Velvet Rolls Royce: £300k supercar given furry makeover

Velvet cars appear the latest craze for the super rich after this Rolls Royce was spotted in London.

Passers-by stopped to stroke the £300,000 supercar outside Harrods in swanky Knightsbridge.

The durable fabric is supposed to be weather resistant for those with a spare £3,000 and want their motor to stand out.

Christmas shoppers stopped and stared at the Phantom drophead coupe and took to Twitter to post pictures of it online.

It comes after a black velvet Porsche became an internet sensation when it was seen in the capital last summer.

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Created by Velvet Car, a French company specialising in luxurious films and accessories, the service involves ‘wrapping’ the cars in a durable and weather resistant fibre.

A spokesman for the firm, which supplies the material to garages in the UK and overseas, said that the material, called Velvet Elite 9100, allows car owners to better express their style.

The fibre comes in a range of colours – including fuchsia pink and orange – and is available for all vehicle types.

It is coated with special adhesives and durable textile fibers to withstand severe weather condition.

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The material will last roughly three years and, if the mystery owner has a change of heart, the wrap can be removed by professionals restoring the car to a just off the production line state.

It can be cleaned by hand or using a normal jet wash, without requiring any special products.

A British company, Raccoon, was responsible for the UK’s first velvet-covered car and has completed eight wrappings – mainly for customers who were looking to stand out.

Spokeswoman Alison Clark said: “It tends to be people looking to make a statement.”

Source: The Mirror

Ferrari 250 owner sets new DVLA record for a vanity plate by paying £518k for ’25 O’

A classic car dealer has boosted the Treasury’s coffers by spending a record-breaking £518,000 on a government-owned registration plate.

John Collins paid £518,480 at the DVLA auction for “25 O” which he is putting on his £10 million Ferrari.

The vanity plate is regarded as one of the most desirable registrations because it can be attached to the most valuable cars ever built.

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This includes the £10 million Ferrari 250 GT SWB, £20 million Ferrari 250 TR and £35 million Ferrari 250 GTO.

The amount smashes the previous DVLA record of £352,411 which was spent on “1D” in 2009.

It was offered with a reserve of just £4,000 but pre-sale interest meant bidding started at £50,000 and soon shot up.

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Offers on the phone, online and in the saleroom quickly exceeded £250,000, and £300,000 and with auctioneer Dave Hawes eventually bringing the hammer down at £400,000.

When VAT and buyer’s premium is added, the final cost for the plate was £518,480.

John Collins, a car collector and owner of Talacrest, a Ferrari dealership in Ascot, Berkshire, won the auction.

He also spent £130,000 on the ‘250 L’ for his Ferrari 250 Lusso and £3,000 on ‘500 FER’ at the auction in Glamorgan.

Mr Collins said: “It is the ultimate plate for the ultimate car. I could have bought a really good Ferrari for the money.

“But I decided I really wanted the plate and I wasn’t going to stop bidding on it.

“Every time I put a bid in, the underbidder responded straight away. The plate could possibly have been the first £1 million personalised registration!”

“It is a lot of money, but I was calm as I have been in auction situations before where I have bid more than $20 million on a car.

“When the hammer went down I was really happy, it is a record for a DVLA registration plate.

“I am going to be putting it on a very special Ferrari 250 SWB which used to belong to Eric Clapton.

“I also bought ‘250L’ which is going on a £2.25 million Ferrari 250 Lusso and ‘500 FER’ which was a bargain at £3,000.”

All of the hammer price and the tax on the buyer’s premium goes to the treasury while the buyer’s premium goes to the firm with the contract for DVLA auctions.

Jody Davies, DVLA personalised registrations’ events manager, said: “What a spectacular way to mark our 150th auction during our 25th Anniversary year.

“While we had high hopes for both registrations, we never dreamt they would be so successful auction during our 25th and enable us to make history for the DVLA.”

Source: Telegraph

The Sights and Sounds of an Epic LA Supercar Meet

Every month, there’s an event held in Los Angeles called “Morning Octane”. But what makes this event different from most — other than the huge amount of supercars and exotics — is the venue in which it is held.

After getting off of the United States’ oldest freeway, the 110, one finds themselves in the parking lot of the famed Rose Bowl.

