hypercar Archives

Automobili Pininfarina reveals PURA Vision – a future pure-electric Luxury Utility Vehicle concept

Flanked by classic Pininfarina-designed cars and inspired by Pininfarina’s purity of design and engineering elegance, Automobili Pininfarina recently presented the Battista hypercar and the company’s future vision for luxury electric cars at the Monterey Car Week in California.

Besides the presentation by CEO Michael Perschke of the Battista with its enhanced front design and his strategy for the brand moving forward, Design Director Luca Borgogno also treated guests to a preview of the PURA Vision design model. It was an inspirational view of the aesthetics of a future pure-electric Luxury Utility Vehicle from the Italian marque.

PURA Vision shows the future
“PURA Vision blends design themes which Battista Pininfarina himself made famous in creating some of the most revered and beautiful sportscars in history. Yet it is absolutely an insight into our future; a luxury vehicle like no other and once again designed to deliver thrilling EV performance,” said Borgogno.

“89 years of Pininfarina designs and creation of some of the world’s most beautiful cars will inspire everything Automobili Pininfarina offers to clients in the future.”

Luca Borgogno, Design Director, Automobile Pininfarina

The Battista joined a parade of iconic Pininfarina-designed cars in a display of automotive beauty unique even to the rarefied atmosphere of Monterey Car Week. Designed and to be hand-built at Pininfarina’s headquarters in Italy, the Battista took its place amongst past classics from the famous carrozzeria during a 4-hour drive from Pebble Beach.

Battista gets refinements
Displaying a new enhanced front end for the first time in North America, recently sculpted following wind tunnel testing and final design refinements, the Battista represented Automobili Pininfarina’s exciting future. Cars led by the legendary Lancia Rally 037 reminded the audience of what Pininfarina has established since 1930: a reputation for designing many of the world’s most desirable and beautiful cars.

The Automobili Pininfarina team now returns to Italy to continue testing and development of the 1,900 ps Battista under the management of Development Driver Nick Heidfeld and Sportscars Director Rene Wollmann. Meanwhile, the Battista show cars head to the UK for the Salon Prive event and to Hong Kong to begin the launch programme for the Asia-Pacific region.

Lotus Evija Revealed! Facts & Figures + Video of the world’s most powerful series production road car

♦ The Evija (pronounced ‘E-vi-ya’) means ‘the first in existence’ or ‘the living one’. Each car will have a starting price of around £1.7 million (equivalent to about RM8.7 million in the UK). To book one, you need to pay a deposit of £250,000 (RM1.27 million).

♦ The first hypercar from Lotus and the company’s first model with an electrified powertrain. It is also the first completely new car to be launched since the 71-year old British company was acquired by the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group in June 2017.

♦ Only 130 cars will be built, beginning in 2020. The number pays tribute to the car’s project code, ‘Type 130’. Lotus road and race cars throughout the brand’s seven decades of success have been assigned a Type number, and the Evija is no exception.

♦ This is the first all-electric British hypercar and with a target power output of 2,000 ps (and maximum torque of 1,700 Nm), it lays claim to being the world’s most powerful series production road car. It has more power at each wheel than the total power of any other Lotus road car ever produced.

♦ Ultra-lightweight carbonfibre monocoque construction also makes it the world’s lightest production EV hypercar, at 1,680 kgs. This contributes to the claimed 0 to 100 km/h time of under 3 seconds and a top speed over 320 km/h.

♦ At the heart of the Evija is a 2,000 kW battery pack powering 4 electric motors. That means it’s 8 times more powerful than a Formula E race car and can generate enough electricity to boil water in more than 1,600 kettles. A fully charged battery pack is expected to last 400 kms but the range depends on driving style and conditions.

♦ Using existing charging technology – such as a 350 kW unit, which is currently the most powerful available – the Evija’s charge time will be 12 minutes to 80% and 18 mins to 100%.

♦ The Evija signals the start of a contemporary new design language for Lotus, which will evolve and reappear on future high-performance cars.

Aston Martin Valkyrie makes first public run at Silverstone

“Aston Martin Valkyrie continues to redefine what you and I recognise as a hypercar, possessing unrivalled levels of performance in a package that is technologically beyond anything else. “

Andy Palmer, Aston Martin Lagonda President & Group CEO

The Aston Martin Valkyrie has broken cover after making its dynamic public debut in front of an enthusiastic crowd ahead of the 2019 British Grand Prix. Piloted by Aston Martin High Performance Test Driver Chris Goodwin, the 740 Nm/1,160 bhp (at 10,500 rpm) machine, took to Silverstone’s world-famous Grand Prix circuit for its first public demonstration run. With the focus not on outright lap time, today’s showcase offered a glimpse of what is to come from this extraordinary hypercar.

