Latest news with #LeMans
Miami Herald
16 hours ago
- Automotive
- Miami Herald
Alpine to Launch 1000HP Hybrid Supercar in 2028 with Le Mans-Derived V6
Alpine, a historic French sportscar maker best known in the Americas as a Formula One and World Endurance entrant, is to launch a supercar in 2028. It will have around 1000 horsepower, says CEO Phillippe Krief. Most of that comes from a mid-mounted V6 driving the rear wheels. It's augmented by two torque-vectoring electric motors, one for each front wheel. The V6, Krief says, will be developed by the same engineers who do the Le Mans powertrain. The car will use aluminum and carbon-fiber in its construction. Alpine showed a hypercar concept called the Alpenglow three years ago, and afterward it ran, using a hydrogen-combusting V6 to explore this as a race fuel. It looked wonderful, but Krief dismisses the suggestion that the new supercar will bear a resemblance. He points out that the Alpenglow was built with the dimensions of a Le Mans car. "This will be a road car, very different." Krief was technical director at Ferrari before taking the Alpine job, so we might take him seriously when he mentions the SF90 in context of this Alpine supercar. Alpine is a member of the Renault Group, and recently launched two sporty EVs, a subcompact hot hatchback called the A290, and a fastback compact, the A390. The A390 distinguishes itself with a three-motor layout providing torque vectoring for claimed high agility. Total output is 470 hp. If you struggle to see the connection between two small EV five-doors and a hypercar, note that Alpine is launching cars to bridge the gap. For seven years, it has been building a sublime little ICE mid-engined two-seater called the A110. In 2026, a new A110 will launch. Although fully electric, it will be a true sports car. The battery pack will be split in two, some behind the two seats and some in front, to ensure the seating position is low to the road. It will use an in-wheel motor for each rear tire. Krief says vehicle mass will be about the same as a comparable piston-engine car, the Porsche Boxster. Copyright 2025 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Car and Driver
a day ago
- Automotive
- Car and Driver
The Beautiful New Cars You Missed from the Villa d'Este Car Show
Glickenhaus, the boutique performance automaker based out of Sleepy Hollow, New York (yes, the home of the Headless Horseman), is taking its Le Mans race car to the road with the new 007s. While the 007 LMH race car only competed for three seasons and struggled to measure up against the likes of Toyota, Porsche, and Ferrari, the small team managed to notch a podium at Le Mans as well as pole positions at Monza and Spa. The road-going 007s looks nearly identical to the motorsports version and packs a dry-sumped 6.2-liter V-8 sending 1000 hp and 737 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels via a seven-speed automated manual gearbox. Glickenhaus hopes to get the 007s in the hands of customers later this year, all while it ramps up deliveries of its 004 supercar.
Car and Driver
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Car and Driver
Mid-Size Monster: 1990 Shelby Dakota Tested
From the July 1989 issue of Car and Driver. Just when we thought ex-racer and specialty-car builder Carroll Shelby had completed his ideological conversion to the Church of Four Cylinders, having built and sold a long string of potent little front-drivers like the Dodge Shadow-based CSX (C/D, April), we find he's switched back to V-8 power. "I guess I'm going to have to give up on my four-cylinder crusade," Shelby explained to us. "And on my affordable sports car. Everything is so expensive these days." There is a bleak tone to those words from the Cobra creator and Le Mans winner. But we suspect it's a cover. It's as if Shelby were saying, "Nope, can't make another economy sports car with good gas mileage. Shucks. Guess I got to start building V-8 hot rods again." View Photos Dick Kelley | Car and Driver The new Shelby V-8 on these pages is most certainly a hot rod, but it's no sports car. It's a truck—Shelby's first-ever production truck. And it goes. Shelby's latest creation is based on Dodge's steady-selling Dakota pickup. Introduced in the 1986 model year, the Dakota is the Mama Bear of the pickup world. It's bigger than Baby Bear mini-trucks, smaller than Papa Bear farm haulers. Its mid-size configuration is important: most mini-trucks—including Dodge's Mitsubishi-built Ram 50—hold only as many passengers as a Toyota MR2. In designing the Dakota, therefore, Dodge specified room for three and a bed big enough (on long-wheelbase versions) for a four-by-eight-foot sheet of drywall. The perfect pickup, in other words, for disciples of Bob Vila and Norm the carpenter. The regular Dakota is available with a choice of two powerplants: Chrysler's 100-hp 2.5-liter four-cylinder car engine or a 125-hp 3.9-liter V-6. The six is actually a pared-down version of Chrysler's 5.2-liter V-8, which is used in several Dodge pickups and in the Dodge Diplomat and Plymouth Grand Fury sedans—the same big sedans you so often see lurking in highway medians with radar guns pointing through their windshields. View Photos Dick Kelley | Car and Driver To turn the V-8 into the Dakota's V-6, Chrysler had to offset the crankshaft throws—a move that's at best a compromise between strength and firing balance. The result: a relatively buzzy V-6. You-know-who wasn't about to settle for a buzzy, anemic V-6 in his latest concoction. Shelby never forgot about those two cast-off cylinders, so when he designed his Shelby Dakota he specified nothing less than the full V-8 for the engine bay. The throttle-body fuel-injected