Elite Auto Rental Blog

Here is my advice.  Read the headline to this article about ten to fifteen times.  Then go slam your head through a window, take some aspirin and re-read the headline a few more times.

At some point throughout this prescribed process, your brain should successfully navigate the intellectual mine field that is this headline.

 
What we know is that man dressed as Darth Vader from the Star Wars franchise and sporting a garbage bag for a cape, interrupted the proceedings at an England-based church that practices the Jedi Religion by hitting the leader of the Jedi church and his cousin with a metal crutch. 

Apparently his light saber was in the shop.

As if the story needed any subtext, the Darth Vader character claimed not to remember the incident as he had engulfed the better part of a two and a half gallon box of wine.  I’m guessing that would drive anyone to the dark side of the force!

Still want more?  How ‘bout the fact that the whole event was caught on the Jedi Church’s video camera that was set up to record an impending light saber battle demonstration.  I’ll bet George Lucas could create more than six movies with this material.

Truth, once again, a bit stranger than fiction.

All of this got me to thinking, just who is more bored in this scenario, the people (30 members are claimed to exist) who profess to practice the Jedi religion, or the guy who drinks a kiddie pool’s worth of boxed wine and tries to take them out? 

If that question doesn’t send you spiraling into an existential crisis, God help you!

I can’t help but think that if I could just get to these people, perhaps I could save them.

Perhaps I could introduce some level of entertainment into their lives that could spare them being the subject of future articles like this one.  Emboldened with all of the purpose of a U.N. relief worker, I set out to find the perfect diversion. 

And I just might have.

Seeing how all, or most of the players in this ugly scene were men, it would have to be a manly pursuit.  Also I wanted something that could hook them quickly and leave them wanting more.  Then it hit me.

What if I could take all of these guys on an exotic car tour.  Seem far fetched?  Let me explain.  The exotic car tour would keep them entertained for a full day.  It would involve them in an activity where drinking large amounts of bad wine is not permitted, and it could hook them into the whole exotic car thing.
 
For example, they may wake up in the middle of the night wanting to rent a Ferrari in DFW for the weekend instead of channeling Yoda for life advice. 

And if they get really hooked, they could even join an exotic car club for unlimited exotic car usage.
 
I pitched this idea to my friend Ron Sturgeon who owns a company that provides exotic car tours in Texas, a Fort Worth exotic car rental agency, and a Fort Worth exotic car club.  His reaction, “Our car club members tend to be very straight-up folks who just love exotic cars. They’re more into channeling Enzo Ferrari.”
 
Apparently Ron doesn’t share my burning desire to save these people from themselves.
 
Written by G.D. Gregory.  If you are interested in having me write stories for you or seeing my portfolio, please contact me at ggpsu@yahoo.com.

After four years of development, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4, as it will now be called, is ready for series production. The most exclusive sports car of all time is following in the footsteps of the legendary Bugatti, those universally-coveted limousines and unbeatable racing cars of the 1920s and 1930s which today are among the most sought-after creations from the early days of automobile construction.

This brings to an end the era of design models and concept cars which since the late 1990s have signposted possible paths to the Bugattis of the future. Design and technological concept have finally become reality in the Veyron model’s final form and will be available from the beginning of 2004 as a strictly limited edition of just 300 cars. Technologically futuristic and packed with creative engineering, the first Bugatti of the 21st century has arrived.

Merging the Past and the Future

The Bugatti Veyron 16.4’s home is in Molsheim-Dorlisheim, the French town where, almost 100 years ago, Ettore Bugatti began to realize his lifelong dream of being a car manufacturer. The new workshop is not just where the engine and vehicle are assembled and tested, it is also the place where customers collect their Bugattis and drive them out onto the streets for the first time.

The aim is to turn Molsheim into an all-round Bugatti center once again. While up to 70 new vehicles a year are built by hand in the new facility, neighboring specially-equipped workshops are the scene of expert restoration work on historic Bugatti vehicles. Both past and future have found a new home here.

High Performance

The car’s safety systems have been designed to cope with its extraordinary performance, acceleration and speed. The single-piece carbon-fiber monocoque alone scores maximum points in crash tests, while airbags give the driver and passenger additional protection. The high-speed tires designed specially for the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 (for vmax. > 350 km/h), sizes 265-680 ZR500A (front) and 365-710 R540A (rear), incorporate a further innovative safety feature in the form of the PAX System fitted to the wheels and tires, ensuring safe handling even after sudden pressure loss. Another Bugatti Veyron 16.4 component with a safety element is the rear spoiler. As well as providing the necessary downforce during high-speed travel, it acts as a kind of ‘parachute brake’ during emergency braking. Once precisely-defined deceleration forces are registered the spoiler tilts and the additional air resistance this generates reduces the braking distance to that of a lorry.

The Art of the Machine

The W16 alloy engine developed by Bugatti for the Veyron 16.4 will have a special and absolutely unique place in the history of sports car construction. Its design employs the space-saving VR principle with two particularly slender eight-cylinder blocks arranged at a 90° angle to each other.

1001 horsepower equip the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 with a level of acceleration unheard of in the sports car segment, propelling it from 0 to 62 mph in just 2.5 seconds and past the 200 mph mark in a mere 24 seconds. Thanks to its 923 lb-ft, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4’s enormous propulsive power is not exhausted until it reaches 252.3 mph (406 km/h): the maximum speed for which chassis and drive train have been designed. Any further performance escalation is limited by current design and construction.

Also unique is the power transmission via an innovative directshift gearbox. Without any interruption in the power flow, the sequential seven-speed gearbox transmits the engine’s power to the wheels via permanent four-wheel drive. Put simply, this means uninterrupted acceleration from a standing start to maximum speed: a feeling previously known only to jet pilots.

Exclusive, Classical, Functional

Both exclusive and highly functional, the interior of the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 will transport you to a world of your own. Superb leather, also two-tone if desired, quality metallic trim and beautifully designed and ergonomically laid-out controls characterize the Veyron cockpit.

The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 instruments, with a large central rev counter surrounded by four smaller additional instruments also conjures up memories of the marque’s legendary motor sport past. The deliberate avoidance of superfluous instruments and modern extras are an unmistakable statement of the car’s uncompromising sportiness.

Unchanged on the series version of the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 is the classical two-tone paintwork. The designers have selected five separate color combinations for the car: Each of the combinations features the bonnet, roof and rear in the darker of the two colors, with the sides and front wheel arches in the lighter color.
Base Price: 2006 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 - Approx. $1,700,000 (last update: 1/19/2007)

What you see above is the first rendering released of the upcoming spec racer that Ferrari is designing for the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport. If it looks familiar to racing fans, it should: the new car is based heavily on the Scuderia Ferrari F2004 grand prix car, which is a good place to start. The F2004 took the checkered flag at a dominant 15 out of 18 races in its epynumerous Formula One season, taking both the world championships (drivers and constructors), making it one of the most successful racing cars of all time.

We initially brought you news of the contract back in October ‘07, when at first it looked like Ferrari would “merely” supply the engines for the cars, later becoming evident that Ferrari was overseeing the entire design process as well, in conjunction with A1GP’s own technicians. Instead of the V10 that powered the F2004, the new A1GP car will use a Ferrari-sourced V8 producing around 600 horsepower. The monoposto is scheduled to run its first laps this coming Friday, when we can expect A1GP to release some new images and data on the car that its teams campaign starting next season. Follow the jump for the press release.

After the Moto Z8, it’s now the RAZR2 V9 getting the Ferrari brand name and design. Yes, Motorola has introduced the Ferrari edition of the RAZR2 V9 that will feature the Ferrari theme, videos, ring tones, and wallpapers.

The Ferrari edition of the RAZR2 V9 packs standard V9 features such as a 240 x 320 QVGA 262K color display, internal antenna, 2 mega pixels camera with 8x digital zoom, and touch-sensitive music keys on the external display. At the same time incorporating new features such as 45MB end-user memory, 2GB memory with an optional microSD card, support for audio and video streaming, video capture and playback, and version 2.0 wireless Bluetooth technology with support for A2DP and AVRCP profiles. Apart from Bluetooth, other connectivity options of the Ferrari edition include Micro USB, USB 2.0 full speed, 3G HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps wireless Broadband, and EDGE/GPRS. And also part of the added new features are messaging functions via MMS, email, SMS, and MotoSync.

Motorola plans to launch the V9 Ferrari edition only in Asia and Latin America. No information on the price and launch date has been made available yet.

By Marcel Michelson

BEIJING (Reuters) - Mercedes-Benz gave a peek preview of the GLK350 on Saturday, intended to challenge BMW’s (BMWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) X3 as the two German luxury carmakers take their fight to the booming Chinese market.

Both hope China offers enough wealthy clients to offset a general slowdown in the European and U.S. car markets.

“China is the second biggest market for the S-Class,” Ulrich Walker, chairman of Daimler Northeast Asia, said of the top-line passenger car of the Mercedes brand.

