We saw the silver Brabus Bullit showcased in September last year, and it featured a monster 6.3 liter twin turbocharged V12 engine. For Geneva, Brabus has prepared the Brabus Bullit Black Arrow, done up in a special matte black paintjob, with carbon fibre bits all over, though they blend into the exterior work more subtlely because of the black base. The aggressive front bumper also does not stand out as much as the silver Bullit because of the black.

The Brabus SV12 engine is built up from the unit in the Mercedes Benz S 600, bored and stroked from 5.5 liters to 6.3 liters and fitted with larger twin turbochargers. It requires a minimum of RON98 fuel. An entirely new stainless steel high performance exhaust system right from the turbo manifold up back to the tailpipes had to be designed because of the C-Class’s engine bay space constraints. It produces a peak torque of 1,320Nm but this is electronically limited to 1,100Nm and put down to the rear wheels through a reinforced single overdrive 5-speed automatic with a Brabus LSD.

0 to 100km/h takes 3.9 seconds, and the car passes the 200km/h mark in 10.49 seconds. At 24.5 seconds, the 300km/h mark is passed, and top speed is achieved at about 360km/h. This is one seriously rapid car, and to achieve those sort of speeds the bodykit must be wind-tunnel proven.

More photos after the jump.

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Brabus Bullit W204 C-Class with 1,320Nm of torque

Click here to read the rest of Brabus Bullit Black Arrow based on W204 C-Class

Proton is currently in talks with foreign parties on the development of higher displacement engines such as 1.8 liter and 2.0 liter to complement the existing Campro IAFM and Campro CPS range of 1.3 and 1.6 liter engines. Something will be announced by mid-2008 regarding this, and it will likely involve a tie-up with a foreign car manufacturer.

Proton is also looking into diesel engines for its cars, as diesels are important for new markets that Proton wants to enter such as the Indian market. A foreign partner will also be a part of this as it would be very costly to self-develop a diesel engine all by its own.

In India, the availability of a diesel engine can make or break a model. Lackluster sales of compact cars such as the Chevrolet Aveo notchback sedan are attributed to the lack of a diesel engine by many Indian automotive journalists.

Source

The facelifted Proton GEN2 which was revealed in Thailand earlier has finally arrived on Malaysian shores. The GEN2 is an important mark in Proton history as it was the first Proton car with the new Proton Campro engine, and with this facelift it gets a new series of engines based on the Campro. Read more details after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of 2008 Proton GEN2 Facelift with CPS launched!

The Mazda distributorship in Malaysia will be handled by Berjaya Corporation from the second half of 2008, through its company BerMaz Motor Sdn Bhd, formerly known as Berjaya Synthetic Fibre Sdn Bhd. BerMaz will acquire Cycle and Carriage Bintang Berhad’s entire shareholding in Hercules Automotive Engineers Sdn Bhd, which is the current Mazda franchise holder and a Cycle and Carriage company since 1983.

The Hercules shares will go for a total of RM16.8 million. BerMaz Motor’s Distribution Agreement with Mazda will begin officially on the 1st of April 2008 and will end 3 years later on 31st of March 2011.

Berjaya group currently has its foot in the automotive industry selling Skoda cars, ChangAn cars and Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicles. The ChangAn CM8 sighted on public roads sometime in the past is most likely brought in by Berjaya for testing.

I’m sure alot of you will remember the Mugen Fit Dynamite, one of the most desirable examples of a tuned up Honda Fit (called the Honda Jazz in our market) out there. The Mugen Fit Dynamite had under its hood a high revving K20A engine similiar to the unit in the Civic Type R and Integra Type R. Sometime later, Mugen released an orange devil called the Mugen Fit Spec D Prototype, which had its 1.5 liter SOHC VTEC L15A engine boosted to 145 horsepower with a supercharger.

Now that the second generation 2008 Honda Fit has been released, Mugen naturally had to reapply the Spec D concept to this new edition of the Fit. The Mugen Fit F154SC Concept was displayed at the 2008 Tokyo Auto Salon. The L15A engine which already made 120 PS in the new Fit had a supercharger slapped on to produce 150 PS at 6,600rpm and 185Nm of torque at 3,800rpm.

An aggressive bodykit complete with 17 inch wheels wrapped with Bridgestone Potenza RE050 tyres in 215/40R17 size completes the the Mugen Fit F154SC Concept.

