Raphaël van der Straten has been his family racing team’s driver for the past 12 years, and has now embarked on his most ambitious project yet: designing and building his very own GT2 endurance racer.
Those who found the 500bhp of the Porsche Cayenne Turbo insufficient can now breathe easier; from January 2013, the Turbo S will add 42 horses and 37lb ft of torque to the package. Using the same 4.8-litre V8 – albeit with a different inlet manifold, higher turbo boost pressure and tweaked electronics – the Cayenne Turbo S produces 542bhp and 553lb ft, enough to nip 0.2 seconds off the original’s 0-62mph sprint time of 4.7 seconds and add 3mph to the top speed (now 176mph). The most impressive statistic, though, is that it manages to do all of this without detriment to the fuel economy.
It may have sumptuous curves reminiscent of the legendary Maserati A6 GCS, but its origins are decidedly different. It was the brainchild of Paul England, a young vehicle engineer hailing from Melbourne who worked at REPCO – indeed, like many famous cars of the past, it began as an after-hours project in a back room. England’s efforts were perhaps inspired by those of his colleague Charlie Dean, who created his own racing special using a modified six-cylinder Maybach engine. Like Dean, England's objective was a familiar one: keep weight low and power high to be competitive.
One thing that was totally predictable, though, was its colossal power and torque, making it the fastest production Bentley ever built.
The Italia was born from an agreement between Triumph and its Italian importer to offer a car which married sumptuous Italian bodywork with the dependability of British mechanicals. Its TR3 underpinnings also meant spare parts were plentiful and easy to source. Once Giovanni Michelotti had penned the Maserati 3500-esque coachwork, the chassis and drivetrains were shipped to Italy and then bodied by Vignale in Turin.
The car will be driven by one of its joint owners paired with the always-rapid Henry Mann - son of legendary team manager, the late Alan Mann - in an hour-long race, part of the Masters weekend.
What you see here is a brand new Vanquish. It looks a little like that first one from 2001, but only because all recent Aston Martins look more similar to each other than their designers perhaps like to think. This new one replaces the DBS, which was itself a DB9 on steroids and sort of replaced the first Vanquish, and possibly also replaces the excellent Virage (not the 1990s version), which was itself really a DB9 made slightly better in every way.
It was meant to be his last appearance as James Bond – but it most certainly was his first in an American car chase: “Get in the car,” Sean Connery tells his co-star Jill St. John, “and if you see a mad professor in a minibus, just smile.” With a roaring big block up front and a somewhat lively tail, the red Mustang storms through the Nevada Desert and eventually reaches the neon boulevards of night-time Las Vegas.
From the company’s Madrid showrooms, it’s also possible to purchase all the right accessories, as this video reveals.
Zuffenhausen’s music of the future: Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo