Mercedes Benz Car Show & Vehicle History
Posted by admin in Mercedes Benz on June 8, 2011
Mercedes Benz is a German manufacturer of not only cars, but trucks, coaches and buses. The company is a division of the parent company, which is called Daimler Benz.
Mercedes is one of the oldest car manufacturers and was established in 1886. The first Mercedes was marketed in 1901. Unlike many other car companies, Mercedes is most well known for introducing the latest technological changes, safety innovations and superb engineering into its cars. Mercedes has always remained one of the most prestigious car companies with a solid track record.
In the early days, Mercedes was also a racing car but did not fare as well as the other racing cars like Ferrari or Lotus. Today, Mercedes does participate in a few races and has done reasonably well. Mercedes cars have a come a long ways since 1910. Today, every type of Mercedes automobile is available and they are globally sold.
Mercedes Benz has also produced the sporting and innovative Mclaren cars. Valued at close to $ 500,000 the SLR is generally only seen at car dealership. Mercedes has been aware of the energy crises and has several hybrid models and more are planned. The F700 with the innovative diesotto engine has sold well in Europe. The S400 Hybrid is to be launched later this year. Read the rest of this entry »
Porsche Carrera GT – The Story of an Iconic Supercar
Porsche has since its inception by Ferdinand Porsche been a maker of high performance sports cars. Most notably the iconic 911 model which has continually evolved throughout the years to become a benchmark against which many other sports cars are measured. The 911 in all its iterations has been Porsche’s bread and butter, along with the Boxster and Cayman in more recent years. Every decade or so however, Porsche brings something special out of it’s factories. A supercar!
Porsche’s first two supercars were produced to satisfy FIA homologation standards. This required that 200 road legal cars had to be made and sold to the public in order for the car to qualify for racing in FIA sanctioned races. The first car was the 959 which was introduced in 1986. Looking like a heavily modified 964, the 959 however was so much more. It sported a 2.8L twin-sequential-turbocharged flat-six engine that put out 444 HP. This was put to the ground with an innovative 4-wheel drive system. A first for Porsche, which worked so well, a similar system was later adapted for use on the 993 turbo, and has been a staple of Porsche’s 911 turbo models ever since. In its day, the 959 was actually the fastest production car in the world, with a top speed of 200 mph and a 0-62 time of 3.7 sec. Impressive even today. The 959 continued in production through 1989.
The second Porsche supercar was the 911 GT1, which was based on a heavily modified 993 platform. Like the 959, it was produced and made available to the public for homologation purposes so that it could be raced by Porsche at Le Mans. The 911 GT1 was produced from 1996-1999. It has a water cooled twin-turbo flat-six engine that produced 700 bhp. With a 2400lb curb weight, the 911 GT1 was extremely fast. It had a 0-62 time of 3.3 seconds and a top speed of 235 mph. Read the rest of this entry »