Kind of a Nissan GT-R at this Weekend's Pikes Peak Hillclimb...

Body of a Ford Focus (kinda) and the heart and soul of a GT-R.  Well, this Australian effort comes out of Pace Innovations who works in a number of different genres, ranging from Australian V8 Supercars, to Rally-Raid style trucks, to hillclimb cars to side by sides.

This car has over 800HP and weighs just over 2,000 pounds and was originally designed to break hillclimb records in Australia.  Now it has bee brought over here to compete in one of the oldest and most prestigious events we have.  It will be competing against about 11 other competitors in the Unlimited class including another Nissan GT-R.

It doesn't appear that anyone is set up this year to challenge Sebastian Loeb's all time record set in '13 but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Electric Vehicle (modified) record of 9:07 fall to Rhys Millen and the Electric Vehicle (production) record of 12:55 fall to Blake Fuller and his Tesla S P90D.

Oh...and I'm so hoping the Jeff Denmeade's Time Attack 2 class Mitsubishi Evo effort blows up or is totaled in some catastrophic fashion.  Not enough bad things could happen to him in this event for my liking.

Pikes Peak International Hillclimb page...

New England International Auto Show 2016

I think I've gone to this auto show about four times in the last six years.  Often I come away, having spent my $20+ on myself and my son and wonder if it was really worth it.  After all, I'm not really seeing anything I haven't before.  These aren't primarily custom vehicles and are overwhelmingly your run of the mill family sedans and haulers.

This year at least there was the new 2016 Nissan Titan to look at for the first time as it has only gone into production in the last month.  The '16 NEIAS had two of these new Titans.  Given I had not one but two ten year olds with me, my time with the Titans was a bit limited but did get a few impressions on it and the other vehicles in attendance this year.

Greeting you right when you come in is the new Ford Focus RS...Unfortunately Ford did not allow anyone to open the vehicle up, look at the engine, feel the interior, sit in it, etc.  This was quite odd as the only other vehicles like this on site were those up on rotating platforms or the high-end luxury marques that I can understand the brand worrying that some 12 year old is going to spill his Coke on the inside of a $250,000 Maserati.  Missed opportunity here, particularly as right next to the Focus RS is an identically black Ford Fiesta ST looking like a near identical vehicle.  I'm betting 1/2 the audience thought they WERE the same vehicle just on display twice and just shrugged their shoulders, "Eh, a Fiesta..." not knowing just what the RS is...

Uhhh, yeah...I guess (?) I have to be happy that there was one motorsports related display vehicle present (?)

No, this wasn't an actual GRC race vehicle.  It was just your standard beetle with a faux wing and a GRC/Andretti Motorsports related wrap on it...and not a very good one.  Heck, the little flip up (for the rearview camera), chrome, VW logo on the rear truck was COVERED with the wrap so it wouldn't open or flip up...VW should demand a refund.

Perhaps the most interesting stand to me, maybe because I'm just not familiar with them, was the Alpha Romeo display.  First was the Alpha 4C Spyder.  A beautiful car though I'm still not sure how I feel about the nose...It is also strikingly similar in size and design cues to the Lotus Elise--not that this is a bad thing.  With more power, more weight, more cost, fast 0-60, higher top speed than the Elise, this is seems like a Lotus on HGH.

Then you have the Alpha Giulia which is the exact opposite of the 4C.  The Giulia is so unassuming and small you might think it a simple econobox commuter.  Its dimensions are about the same as my Altima, it has 4 doors and if it weren't for the bright yellow calipers (and the four-leaf clover Quadrifoglio logo) the vehicle would have zero visual performance pretensions.  That said...it puts the 4C (and most other vehicles this side of a supercar) to shame in terms of raw numbers.  Under the hood is a Ferrari derived twin turbo V6 with over 500 HP, a 0-60 time of 3.8 seconds and a top speed of 190 mph...all in a four door "family" saloon...

Oh, and Alpha also had the most stunning collection of "booth babes" I've seen in any number of auto shows I've attended....like they just picked them up off the runways of Milan and flew them in on a company charter...

