Autoblog

On display at this year's LA Auto Show is a Nissan Altima Hybrid racecar aimed at pleasing the eco-radicals of California, and the folks over at Autoblog Green. The car was first released at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, but the LA crowd is really more up its alley. This Altima is a direct result of the team at Braille Battery pairing up with Nissan North America and Universal Technical Institute. The "Hot Rod Hybrid," as it's called, is a construction aimed at competing in the new hybrid/electric class of the Redline Time Attack series. There are also plans to give it a run in the 2009 Cannonball Run/One Lap of America event. We know the car will be in good hands, too. Driver Blake Fuller is experienced with both front- and rear-wheel-drive vehicles, as exemplified by his finishes in the Pike's Peak hill climb and Formula D drifting events.

The Braille Battery Nissan Altima Hybrid is constructed with great attention to detail. The green eco-friendly DuPont paint initially catches your eye, but the best part can be found once the car passes by you. The exhaust outlets are formed out of leaf silhouettes. No environmentally conscious element on this vehicle is left unturned, even the race seats are a new product from Sparco containing recycled materials. The roof is also topped with battery recharging solar cells. To help the car be competitive on the racetrack, the internal combustion engine is tuned to run on E85 ethanol while being boosted by a Vortech electric supercharger. All in all, it is an intriguing experiment. We look forward to seeing how the car fairs under the wear and tear of many Time Attack battles. More details can be found in the press release after the jump. Also be sure to take a gander at the gallery below for SEMA shots provided by Braille Battery, along with those we captured in LA.

We're not sure what has more clout: Mickey Mouse, Alain Prost or 60 million euros, but the combination of the three was still not enough to get the French Grand Prix back on track. The race, previously held at the Magny Cours circuit in rural France, was removed from the 2009 calendar after organizers couldn't cough up the cash, and almost immediately other parties began filing queue to acquire the rights. The leading tender was spearheaded by Prost, the French former world champion, and backed by promoters Lagadere Sports and Euro Disney. Lagadere would provide the 60 million needed to finance the project, while Disneyland Paris would provide the land for the new circuit to be constructed. The theme park is just a 30-minute drive from metropolitan Paris, and already has plenty of hotel accommodations on site. However, the plan has now fallen apart due to lack of funding and following protests over the prospect of noise and environmental pollution by local residents who intend instead to go back to force-feeding geese and chain-smoking Gauloises.

The Euro Disney proposal was seen as the only viable option for getting the French GP back on for 2010, and its collapse means that Formula One will in all likelihood will not return to France until 2011 at the earliest. Still, the idea has merit, and makes us wonder if the US Grand Prix couldn't do well in Orlando or Anaheim.

[Source: F1-Live]

Click above for high-res gallery of these fun '70s Mitsubishis

We might have skipped the Mitsubishi booth altogether this year at the LA Auto Show if it hadn't been for this pair of eye-catching cars from the '70s. While checking out the neighboring Audi booth we spotted a toad-green FTO and then caught a glimpse of what looked like an old F1 car. The racecar turned out to be the last single-seat racer Mitsu ever made, the 1971 Colt F2000. It actually won the Japan Grand Prix that year. It was powered by a 4-valve dohc 1,994 cc R39B that put out 290 PS. It was also one of the first open-wheelers to use those side-mounted radiators that became the standard in many forms of single-seater racing.

The other car was a 1973 Galant FTO GS-R. Fittingly painted toad-green, this little beast had warts all over it. Built between 1971 and 1975 the FTO was a rear-drive coupe that could be had with a number of different Neptune and Saturn fours ranging from 86 hp up to 110 hp for the top option 1,597 cc mill found in the GS-R. A spiritual predecessor to the Evos of today, both are some fun finds here at an otherwise somber LA Auto Show.


Live photos copyright ©2008 Frank Filipponio / Weblogs, Inc.

Formula One fans and team members alike will be disappointed by reports that the Red Bulletin may be cancelled. The magazine is put out by Red Bull, owners of the Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso teams, in four daily editions at each grand prix on the Formula One calendar. It has become a fixture of the paddock and grandstands since its introduction at Monaco in 2005.

The self-proclaimed "almost independent F1 newspaper" incorporates current news, interviews and feature articles in a humorous tone, and is distributed at the races free of charge in editions of up to 10,000 copies each. Unfortunately, it reportedly costs millions for Red Bull to produce, with a multilingual staff of 25 working out of a mobile publishing office with a Heidelberg 7.5t printing press. Although Red Bull will reportedly fund other publications, its grandiose parties and other expensive marketing initiatives are also tipped to be cut from the erstwhile seemingly endless cash-flow. We guess once they came down from their Taurine high, the bean-counters finally got their way.

