La Dolce Veloce

Well, yes, but it’s not quite what you think. I just received word that the Lamborghini Concept S show car will be appearing at the Concorso Italiano show August 19th. The featured marque will be Alfa Romeo; it’s tough to know exactly which Alfas will be there, as that company has little presence in this country. However, with Alfa intending to return to the US sometime this decade, it’s a safe bet that Alfa will bring some beauties to this world-reknown show. Their Brera concept car was at last year’s show, so I’d count on that appearing at this one as well. In the Corral section will be the usual assortment of non-Italian automobiles, including a Lotus Elise with full carbon fiber body, a Vector, Vipers, Porsches, BMWs, Jaguars, Bentleys, NSXs, Mercedes, and the always-plentiful gaggle of Miatas. That’ll keep you busy if you get bored looking over the main show of Italian cars (Abarth, Alfa Romeo, DeTomaso, Ferrari, Fiat, Iso, Lamborghini, Lancia, Maserati, even some Italian motorcycles by Ducati and others). This is a can’t-miss show, I look forward to it every year (can ya tell?).

Despite disappointing sales, Pontiac is working on a new GTO, to arrive in 2008. The new one will be “more striking in appearance”, showing Pontiac is at least listening to the biggest criticism of the current GTO. Read More.

AutoWeek reports that Honda is likely to release a new CRX version of its Civic (which itself receives a major makeover for the 2006 model year). Details are scarce, but this will hopefully be of the same hatchback style as the original, hopefully with a sportier suspension. The new Civic is already shaping up to be an excellent improvement, with handling rumored to rival that of the Integra Type R. Like all cars these days, the new Civic will be larger than its predecessors, and in keeping with the emerging trend, a new, smaller model will be introduced to take the place of the small econobox the Civic used to be.

Alright, this is starting to get a bit ridiculous. Those Italians working on the mysterious Project 1221 MF1 have apparently decided that building a car with 1000hp was not something they wanted to do…well at least, not when they could have more power. So, they bumped up the estimate for their turbine-powered supercar to a mind-blowing 1500hp. They’ll be employing an aerodynamic aid first pioneered on the Chaparral 2J (a.k.a. the ‘vacuum cleaner’) – the turbine engine will get some of its air from underneath the car, literally sucking the car down to the ground resulting in better traction (not to mention cleaner roads!). The entire press release can be found in the rest of this post.
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The Car Connection reports that a coupe version of the as-yet unlaunched Pontaic Solstice is being worked on, to arrive in ‘a couple years.’ The Solstice is shaping up to be a pretty decent car, providing strong competition for the Mazda Miata. The end result is we’ll likely see GM sticking a forced induction motor into the Solstice at some point to boost performance, to which Mazda will probably respond in similar fashion. In the end, auto enthusiasts everywhere win! It’s a good time to be a sports car fanatic.

British carmaker MG has been bought by Chinese automaker Nanjing. The MG brand is expected to live on, and while some manufacturing work will be moved to China, around 2000 British workers will continue to be employed as final assembly will remain in the UK.

For an excellent example of why teenage drivers should, first of all, not drive large vehicles, and second, not be allowed to use cell phones while driving, check out this story from Arkansas. A seventeen year old, probably going around 60-70mph (in a 30mph zone), reached for his cell phone, hit the curb, and his Ford F-150 truck went airborne. It landed in a garage after punching through the door. Along the way, it clipped a PT Cruiser, causing minor damage. When it came to a rest, it was sitting on…a Ferrari 360 Modena. The Ferrari is totaled. The kid’s insurance is going to be, well, INTERESTING once his insurer pays the $200k+ this incident will demand. Actually, that raises and interesting point. His liability insurance may not cover that much, the minimum in many places is $50k. If you live in an area with quite a few expensive cars driving around, you might want to think about increasing your coverage just in case – it usually doesn’t cost that much more to do so.