Friday, 24 January 2014

Posted: 22 Jan 2014 12:59 AM PST

Force India have become the first team to reveal an image of their 2014 F1 contender.

The VJM07 was shown for the first time by the team on Twitter.

"I always enjoy seeing a Formula One car come to life, but I can't remember so much anticipation ahead of a new season," said managing director Vijay Mallya.

"The rule changes have presented us with a huge challenge, but I'm very proud of the approach we have taken and the direction of the technical team. It will be fascinating to see how different teams have interpreted the rules and at this stage it's impossible to predict who has done the best job.

"It's this uncertainty that should make for a very entertaining season of racing, which is great news for the fans."

One of the first noticeable changes on the new car is a revised colour scheme. "The new car livery reflects the way Sahara Force India is evolving."

"I've always believed the saffron, white and green livery has made our cars the most eye-catching, but adding black as a main colour gives us a fierce new look."

"The national colours of India remain an integral part of the car, but the tiger has become a panther! As we enter our seventh season with new partnerships and new names on the car, our contemporary new look helps signal our ambition."

The new car is the first to benefit from Force India's expanded agreement with Mercedes which includes its 1.6-litre V6 turbo engine, energy recovery systems and eight-speed gearbox. Force India confirmed the car uses pullrod suspension at the rear and pushrods at the front.

2014 F1 cars

Force India reveal first picture of VJM07

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Image © Force India

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First image of Williams FW36 reveals 'anteater' nose - F1 Fanatic

Posted: 23 Jan 2014 01:07 AM PST

Williams have become the second team to reveal the look of their 2014 F1 car – and the first to show off the design of the widely-debated 2014 noses.

The FW36 features the strikingly narrow, tapered nose which is expected to feature on many of this year's cars due to the framing of the new regulations.

It is the first Williams to be powered by a Mercedes engine, and chief technical officer Pat Symonds said he was pleased with their collaboration so far.

"This is the first time that Williams has worked with Mercedes in F1 and we've been very impressed," he said. "Their professionalism and commitment have been notable and we're as confident as we can be that the power unit will be competitive."

Aside from the striking nose design, which is expected to feature on most cars this year, the car features enlarged air intakes to cool the sophisticated new engines and energy recovery systems.

"Overall the cars will need more cooling this year," Symonds explained. "The demands on water and oil cooling may be slightly diminished, but the [Energy Recovery System] is significantly more powerful and hence needs more cooling. We also have to cool the charge air from the turbocharger compressor which requires a substantial intercooler."

"There's a lot more technology on the cars this year," he added. "We've had turbo-charged engines in F1 before; what's different this time is that it is much more than just an engine change, it is a completely different system."

"We've gone from a slightly hybridised normally aspirated engine to a fully integrated hybrid power unit with novel technology at its heart."

Symonds said production of the car went according to plan. "But it's been a challenge to get the car down to the weight limit."

"It's been achievable, but it hasn't been easy because the new power unit is heavier than the outgoing V8."

More Williams FW36 pictures

: Williams FW36, front, 2014

: Williams FW36, side, 2014

: Williams FW36, front high, 2014

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Next-gen Mini Clubman spotted - new pictures | Autocar

Posted: 21 Jan 2014 04:10 PM PST

These are the latest pictures of the new Mini Clubman, which has been spotted undergoing cold weather testing near the Arctic Circle.

The Clubman, which will switch to a larger and more conventional sporting estate for its second generation, will be one of the initial four models in the third-generation BMW Mini lineup.

It will follow the three-door hatchback into production alongside new convertible and five-door hatchback versions.

While the current Clubman has an unusual 2+1 side-door arrangement, with the rear door being rear hinged, the new model has conventional doors on each side for rear passengers. The twin side-hinged door arrangement for the tailgate remains, however.

The new Clubman takes advantage of the new UKL1 platform used on the Mini range. It's available in a range of different wheelbase lengths and track widths, so Mini has taken a longer wheelbase variant to create a longer and more spacious estate model.

Those who have seen the car have noted that it appears almost as long as a BMW 3-series Touring, and looks considerably wider at the rear than the current model.

The Clubman will go on sale after the five-door hatchback is launched early in 2015.

Images Of iOS For Cars Leak On Twitter | WebProNews

Posted: 22 Jan 2014 11:49 AM PST

It's no secret that Apple wants to get in your car. Back in June of last year, Apple announced that it would be bringing iOS 7 to cars with voice controls provided by Siri. While iOS 7 is already out, a car-specific UI is nowhere to be seen. Well, that is until now.

