8/11/2015
 The greatest testament to the prestige and authenticity of the Bentley nameplate and the street cred of the Continental GT coupe isn't the car's stunning blend of performance and top-shelf luxury. Nor is it its remarkable success in carrying the legend of the "Bentley Boys" forward into the new millennium. No, what really sets the Continental GT apart from the average automobile is its ability to spawn themed limited editions and still be taken seriously. Don't get me wrong; the Continental GT is a fantastic car, especially in GT Speed trim. And I am fully in favor of broadening the range with new trim combinations. But the fact remains that at a certain point, paint-and-trim upgrades to a car begin to erode its ability to be taken seriously. The introduction of the Breitling Jet Team-inspired limited-edition Continental GT Speed could come off like a six-figure mullet, but Bentley's Mulliner coachworks seems to have created yet another elegant variant without watering down the model range. Introduced in 2003, the Continental GT has been among Bentley's best-sellers, helping to bring the company back to profitability after the recession. The Continental GT Speed Breitling Jet Team Series is a seven-car limited-production run featuring unique paint and interior trim. One car will be produced for each of the seven aircraft on the team, and the special edition debuts alongside the Breitling Jet Team at the Boeing Seafair Airshow in Seattle on July 31. |
 Okay, haters, as it turns out, the worst examples of "luxobarge" are not all Lincolns. Not to be an apologist for the brand started by Henry M. Leland (who also founded Cadillac) in 1917; Lincoln has definitely had its share of missteps and stupid ideas. But there are worse things out there than the 1958 Lincoln Premiere. Shut up, yes there are, I absolutely love the ’58-’60 Lincolns and I won’t hear your whining about how oversized, overstyled and underhwelming they were. There’s a ’59 Lincoln in my dreamfleet, and there’s no ’59 Cadillac, and that should tell you something. |
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If nothing else, it should tell you that I’m uniquely qualified to pick out the worst and most ridiculous luxury cars in automotive history. I have looked into the grinning grilles of the most wretched examples of excess vomited forth by the pens of American designers, and found beauty. What you really want to find are the big, sloppy land yachts that even I can’t bring myself to love.
(That’s actually not true. I love these monsters as well, in a way. Even if they are stupid, ridiculous wastes of sheet metal.)
The 1964-1974 Plymouth Barracuda has been out of production for more than 40 years now, but the name has been popping up in the rumor mill with great frequency over the last six years, and Fiat Chrysler only keeps fanning the flames. The latest Barracuda-related news comes from a trademark filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the name under "motor vehicles, namely, passenger automobiles, their structural parts, trim and badges."
Chrysler enthusiast site Allpar spotted this trademark news, which was filed on June 23rd, but is quick to point out that it doesn't necessarily mean that FCA has any plans to apply the name to a future vehicle. Trademarks are updated all the time, and the site even speculates that it could be just to maintain licensing.
As for the rumors of a next-gen Barracuda, they started popping up about the same time as the Challenger's arrival, and most recently as an SRT-badged replacement for the Dodge Challenger. Of course, that never happened and most likely won't, especially with the SRT brand being folded back into Dodge.
Either way, only time will tell, but with the strong streak that FCA has been on recently, it wouldn't be a surprise to see a Chrysler Barracuda sports car hit the road in the near future.
We recently witnessed the 93rd running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), and when the final checkered had flown, the all-electric vehicle you see before you made history. With drifter/rally racer/stunt driver Rhys Millen at the wheel, this car managed to reach the windswept Colorado peak in 9:07.222, becoming not just the fastest car in the Electric Modified Class and the new EV record-holder, but the fastest car in any class, making for the first EV to win the race outright in its nearly century-old history.
Here's the really wild part – it could have gone a lot faster.
According to Millen, the car lost 50 percent of its power about halfway through the run, and if everything was working properly, he thinks a time in the mid-8-minute range would be not just possible, but more than likely.
An 8:30 up Pikes Peak is fast. Really fast – in fact, it's approaching the all-time standing record set in 2013 when Sebastien Loeb took an ICE-powered 2013 Peugeot 208 T16 to the top in 8:13.878. To get anywhere near that magic run is huge, but to do it in a car powered by batteries is, well, insane.
The EV in question is called the Drive eO PP03, and it was designed by a Latvian-based engineering company to be a technological powerhouse that pushes the envelope of what electric race cars are capable of.
(That’s actually not true. I love these monsters as well, in a way. Even if they are stupid, ridiculous wastes of sheet metal.)
The 1964-1974 Plymouth Barracuda has been out of production for more than 40 years now, but the name has been popping up in the rumor mill with great frequency over the last six years, and Fiat Chrysler only keeps fanning the flames. The latest Barracuda-related news comes from a trademark filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the name under "motor vehicles, namely, passenger automobiles, their structural parts, trim and badges."
Chrysler enthusiast site Allpar spotted this trademark news, which was filed on June 23rd, but is quick to point out that it doesn't necessarily mean that FCA has any plans to apply the name to a future vehicle. Trademarks are updated all the time, and the site even speculates that it could be just to maintain licensing.
As for the rumors of a next-gen Barracuda, they started popping up about the same time as the Challenger's arrival, and most recently as an SRT-badged replacement for the Dodge Challenger. Of course, that never happened and most likely won't, especially with the SRT brand being folded back into Dodge.
Either way, only time will tell, but with the strong streak that FCA has been on recently, it wouldn't be a surprise to see a Chrysler Barracuda sports car hit the road in the near future.
We recently witnessed the 93rd running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), and when the final checkered had flown, the all-electric vehicle you see before you made history. With drifter/rally racer/stunt driver Rhys Millen at the wheel, this car managed to reach the windswept Colorado peak in 9:07.222, becoming not just the fastest car in the Electric Modified Class and the new EV record-holder, but the fastest car in any class, making for the first EV to win the race outright in its nearly century-old history.
Here's the really wild part – it could have gone a lot faster.
According to Millen, the car lost 50 percent of its power about halfway through the run, and if everything was working properly, he thinks a time in the mid-8-minute range would be not just possible, but more than likely.
An 8:30 up Pikes Peak is fast. Really fast – in fact, it's approaching the all-time standing record set in 2013 when Sebastien Loeb took an ICE-powered 2013 Peugeot 208 T16 to the top in 8:13.878. To get anywhere near that magic run is huge, but to do it in a car powered by batteries is, well, insane.
The EV in question is called the Drive eO PP03, and it was designed by a Latvian-based engineering company to be a technological powerhouse that pushes the envelope of what electric race cars are capable of.
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