He was speaking at a presentation ahead of the start of the Beijing Auto Show on Sunday where BMW, the world’s biggest luxury car group, will also be out in force.

Walker said the Chinese market was set to top 10 million cars in 2008 after over 9 million in 2007.

The GLK350 is a sports utility vehicle marketed as dealing with bad roads while offering its occupants a cocoon of luxury.

The main German SUV lineup includes the X3, Audi (NSUG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) Q7, Porsche (PSHG_p.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) Cayenne and Volkswagen (VOWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) Touareg.

Among the SUVs, the GLK350 is a bit smaller and some media have described a concept of the model, the GLK Vision Freeside, as a baby-SUV.

The Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG Black Series seems to be the constant talk of the town in the automotive world these days. The car has been spotted everywhere from the streets of Stuttgart to the famous Nurburgring test track in Germany.

What we know so far: Mercedes-Benz has already admitted that the SL 65 Black Series will be the most extreme Benz ever built. Power will come from a 6.0L V12 twin-turbo engine producing 670-hp with a peak torque of 738 lb-ft. The engine will be mated to a 5-speed automatic transmission with two Sport shift programs with the second putting out quicker gear changes.

A lot has been going on about this new Lamborghini evolution, the Gallardo LP560 sure looks very impressive, it is obvious the styling of the latest Gallardo sybling was inspired by the stunning Murciélago LP640.

The overall look of this new V10 evolution is a lot more aggressive than the original design, with a deep front spoiler, cross spoke wheels (optional) and finally four massive exhaust pipes at the rear.
Both the front and taillights now use LED technology to ‘enlighten’ the road ahead and to warn people behind you are hitting the brakes which are optionally available in Ceramic version naturally.

But not only the exterior was worked on, the well known V10 engine now pumps out no less than 560 Bhp, hence the LP560 naming, while the ‘/4′ denoted the permanent four-wheel drive system known from the Diablo VT back in the early Nineties, the Gallardo LP560/4 is one mean looking machine, available in innovative matte colors when ordering it through the Ad Personam programme, in addition to the matte brown shade it is also available as matte white and matte black.

The Gallardo Spyder is not yet available in LP560/4 form, but we can expect this one to follow very closely as it is still selling very well today.

Well in advance of an official debut at the Paris Motor Show in October, Ferrari dropped a trio of photos of the 2009 California on the Web. Strongly influenced by the V-12-engined 599 GTB Fiorano and the 612 Scaglietti, the aluminum-bodied California sports the company’s first retractable hard top.

Beneath the hood, a 4.3-liter direct-injection V-8 produces 454 horsepower at 7500 rpm. Power is delivered to the rear wheels by a new seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. The company claims 60 mph will arrive in less than four seconds.

Ferrari calls the California an “original 2+ concept,” though two-plus-what remains to be seen.

Photos courtesy of Ferrari.

It’s been thirty years since Giorgetto Giugiaro penned a mid-engined supercar for BMW called the M1 (pictured after the break). The celebrate the company’s only mid-engined homologated racer (and perhaps to hint at such a car’s return), BMW rolled out the stunning M1 Homage Concept (literally rolled, because no mention was made of car having an engine or even an interior) during this week’s Concorso d’Eleganza at the exquisite Villa d’Este, on Italy’s Lake Como.

The car’s dramatic lines are clearly derived from the original M1 (and, going back a bit further, from the Paul Bracq-designed Turbo Concept of 1972).

Love it or not, the M1 Homage may presage a production supercar from Munich. Rumors are flying about a BMW-branded rival to the Audi R8, the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560/4, and the Ferrari F430, possibly using a mid-mounted version of the 5.0-liter V-10 in the M5/M6, tuned to at least 550 horsepower.

The Ford GT is on the short list of coolest cars in the 21st century, with up to 600 horsepower, killer retro looks, and Ferrari F430-beating athleticism. Buyers were more than happy to accept a limited edition Ford supercar, but many owners were less than thrilled with Ford’s corporate key and fob. While it sounds a bit petty, sharing a key with an F-150 just doesn’t scream exotic track star.

The creative key kit crafters over at ExotiCARe have remedied the situation with a limited edition kit that turns your pedestrian keys into a car starter worthy of a Ford GT. The easy to install kit is nothing more than silver-finish covers for your existing keys, which doesn’t exactly seem like $295 well-spent, but for those who can afford a $175,000 sports car it may be a deal. ExotiCARe is only making 350 of the kits, so there is an exclusivity factor, as well. Is $295 too much for nothing more than key decoration that you have to assemble yourself? You tell us after the jump. Thanks for the tip, Andrew!