We don’t know what it is yet, but according to the folks at InsideLine, Carroll Shelby is preparing to unveil a new special-edition Ford Mustang next week. Rumored to be less powerful than the GT500KR, the limited-run model will make its debut as part of a benefit dinner for a new museum of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), held during the Winternationals. Shelby will reportedly be joined at the unveiling of the new ‘Stang by top-fuel drag-racing legend Don “The Snake” Prudhomme. We’ll be eagerly watching the timing lights to see what the Snake Charmer has in store for gearheads this time, and hope that Ol’ Shel is feeling better.

by Drew Phillips on Jan 29th 2009 at 10:58AM

Not satisfied with the 638 horsepower on tap in your Chevrolet Corvette ZR1? Hennessey Performance has the solution. They’ve come up with a tuning package that includes a smaller supercharger pulley that increases boost from 11 to 14 psi, an upgraded intercooler, K&N intake, stainless steel headers, high-flow catalytic converters, and a reprogrammed engine management system that pushes output past the 700-horsepower mark. If that still doesn’t meet your needs, Hennessey can keep the upgrades coming with high-flow cylinder heads and a more aggressive camshaft that puts the ZR1 at 755 hp. Hennessey’s website says that 1000 hp is attainable, and we’re guessing it involves a pair of turbochargers. Follow the jump to watch a video of the Hennessey ZR700 knock out an 11.03 second quarter-mile with relative ease.

[Source: Hennessey Performance]

With the announcement that the Honda S2000 will cease production after the 2009 model year and its successor in doubt, Honda decided to give the high-revving roadster a special send-off before it shuffles off this mortal coil.

The Honda S2000 Ultimate Edition retains the 2.0-liter VTEC-equipped four-cylinder putting out 237 hp and 153 lb-ft of torque through a six-speed manual transmission, but benefits from a new set of wheels and an optional hard-top. “Grand Prix White” coats the exterior, while a red leather interior, color-matched stitching and numbered doorsill plaques sets it apart from the standard model. Honda will debut the S2000 Ultimate Edition at the Geneva Motor Show this March, with sales beginning in Europe shortly thereafter. Honda hasn’t announced if the U.S. will get its own version special edition S2000, but if the automaker can save a few bucks that can go towards the development of the new model, we’ll be okay with missing out on the “Ultimate.”

PRESS RELEASE

Honda has announced that the Honda S2000 Ultimate Edition will go on sale from March 2009 in Europe. This limited edition has been produced to mark the end of production for the award winning sports car.

The Ultimate Edition retains its highly acclaimed 2.0 litre 9000 rpm VTEC engine and combines it with a Grand Prix White body and graphite coloured alloy wheels. The shade of the paint evokes the colour first used on Honda’s 1964 F1 car and many sporting models since. The exterior colour combination with the dark metal alloy wheels and unique black S2000 badging gives a fresh look to the timeless shape of the roadster body.

The white exterior will be matched with a red leather interior and complimented by unique red colouring for stitching on the gear lever gaiter. Ultimate Editions will be marked out by their unique numbered plaques on the kickplates, denoting their position in the series.

The 2-seater sports car may now be almost 10-years old, but its 240PS 2-litre is still one of the highest output per litre and highest revving engines ever made. In recognition of its incredible power output, the Honda S2000’s engine has won the International Engine of the Year category for 1.8 to 2.2 litre engines five times in its lifetime.

As the name suggests, the Honda S2000 Ultimate Edition will be the last version before global production of the model ceases altogether at the end of June 2009. Since the introduction of the Honda S2000 in 1999 until the end of 2008, Honda has sold 110,673 units worldwide - 19,987 of those in Europe.

The first viewing of the Ultimate Edition will be the 2009 Geneva International Motor Show starting with the press day on the 3rd March.

My family has fallen in love with Bruno. Yes, we named it. Clearly, the Honda Pilot has left an impression. Size is the first thing you notice, solidity the second – there’s not a whiff of the gelatin-jiggles that afflict most of this CUV’s body-on-frame competitors. The Pilot is also loaded up with thoughtful, family-friendly touches everywhere you look. It’s big, accommodating, and solid. What else? Follow the jump to find out.

With styling via a framing square, “pretty” is not a word that springs easily to mind when admiring the 2009 Honda Pilot. Aerodynamic improvements increase efficiency and quell noise, and the facelift looks surprisingly pugnacious. The chromey fangs are a ruse, though, as the Pilot is all pussycat. This is an easy-driving box. It’s steering is light and would be considered numb in the sedan world, but if nothing else, it brings that trademark Hondaness to the realm of large CUVs.

