At first, I just shook my head, not sure if this was a good thing at all … but then that passed, I came to my senses, and thought, “Yes. Yes, this is a very good thing.”

The short version is this. There’s these guys, RS Performance, who are obviously mad as hatters. A while back they announced they were going to make an engine comprising of two Hyabusa engines fused at the crank case … essentially a small, 2.4 liter V8 that revs like a dentist drill, and, for its size, put out a lot of power. Like around 500 BHP.

They they got the (great) idea of putting it into a significantly lighter Caterham 7 chassis (carbon fiber wherever they could put it, that sort of thing).

The bottom line is this: It has the power, size, weight, and, with the current tire technology, the performance of a Grand Prix car, circa 1970.

Yes, it’s way too expensive ($230K), but this make me think of one thing: The Nurburgring.

More photos and full press release and all the sordid details after the jump.

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If you are any sort of car enthusiast, then you certainly remember the shipping disaster of the Cougar Ace on July 23, 2006. If you have no idea what I am talking about, here’s a small refresher: Cougar Ace

The cloesly-followed event has come back to the mainstream media 18 months after it occured. Earlier yesterday, an interesting story written by Joshua Davis of Wired Magazine was published which details the entire story of what happened to the Ace, from its inital pitch to its port side to its resurrection over a month after the incident.

The story begins from the perspective of a steward onboard the Cougar Ace moments before the ship tumbles. From there, the story follows the members of the Titan Salvage crew who is hired to save the ship. Their harrowing, and unfortunately deadly, attempt to save the slowly-sinking ship is fascinating, yet heart-breaking.

It is a lengthy read, but trust me when I say this story is something that will pull you in and put you right in the dark cargo hold with the salvage crew. You will find yourself lost in the massive floating sturcture surrounded by dangling, lifeless vehicles. The detailed article is well-written and includes several interesting 3D graphics showing different aspects of the ship throughout the ordeal.

Story–> Link

Following up on Chris’s post from Wednesday about whether a hybrid can be a performance car (I say yes, there’s no reason why they couldn’t be). I have a modest proposal:

Take a Caterham 7 chassis (see picture above), no drivetrain needed, just the differential.

Bolt an electric motor directly to the diff. Don’t mess around, get something like the starter motor out of an ocean going tug. An electric motor with enough torque and power to send a pound of bacon to the asteroid belt.

Next, to the motor you hook up a couple of high performance capacitors and a couple, maybe four, batteries (the caps are for bursts of power, the batteries are for sustained usage).

Hooked up to the batteries (through a controller, natch) is a diesel-fueled generator; you know, something like a little household generator. Fuel it with bio-diesel, and locate it in the engine bay, just on the other side of the fire wall (centralize the mass boys, always centralize the mass). In front of the gen-set goes the batteries, in front of them, goes the capacitors. Continue Reading…

No details about how, just an announcement.

Well this is really odd: according to statistics from the Federal Highway Administration, there are less teens with driver’s licenses then a decade ago.

It used to be one half of 16 year olds had them, now it’s a third. Demographically speaking, that’s a HUGE drop.

I guess what I want to know is, what’s the driver… why aren’t kids interested in getting a driver’s license? The article says increasing costs of being a driver. Fair enough … the average kid job makes getting even a Yaris a daunting proposition, but kids still got to get around.

More than anything, a car means getting away from mom & dad.

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Although they are not known for it, hybrid engines can actually be used to enhance performance, rather than fuel economy. Given the current climate (and fuel prices!) it’s understandable the more successful hybrid cars (i.e. the Toyota Prius) gets more air time, but there have been some performance hybrid cars out there.

What Makes a Hybrid a Hybrid

But first, the basics. What is a hybrid car and what do I mean they can be tuned for performance? A hybrid car is, once you get down to it, a merger of two engines. Normally, one of the engines is gas (or diesel) and the other is an electric motor. There are other hybrids out there, including fuel cell/electric or fuel cell/gas hybrids, but for the most part when someone says hybrid, they mean gas/electric vehicles.

Now, by mating a gas and an electric motor together, you can actually use the strengths of each to complement each other. For instance, electric motors can give you a very good acceleration, because they provide constant power, while gas engines are less efficient. But in constant road conditions (highway traveling), the power supplied by the gas engine is easier to manage (and it’s a lot easier to refuel with gas). The constant drain on a battery at highway speeds just isn’t as efficient.

In city driving (frequent stop and go), you can recharge the battery pack through regenerative braking. Out on the highway, the gas engine is needed to power the battery pack.

BTW, hybrids tend to have very efficient gas engines, so the myth that says if you have a highway commute you shouldn’t buy a hybrid doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The Prius gets 45 mpg on the highway. Most people would be ecstatic to get half that.

And so, automakers have used hybrid technology to emphasize the two motors strengths. Electric motor powers the car at low speeds, while the gas engine takes over at highway speeds. Put them together and you get a more efficient vehicle. But efficiency in a car can be taken in other directions. Instead of emphasizing fuel efficiency, you can emphasize power efficiency. And that’s just what Honda did with the Accord Hybrid. Continue Reading…