View more photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of 2008 Mugen Fit F154SC Concept

The crowd at the previous Nissan roadshow at 1 Utama

For those who are living in Penang, Edaran Tan Chong Motor will be having a Nissan Road Show at the Gurney Plaza Penang this weekend from the 7th of March 2008 to the 9th of March 2008. Models displayed will be the Nissan Grand Livina in both 1.8 auto and 1.6 auto trim, the Nissan Latio 1.8 Ti Auto and the Nissan Latio Sport 1.6 ST-L Auto.

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Photos of the Volkswagen Scirocco have been released ahead of Volkswagen’s official announcement, so we get to drool at the production version of Volkswagen’s IROC Concept. The production Volkswagen Scirocco gets a new grille, far from the big open mouthed design of the IROC Concept. The 3-door hatch sits lower and wider than a Golf, and the model will debut with a range of forced induction engines, even for the baseline, which will be a 1.4 liter TSI.

Full details of the Volkswagen Scirocco will be revealed closer to the Geneva Motorshow, but for the moment view more shots after the jump including some of the interior, which reveals a 4 seater layout because the rear seat bench is shaped like twin bucket seats.

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Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Scirocco photos leaked ahead of debut

Pick-up trucks are becoming increasingly popular as family vehicles these days. They love the utility provided by the storage bed, the frugality and hardiness of the turbodiesel engine, and the off-road capability to tackle our flood-cursed city centrals. Many small families do not mind the cramped interior that you get most of the time. While pick-ups are available with safety features like airbags and ABS, how safe are they in reality?

For the first time ever, Euro NCAP has tested pick-up trucks in the light of the vehicles becoming more and more popular for family usage, and it reveals to us some shocking facts. Three trucks were crashed – the Nissan Navara (second generation Frontier – ours is the first gen), the Isuzu D-MAX and the Mitsubishi L200 (known as the Triton in Malaysia). The following are the results:

Please read the following full crash test reports for full details:
Isuzu D-MAX, Mitsubishi L200, Nissan Navara

The Nissan Navara scored the worst in adult occupant protection – not even one proper star but only a struck-through star. According to the report, the chassis rail collapsed and the accelerator pedal moved as much as 20cm into the footwell – that would definitely cause really serious injury to your legs. The airbags and seatbelt pre-tensioners also activated too late into the crash, which EuroNCAP says poses “a high risk of life threatening injury”.

Nissan has developed new airbag software for the Nissan Navara and all new Nissan Navaras now have the updated software. All existing Nissan Navaras on the road will also receive a free airbag software update at their service centers.

The Mitsubishi L200/Triton scored 4 stars for adult occupant protection, and if you view the full crash report, you will see that the driver’s body and leg protection ranged from weak to marginal, but at least the head received good protection.

Very shocking – please do read the full crash test reports linked above. It’s a pity EuroNCAP did not test the Toyota Hilux. The Toyota Hilux is one of the most popular pick-up trucks used as a family car here in Malaysia, plus a full-bodied 7-seater version of it is sold as the Fortuner.

The V8 Caterham was just unveiled in the past week, so naturally we can expect other lightweight track car manufacturers to respond, but I didn’t expect it this fast!

Ariel has its own monster V8-engineed Atom in the works and it will go on sale in Spring 2008. Surprise, surprise – it’s powered by the same 2.4 liter 40 valve V8 engine as the Caterham RST-V8! The Ariel Atom V8 is available with the supercharged version of the Russell Savory bike-derived V8 engine, putting out 500 horses at 10,000rpm and 406Nm of torque at 8,500rpm.

500 horses is a big difference from the second most powerful Atom which has 300 horses. “This is an interesting project for us and an experimental departure from what we normally produce. For a few customers the Atom 500 will be the ultimate expression of lightweight performance and represents the outer limits of whats achievable in a road-registered car,” says Ariel boss Simon Saunders.

This is not the first V8-powered Ariel Atom. Sometime back, Dennis Palatov plonked in a 2.8 liter V8 derived from two inline-4 Suzuki Hayabusa engines into his Ariel Atom. It produced 400 horses at 10,000rpm.

I cannot wait for foreign publications to do shoot-out reviews comparing both the Caterham Seven and Ariel Atom powered by the same RST-V8 engine!

Click to enlarge

Photographer Leong Tik Tsin is only 19, but he has some really amazing talent. He was at the Supercar for Charity event last Sunday and snapped some beautiful photos. Lucky for us, he reads this blog and has decided to share with us some photos of the supercars he snapped at the event. View the photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Supercar for Charity Photos by Leong Tik Tsin