 Yup...Mercedes...no gullwings...moving on...














Ugliest R8 ever??  Yup...ugliest R8 ever...

Awesome Porsche 911 GT3 RS...Mean and purposeful as the best Porsches are.  No faux wheel vents and louvers here.

A Nissan GT-R that all those in attendance think looks cool and fast but wold be flinging fiberglass and plastic parts all over the track in the first five minutes you start thrashing it.  Not too many custom vehicles present...but this was one.  Built by toycompaniesinc.com out of Marlborough and Norwood, MA.

Also "built" by Toy Companies, Inc. was the saddest custom vehicle I've ever seen.  A Toyota Camry with a "custom" grey paint job, blacked out logos, and stanced wheels...Some soccer mom must be feeling hella fly cruising Metro-West in this machine...

The new '16 Toyota Prius.  I've never hated the Prius design in the past.  It was always smooth and very neutral in a "must be as aerodynamic as possible" sort of way.  This new edition has exchanged the feminine, swooping "curves" of the old model to more masculine angles both front and rear and also has given the vehicle a more extended rump rather than just cropping the vehicle off right at the rear wheel.  It is not a becoming look for the Prius.  With numerous hybrids and fully electric vehicles flooding the market now Toyota felt the pressure to renew the grandmother of all hybrids and "green" vehicles for it not to get lost in the shuffle.  This look does not benefit it and it will have to get by on its long reputation for fuel sipping and general Toyota reliability.

The Subaru BRZ...oh, the poor BRZ and its sibling the Scion FRS...poor forgotten children of the cheap sportscar family...Only looked at by pimply faced teen boy racers...oh...how sad...They deserve better.

 No exterior shots of the Titan.  If you want those there are plenty around to be found.  Instead you have here the in bed the gooseneck attachment for heavy-duty towing.  Won't see one of these in your Toyota Tundra.  You can also see the bed mounted cargo boxes as well.

Rear diff.  No sharing of the rear diff between the Titan and the Frontier or Xterra or other Nissan models this time.  It is an American Axle designed and built, 9.84" differential with 3.5" axle tubes.  There is some serious beef here.

Lastly the Cummins engine.  Do we have enough Cummins logos yet?  One on each front fender and here a big honkin chrome logo on the engine block.  Well, if you're going to partner with Cummins, you might as well promote it right?

One final note...the leather in the Titan XD--supplest leather I've ever felt--in a car or out.  I wouldn't get my work truck with leather but goodness...its like they skinned baby golden calfs for this stuff...you could sleep for days on that stuff...

How Interconnected the World Is...

I've been real lazy of late and haven't really posted anything in quite some time.  Busy time of year made busier by some some outside factors.

Regardless, this story struck me as instructive of just how interconnected our world is these days.

A plumber in Texas with deer heads on his office walls and with a decidedly redneck tone to his voice ends up getting harassing phone calls from other Americans because he left his company's logos on a Ford F250 he traded in almost exactly a year ago and said truck somehow ends up in the middle of the Syrian Civil War with an anti-aircraft cannon mounted in its bed.  Someone posts a picture of this truck on a "terrorist" Twitter feed, the phone # for his company is visible...and so the calls begin.

To me its shocking that such a truck would be found profitable to sell who knows how many times over and be found desirable enough to ship overseas.  Also given the length of time that the Syrian Civil War has been going on I'm betting it was imported to the area specifically for this purpose.  Generally Syria is a complete friggin disaster and I don't see too many common Syrian folk looking to rapidly import an American heavy duty truck and then leaving someone's English language logo on the truck to drive around downtown Damascus.  ISIS is about the only people in the MidEast not caring what negative attention they draw to themselves.  What's that mean then?  It means the truck was likely purchased at auction in the States, moved to Mexico and shipped to the MidEast with the specific intent to act as a support vehicle in the conflict.  I would wonder if there isn't a big stream of American trucks heading over there.  ISIS is flush with millions of stolen and oil derived dollars.  They are likely shut out from the typical arms markets but shipping big American trucks doesn't draw near as much attention and from the years of video we've seen of airstrikes in the Mideast we've seen if there is one thing we know they aren't short on over there its anti-aircraft guns and ammunition--so seeking to mount a bunch of these cannons that are useless against a generally non-existent air enemy is a logical move.

