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• Supra Duper: XCar Pays Tribute to Toyota’s Performance Flagship [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 20 May 2013

  

  For four generations and 25 years, the Supra served as Toyota’s high performance leader. With a strong (particularly on later turbocharged versions) and smooth straight-six under the hood, hatchback versatility and room for four (at least in a pinch), it truly was the Toyota of sports cars. And in case the Supra wasn’t famous enough on its own, prominent roles in video games like the original Gran Turismo and movies like The Fast and The Furious certainly bumped up its notoriety even more.

  XCar’s Alex Goy decided to see if the reality lives up to the hype by driving a fourth-gen Supra. But this isn’t just any Mk. 4 Supra; not only is it the last one imported to Britain by Toyota, but it has also been turned into a tribute to the iconic Castrol TOM’s Supra JGTC race car from the late ‘90s. And automatic transmission notwithstanding, it looks (and, once the turbos spool up, is) the business.

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• 918 and Life: Chris Harris Tests the New Porsche Supercar [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 17 May 2013

  

  Not even 24 hours ago we brought you the skinny on the production version of the Porsche 918 Spyder, Stuttgart’s shapely plug-in hybrid hellraiser. It looks wicked cool (particularly with the flashback-fabulous Weissach Package), and puts up staggering performance and economy numbers, but how does it look (and, more importantly, sound) when in motion? The one and only Chris Harris RSVP’d to the car’s launch at Porsche’s Leipzig test track (which is adjacent to the Cayenne and Panamera factory) to find out.

  It’s safe to say that Chris finds himself quite smitten with the driving experience, but he’d really love to see a lightweight, non-hybrid version. Frankly, we’d be curious to see how such a creation would perform, too, but we realize that, like the McLaren P1 and the LaFerrari, the 918 was designed around a hybrid powertrain and thus plays the role of technological showcase and assuager of greenie anger toward its maker. Besides, it’s damn fast and sounds like Wagner’s subconscious, and by Georg, that’s good enough for us.

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• USDM Tyte, Yo: Japanese Tuner Cultivates American Style J-Tin [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 16 May 2013

  

  Car geeks are intimately familiar with the well-worn saying “The grass is always greener on the other side.” No matter what country on this big wet marble you call home, there’s always some car or car part that was never available in your homeland that you will absolutely covet. How else do you think the JDM scene got to be so popular here in the U.S.?

  Conversely, there seems to be a growing demand for USDM cars and components in Japan. One man at the forefront of this movement is Masayoshi Nagano, propreietor of Nagano Koubou. One of his specialties is mating American S13-chassis Nissan 240SX noses with home market Silvia bodies to create what Japanese Nissan buffs call “Onevias” (The “one” in the name is derived from 180SX, the JDM version of the S13 hatchback that shared its front sheetmetal with all three American S13 body styles.). We quite like this two-way cultural exchange, and hope it continues for years to come.

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• Boxer Rebellion: Crawford Performance’s Cray Cray Subaru BRZ Turbo [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 15 May 2013

  

  The rear-drive sport coupe wonder twins from Toyota/Scion and Subaru get all manner of praise heaped upon them, and deservedly so. But there is one noteworthy bone that even some of their most ardent supporters have to pick with them: Lack of power. While the 2.0L flat-four’s 200 horsepower and 151 lb.-ft of torque is okay for virtually all situations, it won’t cause your cheeks to ripple like a pond that’s been bombed a pebble, either.

  But leave it to the Subaru experts at Crawford Performance to change all that. You see, this pearly BRZ’s lump has been fully rebuilt and treated to a laundry list of hot rodding tricks. Oh, and it also now breathes through a rather hefty turbocharger. And as our host Matt Farah explains, roughly 430hp and 500 lb.-ft in a 2,700 lb. package is not something to be taken lightly.

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• A Bunny and Her Kitty: Playmate of the Year Raquel Pomplun Receives a Jaguar F-Type [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 14 May 2013

  

  Every year since 1960, the world’s favorite silk pajama hoarder, Hugh Hefner, has bestowed upon one of the 12 birthday-suited beauties from the past year’s issues of Playboy the title of Playmate of the Year. And every year since 1964, the Playmate of the Year has been awarded a new car (except when she’s instead been given a boat. Or a motorcycle. Or no vehicle at all.). And 2013’s winner and her prize are both knockouts.

  The lucky winner for this lap of the sun – 25-year-old Californian Raquel Pomplun, who will go down in history as the first Mexican-American PMOY – receives a one-year lease on a 2014 Jaguar F-Type (plus a check for $100,000). And while Ms. Pomplun’s curves make our jaws go slack and, er, other parts of us go taut, we have exponentially better chances of running our hands over the Jag’s curves than we do her’s…provided we’re unwilling to ignore the looming specter of a restraining order (Which we aren’t.). Anyway, congrats Raquel!

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• Feeling Board: Downhill Skateboarder Kevin Reimer and His Nissan Skyline GT-R [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 13 May 2013

  

  It is often assumed that because athletes are able to get their adrenaline fixes when in competition, their lives off the field or course are pretty chill. For example: Downhill skateboarder Kevin Reimer probably drives some milquetoast, beige (in spirit, if not color) transportation appliance when he’s not using gravity to get around/risk severe bodily harm, right? Well, not quite: Mr. Reimer’s motorized vehicle of choice is actually an R32-chassis Nissan Skyline GT-R.

