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Carroll Shelby: A Life Lived at Full Throttle

By Tom Anderson on Sun, 05/13/2012 - 10:42
Auto NewsClassicsCobraDodgeFordMotorsportsMustangShelbyShelby American

Carroll Shelby with a Cobra and GT350

 

One of the best bellwethers of a person’s will to succeed is how he or she responds to adversity. The act of attaining fame and fortune when the odds are in your favor or, at the very least, 50:50, is well below most people’s noteworthiness thresholds. But achieving success when you’re dealt a bad hand separates the average from the above average.

 

When Carroll Hall Shelby, who died on Thursday aged 89 at Baylor Hospital in Dallas, Texas, was forced to end a very successful road racing career (in which he won three SCCA national championships and the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans sharing a factory Aston Martin DBR1 with Englishman Roy Salvadori) in 1960 due to a chronic heart condition that actually left him bedridden for much of his childhood, he could have just resigned himself to taking some soul-sucking desk job, having nothing but memories of being in the thick of auto racing action. But as we all know, that’s not what he did.

 

2012 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Altitude Announced Along with USA Basketball Partnership

By Ari Cox on Mon, 04/23/2012 - 06:22
Auto NewsAdvertisingJeepUSA Basketball

2012 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Altitude

 

At a media briefing last Friday in Santa Monica, Jeep announced the kick-off of a marketing campaign pairing the new limited edition 2012 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Altitude with USA Basketball. Best known for its Olympic medal pursuits, most recently in 2008, USA Basketball is a nonprofit organization and the national governing body for men's and women's basketball in the United States.

Based on the Unlimited Sahara model, the  2012 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Altitude takes on a more monochromatic appearance with body-color matched fenders, hardtop and the center sections of the front and rear bumpers. The available colors include Deep Cherry Red, Black, Bright White and Bright Silver Metallic.

 

Lamborghini Urus Pictures Leak Before Beijing Debut

By Tom Anderson on Fri, 04/20/2012 - 20:30
Auto NewsBeijing Auto ShowConceptItalianLamborghiniSUV

Lamborghini Urus Concept front 3/4 view

 

To the average non-car person, the idea of a Lamborghini SUV straddles the fence between preposterous and blasphemous. Of course, those of us in the know (or those who read the recent feature on this site) know that a trail-ready Lambo is hardly unprecedented. However, the Italian supercar constructor has gone without an off-roader – concept or production – since the last LM002 rolled out of the factory in 1993.

 

That’s about to change, however. After years of “Will they or won’t they?” conjecture, Lamborghini is going to show the Urus (which is officially just a concept at this point) at next week’s Beijing Auto Show. And while the exact mechanical specifications are still unknown, we do know what it will look like thanks to the photos you see here being leaked. (Whether the leak was intentional or not is up for debate.)

 

2013 SRT Viper Ignites a Transatlantic Family Feud [w/ Videos]

By Tom Anderson on Thu, 04/05/2012 - 17:06
Auto NewsAmericanAmerican Le MansDodgeExotics|SupercarsForza MotorsportNew York Auto ShowSRTViper

2013 SRT Viper GTS front 3/4 view

 

The first two generations of the Dodge Viper (Some sources break those two generations into two further generations.) were brash, brutal and downright angry. These thundering 10-cylinder neo-Cobras, both open- and closed-top, routinely beat up on all manner of European supercars, not to mention crosstown rival Corvette. What’s more, these beating occurred on the street and on the track, the latter being where race-prepped Vipers scored numerous wins, including three consecutive GT class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the overall win at the 2000 24 Hours of Daytona.

 

However, the Dodge Viper’s story came to an end on July 1, 2010, as the last example rolled out of the Conner Avenue Assembly plant in Detroit. Scarcely two months later, though, word came down that a new third (or fifth; take your pick) generation Viper would be coming in a couple years. Well, now it’s a couple years later, and the new Viper is indeed here. A lot has stayed the same with the new car, but a lot has changed, too.

 

Tushek Renovatio T500 is an Eastern Bloc Beast [w/ Video]

By Tom Anderson on Thu, 03/22/2012 - 21:28
Auto NewsExotics|SupercarsSlovenianTop Marques MonacoTushek

2013 Tushek Renovatio T500 front 3/4 view

 

Ask a non-car person to name countries with rich performance car building histories, and most of them will have no trouble coming up with nations like Italy, Germany and Great Britain. Ask them why they omitted Slovenia (because we can guarantee they did), and they’ll look at you like you just gave birth to a three-headed purple unicorn via your left nostril. The former Yugoslav Republic (which, to quote our inner real estate agent, is Italy-adjacent) is hardly a hotbed for building normal everyday cars, much less supercars.

 

The upstart firm Tushek, however, wants to change that and put the Balkan land on the exotic car building map. And the company’s first effort, the Renovatio T500, looks more than capable of doing exactly that.

 

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