Just gotta make sure my Nissan doesn't end up over there!


https://autos.yahoo.com/news/texas-plumber-ford-truck-ends-terrorists-133033518.html

Classics and Ari Vatanen and More...

The 2014 Australian Rally Championship is now underway down under with Brendan Reeves taking the National Capital Rally win this past weekend in his Mazda 2.  In a case of "this sounds like a bigger accomplishment than it is" there were only 17 national class entries in the event and 10 of them DNF'd.  Not that Reeves isn't a fantastic driver, he is, its just that national class entries seem to be as limited there as they are here in the States.

More interesting to me at least, is the always quality "classic" stage rally vehicles that come out to these ARC events.  For the Nat. Cap. Rally we have an old Mini, your typical gathering of Datsuns and Fords and, for one stage at least, Ari Vatanen behind the wheel of an epic looking Audi.  The classic class win was taken by the Toyota Celica #70 of Neal Bates.  Enjoy.

National Capital Rally...

Great Vintage Vehicle Rally In Australia...

Vintage offroad racing has been on the upswing here in North America with the popularity of the NORRA series of events in Baja Mexico but its popularity hasn't moved over into the world of stage rally.  While there are a handful of vintage racers still out there--Greg Healey's '78 280Z, the Huebbe's VW Bug and Jason Lightner's '76 Porsche to name a few, gathering enough of them in one particular place at one particular time to make a legit event would be unheard of.

A bit of that has to do just with the popularity of the sport here in the States...there just aren't enough fans to have built enough vehicles over the years to create a stable of raceable vintage vehicles.

Australia is different however.

Prime example?  The Alpine Rally 2013 that just took place.  The event saw 99 "classic" vehicle entries (when was the last time a stage rally drew 99 entries here in the States let alone 99 vintage vehicles?) to cover up to 256 competitive kilometers for a cost of $795.  For an additional point of interest the organizers estimated that to handle the road closures over this event they would need 150 road closure officials and an additional 50 control officials.  Compare that to the cost and number of workers we in the US would use for our events.

The collection of vehicles at this event was especially cool.  Far from a collection blue Subarus and red and white Evos we have tons of RWD action of all sorts and a couple drivers we even know over here in North America (Will Orders and Alister McRae).  Enjoy some of the better photos courtesy of Peter and Luke Whitten.

Oh and the results??  Jeffrey David took the win in a Porsche 911, Alister McRae finished 2nd in a Group 4 Ford Escort and third was Wayne Hoye in a Datsun 260Z.

Alpine Rally Website...

 

Nissan Grabs a Podium Spot!

Finally!

It took till the last event of the South African offroad racing season (last weekend) to happen but Nissan finally grabbed a rung on the Donaldson Cross Country Championship ladder.  Even better is that it was a Nissan wearing the livery of the event's primary sponsor Atlas Copco (a Swedish industrial equipment company).

Gary Bertholdt and Siegfried Rousseau took their Nissan Navara to a third place finish in a time of five hours and twenty minutes--some 3 minutes adrift of the winner Willem Vos and his BMW X3.  In reaching out to Gary and asking him how the Navara performed this was his response "The Navara was fantastic. It is an amazing vehicle. It's very competitive with the works Fords and Toyotas and that was why we were able to get fourth in the championship ahead of one of the works Fords".  And this is in fact true.  The team of Bertholdt and Rousseau finished fourth on the year in the South African--Donaldson Cross Country Championship.  Not bad given that most of these top teams are headed to Dakar in about a month.

There were six Nissan's entered in the event and six of them finished with three in the top ten out of 30 entries.


South Africa Off-Road Racing...