  But lest you assume this Canadian (Hence why he was able to import it, thanks to the Great White North’s far more sensible laws regarding four-wheeled forbidden fruit.) extreme sports star hitched his wagon to the ur-Godzilla by accident, know that Kevin and this classic Nissan super coupe have both won races on Australia’s Mount Panorama, home to the Bathurst 1000. Some things are just meant to be.

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• Come (Climb) Dancing: Sebastien Loeb Tests His New Pikes Peak Peugeot 208 T16 [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 10 May 2013

  

  Having won the World Rally Championship for drivers in each of the last nine years, France’s Sebastien Loeb has retired from full-time WRC competition (to the unending relief of his competitors). But instead of spending his many weekends away from that tour perched in a lawn chair in his driveway yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off his pelouse, he’s keeping busy with other forms of motorsport. In addition to being an owner/driver in the FIA GT Series with a pair of McLaren MP4-12C GT3s, the most decorated rally driver in history is also taking on a new challenge at the end of next month: The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.

  Seb’s weapon of choice for this American adventure? That would be a specially-built number from Peugeot (corporate cousin of Loeb’s longtime rally steed provider, Citroen) called the 208 T16. Like the conceptually similar 205 T16 and 405 T16 that attacked the Colorado mountain in the 1980s, this dedicated racing Peugeot features an obscenely powerful mid-mounted engine (in this case a 3.2L twin-turbo V6 generating 875hp) that drives all four wheels. So it’s fast? Well, we reckon 0-62 mph in 1.8 seconds and 0-150 mph in 7.0 seconds counts as fast. While this video of shakedown testing is neat, we’re anxious to see how man and machine do in the actual event.

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• Mountain Slide: “Mad Mike” Whiddett Drifts His Mazda RX7 through the Crown Range [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 9 May 2013

  

  Despite the dizzying variety of cars competing in the uppermost echelons of drifting, it seems like more and more of them are starting to rely on GM LS-series V8s for power. And while we love the LS engines and their ability to make whack-a-doodle power figures despite having just one camshaft and two valves per cylinder, we’d love to see more European and Japanese drift cars vying for high scores with the smaller-displacement, fewer-cylinder engines with which they were born (or at least ones from the same company).

  Consequently, you can imagine how giddy we were when we heard the distinctive bud-bud-bud-bud-BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTT of a rotary engine emanating from Kiwi “Mad Mike” Whiddett’s Red Bull sponsored FD-chassis Mazda RX7. Of course, the massive orange backfires coming from the Mazda’s tush made us even more giddy. Throw in the fact that Whiddett and his roughly 750hp four-rotor Wankel weapon are sliding their way along one of New Zealand’s most scenic byways and you have one honey of a tire snuff film.

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• Enter “Project Nasty”: Roughing It in BBi Autosport’s Bantamweight ’85 Porsche 911 [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 8 May 2013

  

  When shopping for a tuning shop in the Western United States to make your water-cooled Porsche 911 (i.e. 996 and 997) even more of a thrill ride (particularly if it’s a factory-boosted Turbo or GT2), you can’t do a whole lot better than BBi Autosport in Huntington Beach, California. However, having said that, the company hadn’t popped it’s air-cooled 911 (993 and earlier) cherry until recently. But boy oh boy, was BBi’s first time one for the ages.

  The owner of this heavily modified 1985 Porsche 911 Carrera – BBi Autosport co-owner Joey Seely – essentially wanted the antithesis of the majority of the cars he and the team put together for customers: Spartan, simple, light-on-its-feet and naturally aspirated, in addition to the aforementioned air-cooled powerplant. And after watching it in action in the latest episode of Tuned, the Matt Farah-hosted show on the YouTube-only Drive network, we’re convinced this Whale-tailed temptress – provocatively nicknamed “Project Nasty” – meets all those objectives and more.

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• Set Phasers to “Fun”: Spocks Old and New Ham It up in Audi Advert [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 7 May 2013

  

  For a television series that only ran for three seasons and garnered rather lukewarm ratings, Star Trek has proven quite profitable for creator Gene Roddenberry and his heirs. This is due in no small part to the fact that the franchise enjoys one of the sci-fi community’s largest and most vocal fanboy and fangirl armies. But we reckon it also stems from a long line of iconic characters and the gifted actors who portray them.

  One of those characters is, of course, Spock. The mostly logical and emotionally-distant half-Vulcan, half-human chap has only been played by two men throughout his existence: Leonard Nimoy and, beginning with the 2009 J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie, Zachary Quinto. Audi of America has brought both actors together in this quite hilarious spot that showcases the Audi S7 and its principal competitor, the Mercedes-Benz CLS. Normally we consumer goods company/upcoming movie cross promotions (Star Trek Into Darkness hits theaters May 17^th.) as cynical, forced-looking-and-sounding cash grabs. But this? This. Is. Gold. Bravo Audi and Misters Nimoy and Quinto.

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