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I’ve been to plenty a football game at the Rose Bowl, but on a warm July morning, I ventured out to these hallowed grounds to enjoy a morning of cars and friends. And the turnout did NOT disappoint.

It was a showcase of some of the latest and greatest modern supercars, from the Enzo to the Aventador and much more. This video captures some of the highlights of the show, but keys mainly on the accelerations–and one more thing, that Honda Odyssey actually has 1,000 horsepower and was tuned by legendary Porsche tuner Bisimoto. Watch it all below:

Source: Bold Ride

Video: Stunt Driver Sets New World Record For Tightest Parallel Park

Remember your driving test? Parallel parking probably seemed like the hardest part of getting a license, but there are some that have almost made it a competitive sport.

Yes, the Guinness World Record for parallel parking has been hotly contested in recent years. Chinese stunt driver Han Yue recently regained the title of most-precise parker after losing it to a pair of British brothers last year.

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Yue broke the record in a MINI Cooper S during the recent China Drift Championship event at Chongqing Olympic Park, sliding into a space just 8 centimeters (about 3.1 inches) longer than the car.

That beats the 5.16 inches set by Alastair Moffatt in an original Mini. That happened on the same day his brother John beat Yue’s original record, but now Yue is back on top and it looks like he might be there for some time.

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The dramatic sliding seen in the video isn’t just for showing off, either. With so little clearance, reversing a car into the space the conventional way simply won’t work. With this latest record, it seems like there’s as little room for advancement as their is between the parked MINIs’ bumpers.

It’s also somewhat ironic that, while professional drivers are competing to accomplish the tightest parking jobs, the number of regular drivers that can competently parallel park could very well decrease as electronic aids take over much of the work.

Source: Motor Authority

Inside The Secret Chinese Supercar Subculture Of Southern California

The Chinese government does not like its country’s ultra-rich to show off their wealth. But their reach doesn’t seem to cover Southern California, where the children of China’s elite get to show off. How? With Lamborghinis and Maseratis, of course.

Chinese elite send their children to study in the United States. When they do, their parents give them enough money to buy as nice a car as they want.

Since flaunting your wealth is still frowned upon, these young, rich students organize private meets to see each other’s rides.

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Vocativ went to one of these meets and found a secretive car culture straight out of a movie.

“Why did you pick this car?” asks the interviewer of a student who picked up a $270,000 Ferrari California. Here’s the guy’s response, which is indicative of the spending power these kids command.

This is not altogether different from what you find in many areas with rich Chinese students. Vancouver has a bit of a reputation for this. And China isn’t the only country exports its wealthy kids to lead to supercar booms elsewhere.

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London is known for its Supercar Summer, where the wealthiest children of the Gulf states ride Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and everything else.

Watch the full video above to get a sense of why these kids drive Audis to school, but keep their top-of-the-line Maserati in the garage.

Source: Jalopnik.com

New pic of ‘baby’ McLaren supercar

Top Gear has revealed that McLaren’s upcoming, entry-level supercar will have at least one door.

This news comes off the back of McLaren’s latest teaser image for the ‘baby’ supercar, part of Woking’s new ‘Sports Series’ range. As you can see, there is a rather cool door involved.

And it’s no ordinary door, but a vertically opening dihedral door. They suspect there shall be another, too.

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What else do we know about the Sports Series? It’ll go up against both the new Mercedes-AMG GT S and Porsche 911 Turbo, and is expected to arrive around April 2015.

It’ll be based on a spin-off of the carbon fibre tubs used in the McLaren 650S and P1, with aluminium body panels and a variation of the familiar 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 and seven-speed dual clutch ‘box.

We’ll find out more as McLaren continues its #BlackSwanMoments teaser campaign for the Sports Series range so stay tuned.

You can of course, read more about the car codenamed P13 here, and check out TG’s verdict on the Mercedes-AMG GT S here.

Source: Top Gear

Koenigsegg One:1 Races The World’s First Truck Equipped With A Dual-Clutch Gearbox: Video

Volvo Trucks, a separate entity to the Volvo car brand, is renowned for its out of the ordinary ad campaigns, like the 2012 campaign where a woman walked a tightrope between two moving trucks, or the more recent one where Jean-Claude VanDamme did the splits standing on the side mirrors of two trucks rolling in reverse.

