanwhile, is earmarked for future Rolls-Royce vehicles, including the Spectre.
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Aston Martin says it will continue to produce its V-12 engine for the next five years.It’ll be seen in the upcoming V12 Vantage, along with the replacements for the DB11 and DBS.We won’t see a V-12 in the DBX SUV or in the upcoming mid-engined Vanquish and Valhalla supercars.Given that fewer than 50,000 12-cylinder cars are produced around the world each year (including Bentley and Audi’s W-12 examples), the question of which automaker will be the last to produce a V-12 engine might seem like a peripheral one. Yet the fate of this aristocratic cylinder configuration is one we take a keen interest in given the number of significant cars to have used V-12s. Now Aston Martin has confirmed it plans to keep offering its own V-12 until it is forced to stop by toughening European emissions standards. This means it will stick around for another five years, until 2026 or 2027.This is mildly surprising given that the newly announced DBX707 will use a reworked version of the twin-turbocharged AMG 4.0-liter V-8 making 697 horsepower—nearly as much as the 715 hp the twin-turbo 5.2-liter V-12 makes in the range-topping DBS. But Aston CEO Tobias Moers says there is no logic in using the new engine to replace the V-12 in its existing applications.“We won’t do that, the V-12 still has a bit of potential,” he said at the online unveiling of the DBX707, “and having the V12 Vantage shows there is still room for a V-12 in our sports car generation.”

The new V12 Vantage will be launched later this year and it will use much of the front structure developed for the V12 Speedster that Aston launched last year. We can also expect to see the V-12 continue in the cars that replace the current DB11 and DBS, with Aston insiders having confirmed that these cars will continue to use the same core structure of the current models. Moers did say that there are no plans to put the V-12 in the DBX, though.

V12 Speedster
Aston Martin

“Why should I get rid of the V-12 for the time being?” Moers asked. “The end of the life cycle for all these V-12s is the year 2026-2027.” That timeline corresponds to the proposed arrival of ultra-tough combustion standards in Europe, including real-time emissions reporting. “We’re not going to re-engineer the V-12 to make that.”Others of the select band of V-12 manufacturers have already confirmed plans to end production of their powerplants sooner. BMW is marketing a run of Final Edition M760Li sedans to mark the retirement of its engine. But while Aston’s V-12 is set to last longer than others, it is unlikely to be the final automaker with one in production: Lamborghini has confirmed the Aventador replacement will be launched with a hybridized naturally aspirated V-12, one with a lifespan that will run into the 2030s.

Moers also confirmed that the Vanquish and Valhalla mid-engined supercars Aston are developing won’t use the V-12, with both set to use versions of a V-8 based around the AMG GT Black Series’ flat-plane-crank V-8. This will be hand-built by the British company in the U.K. He also said this hybridized powerplant will come in both two- and three-motor configurations, with the latter using a pair of electric motors on the front axle capable of torque vectoring, like the Ferrari SF90 Stradale.
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In a world of possibilities, some of them become missed opportunities. And that was enough of a thought on which to hang this week’s episode of Window Shopping, an inspired idea submitted by viewer John Alterio.Five seasoned car writers—all dedicated, professional, and knowledgeable—gathered once again over Zoom to review old memories of the cars they nearly bought but, for some reason, let pass. These are cars that bring with them a haunting regret. Oh, the adventure that never was.Please join the five of us for this week’s episode of good, mostly clean, nearly coherent, always obsessive and informative automotive fun. Does that competition matter? No. So who cares if it’s corrupted and always inconsistent? Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Have you noticed that it’s better edited than before? Hey, there’s a dedicated video guy on board now, and his name is Carlos Lago.Mentioned in this episode: split-journal cranks, Dodge Viper parts, Triumph wheel-trim rings, CarMax, Carmex, Porsche nerdiness, and a surprising comparison of a 1.6-liter’s torque peak with childhood torture. As in every episode of course, the proper positioning of Porsche wheel crests and the incredible Toyota Tundra are mentioned. Somehow, and disappointingly, the importance of the color of brake fluid never arose.Who “won”? YouTube. Again.

