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What You Need to Know- Renault

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Renault has always been the wild one of the 3 big French car companies. Whilst Citroen was always pushing the technological boundaries and Peugeot building exciting cars, Renault was doing everything, it had an F1 team, built safe cars, fun cars, practical cars, cheap cars and even strange cars. Renault has done it all. Year Founded: 1899 Founder: Louis, Marcel and Fernand Renault Important People: Louis Renault- One of the 3 founders of Renault, it was under his watch that Renault contributed to the war effort in World War 1 with it's tanks, though he later ended up dying under suspicious circumstances following cooperation with Nazi Germany. Georges Besse- He joined Renault in 1985, planning to turn the company around, though his plans to layoff 21,000 staff and invest in AMC over in the States did not go down well, whilst he did turn Renault and AMC around he ultimately ended up gunned down. Fernando Alonso- Upon Renault's return to F1 in 2002, having taken over the Be...
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Alex Unleashed on Cars- Jaguar XJ-S (The Ugly Kitten)

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When a car is regarded as one of the all time greats, it can be tough to make a replacement that matches it, some get it right like the Fiat 500, BMW Mini and others struggle like the Ferrari 360. But what about the Jaguar XJ-S? A successor to the E-Type would be a hard act to follow, and for years, the XJ-S was seen as dropping the ball, but has time been kind to or not? The main criticism aimed at the XJ-S was it's styling. the XJ-S was first thought of as a mid-engined rival to match Ferrari and Maserati, but early on in development, Jaguar went back to a front-engined design, contrary to popular belief, the 'flying buttresses' behind the driver were designed for aerodynamics not for the engine layout. In fact, AutoCar once snook a look at an early prototype and said 'it was so ugly it would never make into production'. The engine was the same 5.3 litre V12 used in the E-Type and XJ12. Even with an automatic gearbox, the XJ-S could top 150 MPH and hit 60 in less ...
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20 Favourite Looking Racing Cars

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Motor racing has given us a variety of fantastic looking race cars over the years, from the days of Silver Arrows and Monte Carlo Minis through JPS Lotus', Skylines and Gulf McLarens to now. Some cars are beautiful simply because that's the way they look, other cars are beautiful through the pursuit of speed that won races and championships and some are just weird and quirky. This isn't a definitive list of the top 20 best ever, merely a selection of my favourites. Audi 90 IMSA GTO Hard to believe that this was an Audi 90 saloon, but that's IMSA for you. The 90 GTO has several nice design touches like the huge side exhaust, the solid alloy wheels, rear wing and it's livery full of slashes of black, grey and red. It's livery was so iconic Audi recreated it for the RS6 GT. All in all a menacing yet handsome fire spitting race car. Cadillac V-Series.R  Cadillac's endurance racer is iconic not only for it's ferocious 5.5 litre V8 but also it's stunning n...
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Alex Unleashed on Cars- Plymouth Prowler (Hot Rod for All Seasons)

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It's fair to say that nothing looks quite like the Plymouth Prowler. It was designed during the period when Chrysler was creating a multitude of retro inspired cars including not only the Prowler but also the Atlantic, Phaeton (not to be confused with the VW Phaeton), Dodge Copperhead (also known as the Dodge Concept Car in Gran Turismo 2) and Plymouth Pronto (which served as the basis for the Chrysler PT Cruiser), with the Prowler designed as a follow-up to the Dodge Viper, with the Prowler being unveiled in 1993, but instead of being a no-frills spiritual successor to the Shelby Cobra, instead, this was designed as a car that could be used every day. So, despite the bonkers hot rod looks, inside and to drive, it's very different, it only has an automatic tiptronic style gearbox with left for up and right for down, which means that despite having a healthy 3.5 litre V6, performance is not as extreme as the styling, in fact, a rather mundane Vauxhall Calibra Turbo would easily ...
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What You Need to Know: McLaren

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  McLaren for a long time was just a Formula 1 team, and a very good one at that, but they then moved into road cars with the F1, the Mercedes SLR and finally the MP4-12C in 2011, they offered a new technical and conservative approach to supercars and now the once outsiders are as a much a part of the supercar world as Ferrari whilst still being on of the top F1 teams along with a strong reputation in Can-Am, GT and Indycar. Here's all you to know about the company. Year Founded: 1963 (1985- McLaren Automotive) Founder: Bruce McLaren Important People: Bruce McLaren- A successful New Zealand racer, he came close to winning the 1960 F1 World Championship and did win the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 1967 & '69 Can-Am series, he was also a skilled analyst and engineer. Ron Dennis- Former head of the McLaren F1 team, he guided them through their highs and lows from 1981-2009 and was also the founder of McLaren Group, he served as a mechanic for the late Jochen Rind...
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