Performance

DETROIT--Lamborghini's drivetrain wizards say they have all the horsepower they need for their superfast cars. So from here on, performance gains will come from using lighter materials to reduce vehicle weight, instead of from chasing more engine thrust.

"It has come to the point where acceleration equals consumption," said Stephan Winkelmann, CEO of the Italian automaker. "More consumption means increased CO2 emissions."

Winkelmann, who fears future government regulations could restrict engine performance, said Lamborghini's R&D spending will emphasize taking weight out of vehicles.

The pursuit of top speed is limited by the physics of aerodynamic resistance, Maurizio Reggiani, Lamborghini's R&D chief, said in an interview this month at the Detroit auto show. Once a vehicle reaches 211 mph, there is a declining rate of return for each additional horsepower needed to push the vehicle faster, he said.

Also, there are few places in the world where a driver can go that fast. So Reggiani said Lamborghini will focus on acceleration instead of top speed. The most effective way to do that, he said: take weight out of the car.

"The weight-to-power ratio will be the key factor," Reggiani said. "We will use composite materials in the right place, when it also has the right cost, stiffness and mechanical characteristics."

That could prove to be an expensive solution. Lamborghini has used mostly high-strength steel in its vehicles' structures and body panels. But Reggiani said the automaker will make greater use of aluminum and carbon fiber. … Read more

Last week, we showed you Toyota's FT-86 G Sport concept and highlighted a very cool feature called "GPS-track day" that allows users to playback GPS replays from a real life racetrack session on their copy of Gran Turismo 5 for the PS3. Polyphony Digital, maker of the Gran Turismo franchise, has released even more information about the system and a demo video. As it turns out, there's more to it than just GPS positioning.

The proper name for the "GPS-track day" feature is Gran Turismo Data Logger Visualization. When an appropriately equipped car is … Read more

This video of the 2012 Ford Focus popped up on YouTube yesterday. The Focus will, no doubt, be the talk of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Both the four-door sedan and five-door hatchback body styles of the next-generation Focus will be previewed at the show.

According to an announcement today on Ford's Web site, the company is showing a "completely new 2.0-liter gasoline engine for the North American market that features DI and Twin Independent Variable Camshaft Timing (Ti-VCT) for enhanced performance and fuel efficiency. The new 2.0-liter DI Ti-VCT engine is up … Read more

A few weeks ago we got the opportunity to drive the 2010 Bentley Continental Supersports. When we get a particularly nice car such as this one, we like to take it somewhere special. And with the sculpted body of this coupe, the sights of San Francisco seemed the appropriate background for many photo opportunities. We drove the car along San Franciscco's 49-mile Scenic Drive, a route that winds through the city, hitting the major attractions, stopping the car where we could.

OK, we are going to get something out of the way from the beginning. The 2010 Bentley Continental Supersports may be the most extreme example of sport luxury available today, putting mere BMWs to shame, but its navigation system is terrible. The maps are very low resolution and, stored on a DVD, are slow to refresh and calculate routes. This navigation system lacks all but the most basic features, with no external data feeds or text to speech. It really doesn't belong in this car.

Let that rest as our main criticism so we can get to the good stuff, which is just about everything else.

Bentley has offered several variations of its Continental coupe since its introduction in 2003, but the Supersports model exhibits the purest level of performance. Bentley tweaked the already massive engine for more power, fitted wheels with big carbon ceramic brakes, and shed 243 pounds of weight, most notably by removing the rear seat.

And you really don't want a rear seat in this car, as you would resent any passengers back there for being a drag on performance, while they would unfriend you on Facebook for being relegated to such cramped quarters.

We were actually a little surprised at the manageable size of this car, making it easy to maneuver through parking garages and dense urban streets. Despite its smallish size, the body is a head-turner, with external lighting nicely molded into the body and the signature wire Bentley grille. The glossy black 20-inch wheels added to this car's unique look.

Of course, the engine also announces the Continental Supersports arrival with a throaty roar. When we pushed the start button, the engine's 12 cylinders began to pump, air was forced into the manifold from twin turbos, and 6 liters of displacement hosted precisely timed explosions that turned the driveshaft with 621 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque.

This kind of power means you can lightly tap the gas pedal and find yourself far ahead of the pack of traffic sitting back there at the light, the drivers just putting their cell phones down so they can get back to the business of driving. Put the gas down a little harder and you push up to freeway speeds, the car showing very little effort. Introduce the pedal to the floor and you've begun a career in amateur rocketry. … Read more

BMW's X6 is a bit difficult to digest, a coupelike body with the proportions and stance of an SUV, managing to lose the virtues of both types of vehicles. And now BMW has given it the M treatment, putting a massively powerful engine under the hood and fitting the suspension with all sorts of ingenious gear to make this vehicle handle like a sports car. Its greatest asset may be that it defies easy categorization.

Cabin tech is good, with really beautiful maps in the navigation system, but we do think that a $90,000 car should have an … Read more

The BMW Z4 sDrive35i is an excellent sports car. However, BMW's engineers, who must experience self-critical dreams every night about how much smoother a valve could be or whether changing the timing of a spark by a millisecond might improve combustion, couldn't leave it as is. They developed the 2011 BMW Z4 sDrive35is, a higher performance version of BMW's roadster.

Like the sDrive35i, the new roadster uses a twin turbo 3-liter straight six cylinder, but BMW fitted it with a new twin turbo unit to crank up the horsepower from 306 to 335, with torque up from … Read more

Every car enthusiast worth his or her salt wants to attend events like the Indy 500, 24 Hours of LeMans, and Monaco Grand Prix, or, for fans of classics, the Monterey Historics, Goodwood Revival, or Mille Miglia Storica. But these are generally expensive propositions even for spectators, and forget about participating if you're not an excellent race driver or millionaire, preferably both. Cars are about glamour and going fast, sure, but life is about getting there and enjoying the ride along the way. This collection celebrates some lesser-known automotive competitions for which humor and good old-fashioned fun are essential … Read more

The phrase "hybrid supercar" gets plenty of use these days as a variety of automotive start-ups combine electric motors and gas engines to get outstanding 0 to 60 mph times, usually combined with claims of world-beating range on a single tank of gas. And we get excited every time we run across a new one. That's why a news release from Kepler Motors spiked our adrenaline when we saw it in the Monday morning in-box.

Kepler developed the Motion, a concept hybrid to debut at the 2009 Dubai International Motor Show. What's interesting about this car … Read more