Archive for Automotive Videos

One of the highlights of the Infiniti M’s reveal at Pebble Beach that the Japanese company kept pimping before the launch was the fact that it was going to use an innovative 3D projection system in the unveiling ceremony. Of course those who weren’t there could not see this but fortunately Infiniti decided to record the whole thing so we could see what they were talking about exactly. The car seems to appear bit by bit, part by part, in a way that reminded me of the scenes in Hollow Man. Watch the video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of VIDEO: Infiniti M’s 3D Projection Reveal

The BMW ActiveHybrid X6 isn’t about saving the world. It’s about recovering every bit of energy that could have wasted as you’re barrelling towards a corner and braking hard to prepare for it, and using that power to help you get out of that corner faster. It’s an X6 with a KERS booster system. It’s also meant to give the owner that feel-good factor of driving in EV mode.

When the ActiveHybrid X6 and ActiveHybrid 7-Series were unveiled on BMW’s press site simultaneously a few days ago, only the 7-Series had beauty footage accompanying its press pack. The X6 hybrid not have any video, until now that is.

Watch the video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of VIDEO: New BMW ActiveHybrid X6 in motion

American company Devon Motorworks had originally made a US$5.5 million bid to Chrysler to buy over the Dodge Viper and everything to do with it so it could use its platform to build a new supercar. Devon Motorworks owner is the same guy who runs frozen food company Cole’s. It lost the bid (Chrysler was actually asking for at least US$10 million), but nevermind that – the new supercar became a reality anyway.

The car you see above is the Devon Motorworks GTX which it calls a supercar, and Devon claims that it had set a 1:35.075 laptime at the Laguna Seca raceway in California, beating the Nissan GT-R and Porsche 911 Turbo’s 1:39.62 and 1:39.89 laptimes respectively. The company also intends to beat the Nurburgring lap record with this car sometime in the future.

Not sure what platform the car is riding on – the company may have ended up licensing the Viper platform or some other platform or maybe even built their own? We don’t even know what kind of engine the car is running.

What we do know is the price – US$500,000! There’s also an optional “Racing Package” that goes for US$25,000. You can place a pre-order with US$25,000 and then pony up another US$175,000 upon order confirmation. The balance of US$300,000 is due on delivery.

These photos you see here are just rendering but a prototype of the car will be shown at Pebble Beach today. It was designed by Swedish designer Daniel Paulin, who has penned cars such as the Ford Focus C-Max. From MPVs to a supercar, not bad.

Click here to read the rest of Devon GTX: America’s bid at beating the GT-R

Here’s some new footage of the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class Estate for those who are wagon lovers and admire Stuttgart’s pretty good-looking execution of the wagon bodytype on the new W212 E-Class. You get to see some of the wagon’s features in action such as the easy one-pull handle that can be used to fold the rear seats down in order to extend the wagon’s load area. The rear-facing third row small seats are also mentioned as being optional. Watch the video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of VIDEO: New footage of the W212 E-Class Estate

Ferrari has released a new video on the Ferrari 458 Italia and the video gives us a new view angle on the 458 Italia that I don’t think we’ve seen before. It’s a view of the car’s tail lamps, which are lit up with LEDs.

Anyway, the video basically features Ferrari Senior VP of Commercial and Brand Dany Bahar and Ferrari Technical Director Roberto Fedeli talking about how awesome and Ferrari-like they think the new Ferrari 458 Italia is. We also learn that the aerodynamics generates 55kg of downforce at 125km/h, and up to 365kg of downforce at 325km/h.

Still not much footage of the actual car in action. More sights and sounds of the car please! For now, watch the video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of New video on the Ferrari 458 Italia

The rear axles of a rear wheel drive or all-wheel drive car have come a really long way, with the latest systems featuring advanced torque vectoring systems such as the Vector-Drive system BMW uses (they call it Dynamic Performance Control) supplied by GKN Driveline. But still, do you know how a basic differential works? Reader Zali sent in this really cool video that makes understanding how a differential works so simple! It’s about 8 minutes long and great if you like “how stuff works” kinds of content.

Watch the video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of How do differentials work: old-school video

For some reason, Mercedes-Benz had a great mix of ingredients – a video team, DTM driver Jamie Green and the new Mercedes-Benz E 63 AMG, but the end result was a video that was quite devoid of any action. I believe the appropriate word to be used here would be “yawnfest”. But we do get to hear the sweet V8 growling away, albeit only a little towards the end of the video. And for that alone, watching the video is worth it, though I wouldn’t watch it a second time.

Enjoy the video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Jamie Green takes the E 63 AMG to the track

BMW has released the first TV commercial for the new BMW X1 SUV and from the looks of it they are clearly positioned it as an active lifestyle vehicle for you to go on major road trips with your friends, and of course it will be a new cheaper way to enter this particular segment of SUV (or SAV as BMW would rather the whole world call them).

By the way, I’ve just found out what that oddly tilted square lense positioned in the inner ring of the bi-xenon headlamp is. Apparently it is just a lense designed to direct the light from the inner lamp to light up the corona rings (popularly called angel eyes) of the headlamp. In a bi-xenon headlamp, the outer xenon lamp serves both low beam and high beam functions so the inner lamps mostly serve to light up the corona rings only. The adaptive cornering lights are located in the fog lamps.

Anyway look after the jump to watch the commercial and see the new X1 in action. The X1 is likely to be launched in Malaysia within the first half of 2010.

Click here to read the rest of VIDEO: first TVC produced for the BMW X1

There’s a whole load of new videos on the new Porsche 911 Turbo released by the German sportscar company in conjunction with the new facelifted type 997 turbocharged sports car that was just unveiled a few days ago. If you check out the “Personality” video, Porsche even describes what exactly has changed with the car’s aesthetics. At first glance the two cars look the same and the changes are in the fine details. The videos are pretty long so take your time to enjoy them!

Click here to read the rest of 5 new videos for the new 911 Turbo facelift

Porsche’s mid-life facelift for the 997 Porsche 911 Turbo Coupe and Cabriolet will be exhibited to the public for the first time at the Frankfurt show this September. The 911’s rear-mounted boxer-6 engine is now 3.8 liters instead of the pre-facelift’s 3.6 liters in size. The engine also now adds direct injection and continues to use the variable geometry turbochargers found on the 3.6 liter unit. The engine now makes 500 horses, up from 480 on the previous edition of the 997.

Porsche seems to also have come to their senses with the way they implement their manual paddle shift system. Before this, the shifters were buttons on the steering wheel and both the left and right side set of buttons could do both upshifting and downshifting. I found it quite unnatural, but apparently that was the way Porsche did things when I asked why they had that weird setup.

Well, with this new “997.5″, a proper set paddle shifters can be fitted – a simple setup of a right paddle for upshifts and a left paddle for downshifts. This is for the 7-speed PDK twin clutch transmission.

There is also something called Porsche Torque Vectoring (PTV) which works together with the rest of the drive systems to route traction to the wheel with the most grip without losing some power via selective braking.

The new 911 Turbo will go for upwards of £101,823 (RM587.5k) for the Coupé and £109,048 (RM629k) for the Cabriolet. Of course, in Malaysia they go for much higher – RM1,373,000 for the 911 Turbo and RM1,409,000 for the 911 Turbo Cabriolet. The GT2 tops the pricelist at RM1,720,000.

Look after the jump for a hi-res photo gallery and videos of the updated Porsches.

Click here to read the rest of 997 Porsche 911 Turbo gets mid-life facelift