The De Tomaso hot hatch you never knew existed: 1974-1982 Innocenti Mini

De Tomaso is one of those carmakers that is legendary, but doesn't get talked about much (but that has changed thanks to the P72).  But did you know De Tomaso actually made a hot hatch once?  Yes indeed, it did.  That hot hatch was the Innocenti Mini, made from 1974 to 1982.  Thing was, though, it wasn't all De Tomaso's doing.  Bertone helped out with the styling, naturally.  The finished product was quite good looking, too....But before we get into the little details, lets take a moment to learn some history about the Innocenti company.

       Innocenti was founded in 1947, originally making motor scooters, but then moving on to produce cars in 1961, mostly Minis and Austin Healeys, but all with slightly different styling from the original car thanks to Italian coach-building firm Bertone.  The British Motor Corporation bought out Innocenti in 1972, but went bankrupt three years later, and the Innocenti company was sold to Alejandro De Tomaso. 

De Tomaso was impressed with the performance of the Innocenti Mini, but he wanted more.  So he bumped the power up from 65hp to 71hp, gave the Mini new custom parts, let Bertone slightly tweak the design of the car, and gave it new wheels.  In 1976, the car was revealed to the public, and in 1977 production began.  Production of the Mini kept on until 1982, and in 1983 it was overhauled with Daihatsu parts and less power, due to the expiration of the license from British Leyland.

Well, the Mini wasn't made in large numbers, and wasn't extremely powerful either, but we need cars like this.  Small, obscure, and sometime even cute cars like this that pop up at random on the web is what makes our day.

Coolest Car Concepts that Should have Made It to Production

You have probably heard of cars like the Jaguar C-X75 or the Maserati Birdcage, which were both going to go into production, but didn't make it.  I'm here to tell you about some concepts you don't often heard about, though.  So here we go!

1.  Porsche 918 RSR

This is one of the coolest concept cars ever, in my opinion.  As you may know, 'RSR' is Porsche's racing car designation.  It translates literally to 'racing sport racing car', but no matter how redundant the name, it's still way cool.  The 918 RSR concept was supposed to be a Le Mans racing version of the 918 Spyder, but it never made it.  No one really knows why.

2.  Nissan IDX Nismo

The IDX was supposed to be the spiritual successor to the Datsun 510, but it never got anywhere due the high production costs.

3.  Citroen GT

The Citroen GT concept was originally planned to be a virtual-only car, for the Gran Turismo video games, but when people started clamoring for it to go into production, they finally gave in, and said they would build 8 units.  However, they never did, and to this day it still exists only in Gran Turismo.

4.  Ford Shelby GR1

The Ford Shelby GR1 concept was another car not originally planned for production, but enough people wanted it that they decided to put it into production.  But the project never saw the light of day, at least not from Ford.  As a side note, though, Shelby recently announced plans to put Ford-powered replicas of the GR1 concept into production.  So you could potentially still get one sometime soon.

5.  Lamborghini Miura

The original Lamborghini Miura is an automotive icon, and, in 2006, Lamborghini tried to recreate it.  (Honestly, I think they did a superb job of it, too).  But I don't even think they ever planned to put it into production, so it still doesn't exist.  Really, really too bad.

6.  Koenigsegg Quant

Koenigsegg never had plans to build the Quant, but all the same, it's awesome.  It had two electric motors generating 512hp and 527 lb-ft of torque.  The sprint from 0-60mph would have taken 5.2 seconds, while top speed would be limited to 170mph.  Impressive specs, but I guess not impressive enough for a Koenigsegg.  After all, for a class-leading hypercar manufacturer, 0-60 in 5.2 seconds is pathetic.

7.  NanoFlowcell Quant F

NanoFlowcell was a startup electric car company with really cool tech, namely, all the proposed models ran using salt water.  This enabled a long range, excellent battery life, and really, really cheap fuel costs.  Even cheaper than just charging a car at home.  But the company never got off the ground.  The Quant F was one of 4 proposed models, and it would have had 1,075hp and 2,139 lb-ft of torque (an astronomical figure, in case you didn't know), 0-60 in 2.4 seconds, and a top speed of 186mph.  It would have been quite the car.  That being said, take my words about NanoFlowecell being dead with a proverbial grain of salt, because their website at least is still active, and, after all, prototypes were made of all models, so there is still a chance, I guess, given enough funding.

