Nurburgring

Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG) has knocked more than a minute off the lap record for an electric vehicle at the Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit. With a time of 7 minutes, 47.794 seconds, the TMG EV P001 beat the previous record of 9 minutes 1.338 seconds set by the Peugeot EX1 in April. TMG achieved its aim of becoming the first EV to break the eight-minute barrier on August 29 in fine weather with the track temperatures remaining relatively low. Read More

Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG) will attempt to set a new lap record for an electric vehicle at the legendary Nürburgring later this month. The attempt will be made in the TMG 100 percent electric car that is based on a two-seater sportscar chassis fitted with a high-performance electric powertrain developed by TMG. With a top speed of 260 km/h (161.5 mph) and the ability to go from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3.9 seconds, the vehicle will be looking to better the current EV lap record of 9 minutes 1.1338 seconds set earlier this year by the Peugeot EX1. Read More

Aston Martin's new V12 Zagato had quite a spectacular and busy few weeks following its first public showing on May 21 on the shores of Lake Como (Italy) at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este where it won the award for Design in the Concepts and Prototypes class. A week later, two identical prototypes finished fifth and sixth in their class at the Nurburgring 24 Hour race, verifying that the gorgeous handcrafted aluminium and carbon fibre machines were indeed capable of holding their own in any company. So began a period of what Aston Martin termed “overwhelmingly encouraging interest from customers” which has finally resulted in a commitment to a limited production run of 150 examples of the Zagato. Read More

Last year in the Nürburgring 24 Hour race, Porsche's 911 GT3 R Hybrid held the lead for more than eight hours before problems unrelated to the hybrid system saw it relegated through the field. The organizer of the event thought the performance potential of the vehicle was so auspicious that for this year it crippled the rear-mounted petrol engine's performance to just 448 bhp. So Porsche built a completely new vehicle to the same design around the new regulations, lowered the weight, upped the electrical drive to the front wheels to 200 bhp and set out to run the same lap times. Not only did it achieve the same lap times, it delivered even better fuel consumption, and four hours after the start of this year's race, it hit the lead once more ... Read More

French automotive manufacturer Peugeot is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year, and has promised quite a few significant announcements before the year is out. Its first electric car, the Peugeot iOn, is a rebadged Mitsubishi iMiEV, but the EX1 concept it showed last year is all its own work and looks to be a rip-snorter of a performance car to boot. Last week, the twin-electric motored 250 kW (340 bhp) EX1 set a new electric record for the Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit of 9:01.338 at an average speed of 138 km/h in adverse conditions whatsmore. Read More

Lexus' LFA supercar is, or was, the most exclusive vehicle ever built by the world’s largest automobile manufacturer – only 500 of the exotic carbon fiber 200 mph V10s will be sold at US$375,000 apiece. Now the racetrack-focused “LFA Nürburgring Package” is set to be revealed. Only 50 such 562 bhp vehicles will be produced with revised aerodynamics and technical refinements designed to fine-tune the exotic two-seat sports coupe to be capable of lapping the fabled Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit under 7:20. Now the average Gomer needs more than just a wad of cash, industrial-sized gonads and a sweet handling, brutally powerful car to get around the “Green Hell” inside eight minutes, let alone seven twenty, so the price includes special instruction sessions on the circuit into the bargain. The car can be had in white, orange or black at US$445,000 or in and matte black for US$465,000, making it the most expensive Japanese road car ever. Read More

German manufacturer Gumpert Sportwagenmanufaktur is claiming a lap record for road legal cars on the world famous Nurburgring Nordschleife. Florian Gruber completed the 12.93-mile track (20.81km) in a standard factory specification Gumpert Apollo Sport equipped with road legal Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires and an adjustable suspension by KW suspensions in a time of 7 minutes, 11.57 seconds. That averages out at 106.78mph (171.84kmh) and is 3.32 seconds faster than the Donkervoort D8 RS06, which posted a time of 7 minutes 14.89 seconds in November 2005. Read More

Though being criticised by some senior motoring journalists as lacking "character", Nissan's GT-R continues to take all before it in the real world, and there is no greater testimony to this than yet another lap record at the infamous "Green Hell" - the renowned Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit. We reported a few weeks back that the GT-R had created a new lap record of 7 minutes 27.56 seconds on April 15 and was continuing to attack the record. It seems Nissan is as adept at manipulating the media as it is at building cars because today it announced that it set a new record of 7 minutes 26.70 seconds - the record was set on April 23, a week after it broke the last one and a full three weeks ago! Read More

We recently wrote up the Nissan GT-R Spec V with its lofty price tag, but proof it is good enough in lesser trim is the news it has set another lap record at the famous Nurburgring Nordschleife in Germany. Nurburgring was nicknamed The Green Hell by Jackie Stewart, and is widely considered the toughest and most demanding purpose-built race track in the world. A Japanese specification GT-R, running on Dunlop tyres with RAYS forged alloy wheels (V-spec equipment) recorded a blistering 7min 27.56 secs yesterday. Only eight cars have ever gone faster, and they all cost a lot more than a GT-R, though the Radical SR8 is probably the best on a bang-per-buck basis. Read More