The British Have Arrived

Last week we talked about one of my favorite cars we have researched so far, mainly because it is an electric engine sports car.  But this week, we are going to talk about our first sports car based out of Britain.  This British-Luxury designed car is absolutely beautiful, being one of the top foreign luxury sports cars in the world.  I will now be presenting the one and only Aston Martin Car Company.  Literally, the British are coming but in a lean, mean British engineering mechanical beast.  Let’s take a look at the history of the company for a brief moment.

Reading the official website of Aston Martin itself, the original creator of the first model was Robert Bamford and Lionel Martin.  The first model was established in the year 1913 and got noticed when Lionel won the Aston Hill Climb in Buckinghamshire, England.  Not long after that showing, the company went from zero to a hundred miles an hour, moving their company to Kensington within the first five years of the first model’s appearance. 

There are four models on the line for Aston Martin this year, and no doubt, all of them are gorgeous and fast.  However, we will be focusing on my top two and then talking about my favorite of the two.  The first model is the Vantage, coming in at around $200,000 dollars.  That is the first model, and we already would have to open our piggy banks and deeply.  The other model is the Aston Martin Vanquish for the pretty price of almost $280,000, and is the car we will look further into.  As you can tell by the pictures below, the car is a very nice luxury sports car, and the specs are worth the look as well.  

Engine-5.9L V12 Engine

Horsepower-565 hp

Max RPM-6750 RPM’s

0-60 mph-4.2 mph

Overall, this Aston Martin British engineering is something spectacular for sure.  The look of the car is more luxurious than sports, but hey, whatever floats your boat.  I really like the look, though very different than most “sports” cars.  The engine is a V12, so honestly there is not much not to like about the engine.  If I had to rank this car, I would have to rank it about in the middle of all the cars we have done thus far.  It is a nice car, but not really comparable to some of the greats we have researched.

Tesla Tesla

After two weeks of not writing, I’m finally back to tell you about your very next dream car!  I understand that this blog is about fast sports cars, but this week I decided I would change things up.  This week, we will be talking about the future.  I’m talking battery-operated, autopilot stuff that will blow your minds.  The car that I am talking about is not the Delorean from “Back to the Future” crazy, but even crazier.  The Tesla Model S is now on the market and there are some pretty jaw-dropping features about this car.  But before the specs, the history is much needed. 

The car company Tesla was named after its developer, Nikola Tesla.  He imagined this company to be the car company that brought the future to us, making cars that could run purely and only on sustainable energy.  His engineers designed the first Tesla model in the year 1888, built with an AC induction motor.  It went from 0-60 miles per hour in a mere 3.7 seconds and could travel almost 250 miles on its electric battery.  This model sold over 2400 models and was truly the future emerging. 

Now that we know what the goal of the company was from the very beginning, let us see how they are doing with that goal, shall we?  We will be looking at the Tesla Model S P85D, which is of course, the most expensive model.  The model costs up to $105,000 dollars and is a mega pack of awesome.  The car is all battery operated and truly is bringing the future to us.  It has a very nice design, not really a battery-operated car design, but more like a Maserati type of look to it.  Look at the pictures below and come up with your own opinion on the look, and take a gander at the specs:

-0-60 mph-3.1 miles per hour

-Top speed-155 miles per hour

-with Ludicrous speed upgrade feature-0-60 mph in 2.8

-Horsepower-with ludicrous feature-532 hp.

The Tesla model S is honestly one of the most genius cars ever to be made.  The fact that all of these specs compare to some of the sports cars we have talked about is crazy.  Why?  Because let’s not forget, this is an electric car.  Hats off to the makers of the Tesla models, for it is truly a beautiful creation. 

The Boss Man

You guys are in for a special treat today.  I absolutely love learning about all of these sports cars and it has been so enjoyable.  But it is now time to get to the best looking sports car in the history of all sports cars.  I have absolutely loved this car ever since I was a little boy, and I have always wanted one.  Yes, that dream absolutely came true, and I talked about it at the beginning of the blog.  We are going to talk about the true beast the Ford Mustang.

The car was initially visualized in early 1961, and the vision was to be able to fit four people in a car that was less than 180 inches long.  The designers got to work and had the first Mustang roll off a lot in Dearborn, Michigan, in 1964.  Fun fact, this was the best product launch ever in the history of automobiles.  Can you think of any other car ever to come out with its launch as successful as the Mustang?  Although even the original automobiles were pretty slick, I love talking about the new ones. 