8.  Lotec Sirius

Ah, now we're getting to more obscure cars!  This is the Lotec Sirius, a concept car from 2003 that was definitely supposed to go into production, but didn't.  It was an incredible car, though.  1,200hp, a top speed of 248mph, and a 0-60 time of 3.8 seconds make it comparable even to hypercars of the 2010s.  Very impressive.

9.  Zender Vision 3

Hans-Albert Zender was an incredible guy, who made incredible car concepts, but unfortunately, none of his awesome concepts made it to production.  The Vision 3 is just one of many concepts. It featured a Mercedes engine capable of producing 304hp, enabling the car to launch from 0-60 in just 6.4 seconds, a respectable figure in its day.

10.  Toroidion 1MW

And now for the most insane of them all: Introducing the Toroidion 1MW hypercar!  It was a concept car released in 2015, and it had some pretty unbelievable claims about its performance.  It had 1,341hp, which is exactly one megawatt of power, thus its name, 1MW, a top speed of 249mph, a 0-60 time of under 2 seconds, and, get this; 0-249mph (0-400kph) in just 11 seconds!  Just how crazy is that?!  But we still aren't to the craziest claim yet; the torque.  Thanks to the fact that it is electrically powered, the torque figure is just pure insanity: 17,701 pound-feet (24,000nm) of torque all told!  To put that into perspective, that's how much torque 15 Bugatti Chirons, 35 Lamborghini Aventador SVJs, or 101 Lotus Exiges would make!  That is just crazy. 

 

So there you are!  Did you enjoy this feature?  Let me know in the comments, and thanks for reading!

Lamborghini Sian Roadster revealed!

 We have all been waiting for the Lamborghini Sian Roadster, and it is finally here!  I have to say, this is definitely one of the best-looking Lamborghinis ever, thanks in no small part to the beautiful blue color, which Lamborghini calls Blu Uranus. 

The engine and drivetrain specs are still the same; 819hp, 561 lb-ft, a 0-60 time of 2.9 seconds, and an estimated top speed of 218mph.

And if you thought the 'regular' Sian was rare, limited to 63 units, this is even rarer, limited to 19 units.  There is no word on pricing yet from Lamborghini, but, based on the 'regular' Sian's base price, we can expect it to be around $3,800,000.

And that's enough blab about it, I'll just let you enjoy the gallery!

Images courtesy of NetCarShow.com

Delage is back! Legendary French brand revived by millionaire entrepreneur

That headline should catch any car lovers attention!  Delage is back?!  Yes indeed, it is true!  Naturally, in this age of 1,000hp+ hypercars, the first planned model is a hybrid high-performance model, the D12.  Two weeks ago, the Delage D12 hybrid hypercar was unveiled, but it seems hardly anybody noticed!  This news needs to get out!  So, about the D12.
       First off, we will start with Delage's new CEO Laurent Tapie's bold claim that the D12 is 'the closest a road car can get to an F1 car'.  Now, we have heard this before, most notably when Mercedes said the same about the AMG One hypercar, but the One has yet to go on sale, and the D12 has something else on its side to support this claim: F1 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve is helping to supervise the project!  This alone should make doubters cease doubting the reality of the D12 hypercar.  This is no vaporware!

There will be two versions of the D12 hypercar, Club and GT.  Both versions have a V12 engine and an electric motor.  The Club version makes 990hp from the V12 and 20hp from the electric, making 1,010hp all told.  The GT version makes 900hp from the V12, and 330hp from the electric, making a grand total of 1,230hp.  The GT version most definitely has more power, but the Club version is 507lbs (230kg) lighter, due to the lack of large batteries for the electric motor.  The 0-60mph acceleration time for the GT version is 2.6 seconds, and 120mph in 6.5 seconds.  This is accomplished in part due to a new 8-speed automatic transmission.

And now for maybe the biggest news yet.  Delage is targeting the Nurburgring World Record with the new D12, and so far the estimated lap time is around 6 minutes 40 seconds.  No word on when production starts has yet been released, but I will guess 2022.  Pricing starts at $2.5 million (2 million euros).

Source: allcarindex.com