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The 1987 Porsche 959 Komfort shown here has a current bid of just over $1.6 million on the Bring a Trailer online auction website, with bids being taken until Monday, February 14.This 959 shows just 1300 kilometers (807 miles) on the odometer.The car could set a new Bring a Trailer sales price record, potentially beating a Porsche Carrera GT that sold on the site last month for $2 million.Things are moving fast at Bring a Trailer (which, like C/D, is part of Hearst Autos). In January, the auction website had its most expensive sale ever, a Porsche Carrera GT that sold for just over $1.9 million. Then just two weeks later, another Carrera GT hit the $2 million mark. Now, there’s another car that stands a good chance of toppling that record: a 1987 Porsche 959 Komfort with just 1300 kilometers (807 miles) on its odometer. The current bid, with 10 days to go, is $1,651,959.

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Even if it doesn’t set a new record, this Guards Red 959 has already doubled the price of the last 959 to appear on BaT, a silver example with 24,000 miles that failed to meet reserve at $810,000. That was five years ago, however, and 959 values certainly have risen since then.

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This ultra-low-mileage example was imported into the United States in 2015 after spending time in a museum in Japan. Service in the past year includes a clutch slave cylinder, an air-conditioning recharge, and new tires. There is, however, mechanical work still to be done, as the selling dealer has disclosed that the height-adjustable feature of the suspension and the ABS brake feature are currently not functioning.

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Bidders appear to be undaunted. Opportunities to purchase a Porsche 959 don’t come along often, as just 337 were built over the course of three years (1986–1988). The car was not sold in the United States when new, but it can now be imported.

Bring a Trailer

The 959 was a mind-blowing supercar in its day and one of the most significant Porsches ever made. Its flat-six engine was derived from the motor that powered the 956 and 962 racing cars, and it produced 444 horsepower. Driving all four wheels, it was good for a sub-four-second zero-to-60-mph time and a top speed of 197 mph. In a period road test of the 959, C/D said, “We have just returned from West Germany, where we finally got a chance to drive the Porsche 959 on the street, and the word ‘perfect’ is difficult to avoid.” In 2020, we called the 959 one of the greatest cars of all time.

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The U.S. Postal Service announced last spring that it would buy around 150,000 new mail trucks from Oshkosh Defense, and that they would be gas-powered instead of electric.The EPA is now asking the USPS to pause the contract and take a more serious look at EVs for these daily work trucks that follow a known route and return to a centralized location each night.The USPS is independent of the executive branch and so doesn’t have to follow the EPA’s request, but it looks like this messy fight isn’t quite finished.

U.S. Postal Service

Robert Alexander/Getty Images

Upgrading the U.S. Postal Service’s truck fleet has been a long and controversial process, and we’re not done yet. As a quick recap, the USPS started looking for replacements for 150,000 or so Grumman Long Life Vehicles (LLVs) in around 2015. For a while, it looked like the new fleet might be made up of mostly electric vehicles, but when the contract for the new mail trucks was awarded to Oshkosh Defense in the spring of 2021, the USPS said only 10 percent of the new mail trucks might be electric. One of the contenders for an electric truck, Workhorse, sued the USPS last summer over the deal.Now the government is asking the USPS to pause on the $11.3 billion contract and reconsider the gas-powered truck purchases in the face of climate damage.

U.S. Postal Service

The Biden administration and the EPA told the USPS, which operates independent of the executive branch, that the new Oshkosh trucks are just 0.4 mile per gallon more efficient compared to the outgoing LLVs—8.6 mpg versus 8.2 mpg for the older vehicles. It also said that the Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) the USPS conducted as it decided where to award the contract were not conducted correctly. The EPA sent a letter to the USPS yesterday that said that the whole reason to buy new mail trucks was to make them cleaner, better, and safer. The EPA said last fall that it had a problem with how the USPS conducted an earlier EIS about the truck purchase and that “the final EIS remains seriously deficient.”