On Tuesday, Twitter user @stroughtonsmith shared a series of images that appear to be what iOS will look like when it's used in conjunction with a vehicle. It's obviously a very early build as the only app available in this mode is Apple's own Maps app. Even then, the pictures provide a great look at what may end up being the UI Apple uses for iOS in the car.

So, how did @stroughtonsmith get access to what appears to Apple's answer to Google's Open Automative Alliance? No clue, but we've sent a request @stroughtonsmith a request for comment and will update this story if we hear back. At the moment, those replying to the images seem to think he was able to gain access to this mode through the developer version of iOS 7. While that's likely the case, we've also reached out to Apple for their take on the images.

If it turns out that these images are real, we're likely very close to an announcement of a new car mode for iOS. What's unclear at this point is if Apple will just release a new UI for iOS 7 that's activated when you're in the car or if Apple will be going the Google route by working with automotive manufacturers to integrate iOS into the vehicles themselves. With this being Apple, my bet's on the former.

[h/t: chiploco]
Image via @stroughtonsmith/Twitter

Images Of iOS For Cars Leak On Twitter 42 mins ago

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Monday, 20 January 2014

'Fifty Shades of Grey' Pics! Anastasia Gets a Car | ExtraTV.com

'Fifty Shades of Grey' Pics! Anastasia Gets a Car | ExtraTV.com

'Fifty Shades of Grey' Pics! Anastasia Gets a Car | ExtraTV.com
In Pictures: The Automotive Technology We Saw At CES 2014 - On ...
Charlie Beesley's car pictures, part 4 On the Road | Hemmings Daily

Posted: 17 Jan 2014 11:57 AM PST

Actors Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson filmed a memorable scene from "Fifty Shades of Grey," in which the sexy Christian Grey gives Anastasia Steele a new car.

'Fifty Shades of Grey' Pics! Anastasia Gets a Car

Fame/Flynet Pictures

The scene was filmed on a Vancouver set on Thursday.

Fans of the E.L James' erotic books will be thrilled when they see the fabulously wealthy Christian presents the innocent college grad with a red Audi because he believes her old VW bug "Wanda" is unsafe. Anastasia appropriately names the luxurious ride "The Submissive Special."

FFN_50_Shades_JKING_011614_51307240

[photo: Fame/Flynet Pictures]

Rita Ora (Christian's sister, Mia), Eloise Mumford (Anastasia's best friend, Kate), Luke Grimes (Christian's brother, Elliot), Victor Rasuk (Anastasia's close friend, José) and Jennifer Ehle (Anastasia's mother, Carla) also star in the steamy adaptation.

"Fifty Shades of Grey" is due to hit theaters on February 2015.

In Pictures: The Automotive Technology We Saw At CES 2014 - On ...

Posted: 17 Jan 2014 12:00 AM PST

Last year, Chris Angelini and I decided to spice up our trip to CES a little, making it more exciting. Instead of Chris driving to Vegas by himself and me hopping on a direct flight to Vegas, I flew into Los Angeles to pick up a press car and then drove to Bakersfield. Chris hopped in and we made our way to Sin City together. I wrote about our vehicle of choice in 2013 Nissan GT-R Black Edition: The Gran Turismo Car.

We wanted something more comfortable and luxurious this year. It's a pretty long drive, after all. Style and comfort were necessities. So, we gave our friends at Bentley a call to see if we could borrow a Continental GT V8 for the week-long excursion. Along the way, I even picked up our new editor-in-chief, Fritz Nelson.

Armed with 500 hp, double-pane windows, and all-wheel drive, we set off to Vegas. It was a great way to start a show that featured more automotive technology than years past. Naturally, I spent a lot of time in the Las Vegas Convention Center's North Hall with companies like QNX, Qualcomm, and Nvidia. Join us as we explore the latest automotive technologies that caught our attention during CES 2014.

Charlie Beesley's car pictures, part 4 On the Road | Hemmings Daily

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 05:00 AM PST

All photos courtesy and copyright Charlie Beesley.

Before the motorcar became a reality, most Americans never ventured more than a few miles from home. In 1890, a farmer who lived, say, eight miles from town faced a four-hour round trip by horse and buggy.

That changed with the Ford Model T. Most farmers who could afford to buy Model Ts did, and the car totally altered their lives. They could now drive to town in half an hour. The Model T also freed people to travel just for the fun of it – to go places they'd heard of, dreamt about and never would have been able to visit in the days before Henry Ford offered them an affordable automobile. The romance of the road came to be what Woody Guthrie affectionately called "hard travelin'."