Following months of digital modelling and simulation work alongside both Aston Martin and Red Bull Advanced Technologies’ engineers, today’s drive is one of the first times that Aston Martin Valkyrie has been driven in the physical world – a testimony to the technological capability of the team’s cutting-edge development techniques.

World’s most extreme road car and platform
The Valkyrie is described as ‘the world’s most extreme road car and platform for a future FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) challenger’. Aston Martin will enter at least two works Valkyrie racing cars in the 2020/21 FIA World Endurance Championship. In line with the WEC’s confirmed ‘hypercar’ regulations designed to allow race-prepared derivatives of the world’s fastest road cars to fight at the forefront of world sportscar racing, the Valkyrie will draw on all the radical pillars of the road car and its track-only AMR Pro variant.

The car will feature a race-prepared version of its bespoke high-revving normally-aspirated 6.5-litre V12 engine. Placed within a lightweight carbonfibre structure, and featuring F1-inspired aerodynamic technology, it forms a fully competitive platform capable of challenging for outright race wins. It was created as a result of a technical and strategic collaboration between Aston Martin, Red Bull Advanced Technologies and project partner AF Racing.

“I’ve driven this car around Silverstone for countless hours on the simulator at Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s HQ and in many other sportscars throughout my career, but to drive Aston Martin Valkyrie here today feels exceptionally special. Of course, we still have a lot of development work to go but we can now begin to really push the physical testing process and realise the capabilities of what we have developed over the past months. Putting that aside, today has brought a real smile to my face and I hope that the crowds watching from the stands enjoyed it as much as I did,” Chris Goodwin said on completing the lap.

The 150 road-going Valkyries are sold out, with first deliveries commencing in before the end of 2019.

Bugatti Chiron recalled due to faulty welds

No car, no matter how special, is free of imperfections. Case in point is the Bugatti Chiron. Regarded as one of the most expensive and powerful cars on earth, the Chiron is considered the epitome of automotive greatness. Today however, that image has been tainted in the form of a recall.

According to an article by Bloomberg, Bugatti Automobiles SAS has informed U.S. auto regulators that it is recalling models of the car due to faulty welds on the front seat recliner bracket. And unlike regular manufacturers, the French automaker isn’t content with notifying customers of the problem via email or calls, instead, they have taken it one step further.

A team of Bugatti personnel will travel to each Chiron owner’s location to pick it up personally. The team will then haul the vehicle in an enclosed truck to one of 12 Bugatti dealers in the U.S. for inspections. There are about 12 of such vehicles in the US, but 47 in total, globally, are affected by this issue.

There’s no word yet on how Bugatti aims to deal with customers outside the US, but we assume that its method, will probably be similar in nature to that executed in the US. At $2.99 million (RM12.20 Million) a pop, owners of the Chiron shouldn’t have to expect anything other than 6 Star level of treatment.

The Chiron is the follow-up model to the mind-bending Veyron, which claimed and held the record for the fastest production car in the world for several years. It is powered by an 8.0-litre W16 quad-turbo engine that produces 1,479bhp and 1,600Nm of torque. The car was the talk of the town until it was recently upstaged by Koniegsegg’s Agera RS with its 0-400-0 km/h feat.

Source: Bloomberg

McLaren preparing for release of new halo car, expected by ‘early’ 2018

McLaren has announced that it will unveil a new hypercar sometime during the first quarter of 2018. According to the British automaker, the car which remains nameless, will be an addition to its Ultimate Super Series product portfolio under its Track22 Business plan.

It is said to be the most extreme, track-concentrated road car McLaren has ever produced. Having said that, the automaker isn’t muddling its words regarding the purpose of this a vehicle. It has admitted that ‘daily usability will be sacrificed’ to offer the most intensive driving experience on track.

Though completely road legal, McLaren wants you know that, right from the onset, that this isn’t going to be the car of choice for daily commutes. Instead, its going to be a highly precise track-focused race car that can be driven on public roads – if you choose to do so.

McLaren describes the car’s look as ‘brutal’ and will be the ‘purest expression yet of the company’s ‘form follows function’ philosophy’. This could mean that the car will sport some outlandish looks and aero kits that will allow it to reduce drag and increase downforce.