The rest of the chassis lives up to the name on the tailgate, as well. A tightly snubbed ride might run the risk of liquefying occupants when the going gets bumpy, but the Pilot just eats up scarred macadam without drama. No doubt the structural improvements that Honda has effected on the updated Pilot play a role in the vehicle’s aplomb. The Pilot glides over roads that make you wince, and despite carting around 4,000-plus pounds, this eight-seater feels light on its feet.

The engine bay is still occupied by Honda’s 3.5-liter V6 delivering 250 horsepower and 253 pound-feet of torque, a marginal improvement over earlier versions. The V6 augments its ability to deactivate cylinders by adding a four-cylinder step, thereby eking out better fuel economy. Engine noise is muted, even when you wind it so hard the tachometer screams in protest. Despite its weight, and the fact that it packs “only” 250 horsepower, we were never able to catch the Pilot flat-footed. Its five-speed automatic transmission is always in the proper gear and obediently follows the command of the driver’s foot. Clearly, the Pilot is no drag racer, but power levels are more than adequate.

While the Pilot is dynamically pleasing, if a bit numb, the driver’s environment has actually sustained a downgrade. It’s spacious and comfortable, but it’s ergonomically confused and the materials and design harks back nearly two decades. Plastics are hard and shiny and things are best at night when you can’t see the surfaces. The center stack sprouts lots of buttons; helpful in that you can operate the audio, HVAC and navigation systems without venturing close to Honda’s imitation of iDrive. It’s nice to have as little interaction with a GUI and infuriating multifunction knob as possible. However, we’d have preferred knobs instead of rockers for temperature and blower fan settings. It also seemed to take the heater quite a while to blow roasty-toasty. Of course, there is a lot of interior volume and thus a lot of air to exchange, but the vents could certainly get hotter more quickly.

Things are well thought out for the inevitable family duty. There’s a convex mirror for keeping an eye on who’s throwing what, and the second-row seat is wide enough to accommodate a rare trio of LATCH anchors that allows three very solidly mounted kidlets to ride just behind your shoulders. A center console with big, no fuss cupholders and a gigantic storage bin make it easy to stow everything but the kitchen sink, which will likely fit in the door pockets or on the shelf in front of the passenger.

In the interest of keeping things quiet, there’s a DVD entertainment system for those long hauls through uninteresting scenery. A power liftgate seems like unneeded frippery until the first time you come upon the Pilot with full hands, barely able to press the fob button. The back seat, too, is easier to get in and out of with a sliding second row and extra wheelbase. Real people actually fit back there, as opposed to the kneecap-munching lack of legroom in similar steeds.

The Touring trim level our tester carried does not come cheap, carrying a price tag of $40,095. For that price, thankfully, there’s little else to want in the Pilot. The Touring is loaded to the gills with the stuff you’d expect on luxury CUVs – the power liftgate, the DVD system, three rows of seats, surefooted performance, navigation, the works. The interior styling and execution, however, are disappointing from an automaker that’s served as a benchmark. While it’s quieter than before, it’s still not luxury-quiet inside, but at least Consumer Reports‘ reliability ratings offer peace of mind to supplant the peace and quiet.

The Pilot is one of those vehicles that comes for an evaluation and stays on our minds long after its gone. It may not peg the exceptional meter on any one thing, but it would be hard to call it anything but a good choice for a buyer looking in the segment.

Fans of Ford’s American SVT and European ST and RS models will have plenty to look forward to in the next few years. As part of the company’s One Ford program to consolidate its platforms and designs, SVT and TeamRS have been brought together under a single organization led by Jost Capito. Earlier this week, we sat down for lunch with Jamal Hameedi and Hermann Salenbauch to discuss what is going on and what we can expect to see in the next few years. Hameedi is the Chief Nameplate Engineer at SVT and Salenbauch is the director of Advanced Product Creation and Performance Vehicles. We’ve already seen some of their handiwork in the form of the 2010 Shelby GT500 and F-150 SVT Raptor, but we’ll come back to those in a bit.

We already know we’ll be getting a new Focus in laet 2010 or early 2011 that’s common with the Euro model we’ve been craving for years. Naturally, the question of the new Focus RS came up. While no one would commit to anything, there were plenty of smiles to go around and Hameedi and Salenbauch were more than willing to talk enthusiastically about the new sports hatch that is launching right now in Europe. Continue reading after the jump.