The theme of this chapter of Charlie Beesley's car pictures is "On the Road." I don't mean to sound like a PR flak for Ford, but the days of Americans hitting the road pretty much started with the Model T. And due to the T's universality (and the advent of the Kodak Brownie camera – ed.), more people took pictures of themselves going places in their Lizzies than people who owned other makes of cars. The numbers favored the T from about 1913 through the first years of the Great Depression. More Americans drove Ts, thus more people took pictures of themselves with their Ts, thus Charlie ended up with more pictures showing the T during that hard-travelin' era.

The T not only put America on wheels, but it was reliable and tough enough to slog through mud and bounce over the unpaved roads of that day. When the T did break down, most owners could fix it on the spot – another advantage it had over other automobiles.

Even so, the age of motor travel started a few years before the Model T became popular, and Charlie's collection includes examples of that era, too. Then, in the 1930s, as the T began to fade and highways got better, Americans took to the road in even greater numbers. Tourists were still traveling around Europe mostly by train, but here in the United States, the car dominated.

Tourism became an industry. Motorists were encouraged to travel. Gas stations handed out free maps. Motor courts popped up along major routes. Roadside restaurants catered to families on wheels, and the public's investment in national parks began to pay off. Gas was cheap, and people jumped into the family tourer for any number of reasons.

One of those reasons during the Depression was to move to places that held out hope of work. Thus began the great migration from Oklahoma and other central states to the job-friendlier climes of California and the West Coast.

But most of Charlie's pictures aren't of on-the-road Okies, because Okies couldn't afford cameras. These are mostly photos of tourists having a good time, seeing new places and expanding their horizons as Americans had never been able to do before.

We begin our motoring journey with a series of pictures of Ford Model Ts. The T put American tourists on wheels. In the 1910s, when national parks were young, an adventuresome couple in an early Model T passes through the gates of Washington's Mount Rainier National Park.

The next three photos show a T speedster heading across country sometime in the late 1920s. The car has New York plates, and that's where the trek begins. Here the T pauses on the Bear Mountain Bridge over the Hudson River. The bridge was completed in 1924 and is now part of U.S. Routes 202 and 6.

Apparently two people occupied the cross-country T speedster, and the passenger got out to take this picture. Behind the T is a 1927 Chandler and another Model T, all skirting the muddier middle of the road.

Stopping somewhere in Arizona, the driver checks under the hood while his passenger snaps a shot of sheep grazing peacefully in front of a rather dramatic outcrop. Unfortunately, we have no pictures of the passenger.

A family stops briefly in Salem, South Dakota, on the way to who knows where. The father, we presume, took this picture. The T's loaded to the gunwales, as is the trailer, which the son topped off with what looks like his soapbox racer. Actually it's an upturned Radio Flyer wagon with a leather suitcase between the wheels.

Tourists, including Henry Ford and friends, indulged in what came to be called "tin-can camping." Here a Model T and a 1925 Chevy share a tarp between them. Both cars have Ohio plates, but there's no telling where these two families were roughing it.

Another tin-can camper pitches his tent, this time on a trip through the Yosemite Valley. Such scenes look bucolic, but similar photos might have been taken when families drove to the West Coast looking for work during the Depression.

A well-dressed family, in what looks to be an almost new Model T, stops off at some Hohokam ruins near Casa Grande in Arizona.

Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, a Model T huddles beneath a cliff overhanging the roadway. Perhaps readers can tell us where this picture was taken.

Nebraska farmer Elmer J. Sweet drove his T to California in 1921 to visit his sister. The inscription records the impression of a flatlander viewing the Pacific for the first time.

To extricate a Model T from a muddy road near Brinkley, Arkansas, two mules patiently await the command from their owner down below.

This picture poses something of a mystery. There is no town in Idaho called Sunnyside. There is a Sunnyside, Washington, not far from the Idaho border, and the early Ford dealership there is the focus of an excellent book called Me and the Model T, by Roscoe Sheller.

Leaving the realm of Model Ts, we now step back in time to a slightly earlier period. Here we see a 1903-1904 Cadillac Model A with its front seat out. The engine is being tinkered with by a well-dressed trio of college boys while a woman, barely visible at the far left, sits in the grass and looks mightily unimpressed.

Three fortunate couples in a 1909 Buick (left) and a 1906 Maxwell-Briscoe go for a spin somewhere near South Bend, Indiana.

The slightly less fortunate owner of a different 1909 Buick ponders the mysteries of its four-cylinder engine. At that time, Buick offered six models ranging in wheelbase from 92 to 112 inches, some with overhead-valve engines and others with side valves.

