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On Sunday afternoon, the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance challenge wrapped up for the 78th time. Barely half the field finished the race, which broke the distance record and produced high drama. WARNING: SPOILERS! More »
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Go Faster is a book written by a German university professor on the glory of racing-car graphic design. It looks ferociously cool. Gulf Oil livery, spray-painted models, and cool design-geek video below. More »
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Rallying, Le Mans, a Le Mans start, skinny-tired spins, a Rothmans 959, mud, French police, Daytona, hairy-chested flat sixes, the Nürburgring, and more, all crammed into ninety-five seconds. If you don't want a P-car after this, your brain is broken. More »
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Those of you who watched Saturday's 12 Hours of Sebring race will surely agree this was the most exciting battle of the entire race. Diesel vs. diesel. Man vs. man. French vs. German. More »
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Audi emerged victorious at the 12 Hours of Sebring tonight with their new R15 TDI racer piloted by Allan McNish, Dindo Capello and Tom Kristensen, taking the checkered flag 22.279 seconds ahead of Peugeot. More »
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In preparation for Saturday’s 12 hour race, featuring 58-year-old Hans-Joachim Stuck in the GT2 class in a Porsche, Audi has put their new cars on the track, decimating the opposing Peugeots. More »
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In a South African road test of the Peugeot 308 wagon, a 150-year enigma of the brand's lion fetish is cracked. More »
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Based on the race-proven 908 HDi LMP racer, the new Peugeot 908 HY adds electric power to the already potent mix in the form of an 80 HP gear-driven electric motor/generator that replaces the starter motor on the standard car. Juice is stored in 10 lithium-ion battery packs strategically placed in several locations to maximize weight distribution. Also squeezing out juice for the batteries is a KERS system that makes use of energy from the brakes. Altogether, the electric motor's 80 HP can be used for about 20 seconds every lap, employed at the driver's discretion. More »
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Peugeot intends to race a diesel hybrid version of its 908 prototype at next year's 24 Hours of Le Mans. Jean-Philippe Collin, the French automaker's new CEO, revealed the plans in an interview with L-Equipe, revealing that the vehicle could see competition as early as November at the ACO 1,000km challenge in Shanghai. More »
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Automobile L'Ouest, the sanctioning body for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, has announced that by 2010 all cars in the top prototype LMP1 class must feature both a closed cockpit and bodywork resembling actual production cars. The thinking is that the LMP1 cars are "dream cars" and that fans should not be able to tell Peugeots apart from Pescarolos. On the one hand we are totally for this move, as win on Sunday, sell on Monday is one of our favorite mantras. Also, despite knowing all about the bleeding-edge tech that goes into the top cars, we find the GT1 class so much more interesting. But on the other hand, have you looked at the top Le Mans racers lately? They're gorgeous. From Bentley's beautiful yet butt-whooping Speed-8 to Audi's devil in the diesel back to back Le Mans champ R10, these cars look fantastic. And as Automobile's Robert Cumberford argued a few months back, passenger car designers should be looking to the future (Le Mans prototypes) instead of slavishly clinging to the past (ala J Mays style retroism). What sayeth you? More »
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Will a diesel-fired showdown between Audi and Peugeot dominate this year's 24-hours-of-Le Mans? You bet your sweet glow plugs. And Peugeot this past weekend showed it's not cowed by the Audi juggernaut. Piloted by Nicolas Minassian and Marc Gene, Peugeot's V12 diesel-powered #7 908 HDi logged its first Le Mans win at Monza. The 621-mile victory is the first testament to the car's reliability and puts it one step closer to the famous allnighter in Sarthe coming up June 3rd. But if #7 was the lucky one, car #8 was plagued with a door that flew open during the race. But according to those on the scene, #8 may have tipped Peugeot's hand, when it climbed from the back of the pack with unexpected speed. Could Peugeot be holding out? We'll see. – Mike Spinelli More »
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With 750+ horsepower cracking from a flat-six thanks to creative use of turbocharging and Bosch mechanical injection, the Porsche 935 represents the apex of crazed eighties IMSA Group 5 twin-turbo gas huffing mayhem. The Porsche brain trust produced many variants of the 935 six-banger in answer to the ever changing race series rules regarding use of hair dryers. Some of these engines overtook the output of the twelve-cylinder 917 engine with more than 800 horsepower. This particular 935 is going up on the block at the Amelia Island RM Auction March 10, and is expected to fetch the princely sum 950 thousand clams or so. Our morning trip to Coinstar netted $7.53, an arcade token, and a stripped bolt, so we're unfortunately out of the running. – Mike Bumbeck More »
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Little beats the Porsche 917 when it comes to dead sexy and dangerous racing machines. The 917 was first rolled out at the 1969 Geneva Auto Show, and followed up the 908 with more power thanks to four more cylinders than the previous eight. Early reports at handling were scary, with the car evidently moving about the track at will once it got into the 200 mph zone. None of this stopped the 917 and its drivers from winning races. This particular 1971 version will be up on the Amelia Island RM Auction block March 10, and is expected to fetch up to a million dollars. – Mike Bumbeck More »
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We posted a couple of shots of Peugeot's new 908 diesel Le Mans car carelessly gleaned from our big blue screen yesterday. In the interest of reader service, we then shed shoe leather like a PCP-addled Bruce Jenner on a quest to capture images for our files and ended up running across it's li'l brudder, the 907 Spider, a spec-series racer that'll run opening events in five heats of the Le Mans Series. Not since the R5 Turbo has a French automobile made us as giddy as these two machines. And it gives us an excuse to do some more o' that fancy gallery fiddlin'. [Gallery] More »
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Humina. Great Scott! Fabulosity is at hand, revealed by the wacky Frenchmen at Peugeot. The 908 Le Mans coupe prototype is poised to take on the already-stupidly-successful Audi R10. Packed full of diesel and walnuts, the Peugeots and the Citro ns are hoping to ratchet their cachet by taking on the all-conquering Teutons from Ingolstadt. Can the plucky Frankish folks pull it off? We don't know, but du unsere G te, this thing is hotter than a two-dollar hooker in vibrating pants! Or the press room here in Paris. Take your pick. More »
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We're gearing up for the Paris show in September, stocking up on crisp striped shirts and practicing our dismissive attitude (just kidding, guys). This morning, Peugeot fired the first conceptual shot with the 908 concept. Sure, it's as over-the-top as the 907 was, but that LeMans-ready diesel is the real show. We only hope they'll rev the thing on the show floor. More »
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You just know the French carmakers are whipping up their finest haute cuisine for the upcoming Paris show this September. As exhibit A, we present the first shots of Peugeot's 908 RC concept, courtesy of the scoops at Carscoop. The PSA prototype will introduce the Audi-contending LeMans diesel engine, a 5.5 V12 HDi mill producing 700 Hp and 885 lbs.-ft of torque. It could also signal a sucessor to the barely-breathing 607. Voila! More »
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How did we not know about this? Famed motor-racing driver, car collector and Porsche dealer Vasek Polak died in a wreck on the autobahn in 1997, leaving his estate to the Vasek and Anna Maria Polak Foundation. In 2000, a team of crack thieves absconded with a stock of NOS and rebuilt Porsche racing motors: four naturally-aspirated Porsche 917K race engines, a NOS 3.0L Porsche 908 mill, one 2.2L Porsche 907 Hillclimb engine, and one 3.4L Porsche 911 race engine. This seems rather dumb to us, as the market for these engines is necessarily a small one. And wha' happen'? They were finally nabbed and the collection returned to the Polak foundation. More »
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