RideLust

The 1 Series Sport (L) and Urban (R). Image: BMW

BMW’s new 1 Series won’t officially debut until the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, but that hasn’t stopped them from releasing details in advance. First to break cover are the five-door hatchback models, built on the same platform as the new 3 Series. On the plus side, the new 1 Series hatchbacks have significantly more interior room than the outgoing coupes, and their hatchback design is a nod towards practicality. On the down side, larger means heavier, and the new crop of 1 Series cars is available only with four cylinder engines. In traditional BMW manner, the new cars will be front engine, rear drive. Read More…

Spy photo’s of the upcoming 2012 Porsche 911 have been floating around for awhile now. The new car is set to debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2011 and will mark the seventh generation of Porsche’s fabled super car. Details are still somewhat scarce, but according to WorldCarFans.com the new car is said to possess some pretty substantial changes over its predecessor. From what we can see in the photos Porsche looks to have updated the front end with smaller headlamps and fog lamps similar to those found on the current generation 911 Turbo. The car is also said to be 2.2-inches longer and .5-inches lower at the roof line as well.
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In the barrage of new reveals at the Frankfurt Motor Show, there were a few that regrettably escaped our notice. Some, like the 2010 Lexus LS600h, were no great loss but others, like the Abarth 695 “Tributo Ferrari,” deserved front page coverage and we’re truly sorry they were lost in the mountain of press releases.

Built in honor of the monumental contributions both Abarth and Ferrari have made to motorsports in Italy as well the world over, the Abarth 695 Tributo Ferrari combines the renowned compact sportiness of the Fiat 500 with the prolific performance of basically every Ferrari ever built (well, excluding the Mondial). Beneath the hood, the Tributo features a tuned 180-hp 1.4L Turbo T-Jet 16v mated to Fiat’s MTA tranny (replete with paddle shifters to cut shift times) and a Record Monza variable back-pressure dual-mode exhaust. The shoes are 17″ Ferrari-inspired road-huggers, complimented with Brembo 284 mm multi-section discs with fixed four-piston calipers. Read More…

Unveiled in all its glory last week at the Frankfurt Motor Show, the Audi R8 e-Tron Concept is once again poised to make sparks fly (sorry, couldn’t resist) with the release of Vertical Run. Developed exclusively for the Play Station 3, Vertical Run is a video game that allows players to simulate the experience of actually driving the Audi e-Tron while simultaneously sating their lust for virtual hooning (think: Need For Speed on an electric grid). “Most young people gain their first driving experience from video games,” explained Kai Mensing, responsible for video games and virtual worlds in Online Marketing at Audi. “With the Audi Space, we can bring this target group into contact with our brand in a highly emotion-packed and interactive environment, and demonstrate our ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ with the virtual e-tron race.” Read More…

Apparently sourcing inspiration from a generic beige socket plate, the tuning experts from Deutschland have introduced to us the Brabus Ultimate High Voltage Concept. Underpinned by the comically compact smart fortwo and co-developed by the master electricians over at Tesla, the Brabus Ultimate High Voltage is the biggest performance upgrade on a city vehicle we’ve seen since that kid from the bike messenger shop down the street started wolfing down Power Bars.

Boasting a design scheme rivaled in its dearth of creativity only by the Velcro Stride Rite’s your Grandpa wears and featuring a similarly uninspiring 82-horsepower 206 lb-ft lithium ion battery pack, Brabus brags the Ultimate High Voltage is capable of sprinting from 0-35 mph in 3.7 seconds, and 0-62 mph in 9.8. To prevent any oblivious pedestrians from being mowed down by all that silent white-knuckle speed, Brabus outfitted the Ultimate High Voltage with an artificial sound generator designed to mimic the exhaust note of a snarling V8. Read More…

This is, bar none, the most boring Frankfurt Motor show reveal we’ve experienced this year. We can’t even muster the enthusiasm to make fun of it.