In 1992, a law passed requiring each state’s motor vehicle department to link into a federal database. After pleading from the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), automakers and consumer advocates – plus one lawsuit – the U.S. Department of Justice will launch the system beginning tomorrow at 9 AM EST.

The database will attempt to reduce the amount of title-washing that plagues used car buyers when unsavory characters rebuild a totaled vehicle and sell it with a clean title, normally out of state. Currently, 27 states are participating and another ten should be on board shortly. All states are required to be in the system by Jan 1, 2010 and data will begin to be collected from insurance companies and salvage yards on March 31.

The DOJ claims that when the database launches tomorrow, approximately three-quarters of the nation’s vehicle titles will be include, but unfortunately, the system won’t be free. Online providers will act as the middlemen, but an announcement hasn’t been made about which companies will handle the heavy lifting. While it’s doubtful that firms like CarFax are going to dramatically affected by the move, we’re hoping some competition among providers brings the cost down for consumers.

Audi’s MMI in-car command system is one of the most intuitive offered by an OEM, but that isn’t stopping Audi from piling on the improvements. The screen is now a seven-inch, 800×400 TFT display, being fed info from a high-capacity hard disk, a DVD drive, and an NVIDIA graphics chip. It also gets an eight-way joystick on the central knob, which means you can make mouse-like movements on the screen for point-and-click ease. In addition to all that, there are simpler vocal inputs, 3-D maps, a 10,000-number phone book, and two processors so that everything can run at the same time.

PRESS RELEASE

The next generation MMI from Audi: top-level multimedia and communication
- Introducing a new generation of the market’s best system
- Even higher performance and easier operation
- First appearance stateside in the all-new Audi Q5

HERNDON, Va., Jan 28, 2009 - Audi is increasing its lead in infotainment technology even further. A new generation of the MMI, the supreme solution for multimedia, communication and operation, has been announced. With a high-capacity hard disk, a DVD drive and an automotive grade NVIDIA™ chip for graphics processing, it is much more versatile and its performance is higher than ever before. The new MMI’s first appearance will be in the all-new Audi Q5.

New joystick control- The basic operating principle has been retained, but the innovative joystick makes it even more convenient. This joystick is located on the central knob and can be moved in eight directions within the navigation map screen – with high precision and the sense of quality that the Audi driver expects. For example, now you can easily navigate to a location on the screen and just point and click for directions.

New Display- For the new MMI, Audi has provided a large TFT display measuring seven inches from corner to corner. It is located in an ergonomically favorable position high up on the center console.

With the very high resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and LED backlighting, this monitor supplies an exceptionally sharp image with plenty of contrast. Even in poor light conditions, the colors are intense and the text is crisp.

3D map displays-The driver can choose between the conventional two-dimensional view and the new 3D images. These modes feature a birds-eye perspective of the map area, with plenty of carefully presented detail including real-time traffic information, and while in 3D orientation, the various topographies are shown throughout the entire US. Another new feature is that the outlines of buildings in many major cities are displayed to help with orientation while navigating. Additionally, the most important buildings in large cities appear in near-authentic-detail, as well as several branded point-of-interest icons.

Vocal Input- If the driver uses voice input to load a destination into the navigation system; this can now be done without spelling out the individual letters. The new MMI understands complete words in a number of languages.

The same applies to the new high-performance telephone directory, which can store up to 2,000 entries each with five numbers for each user. The telephone is even more convenient to use with the new MMI. Additionally a speech-to-text engine is used so you no longer have to create voice tags for every name in your directory. A digital voice processor ensures the best hands-free quality; while voice outputs are through the car’s sound system.

Music and Entertainment: the DVD drive-The new MMI has an integral drive for video DVDs; the new joystick function on the control knob is especially practical for this, as it enables you to quickly navigate title menus and screen selections. When played back with the optional sound systems, DVD soundtracks can be heard in Dolby Digital 5.1 multi-channel sound and other frequently used formats. For safety reasons, the picture is only displayed when the car is standing still. The system also plays music from CDs and SD cards, including those coded MP3, AAC and WMA.

Additional technical modules have made the MMI even more attractive. The optional Audi Music Interface makes a perfect connection with an mp3 player, for instance the customer’s iPod. The complete menu structures and contents appear on the MMI display, and control is at the MMI terminal or the multifunctional steering wheel.