A 1910 Stanley steamer, the first car to traverse Boulder Canyon between Nederland and Boulder, Colorado, breaks down somewhere along the way. The Stanley belonged to the Nederland Auto Stage Co., which ferried passengers between the two towns.

Another Maxwell parks beside a hollow tree in the town of Sedro-Woolley, Washington. Sedro-Woolley took its name by the combining of two towns, Sedro and Woolley, on the Skagit River inland from the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Canadian border.

Here's an air-cooled car surrounded by water – a circa-1924 Franklin on Kelley's Island in Lake Erie, just north of Sandusky, Ohio. These tourists jammed even the family dog inside, and thank goodness for running boards. Bag and baggage are neatly stacked and wrapped in oilcloth.

When the bridge went out over the East River, near Almont, Colorado, an enterprising farmer took his two white horses and, for a modest fee, offered to tow cars across. He's astride the hood of a 1920-ish Dodge touring car.

We're not sure where this photo was taken – either in Mexico or Arizona. The 1928 Chevrolet cabriolet has a neat roof extension over the rumbleseat, shading a woman and boy who'd otherwise get fried.

A brand-new, first-year 1926 Imperial 80 roadster crests a hill somewhere in Michigan (we think). The number 80 referred to the Imperial's top speed, a mark rarely attainable on the roads of that day.

Someone built himself a snug housecar/camper on a 1928 Stutz base, driving it bravely in wintertime along the Victory Highway. The Victory Highway ran coast to coast south of the Lincoln Highway, New York to San Francisco.

Three guys in a 1933 Chevy coupe look like they're in no hurry to get anywhere.

An early Auburn speedster with 1940 California plates heads east on Route 66 in New Mexico. On the back of another picture of this car, someone wrote, "Muroc Dry Lake, 4-7-1940, 93 MPH."

A Graham Blue Streak coupe poses alongside a trim young woman somewhere in the Sierra. The date is March 1934, and the note on the back says, "Coming back from Reno," presumably to Sacramento or perhaps San Francisco.

Several families loaded themselves into the bed of a mid-1930s International-Harvester pickup for a day's excursion to the snow. What's unusual about this pickup are its General Streamline Jumbo tires.

The 1935 Plymouth knows it's really gotten somewhere when it crosses the Continental Divide in Wyoming at 7,176 feet. The car's owners and their small dog stretch their legs before heading down the other side.

"Dapper" has to describe this young man who stands so proudly in front of his 1935 La Salle en route to Beverly Hills in 1936. Actually, he's Rudolph de Hapsburg ver Mehr, great grandson of John L. ver Mehr, missionary and founder of what later became Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

The legend on the back of this picture says, "This is the flood at Sandusky, Ohio, after a cloud burst. We drove nearly 50 miles under this much water and more. Picture taken from our car."

Not to worry – he's only checking the oil level of his 1942 Chrysler. The plates indicate U.S. military, and the date is 1951.

A lovely 1947 Buick Roadmaster sedanet pauses beneath a rugged outcrop somewhere in the American Southwest.

This young woman parks her 1947-1948 Chevrolet Fleetline Aero and hops aboard the marker welcoming her to Texas. Here's hoping she won't mess with it.

These guys seem positively pleased that they had to pull everything out of the trunk of their 1947 Studebaker Starlight coupe to change the tire. And here's a question: Would bumper jacks get past a car company's legal staff nowadays?

Somewhere along Highway 1 on the Pacific Coast, a low tide allows the owner of this 1949 Buick Super to make a very pleasant detour onto the beach.

A 1951 Ford stayed properly cool on its way down to the lowest point in Death Valley. Now the question becomes: What's going to happen on the way back?

Coming out of Parowan, Utah, a man in a 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser stops and ponders whether to head toward Cedar City or Beaver, Utah.

Same idea as the Stutz above, but this homemade camper has a raisable roof, and the Cadillac stays intact, so it's usable as an everyday driver.

The reason there's no visible background in this Polaroid is because the man in the Corvan posed on the White Sands of New Mexico – a spectacular sight, but you want to be sure to bring your sunglasses.

This Florida matron seems to have car camping knocked. Whether she's loaded the kitchen sink into her 1957 Ford Ranch Wagon remains unknown, but she's certainly brought along everything else. The photo was taken in August 1962 in Missouri.

It's the little car that could. You gotta love a Citroën 2CV that makes it up the summit road of Mt. Lassen in Northern California. Other shots from the series show the 2CV with two sleeping bags stretched out inside.

Ah, the bliss of taking a little nap in the back seat with the kids. Has the trip really been that long and hard, or are they just dozing recreationally?