Post by Kasey Kagawa

Recently, the Dubspeed Driven team were driven were flown out to Detroit by Chrysler to spend the day beating their most recent offerings around their proving grounds and taking lots of great photos that we will be sharing with you soon. Until then, enjoy the above classic Top Gear segment featuring Richard Hammond meeting his dream muscle car, the 1968 Dodge Charger R/T, featuring the brute force of the 440ci Hemi V8.

Post by Kasey Kagawa

Robert Kubica learned the above lesson the hard way at Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix, slamming nose-first into a retaining wall at 170 MPH, disintegrating the car on impact. Fortunately, the cars are designed to break apart at the front and back, leaving the extremely rigid driver compartment intact, and he only suffered minor injuries, making it okay for us to watch these videos over and over without feeling guilty. Second video after the jump.

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Post by Kasey Kagawa

Watch the video, and prepare for your paradigm to be shifted. 575 HP at 10.5k RPM, 310 ft-lbs of torque at 9000 RPM from a 3.5L V8 gives it a world-record horsepower to weight ratio of 1045 BHP per ton, more than any other road car. 0-60 MPH in less than 2.5 seconds, 0-100 in less than five, and 100-0 in 3.5 seconds. The only other cars that even approach this kind of performance are Formula 1 cars, and the Caparo T1 has just about as much interior space, just enough for two passengers. Prices start at £190,000. Anyone care to go in on a Dubspeed timeshare T1? $100 gets you 30 minutes once a year.

The obsession continues: Caparo T1 in final stages of testing [Autoblog]
On the road in the Caparo T1 [Car Magazine]

Post by Kasey Kagawa

You know, as much as Clarkson proclaims that Europe is the only truly civilized part of the world, and as controversial our government can be at times, at least (most of) our legislators aren’t completely out of their Goddamn minds.

British Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies has written part of a CO2 emissions proposal that would ban all cars capable of speeds over 101 MPH. His rationale is that “between 1994 and 2004 the power of new cars went up by 28 per cent, making them a lot heavier, and so increasing the amount of CO2 they put out, even though no country raised its speed limit to allow cars to use this increased power.” Now, despite the obvious total disconnect from reality that this demonstrates, I think that we should give this guy, and others like him, exactly what they want.

Hear me out on this one. This 101 MPH governor, proposals to force 90% reductions in CO2 emissions, and other similar suggestions from the radical environmental groups, should be instated as soon as humanly possible, not because I think they will work, but because people will see exactly how utterly insane these people are. Forced reductions in CO2 emissions of 70 or 90 percent would cut into a lot more than just soccer moms driving road-going leviathans. Shipping and air flight would have to be drastically reduced, and since many industrial processes that produce the raw chemicals that are required to produce almost every kind of synthetic material that we take for granted produce huge amounts of CO2 as a byproduct, plastics and other synthetic materials would become exceedingly rare. Power production would plummet, and we’d all basically be forced back into the Middle Ages. I’d think after a few weeks or months of this, people would realize that what is being asked for is not a mild inconvenience, but the end of our civilization as we know it, and then we’d be able to get on with finding actual answers and solutions based on real science instead of sound bites.

MEPs call for ban on fast cars [Autocar]

Post by Kasey Kagawa

Good news for fans of the Cadillac CTS-V, as Motor Trend dropped information on Monday revealing that the 2009 revamp of the CTS-V will be powered by the beastly 700 HP supercharged V8 from the Chevrolet Corvette Z07 (or Corvette SS or Blue Devil or whatever the hell they’re calling it now), detuned to 600 HP. This is good news and all, but I think that there’s a deeper and far more exciting truth to be found here.

The Cadillac CTS-V is built on the GM Sigma platform, from which the new GM Zeta platform is derived. Several cars are and will be built from the Zeta platform, such as the Cadillac DTS, Pontiac G8, Holden Commodore, Chevrolet Impala, and most importantly, the upcoming Chevrolet Camaro. There’s been rumors flying around regarding a proposed “ZL-1″ edition of the new Camaro powered by the LS9 powerplant. “ZL-1″ refers to the the 427 ci all-aluminum V8 that was slipped into 69 very lucky 1969 Camaros, thanks to Central Office Production Order 9560. The original ZL-1 was rated at 425 HP by the factory, but probably was closer to 600 HP at stock trim. In the world of pony cars, the 1969 Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1 is king. It laid waste to all that dare challenge it, and is one hell of a target to shoot for. With the full 700 HP or even the cut-down 600, a LS9-powered Camaro would certainly be on the way to achieving that goal, just as long as they don’t forget about making it good around corners and built well instead of just fast in a straight line.

(Edit: After some discussions and more research, this rumor is probably bogus. The 2009 CTS-V is currently slated to be powered by the upcoming LSA supercharged motor, which is probably the source of the confusion.)

Blown! Next CTS-v gets 600-horse supercharged V-8 [Motor Trend]

Post by Kasey Kagawa

I’m on vacation in Florida right now, so in honor of this rare occasion, I present the incredible final lap of the GT2 class race at the 2007 American Le Mans Series opener at Sebring International Raceway. Jorg Bergmeister in the #45 Flying Lizard Porsche 997 GT3 RSR and Jamie Melo in the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 GT fight it out for first place in GT2 as the fireworks for the overall victors in LMP1 explode in the sky, providing the perfect backdrop for the explosive battle on the ground below. Now, back to drinking fruity alcoholic beverages by the pool.