There were a lot of varied models made in 2016.  They made a standard V6 engine model, a GT, the GT premium model, and the Shelby model.  You can buy the standard V6 engine model for as low as $23,000, and the GT for as low as $31,000.  But the model we will be looking at is topped out at about $62,000, which is the Shelby Mustang GT350R.  Below are a few specs I acquired from Ford’s official website along with a couple of pictures of the car:

-Engine-5.2L Ti-VCT V8 with Flat Plane Crank

-Manual 6-speed transmission

-Horsepower-526 horsepower

-0-60 mph-3.9 seconds

The Ford Mustang is one of the most classic sports cars in the whole world.  It has a classical American feel to the car, and they take pride in that fact.  They make cars that look cool and drop jaws on a daily basis, no matter how old the car is.  My car is a 2003 Mustang, but yet everyone thinks my car is pretty sweet.  The new Mustang is a beautiful car, and very affordable for people.  It is one of the sports cars that lends a hand and says, “we made a model for all incomes, including yours.”  Overall, this is still my favorite sports car, and I believe it always will be.

Spyder Up the Highway

The first model of Porsche was made in 1900 by the famous Ferdinand Porsche.  Only six years after, the Porsche company came out with its first racing car, winning races daily.  In 1937, the racing name, Porsche still was one of the best brands in the world, but interestingly enough, they had one of the best tractors on the market that year.  The company also has started to make motorcycles and engines for them, making incredibly plenty diverse across all motor engines.

Alright, back to the future once with Porsche.  They have created nearly all types of models including a sports car, luxury car, sports utility, and a Chevrolet Traverse type of car.  All of them are very reliable and expensive, but what else is new?  The one model that I will be talking about today is the 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder.  Below is a couple of pictures of the model and a couple specs from Porsche’s website:

-Engine-4.6 Liter V-8

-0-60 mph-below 2.8 seconds

-0-125 mph-below 8 seconds

-Horsepower-887 Horsepower

-Total torque-940

I cannot tell you why or how, but it seems like when I do an American sports car followed by a foreign one; the American one seems just on a level below.  The Porsche 918 Spyder is a needle-in-a-hay-stack of sports cars.  It has a beautiful, yet classical design that makes it good looking to all ages.  The respect from the older generation, and the “oh yeah” from the younger.  The engine is a wonder by itself, along with being able to switch from a gas engine to in electric mode.  This is the first sports car we have done that has an electric power option.  In my opinion, that is an amazing design to include in a sports car design.  Also, this is a great car and worth the $800,000 dollars, for sure. 

Corvette for the Win

After all of these weeks thus far, I'm finally going to write about my favorite sports car as of late.  The Chevrolet Corvette is a lean, mean, beast mode machine ready to win street light races to Indy 500 races.  One of its biggest American sports car rivals is the Camaro, which we previously talked about.  But in my opinion, the Corvette is going to kick the Camaro’s butt over the next couple years.  But in order to prove my point, let's talk about the Corvette and its history.

In 1950, the owners of the Chevrolet Motor company figured they had a good line of cars but we're missing something.  A sports car is something they thought would help them make them even more money, along with making them more of a diverse car company.  So once they thought of that, Chevrolet created the Corvette in 1953, and they were well set as a successful car company.

On to the future models of the Chevrolet Corvette.  They came out with two models in the 2016 line.  The first model is the Corvette Stingray.  I love this model because an orange and black stingray drives around Midland all the time, and it is a sweet looking car.  The next model is the Corvette Z06, one of the most beautiful cars in the world now.  The cost is somewhere around $79,000.  The car kept the slick, skinny but muscular build, and got rid of the circle lights in the rear.  They replaced those lights with a sweet new design that you will see in the pictures below along with some specs that I got from Chevrolet’s website:

-Engine-6.2L Supercharged V8 DI

-0-60 mph-3 seconds

-Horsepower-650 hp

-Height-48.6 in.

-Length-177.90 in.

