ferrari

It apparently took eight Ferraris, a Lamborghini, and two Mercedes-Benzes to bring down one Prius on a Japanese freeway.

Supercar crashes always fascinate us due to the forced disassembling of a very expensive piece of engineering, and some secret glee at observing the poor driving skills of the very wealthy. But this crash in Japan takes the cake, as it involved not one, but eight Ferraris, a Lamborghini, and two Mercedes-Benzes. Oh, and one poor Prius seems to have gotten caught up in the crash.

According to reports, the drivers were convoying to a supercar meet-up, when the driver of … Read more

Some of Ferrari's most recent models seem to have lost their way. Not this one.

At the 2011 Frankfurt auto show, Ferrari unveiled the 458 Spider, a sleek convertible that just happened to win the coveted International Engine of the Year award. Not a bad two-fer.

(CNET's full coverage of the 2011 Frankfurt auto show)

Thrustmaster has announced an authentic, life-size controller modeled after a Ferrari 150 Italia Formula 1 racing wheel. The replica is covered with buttons, switches, and dials, as well as two F1-style "push and pull" metal shifters. It's designed as a replacement wheel for the company's existing T500 RS racing system featuring 1,080-degree rotation, powerful force-feedback and a heavy-duty metal footrest.

A full setup will cost close to $800 ($199 for the F1 wheel and $599 for the T500 RS), which can be hard to stomach for most gamers even though it is PC- and PS3-compatible. But for that price, you do get an advanced PC mode that supports 25 action buttons and a directional pad for race simulation junkies. The Ferrari F1 Wheel add-on will be launched in early October.

(Source: Crave Asia via Ubergizmo) … Read more

At the International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Harman International demonstrated Aha app integration it developed for Ferrari. It's a big-name client for a little-known product, and may herald future Aha implementation with other automakers.

Aha gave CNET an exclusive look at the implementation ahead of the Frankfurt auto show.

Using an iPhone running the Aha app and connected to the Ferrari head unit, a number of cloud-based services became available, such as Slacker, Yelp, Twitter, and traffic reports. If you touch the Aha tab on the head unit's audio screen, the list of services appears in a vertical … Read more

Money buys a lot of things. Rake together enough dough and it can buy you the $226,000 Ferrari 458 Italia--an impressive bit of Italian engineering on wheels with a Pininfarina-penned design that would be seriously difficult to improve upon.

However, the 458 Italia owner in the video below proudly proves that if there's one thing that money can't buy, it's taste. He (or she) has fitted the Italian supercar with underglow lighting and strobes that would look right at home on the set of 2001's The Fast and the Furious. Check out the video below … Read more

LOS ANGELES--A varied collection of new and custom cars rolled into this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo to promote car-friendly games and hype 2011 models appealing to younger drivers with a little money to burn.

Automakers know they have a captive E3 audience in the much-beloved "young adults with disposable income" demographic as the game mega convention invites only professionals connected to the industry. So car companies put their new, tech-enhanced midrange models on display in hopes that attendees will head their way with their game industry paychecks.

This year's E3 featured an interesting cross-marketing scheme enabling players of EA games such as Sims 3 and Monopoly to download cars on display--like the 2011 Prius or the 2011 Ford Fiesta Platinum--directly into the games as playable options.

Last year's E3 served up more extreme super cars on the floor as EA's Need for Speed line rolled out new titles for consoles and mobile devices, opening the door for the appearance of the rare Pagani Zonda F and Mercedes Benz AMG SLK. But this year saw THQ choose a beat-up, aging Honda Civic owned by Enrique Trinidad of Henderson, Nev., for a complete overhaul to promote its Saints Row 3 game.

For a look at the cars of E3 2011, see our gallery below.

… Read more

At the 2011 International Engine awards, Fiat's little 875cc TwinAir engine won three categories and took home the overall 2011 International Engine of the Year award. BMW took four categories with four different engines, while Audi, Ferrari, and Volkswagen each made good showings.

Fiat's engine ekes 85 horsepower from two cylinders using a turbocharger, and only produces 95 grams per kilometer of CO2. Fiat uses the engine in its 500 model, but U.S. versions of that car are likely to get the 1.4-liter Multiair engine.

Here are the various categories, with their respective winners:

• 2011 International … Read more

As a herald of an electric-car future, jurors for the World Car Awards named the Nissan Leaf as the 2011 World Car. The New York auto show is the yearly venue for the announcement, which also includes awards for performance, design, and environmentalism.

That latter category, the World Green Car, went to the Chevy Volt this year. The Nissan Leaf was a runner-up for the Green award.

The top three competitors for the World Car Award were the Nissan Leaf, Audi A8, and BMW 5-series. The jurors commented that "The Leaf is the gateway to a brave new electric … Read more

Linton Weeks' March 5 National Public Radio article, "Whatever Happened To The Audiophile?" questioned the pursuit of better sound. It was one of too many articles written by an outsider who had no idea of what he was talking about, but that didn't stop Weeks from making his case for the demise of audiophilia. Weeks spoke to the usual suspects--professors, industry spokespeople, and even an audio journalist or two--but the tone of the article was skewed. It presented audiophiles as oddities, people desperately clinging to their hi-fis, while everyone else is happily listening to music over the … Read more