“Specifically,” it went on, “the final EIS does not disclose essential information underlying the key analysis of Total Cost of Ownership, underestimates greenhouse-gas emissions, fails to consider more environmentally protective feasible alternatives, and inadequately considers impacts on communities with environmental justice concerns,” the EPA letter said. The EPA or the Biden Administration could also sue the USPS to reconsider the truck purchases, something that Adrian Martinez, an attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice, thinks could work. “It is hard to predict what courts will do, but the Postal Service’s work here is just so embarrassingly flimsy,” Martinez told the Washington Post. “They don’t reveal the source of the information for many of their conclusions, instead dismissing electrification outright.”Powering the USPS’s standard mail delivery trucks with electrons instead of gasoline would go a long way to hitting President Biden’s January 2021 executive order that would replace the federal government’s current fleet of vehicles with EVs as part of an expanded Buy American act. The federal government had more than 645,000 vehicles in its fleet in 2019, about a quarter of which would be replaced by the 165,000 new trucks the USPS is looking to buy over the next decade.

Oshkosh Defense

Too Expensive, Says USPSThe USPS’s defense is that it would simply be too expensive to buy tens of thousands of electric vehicles.”While we can understand why some who are not responsible for the financial sustainability of the Postal Service might prefer that the Postal Service acquire more electric vehicles, the law requires the Postal Service to be self-sufficient,” a USPS spokesperson told the Post in a statement.President Biden’s social spending package proposal unveiled last year included $6 billion for the USPS to purchase new vehicles, but that proposal is still being debated in Congress. In late January, the California Air Resources Board asked the USPS to hold a public hearing about its vehicle purchase plans, and the EPA joined that call in its letter yesterday. EPA officials told the Post that even if the USPS goes ahead with the gas-powered vehicles this year, there may still be time to shift the bulk of the purchases to electric in the coming years.
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Gran Turismo 7 releases on March 4, 2022 with over 400 cars and 34 locations with more than 90 different layouts.Music Rally and Music Replay are new modes that bring driving and music together in a fun and relaxing gameplay experience.A new Cafe location will feature conversations with car designers of some of our favorite cars from automotive history. As its March 4, 2022, release date draws nearer, Sony is spilling more information about the highly anticipated Gran Turismo 7 racing game coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles. Polyphony Digital CEO and Gran Turismo producer Kazunori Yamauchi says the 25th anniversary of the GT Series is the biggest yet, and GT7 will be a return home for longtime fans of the driving simulator that debuted in 1997 on the original PlayStation.

At launch, GT7 will have more than 400 cars; 34 locations with over 90 different layouts; and completely new modes and features that highlight historically significant cars, details, and people from automotive culture. On certain tracks, GT7 uses meteorological data from NASA to produce beautiful starry-night skies as you’d see them from that location in person. Moons and other planets will be visible. More cars and tracks will arrive after launch, though details on an additional content schedule haven’t been released yet.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Remember the kickass intros from previous GT games? The computer-generated look inside a combustion chamber followed by Lenny Kravitz from GT3? Or the emotionally charged orchestral ‘Moon over the Castle’ introduction to GT4? We do, and music is the theme of two new modes in GT7. Music Rally and Music Replay. Music Rally is a relaxed gameplay experience where players drive to the beat, instead of their limits. It’s just you versus the music, in a harmonious battle to make it to the very end of the song. Yamauchi hopes this lighthearted mode will pull some of the seriousness out of the simulation and get new players interested in driving cars.

Music Replay creates camera positions, video cuts, and movement influenced by music rather than using predetermined cameras following car positions. This means the cinematic replay from your most intense races will have several different compositions depending on which song you’ve chosen.Haptic feedback and adaptive triggers while using the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller will give extra input while driving to simulate the real thing. Yamauchi said players will be able to feel the different racing surfaces, curbing, tire slippage, and effects of tire wear and weather. In previous GTs, ABS was just a light that would flash in the interface under braking; now it’s a sensation felt through the controller, and players can also experience simulated locked-up brakes through the adaptive triggers. We hope this mode is more than just loud vibrations and delayed input, but it sounds promising—especially for people playing without a steering wheel and force feedback.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

