CarMadMike

Big news for 2016 just in is that Jolyon Palmer, British GP2 driver and 2014 champion, who before today was just a third seat driver for Lotus has been given a full race seat for 2016 :D Really good news that there'll be a new British driver on the grid, especially for what I hope continues to be a fairly decent team. :D

The queen hath returneth, all other musicians just sit and bask in her glory plz

Vettle hit with a 10 place grid penalty for this weekend. Vettels title hopes hit by engine penalty I stopped reading after 'Vettel's title hopes...' in the article header as it shows that the article is basically propaganda. What title hopes? Do you really think people are stupid enough to think there is ANY excitement left in a Merc/Ferrari rivalry for the remaining few races? Don't pretend there's excitement where there isn't any, complete BS.

Any Tesla, because I feel Elon Musk will most likely figure out time travel and build an evil lair to hide the secret to it sometime during his lifetime.

WTF1 on Twitter: WTF is Mclaren playing at.

Last time I checked BMW/Mini were still thinking about putting that superleggera concept into production, after saying no and then changing their mind again. That seems to be a similar size to this.... if they provide the engine for this I'd presume that's the nail in the coffin for them producing the Superleggera (I liked the concept :( ). Mini still seem to be pushing the Superleggera on social media as a concept which is a bit odd as I haven't really seen that done much with other concepts, so maybe it really is very close to being given the green light, they're just waiting to see if it'll sell.

I completely understand the point you're trying to make up until what I've quoted, this is where I think you're completely wrong. It's not expensive for what it is, the expense/price/cost of the thing is part of what makes the car what it is. You're purchasing an expensive item, rather than purchasing an item that just so happens to be expensive. I think there's a fine line between the two. You're not just buying a fast M4 you're buying an exclusive M4. An M4 would not turn heads in Monte Carlo, but the GTS would actually be worth photographing because of its rarity and price bracket for example. I know some* people won't agree with my line of thinking here, but I'm the materialistic pretentious idiot and I feel I understand what the product is rather than simply a 'rip off M4'. *most

This weekend's race in Sochi sums up a lot of what is wrong with F1 at the moment. The Formula 1 PR/Marketing machine has been on overdrive for the past 10 days, it's so noticeable just how over enthusiastic all the PR has been on social media because it's blatantly obvious the drivers and teams don't enjoy the track, the only reason F1 rolls into town is for tha monies $$$$$$$$$. If it were a place needing the publicity or capital investment then I'd understand, but Sochi has just had the winter olympics so it's not as if that's even necessary. Bernie came out and said that he expects F1 to be in a new owner's hands before the end of 2015 and I hope that's true, what i'm doubting is that Bernie will lose too much power as he seems to be a bit like a cockroach in that respect.

The £60k premium with the GTS isn't about value for money though Cal, it's about exclusivity and I'd imagine the cars hold these premiums quite well in comparison to other models. They've put it in a price bracket where of course only a serious 'fanboys' as you put it are going to be interested.

New M4 GTS: - 68hp boost over normal M4 to 493bhp - 0-60 in 3.8 seconds, compared to the 4.3 of the M4 and the 4.4 of the old M3 GTS - 34mpg?! - 80kg weight saving - Only available as Auto - £121,770 starting price. Info and pics from Autocar Not sure what to think of it, If I was living by the Ascari Track resort or whatever then I'm sure I'd love it. But this is probably one of the worst offenders in JC's 'Kristin Scott Thomas' test which I tend to think of a lot before deciding if I like a car. The colour of those wheels, the rear wing etc.... but then again for rather crazily high price as with the previous GTS, this isn't for chavs as they'd most likely have an Audi R8 with awful rims on for this price range, this really is for those wanting some track fun and that makes me like it a hell of a lot more than I usually would.

Has the Model S not been a sales success in Aus ry? I see them everywhere here, I imagine the Model X will do well too. Though I agree the Falcon doors are a classic example of overengineering, why are they necessary? I understand Aussieland brings about a fairly unique issue in owning an electric car though, the immense scale of the place in comparison to population/infrastructure would definitely concern me more than it would in europe etc.

Opinions people?

I can see, with the headlight and front bumper design, a bit of the original 124 spider but I don't think it works well at all. The front looks rather bad, enough that I didn't believe you too much that it had been caught without camo, it looks like they'd left some on :p It's very Dodge Dart-esque. Chrome A-Pillar is a bit passé too. It might look okay in the end but those photos don't give me much hope, which is a shame as there's a lot of potential.

Those low profile tyres look rather lost in the wheel arches, other than that it's okay, nothing special, though I do like that rear bumper set up with the body coloured diffuser and the dual pipes.

Hey Gravity, good to see a fellow Mike on here! Welcome to tDuck :)

Worth a watch, I don't think this is the entirety of the interview, they grilled him for a fair while and didn't hold back at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAP4bzJhKUw

Decent-ish race, not amazing but not one of the worst of the season either. Good to see #blessed but rosberg in his place a bit, but fair play to rosberg as he wasn't feeling good at all sunday morning so it's still a good result for him all things considered. Not a good race for the Red Bulls at all, which is awful timing as they must be hoping to put on the best display possible to attract investors and make the FIA realise F1 needs Red Bull. Ron Dennis has come out and said that Button has a contract for 2016, though we've not heard anything from Button on this subject so i'm unsure, it wouldn't be the first time Ron's blabbed crap to the media. Alonso though.... is he trying to get himself fired/get out of his contract? He was shouting how embarrassing the car was when he was being overtaken during the race, then later on he starts shouting 'GP2 ENGINE?!' followed by a 'ARGH!?!!!?' :lol: Not a happy spaniard at all.

Very chilled and relaxed tune.

This has been going on for over a week now, the silence from other car companies other than defending themselves from accusations is rather deafening. The VW is a bohemeth and is rather aggressive with its growth strategy, if I were Fiat or Ford i'd be trying to kick them while they're down and this doesn't seem to be happening. There are obviously a lot of nervous auto execs in the world atm.

I have a much more 'Joey's bag'-esque bag than the one I've just bought :p

Just bought myself a weekend holdall bag for when I'm travelling to and from Uni, or if I'm going abroad for the weekend or whatevs. Can't wait for it to come :D

Are they too strict? I don't think they are, i just think the deadline of when they needed to be met was a bit too unrealistic perhaps. Winterkorn has now gone, he says he was unaware of any wrongdoing. Whether this is true or not i'm unsure, as i'm sure VW will do everything possible to ensure that they find a scapegoat, preferably one that has already left the company.

Uh oh.... VW have made a boo boo. They've supposedly been cheating their way around US emissions tests: Volkswagen to recall 500,000 pollution-hiding cars in US - BBC News This could be rather bad for the company if the US government wants to make an example out of them etc. Would not surprise me if this is the first to be caught, and many other car company's skeletons regarding emissions will start to fall out of the cupboard too.

Good in one sense, having one less engine manufacturer in f1 will be a huge loss.... ....but a giant corporation such as VW entering the sport does not fix one of the biggest issues in the sport, if anything it might exacerbate the issue, in that the big teams with unlimited resources are walking all over the small teams and that the F1 strategy group refuses to do anything about this as it'd lose them money.

Was wondering why I recognised the buildings the buildings in the second shot of the Q30, not often a new car's publicity pics are shot in Manchester. Interesting vehicle, it'll all depend on its price as to how successful it is tbh.