Shortly after the launch of this car, McLaren will be following it up with the reveal of another vehicle that will also be part of the Ultimate Series. Codenamed BP23, the car is supposed to be the world’s first ever Hyper-GT. Both cars will be built in limited numbers and all are already spoken for.

Cars belonging to the Ultimate Series model line are positioned above McLaren’s core Super Series vehicles, which are considered relatively more affordable offerings. Cars like the McLaren P1 and P1 GTR, which are considered supercar royalty, fall under the Ultimate Series product line – the upper echelon of the UK-based automaker’s supercars.

McLaren will reveal further details of its new halo car by the end of this year, which should hopefully include some teaser images and performance specifications.

McLaren to produce insanely powerful supercar soon

McLaren is currently hard at work producing one of its most potent offerings in recent history. It’s called the P15 and is meant to be the most powerful supercar in the company’ stable, second only to the P1 GTR. In fact, the automaker has stated that it has given its engineers freedom to prioritize performance over everything else in order to make it the best performer.

Carbon-fibre will only be used where a considerable weight saving advantage is plausible. The car will feature McLaren’s latest Monocage II one-piece carbonfibre tub and race-inspired two-seater interior. The absence of an electrical powertrain means that the P15 will weigh just 1,300kg which is significantly less than the P1’s 1,547kg.

According to McLaren this gives the car an even better power-to-weight ratio, thanks in part to the 3.8-litre turbocharged V8 engine. It’s basically the same engine taken from the P1 but tweaked to produce 789bhp, which is about 52bhp more.

Though the engine produces more power than the same unit found in the P1, the latter still trumps it at overall power due to the electric motors that brings peak power to 903bhp. That said, it will still be able to match, if not beat, the time taken for the P1 to sprint from 0-100km/h, which is about 2.7 seconds.

Autocar UK had an exclusive session with the Woking based manufacturer and has revealed an image of what the car could look like.The styling said to be the ‘ultimate distillation of form following function’ and features active aerodynamics with self-adjusting spoilers, massive rear diffuser and an ostentatious twin exhaust pipes. The entire silhouette is far more aggressive than what we are used to seeing from McLaren, which could mean that this new P15 may be a track car for the road.

The P15 should make its debut in March of next year at the Geneva Motor Show sporting a price tag of £840,000 (RM 4,696,309) with production said to be limited to just 500 cars. More details should be revealed in the coming months, so stay tuned.

Piston.my

hypercar

Automobili Pininfarina reveals PURA Vision – a future pure-electric Luxury Utility Vehicle concept

“89 years of Pininfarina designs and creation of some of the world’s most beautiful cars will inspire everything Automobili Pininfarina offers to clients in the future.”

Luca Borgogno, Design Director, Automobile Pininfarina

Lotus Evija Revealed! Facts & Figures + Video of the world’s most powerful series production road car

Aston Martin Valkyrie makes first public run at Silverstone

“Aston Martin Valkyrie continues to redefine what you and I recognise as a hypercar, possessing unrivalled levels of performance in a package that is technologically beyond anything else. “

Andy Palmer, Aston Martin Lagonda President & Group CEO

Bugatti Chiron recalled due to faulty welds

McLaren preparing for release of new halo car, expected by ‘early’ 2018

McLaren to produce insanely powerful supercar soon

DENDROBIUM: Kereta Elektrik Hiper dengan 1,500hp dan 4,000Nm dari Singapura

Video: Bugatti Chiron teaser released

Automobili Pininfarina reveals PURA Vision – a future pure-electric Luxury Utility Vehicle concept

Lotus Evija Revealed! Facts & Figures + Video of the world’s most powerful series production road car

Aston Martin Valkyrie makes first public run at Silverstone

Bugatti Chiron recalled due to faulty welds

McLaren preparing for release of new halo car, expected by ‘early’ 2018

McLaren to produce insanely powerful supercar soon

DENDROBIUM: Kereta Elektrik Hiper dengan 1,500hp dan 4,000Nm dari Singapura

Video: Bugatti Chiron teaser released

Archive

Couple Charged RM482 For Bus Fare From Gopeng To JB

This Is The End For Petrol Powered Alfa Romeo Quadrifoglio Models

2024 Dodge Charger Daytona Makes Official Debut with 670hp!

MG Motor Malaysia Expands with New Dealerships Nationwide

E-hailing Surge Leaves 30,000 Taxis Abandoned

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on YouTube

The Piston Show