Shelby Dakota V-8 produces 175 hp at 4000 rpm—5 hp more than it develops in regular-size Dodge pickups and 35 hp more than in Officer Mike Rowave's Grand Fury. Space limitations, says Shelby Dakota project manager Joel Grewett, meant removing the 5.2-liter's cooling fan and mounting electric blowers on the Shelby's radiator. That single modification provides the extra 5 hp, Grewett says. Shelby Automobiles leaves the 5.2-liter engine otherwise stock, so no costly EPA-emissions certification work was required. Fitted with the V-8, this pickup suddenly has pickup. The Shelby Dakota hustles from 0 to 60 mph in 8.7 seconds, half a second quicker than the 4.3-liter V-6-equipped Chevy S-10 pickup. And if you really want to blow the grass clippings out of the load bed, the Shelby can punch a 113-mph hole in the air. That's only 4 mph slower than the nearly four-inchnarrower Chevy S-10 with the optional Cameo aero bodywork. View Photos Dick Kelley | Car and Driver The Dakota V-8 sends its power through a four-speed automatic transmission (also available on V-6 Dakotas this year) to a leaf-sprung live axle in back. No manual transmission is offered with the V-8, nor is the Shelby Dakota available with four-wheel drive. What you do get for the $15,813 base price is a choice of colors—white or red—a Shelby-ized exterior and interior, and the same heavy-duty suspension found on the V-6-powered Dakota Sport. In fact, the Shelby Dakota is based on the two-wheel-drive, short-wheelbase Sport. A stock Dakota Sport equipped similarly to the Shelby costs $12,237. What the Dakota Sport doesn't offer is the Shelby's thrill ride. Response to the right pedal is instantaneous: the meek should wear a neck brace until they get used to this pickup's off-the-line punch. Project manager Grewett claims this spunky truck will keep up with a Corvette for the first hundred feet of a match race. We doubt that, but we agree that the Shelby Dakota might surprise Chevy's sports car for about the first five feet. View Photos Dick Kelley | Car and Driver With all 270 pound-feet of torque on tap at just 2000 rpm, the Shelby creates quite a spectacle off the line: the two seemingly weightless rear tires spin into clouds of smoke at anything more than a slight jab on the throttle. Tromp on the gas at anything under 20 mph, in fact, and the Shelby will leave two black stripes as long as the Texas Panhandle. Once moving, though, the 3626-pound Shelby put the power down and accelerates cleanly. Happily, all Shelby Dakotas are fitted with a standard limited-slip differential—a mandatory traction aid in such a high-powered pickup. Unless, of course, you'd prefer to drive with a full-time bed load of peat moss. The Shelby handles reasonably well for a pickup truck. We measured 0.75 g of grip on the skidpad, which compare favorably with the 0.76-g figure turned in by the Chevy S-10 we tested last September. We noticed one peculiarity during our skidpad tests, however: the column-mounted automatic shifter moved itself from second gear to drive, and we couldn't shift it back while cornering. The standard heavy-duty suspension is not a kidney jiggler on the highway, but the ride is noticeably bouncier than a car's. The steering uses a rack-and-pinion mechanism—unusual for a truck. Coupled to a Shelby leather-wrapped wheel, the steering system is light, quick, and as stable and direct as you'll feel on most cars. View Photos Dick Kelley | Car and Driver Inside, two dash plaques (one with a serial number) fly the Shelby flag. There are also Shelby logos on the horn button, the floor mats, the seat upholstery, and the door panels. The three-person bench seat was obviously designed so passengers can ride with their tool belts on: it's flat, wide, and about as supportive as a scaffold plank. The Shelby Automobiles assembly center in California plans to turn out 1500 V-8 Dakotas annually; the first production models began rolling off the line early this year. That's the biggest yearly production run for the Shelby outfit since it built the GT350 in the 1960s. Why the sudden interest in pickups? When the Dakota was introduced in 1986, pickups sold at a rate of about one for every five passenger cars. Now that rate is one for every two cars. "I can't tell ya why they're so popular," Shelby admits with a puzzled tone. "I belong to the Bel-Air Country Club. About twenty of us play golf every month. Of that group there are three with daughters that have pickups. Not sports cars. It seems to be the in thing. Personally, I think it has a ton more character than driving around in a BMW." View Photos Dick Kelley | Car and Driver The trendy have discovered pickup trucks. It's new territory for enthusiasts too. The big-engine-in-a-small-car concept gave us the GTO, the Road Runner, the 442, and other factory hot rods of the sixties. And now we have the new Shelby Dakota, a truck born in exactly the same tradition. Because pickups by nature are limited in handling prowess, many makers are looking to improved engines for additional performance. Power is everything. The heavy-duty, full-size Dodge Ram pickup, for instance, is available with a 185-hp 5.9-liter V-8. And so we have the new Shelby Dakota: more food for the power hungry. Indeed, that hunger seems to be insatiable. We parked the Shelby Dakota at a large building-supply store, and the first comments we heard were: "What's it got? A 318? That's nothin'. Bet it'd run better with a 360 or a 440." Now that he's taken to V-8 worship again, we wouldn't be surprised if Carroll Shelby is experiencing exactly the same revelation. Specifications Specifications 1990 Shelby Dakota Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 3-passenger, 2-door pickup PRICE Base/As Tested: $16,498/$16,498 ENGINE pushrod V-8, iron block and heads, port fuel injection Displacement: 318 in3, 5210 cm3 Power: 175 hp @ 4000 rpm Torque: 270 lb-ft @ 2000 rpm TRANSMISSION 4-speed automatic CHASSIS Suspension, F/R: control arms/live axle Brakes, F/R: 11.4-in vented disc/10.0-in drum Tires: Goodyear Eagle GT+4 M+S P225/70HR-15 DIMENSIONS Wheelbase: 112.0 in Length: 189.9 in Width: 68.4 in Height: 64.2 in Curb Weight: 3626 lb C/D TEST RESULTS 60 mph: 8.7 sec 1/4-Mile: 16.5 sec @ 82 mph 100 mph: 32.8 sec Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 3.9 sec Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 6.3 sec Top Speed: 113 mph Braking, 70–0 mph: 213 ft Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.75 g C/D FUEL ECONOMY Observed: 13 mpg EPA FUEL ECONOMY City/Highway: 15/20 mpg C/D TESTING EXPLAINED