[Source: GrandPrix.com]

It wasn't the number one pick of our readers (earning the silver medal in your voting), but Mazda managed to take the top honors at the LA Design Challenge with its KAAN concept. The design itself is a fanciful look into a future where all the roads in California are paved with... um, sub-level electro-conductive polymer (m'kay), which provides juice to the electronic tires that allow the KAAN to reach speeds of up to 250 mph. Up to 30 KAANs would travel together in formations that would cheat the wind, so MAZDA designed the vehicles so that they could fit tightly together in the peloton.

The theme of the competition was to depict what motorsports would be like in 2025. Chuck Pelly, director of Design Los Angeles, said that the choice was made because Mazda's entry was "the most innovative and artistic design," and that the KAAN "ultimately brought unique styling back to motorsports." Unique? That seems like a major understatement to us. See all of the contenders after the break


[Source: LA Auto Show]

The points system used by Formula 1 has been the subject of debate for years. When the system was expanded after 2002 and began offering points up to eighth position, people thought that would create more suspense since Michael Schumacher was running off with the trophies every year. It didn't work, and now with Schumacher gone, all the points system tends to reward is consistency over winning. Lewis Hamilton won five races this year and Felipe Massa won six, but Lewis Hamilton is the world champion because he scored more points.

F1 impresario Bernie Ecclestone wants to move to a medal system next year, awarding gold, bronze and silver to the top three finishers. The guy with the most gold at the end wins the championship. If that had been in place for this year, Felipe would have won the championship. If Lewis had won the last race in Brazil, he and Felipe would have been tied on gold medals and tied on silver medals, but Lewis has one more bronze medal (third place) than Felipe, so Hamilton would be champion. Will it happen? Bernie says the teams are behind it, so it only awaits a vote from the World Motorsport Council.

[Source: F1 Live]

This is Volkswagens entrant in this weekend's Baja 1000: a spaceframe-chassis Touareg TDI with 75 cm of suspension travel competing in the top-dog Trophy Truck class and utilizing an oil-burning V12 with nearly 550 hp. That's a long way from the first VW win in 1967 that came courtesy of a VW Beetle converted into one of the soon-to-be-ubiquitous dune monsters. Driver Mark Miller won the Baja 500 last year in the first Race Touareg. Aided by helicopters and eight support vehicles, we'll find out on Sunday if he and navigator Ryan Arciero can take The Big One this year.


Live photos copyright ©2008 Sebastian Blanco, Jeremy Korzeniewski / Weblogs, Inc.

What you see above is a shot of BMW's Formula 1 racer built to 2009 specs. Slicks are back for mechanical grip, but to reduce downforce and speeds -- and supposedly increase passing -- the rear wing has been trimmed down so much that it looks like a shelf from IKEA. The front wing on the car is also larger and wider, and extras like flip-ups and winglets on the front wing, nosecone and bodywork are prohibited next year. BMW has also been testing its KERS hybrid system, where other teams are using ballast while they sort out when they'll introduce their own systems. Frankly, that system could be just as shocking as the car itself. If the on-track action gets better, then we're all for it. But for now, these cars remind us of ugly things.

[Source: F1 Live]

British racing fans had lots of reason to celebrate this year. Not only did their golden boy Lewis Hamilton win the Formula One World Championship, but their star cyclist Chris Hoy took home three Olympic gold medals from the Beijing Olympics. But the ultimate face-off between man and machine is just gearing up as organizers of the annual Race of Champions have announced the two will face off next month at Wembley.

The race will pit Hamilton in a Mercedes road car against Hoy on his bike on parallel winding tracks. Although Lewis won't be driving his championship winning McLaren, he'll be running a few demonstration laps around the stadium for the fans in his first major public appearance after securing the championship. Since both Hoy and Hamilton will have to rush off to the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards, scheduled at the same time as the race, the showdown will take place as an opening act. And that's one heck of an opening act. Press release after the jump.

[Source: Race of Champions]

Take one Audi R8, add a pinch of Satan's dandruff (it's potent stuff) and you get this: the R8 GT3. Spy photographers have caught this racing version of Audi's R8 supercar, which itself is named after the very successful diesel-powered R8 LeMans racer, circling the famed Nurburgring in Germany. As you can see in our gallery below, it looks all business with a Boeing-sized rear wing out back and asphalt-scraping carbon fiber splitter up front. Other mods made for racing include the large vent in the "hood" behind the grille, larger air scoops in the blades behind the doors, a plexiglass rear window and significantly wider track both front and rear. Our sources tell us that the suspension is supposedly entirely stock and the quattro all-wheel-drive system has been ditched in favor of rear-wheel-drive to meet current FIA GT3 regulations. As for the engine, the 4.2L V8 has supposedly been tweaked to produce 500 horsepower (up from 420). For all its wings, vents and fender flares, this R8 GT3 prototype reportedly only managed to lap the 'Ring in 8:41.00 due to slippery-when-wet conditions. Pay attention folks, as this is the turn-key racing R8 that Audi will soon unleash on teams who wish to crash the GT3 class in style.


[Source: KGP Photography]