The Sirius Radio display has also been updated on the new MMI. Without interrupting music, or changing stations, users are now able to preview the artist and track title on other Sirius stations.

MMI Tech- One of its key components is the hard disk; 10 GB of its 40 GB capacity can be used as a jukebox, to store up to 2,000 tracks, all sorted for easy access. The hard disk also contains navigation data and an electronic logbook for the car.

Two processors, an 800 MHz chip and a 500 MHz digital signal processor, allow all applications – navigation, voice input, telephone and audio functions – to operate simultaneously. Using the 3D graphics processor from Californian 3D chip manufacturer NVIDIA™ gives the MMI access to the third dimension. Audi has used this chip’s outstanding performance with graphics for the first time to provide a genuine 3D map display – a ‘digital topographical model’. With this processor, the screen display sets new standards with its attractive display layout, high resolution, and presentation quality, smooth animation and cross fading.

Last weekend, Corvette owners were let in on a limited edition Vette in the pipeline: the Corvette GT-1 Edition. Created to celebrate Corvette’s last hurrah in the current GT1 class this year, the car is actually more like a rolling trophy than your typical paint-and-decals collector’s edition car.

The GT-1 package will come in yellow with black stripes, or black with yellow stripes, and be available on the coupe, convertible, and Z06. The yellow windshield banner from the C6.R will be in place, and the car will also feature “Jake,” the racing team’s mascot (the yellow skull with the Corvette pennants). The C6.R driver’s names will be placed on the roof of the car, and the championships they’ve won will be written on the lower door.

Elsewhere, you get a body-colored spoiler out back, Q9V forged chrome wheels (the 5-spoke style that came out on the 2008 Corvette), black headlamps insets on the yellow car, body-colored door handles, and a carbon-fiber-patterned engine cover. To raise the sound and the fury a notch, the coupe and convertible come with the Z51 Performance Package and NPP Performance Exhaust. Rather less subtle than Chevrolet’s previous Le Mans Victory Edition back in 2007, no?

Inside, there will be a black interior with contrasting yellow stitching and some engraved plaques. You’ll also get a Certificate of Authenticity – because, you know, people might think you just went out and did all that on your own. No word on how many will be built, but if these reports are correct, the car is due to arrive in Spring, with a pricing announcement scheduled for next month.

Tesla’s plans to eventually build a pair of new factories for the Model S and powertrain components in San Jose, CA have run into a ditch. The move was announced last September, just before the (official) collapse of the world’s financial markets. However, the plan ran into trouble quickly when Tesla was unable to complete a $100 million round of Series venture funding. Not long after that, the up-start nearly ran out cash before existing investors put in another $40 million. The bulk of the $400 million required to build the two factories and move its headquarters from San Carlos to the new San Jose campus were expected to be provided by low interest loans from the Department of Energy.

However, the DOE loan program favors redevelopment of existing industrial sites and the San Jose location was a greenfield. Tesla is now looking for new locations including former factory sites in both the Silicon Valley area and Southern California. Without the DOE money, it will be extremely difficult for Tesla to build anything new and getting that loan will be increasingly problematic. The program requires applicants to raise matching equity investments of 20-30% of the loan amount, which in this case would amount to $100-150 million. Since Tesla already failed to raise that much last fall, it’s not clear that it can happen now.

During this Sunday’s Super Bowl, the Big Three automotive advertisers will be Hyundai, Audi and Toyota, not Ford, GM and Chrysler. In fact, the Detroit Three will be completely absent from the proceedings for the first time since 2001. At a going rate of $2.8 million to $3 million per 30-second spot, we can’t say we blame them for sitting this one out. Granted, they’d get roughly 200 million eyeballs for their ads, but with every American citizen watching each and every personal — and governmental — expenditure, it would be hard to justify buying the spots.

Although the bailout has created a circus-like atmosphere around the Detroit Three’s checkbooks, GM for one, had decided as far back as last September not to advertise during Sunday’s game, even though Cadillac is a presenter. Ford thought it unreasonable as well. So what will we see in place of Howie Long and Mike Rowe? How about Jason Statham pitching the new Audi A6, Transporter style. Hyundai will be pushing the North American Car of the Year award-winning Genesis, reminding people of the company’s buy-it-back program if they become unemployed. Sounds good, but we wish they wouldn’t have banned the Danica ad.