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
'We are making history': Indianapolis and Le Mans, two auto racing giants, now sister cities
When people think of the racing capitals of the world, it's common for Indianapolis, Indiana, and Le Mans, France, to appear in the same discussion. For more than a century, the two cities have welcomed millions of fans to witness pinnacles of racing with the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Now these two racing giants are finally acknowledging their shared bond and history with an announcement that they will become sister cities. 'There is something fitting about celebrating our newest Sister City of Le Mans, France, at the same time our city prepares for the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500,' said Mayor Joe Hogsett in a news release on May 24 about the commitment. 'While this new sister city partnership leans into our shared history in the world of racing, I look forward to seeing how the relationship between our two cities will grow in the coming years.' On May 23, 2025, Mayor Hogsett met with the Deputy Mayor of Le Mans, France, Sophie Moisy, for a signing ceremony at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. This will be the 11th sister city with which Indianapolis has officially formed cultural and economic ties. Indianapolis established its first Sister City relationship with Taipei, Taiwan, in 1978. "I am delighted with this partnership between Le Mans and Indianapolis. Our two cities share a common tradition of excellence in motorsport,' said Moisy in a news release. 'Every driver's dream is to win the 500 miles, the 24 hours of Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix. We are making history by uniting our cities and our people.' In years prior, Le Mans cultivated relationships with Indianapolis to promote economic development initiatives in its Pay de la Loire Region. The two cities are hoping this sister city partnership will help cultivate cultural and student exchanges. Contact IndyStar reporter Noe Padilla at npadilla@ follow him on X @1NoePadilla or on Bluesky @ This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Racing cities Indianapolis and Le Mans become sister cities
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
How to watch the 2025 MotoGP Grand Prix of France online for free
All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. TL;DR: Watch the 2025 MotoGP Grand Prix of France for free on ServusTV. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN. The 2025 MotoGP is shaping up to be pretty special. Marc Márquez, Álex Márquez, and Francesco Bagnaia are battling it out at the top of the standings, with all eyes on Le Mans this weekend. If you're interested in watching the 2025 MotoGP Grand Prix of France for free from anywhere in the world, we've got all the information you need. The MotoGP Grand Prix of France takes place at Le Mans. The 2025 MotoGP Grand Prix of France race starts at 8 a.m. ET on May 11. The MotoGP Grand Prix of France is available to live stream for free on ServusTV. ServusTV is geo-restricted to Austria, but anyone can access this free streaming platform with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in Austria, meaning you can bypass geo-restrictions to access ServusTV from anywhere in the world. Unblock ServusTV by following this simple process: Sign up for a VPN (like ExpressVPN) Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more) Open up the app and connect to a server in Austria Connect to ServusTV Watch MotoGP for free from anywhere in the world Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (2-Year Subscription + 4 Months Free) $139 at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get Deal The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but they do tend to offer free-trial periods or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can access MotoGP live streams without fully committing with your cash. This clearly isn't a long-term solution, but it does mean you can watch the 2025 MotoGP Grand Prix of France before recovering your investment. If you want to retain permanent access to free streaming sites from around the world, you'll need a subscription. Fortunately, the best VPN for live streaming is on sale for a limited time. ExpressVPN is the top choice for unblocking ServusTV, for a number of reasons: Servers in 105 countries including Austria Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more Strict no-logging policy so your data is protected Fast streaming speeds free from throttling Up to eight simultaneous connections 30-day money-back guarantee A two-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $139 and includes an extra four months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Watch the 2025 MotoGP Grand Prix of France for free with ExpressVPN.