Now Volvo Trucks is taking on an almost impossible challenge, racing the world’s most powerful car, the 1,341-horsepower (1,360 hp in metric figures) One:1 supercar from fellow Swedish brand Koenigsegg. With only 540 hp, the Volvo FH truck in this latest video is clearly outmatched by the One:1, however, sitting behind the wheel is none other than British racer and television personality Tiff Needell.

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Furthermore, in this challenge the One:1 will have to complete two laps of Sweden’s Knutstorp race track while the FH, the world’s first heavy-duty truck to be equipped with a dual-clutch transmission, only needs to complete a single lap. Volvo Trucks likes to boast that its new transmission, dubbed the I-Shift Dual Clutch, is based on sports car technology, so where better to demonstrate its performance than on the track—and up against what’s potentially the world’s fastest car.

We won’t spoil the results so go ahead and click play to watch who comes out on top…

Source: Motor Authority

Historic British Brand Lister Teases New ‘Hypercar’

Earlier this year we received news about the revival of historic British brand Lister, a brand that dates back to the 1950s and produced a supercar called the Storm during the early ‘90s.

Originally, the revived Lister was to produce recreations of the brand’s famous ‘Knobbly’ racing car, campaigned by drivers such as Stirling Moss in the ’50s, but it appears it will launch some modern cars as well, including possibly a new ‘hypercar.’

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Yes, the modern Lister, led by Lawrence Whittaker and his son Andrew, have announced plans to launch a high-end performance model that it says will return the brand to the “leading edge of low-volume sports car manufacturing in the U.K. as well as Asia and North America.”

The project is still at a very early stage but these teaser sketches show that the design of the new Lister will be influenced by the previous Storm supercar, of which 90 were built for road use and a handful more for GT racing.

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Lister says the new car will have a price tag of £2 million (approximately $3.2 million), putting it into the same category as the world’s most potent supercars—at least in terms of pricing—such as those from Bugatti and Koenigsegg. In other words, it’s going to need world-beating performance.

The company is currently seeking investors for the new project.

Source: Motor Authority

McDonalds use a Lamborghini and Ferrari to deliver meals

Forget the zippy motorbikes to get the delivery of burgers and fries to arrive on your doorstep as fast as possible – McDonald’s fast food giant has pulled out the big guns with flashy sports cars.

A white Lamborghini and red Ferrari were parked outside the South Melbourne outlet which was one of the first suburbs to trial the home delivery service back in July.

The gleaming cars attracted a lot of attention from impressed customers who were taking photos on their phones of the new high-end delivery vehicles.

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The extravagant delivery service comes as the global net income of the major food supplier has recorded a profit drop of 30 per cent in the last quarter ending September 30.

Meanwhile, 20 restaurants throughout Brisbane will join the home delivery trial during November and December.

There are least seven Sydney outlets and three stores in Melbourne that have already jumped on board the online delivery service trial.

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Many of the items on McDonalds regular menu will be available with the delivery service, including Big Macs, french fries and healthy options like wraps and salads.

Customers must order a minimum of $25 and are charged a $4.95 delivery fee.

Source: Mail Online

The Dutch Build A Supercar You Have To See

It took a little while before the Vencer Sarthe went from early computer models to its real-life debut last year. But the company didn’t stop there, reworking the design even further before the first units were actually completed.

With the Dutch supercar finally actually in production, it’s time to find out if the mid-engine coupe lives up to the wait, and Autocar is putting the Sarthe to the test.

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In many ways, the Vencer has a very old-school, minimalist vibe. Unlike many modern supercars, there are no electric motors to offer hybrid power or a trick all-wheel-drive setup for added traction.

The Sarthe just shoves a supercharged 6.3-liter V8 pumping out 622 horsepower and 618 pound-feet of torque and six-speed manual behind the driver in a space-frame chassis.

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While anti-lock brakes are a small modern concession, the vehicle otherwise lacks any electronic aids, like traction control or stability control.Even the interior is pared down to the bare essentials with only a central screen for the gauges and a handful of buttons.

Is there still room in the supercar realm for a model that is so assertively primordial? Take a ride with Autocar to see if the Vencer can stand up to modern times.

Source: Autoblog