Alex Unleashed on Cars

The pantheon of American supercars is a short one: Chevrolet Corvette, Dodge Viper, Hennessey, Saleen & Vector. Yet, in the late 90s, legendary racer and tuner Carroll Shelby, long associated with Ford, decided to make his own all-American supercar. If the Dodge Viper was a spiritual successor to the Shelby Cobra, then the Shelby Series One was the successor to the 60s classic. Styling wise it's a cross between a Lotus Elise at the front and a Marcos at the back. The engine is a tuned 4 litre Oldsmobile Aurora V8 producing the same power as a 5 litre TVR Griffith/Chimaera.  Elsewhere, despite Shelby's claims development was all in house, a lot of parts are from General Motors. including the instruments and stereo. Which brings us on to the interior, not a strong point for American cars, and it's the same here. You'd have thought a car made independently rather than by a big corporation would be able to make a bespoke interior in the same way TVR did. But no, the in...

You may have noticed that I haven't really discussed Formula 1 much on this blog. I have mentioned where necessary but never done anything specific to it. The reason for that is there are people with far more knowledge, insider info and insight than I have, folks like Bring Back V10s, Aiden Millward and AutoSport could probably do a much better job than I could. But there was 1 area I could discuss, and that was my favourite seasons, not the best, but the ones I like most: close racing, crazy winners and point scorers and the genuinely unexpected, for a sport than can be incredibly predictable and dull, it also has the capability of being the exact opposite. 1982 Drivers Champion: Keke Rosberg (Williams-Ford) Runners Up:  Didier Peroni (Ferrari) John Watson (McLaren Ford) Alain Prost (Renault) Niki Lauda (McLaren-Ford) Constructors Champion: Ferrari  Runners Up: McLaren, Renault, Williams, Brabham Favourite Race: Monaco GP 1982 will probably go down as the season that seemingl...

Vauxhall isn't really up to much these days. The last time Vauxhall did something exciting was probably the 2010 Astra. But 20 or so years ago, Vauxhall was cooking with gas. We had the VX220, Zafira mk2, Astra mk5, Signum, Insignia and the whole VXR range of cars that had a whiff of in your face attitude that could give even the Vectra a dose of excitement. But, i'm not here talk about them, as today's spotlight is the Monaro. The Monaro started as a Holden over in Australia since GM owned both Holden/HSV and Vauxhall/Opel at the time, the Monaro was later sold as the Pontiac GTO in the States. The Monaro is essentially a coupe version of the HSV GTS-R, which was briefly sold here until 2002, that car had effectively been a cut price BMW M5 with racing pedigree as a competitor in the V8 Supercars series, HSV had also sold the bigger Grange saloon which could be seen as a V8 Vauxhall Omega. The Monaro also serves as the basis for the HSV Maloo as well. Under the bonnet of t...

  Recently, V10 powered cars have been having a renaissance of sorts, since both the Audi R8 V10 and Lamborghini Huracan went out of production, there are no V10 engined cars on sale, the Dodge Viper went years ago, BMW, Audi and VW's V10 saloons left at the turn of the 2010s, the now revered Lexus LF-A was only a limited run supercar and the V10 NSX and GR-1 concepts by Honda and Ford never came to be. Everywhere you go in the motoring world, people are getting nostalgic and yearning for a V10 engine, they talk gaily about V10s in F1 and the various cars powered by the unique engine type, that only really gained traction as an engine type in the 2000s. But one car that stands arguably at the pinnacle of this is the Porsche Carrera GT, Porsche's 3rd flagship hypercar after the 959 and 911 GT1.  The Carrera GT may have spawned in the hypercar wave of the early 2000s that also gave us the SLR, Enzo, Murcielago, Ford GT etc, but it's origins oddly originate in early 90s Formul...

Very few people get to drive supercars, even fewer get to own them. Yet, I've just driven three of them. It's all part of Silverstone's Supercar Experience. Three cars, three laps each with a talented instructor by your side. Once the briefings are over your down into the pits, and needless to say my Jordan 7up shirt attracted plenty of compliments from the instructors. Toru Nakano was my instructor, a veteran of lower Formula and sportscar racing. The three supercars in question are the 2019 Aston Martin V8 Vantage, 2016 Ferrari 488 GTB and the 2018 McLaren 620R.  The McLaren was first. so me and Toru head out for a sighting lap round Silverstone's International Circuit since the other half is being used for a karting race. He takes it fairly sedately showing corner entry and braking points. So, lap over, we swap seats, climb over the big sills and sink into the bucket seats, it's time to experience 612 BHP in a car weighing around 1300 KG. To put this into context...

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...