It’s Educational! The academic side of GT is now expanded in a new Café location. Players will learn more about the cultural significance of cars and hear automotive designers talk about their creations, like the Audi TT’s Freeman Thomas, original Miata designer Tom Montano, and others. These instances are earned through completing challenges and collecting cars.If you’re a person who plays games just to remove the wing from cars like the Honda Civic Type R, you’re in luck. There are more than 60 types of performance parts per car, including wings, widebody kits, roll cages, wheels, and of course an exhaustive number of paint-color choices. To the relief of folks who have made amazing re-creations of racing liveries in GT Sport, Yamauchi said that stickers and liveries created there can be migrated to Gran Turismo 7. That means we won’t have to wait long for the epic GEAR Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 livery that someone has already made in GT Sport.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Tuning Is a Game within a GameYamauchi described the mechanical tuning capability as a “mini-game within a game.” The goal is that it will become a learning tool for people curious about how changing or adjusting specific parts of a car immediately affects things like acceleration, weight, horsepower, grip, and top speed. GT7 uses a new Measure feature, which will allow you to make adjustments, and the game will quickly simulate the areas in which the car’s performance has either improved or decreased. We spotted a few interesting tuning options in the preview trailer that include nitrous oxide, an exhaust silencer, and an anti-lag system.The more than 300-person team at Polyphony Digital, once just a group of 15 at the start of the series, are eager to show off the 3D spatial audio they’ve cooked up for GT7. Experienced best with headphones, 3D audio better imitates how the sound we hear in reality bounces off various objects before reaching our brains. It’s more than just making the exhaust louder in tunnels: the sound will react differently depending on the surface it hits, such as raindrops hitting glass versus puddles or tires over grass versus curbing. 3D audio makes it possible for you to identify where the noise is coming from instead of just flooding your ears with raw audio.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

The World Map, teased earlier, brings back some of our favorite GT modes that were otherwise skipped in GT Sport. License, Used Cars, and the Tuning Shop have returned. Yes, that means the gang of yellow-polo-shirted garage crew members is back to clean your car, change your oil, and, in one cute animation, pull at either side of a car to illustrate the installation of a widebody kit.The hyperrealistic photo mode, Scapes, will have more than 2500 locations where you can photograph cars. Yamauchi explained that replay and photo mode are the only two areas with ray tracing capability, to preserve performance while racing. The reflection of headlights off plastic rear bumpers, individual rain droplets running down the window glass, and tiny etches and imperfections around the gauges of the historic cars look stunning in this preview. It has become somewhat difficult to quickly tell a real photograph and a rendering from GT7’s Scapes mode apart. Just make sure you have a 4K or HDR TV display to support these promised visuals.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Used-Car and Legendary DealershipsThe Used Car Dealership also makes a return. The dealership features cars with mileage, used oil, and vehicles that would otherwise be inappropriate to see for sale in the new car dealership GT7 calls Brand Central. These vehicles are more affordable, and the variety will change daily. A Legendary dealership will feature the most expensive cars. To buy something in the Legendary dealership is to obtain a piece of significance to car history.For us, GT7 sounds like the biggest excuse to grab a Sony PlayStation 5, even if they’re still somewhat difficult to source. We look forward to getting more hands-on with GT7 before its release on March 4.

Gran Turismo 7 25th Anniversary Edition – PS5 Disc & PS4 Entitlement

PlayStation
amazon.com

$89.99

Standard Editions are available for pre-order on PlayStation 4 for $59.99 and PlayStation 5 for $69.99. Preorder bonuses include extra in-game credits, a free car pack that includes the Mazda RX-Vision GT3 concept, the Porsche 917 Living Legend concept, and the Japanese Grand Touring Championship Castrol Tom’s Toyota Supra GT500 race car. An $89.99 Digital Deluxe Edition is also available for preorder and includes extra in-game credits, PS4 and PS5 dual entitlement, and a special Toyota GR Yaris painted in your country’s special livery, as well as the game’s official soundtrack.
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