-Maximum RPM-6400 rpm

The Corvette that we looked at today.. Wow, I find myself speechless.  The car is an American made great car.  One of the most impressive features is the 650 horsepower, which beats the Camaro by 105 hp.  The car goes faster than the Camaro, going from 0-60 mph much faster.  In the long run, what else do you need to know other than that to convince you to buy a Corvette instead?  Exactly, which is why I would suggest this car right away over almost any other car I have done on this blog already.  Bold move, I know, but I definitely believe this car is worth your time and investment.

LaFerrari-Yes Please

Did anyone other than me collect Hot Wheels cars when they were growing up?  What was your favorite car to collect?  I remember I had a lot of them, but the one I had the most of was Ferrari models.  They were my favorite to collect for too many reasons to count.  But in honor of that childhood memory, we will be talking about the Ferrari this week.  I learned a lot more about the Ferrari car brand this past week in order to write this, so I hope my knowledge helps you as well.

In order to do this correctly, of course we need to talk about the history of the company.  The creator of the company, Enzo Ferrari, was born in 1898.  The first Ferrari model that he came out with was the Ferrari 125 S.  It was originally created to be a racing car and not a street car, but as you'd guess, the people spoke and wanted it to be available for normal driving.  The moment it became available to the public, the Ferrari manufacturer boosted, and it launched them into being one of the top car brands in the world.

Now let's look at new models, shall we?  The new model goes by the name of the Ferrari California T.  With lots of cool features, my favorite would have to be the convertible hard top.  Because I have a soft top convertible, I know that a hard top is better since it doesn't leak water.  But the model we will be talking about more is the Ferrari LaFerrari.  According to the website, this model is the “most poised to be the king of all other exotic sports cars.”  Yes, but let's see if they can back up that kind of talk.  Here are some specifications on their model which I found at caranddriver.com:

-Horsepower: 789
-Engine: V12 electric motor
-Speed 0-60 mph:  2.5 seconds
-Speed 0-100 mph: 4.8 seconds
-Speed 0-150 mph: 9.8 seconds

Wow, this is a beautiful car, isn't it?  I don't know if anyone else caught it, but did you see that it has a V-12 electric engine?  Yes, I said electric.  This is also the closest car to a Lamborghini in terms of acceleration, only 0.2 seconds behind.  Overall, this car is a beast of a machine.  For the guys, it goes pretty dang fast and looks very masculine.  For women, it has a pretty look to it that all your friends would love.  I really developed a love for this car when I was young, but this just adds to that love.  What a great car!

A Jaguar's Life

The other day I was sitting on my couch watching the MSU vs. Rutgers game, and this commercial for the jaguar came on.  I loved how their angle for the commercial was using villains pronouncing the word “jaguar” in a funny way.  As you would assume, this inspired me to write about the jaguar this week.  Before this blog’s research, I myself only knew it was a luxury and sports car company.  I was shocked with a couple things about their sports car, and I think you will be too.

As far as history goes, jaguar is probably one of the funniest we have examined yet.  This company started out in the side cart business for motorcycles in 1922.  Yes, you read that right, they started out by making side carts for motorcycles.  Going forward, it took Jaguar about 49 years, but it got to the point they started to make full-size cars.  After that, they kept going forward, and now they are making luxury and sports cars.

As usual, here is the list of 2015 Jaguar Models.  The first model is the the standard F-Type, which starts at about $65,000.  The next model is the F-Type S which starts at about $77,000.  Model number three is the F-Type S AWD which is starting at about $85,000.  The last model, and the one we will be looking into greater detail, is the F-Type R which starts at about $104,000.

Upon closer examination, we find the 2015 Jaguar F-Type R.  The reasons we are looking at this model that it is the most expensive Jaguar model and the fastest Jaguar model.  Great reasons, I know.  Here are a few pictures of this beauty and some specs I found from Jaguar’s official website:

 0-60 mph-3.9 Seconds

Top speed-186 mph

Overall mpg-18

Engine-V8 5.0 L

Horsepower-550

Length-176 in.

Width-74.2 in.

Height-51.6 in.

This Jaguar really impressed me in more than one way.  I like the style of the vehicle, kind of small, but at the same time dynamite.  I like that it is a V8 5.0 liter engine, meaning it's a very strong vehicle.  I love the fact that even though it's not the biggest engine, its maximum speed topping at 186 miles per hour along with great acceleration speed.  I'm happy there is a car like this out there that proves you don't have to have the “baddest” engine in the business to be fast and furious.  Overall, I think this Jaguar model is a great looking performance car.