Modest revisions to the 2010 Lexus LS600h’s front fascia, sideskirts, and rear bumper are the only outward indications that anything has changed since the 2009 model year as the bulk of the refresh was concentrated on the technological specifications. The Lexus Hybrid Drive System was modified to accommodate the new ECO mode, which modifies the throttle action and performance of the air conditioning system to support fuel-efficient driving. The battery was repackaged to free up more trunk space, presumably to provide more room for your oxygen tank since no one in an LS600h is toting around dead hookers. The brakes were upgraded to 380mm ventilated front discs with six-piston calipers and equipped with Brembo rotors and pads, which sounds like a nod to performance but is really just a necessity in order for the regenerative braking system to function properly. The LCD instrument cluster is now in full color and features a new a display in the center of the speedometer that can be customized to display vehicle information, turn-by-turn navigation instructions, or hybrid system status – which is really the only feature of the 2010 LS600h that could be described as “cool” and of course, the one thing they didn’t include a photo of. Read More…

Well, the good news is that production will be limited to just three cars.

According to an inexplicably proud Mansory, Vitesse is the French word for “velocity” and although they did not admit as much, Rosé is apparently the French word for “abomination to the senses.” Together, along with what was once a beautiful stock Bentley Continental GT, they combine to form the Mansory Bentley Vitesse Rosé, which was introduced this week to a speechless audience at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. Read More…

Listen up kids, here’s a quick lesson in automotive marketing techniques: if your car sucks or is otherwise hella weird, surrounding it with a bunch of nonsensical artsy-looking crap will subconsciously suggest to the public that it is not you the designer who failed to anticipate what people would actually like, but they the consumer who wouldn’t recognize extremely advanced, intelligent design if it slapped them upside the head. Exhibit A: the Peugeot BB1 Concept. Read More…

Look, before we get caught up in all the adulation we’re just going to come right out and say it: for $875,000 large, your rear wheel arches should not look like they were pulled off a first-gen Honda Insight and covered with a can of Krylon #1602. Just saying.

At any rate, the Brabus E V12 Black Barron is actually a 2010 Mercedes E-Class W212 with a shitton rather large amount of black paint and a serious upgrade package. The twin-turbo 6.0L V12 under the hood churns out a staggering 800-horsepower and 1046 lb-ft of torque, which is just enough to kill you and – judging by what usually happens when a reckless kid with a trust fund buys a supercar – probably will. Speed is electronically limited to 217 mph but if you can figure out how to disable the governor, Brabus claims you can push it as far as 230 mph. 0-62 mph is reached in 3.7 seconds, 0-124 mph in 9.9, 0-186mph in 23.9, and to generate the allusion of control over all that power, Brabus outfitted the Black Baron with an adaptable sports suspension, new stabilizers, and a high performance braking system. Read More…

Okay, so it appears to have been clapped out by the same ricer fanboys that meet at the strip mall behind your house every third Saturday, but it’s still not as bad as some of the other concepts we’ve seen. As a matter of fact, lose the Grimace theme and the Citroen REVOLTE Concept could have the potential to unseat the Scion tC as the most found vehicle in the community college parking lot.

For those of you with an affinity for older vehicles the REVOLTE may look vaguely familiar, and for good reason – the inspiration behind it was not The Fast and The Furious but rather the 2CV of legends told. The REVOLTE is intended to be a 21st century interpretation of the old classic (which we’re not completely sure we buy but we’re willing to play along with anyway) and as such it relies on the obligatory “alternative power source” – in this case electricity. The press release was surprisingly void of any raw sats on how the electric powertrain works, as matter of fact, absolutely no mention was made regarding the motor/battery at all. Apparently falsely believing the REVOLTE’s aesthetics are its biggest selling point, Citroen’s PR department devoted a wordy three paragraphs to extolling the REVOLTE’s forward thinking design principles. We managed to make it past “sophisticated materials” and “increasing urbanisation,” but we threw in the towel after we got to “superbly transgressive.” All you really need to know you can glean from the pictures. Read More…