2012 Chevrolet Corvette GS Centennial Special Edition Review & Test Drive

The Chevrolet Corvette is one of the most unmistakable sports cars around. Being “America’s sports car” for upwards of 58 years, the Corvette has been a staple and benchmark for other sports cars to follow after. For 100 years Chevrolet has been in existence and to commemorate a century of selling over 200 million vehicles around the world, a new Centennial Edition package is available for the iconic Corvette for 2012.

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The Smoking Tire Drives The Art Morrison 3G Corvette

If you own Gran Turismo 5 for the Sony PS3, chances are good you’ve seen the Art Morrison 1960 3G Corvette. You may even own it, if you’ve got a bank account big enough, or you may have simply looked it over and opted to buy something more contemporary. After all, who wants a fifty-year-old relic when you can buy something really fast, like a Nissan GT-R, for less money? Read more

2011 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Review and Test Drive

‘SUPERCAR THRILLS WITH MONEY LEFT IN THE BANK’

The 2011 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 is the world’s only two-seat super sports car that costs less than $75,000.00 enabling you to save thousands of dollars to spend while enjoying the thrills of driving a true world-class supercar.  I love Corvette’s and this model is like no other on the market.  With its racing-inspired powertrain and suspension features, along with an aluminum frame and carbon fiber fenders and floor panels, it delivers world-class levels of capability and automotive high-technology.  With a curb weight of just 3,175lbs. it is the lightest, best-balanced Corvette model and one of the worlds most aggressively designed supercars on the market.  It is a blast to drive and increases your heartbeat just looking at it.

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Centennial Edition Corvette Z06 Hammers At $175k

Barrett-Jackson has had good luck selling the first available Chevy models over the past few years. Last year, I watched them drop the hammer on the first available Z06 Carbon, which sold to NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick for $297,000. In 2009, the first available Camaro sold for $350,000, but none of these recent sales top Barrett-Jackson’s price of $1 million for the first Corvette ZR-1, sold at their Scottsdale event in 2008. This year, Barrett-Jackson auctioned off a Corvette Z06 Centennial Edition, with the proceeds going to benefit the Austin Hatcher Foundation for Pediatric Cancer. When the gavel fell, the special edition Corvette had sold for $175,000, to – you guessed it – Rick Hendrick. Read more

2012 Centennial Edition Corvette Honors Chevy’s 100th Birthday

Louis Chevrolet, the man behind the bow-tie badge, was a race car driver long before he founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company in 1911. It’s fitting, then, that Chevrolet is honoring it’s 100th birthday with a special edition of the Corvette, the most-campaigned race car in Chevrolet’s long history. The 2012 Centennial Edition package will be available across the entire Corvette range, including the ZR1, and includes both appearance and content upgrades. Read more

Cars With Launch Control: Houston, We Have Lift Off!

[original post date: 02/10/2009] I honestly believe that the new Nissan GT-R has sparked quite an interest and crave for launch control. Many cars way before the Nissan GT-R have had their own system for a launch control either in a SMG transmission in the E46 BMW M3 or the Volkswagen’s early DSG found in the GTI.

The ultimate crave for launch control baffles me but you have to understand that I would take a full manual transmission any day over a, what Jeremy Clarkson calls them, floppy paddle gear box. Even with Nissans woes with grenaded transmissions in the GT-R, launch control is still a big hit. Even Hitler “had to launch it”.

Ever since the introduction of drive-by-wire, auto manufacturers have been toying with new electronics that improve upon the over-all safety of a vehicle. New systems come standard in many vehicles now such as dynamic skid control or also known as vehicle dynamic control or electronic stability control (name varies from each manufacturer). Many of these new systems utilize a combination of computer operated units from the ABS braking, traction control and accelerator control. I am sure if manufacturers thought they could play with these systems and make a car safer then why not develop a precise method for accelerating a vehicle with a computer to make it faster.

It is all a numbers game if you think about it. I am sure many car enthusiasts, including yourself, may have experimented with dropping your clutch at a certain RPM to get the full potential out of a launch from a dead-stop. Even you guys with automatics have almost perfected holding the brake pedal while stomping on the accelerator in preparation for a ‘launch’. What if your car could do this for you? Well, many new exotic and sports cars can but it does take the use of a special transmission or a manual transmission that is controlled by a computer, except in Porsches’ case with their newest launch control system on a full manual transmission.

Where did this idea and technology come from?

If you think about it, F1 cars among other racing cars were already using a type of the technology that we see in today’s cars fitted with dual clutch transmissions and SMG (Sequential Manual Gearbox) units. Racing is where it begins… most times. From the F1 cars now shifting well under 60 milliseconds to the Nissan GT-R’s dual clutch shifting time of around 200 milliseconds, computers have taken cars to a new level of performance where a human just simply cannot match yielding a much higher level of performance.

Cars with Launch Control

Many of the baby boomers know ‘launch control’ to be something only NASA quotes in the control room during a space shuttle launch. Now we can all experience a ‘horizontal’ launch in many of today’s technologically advanced performance vehicles.

So which cars have launch control? Below is a short list that we have compiled of all vehicles with an available launch control. If we missed any please post a comment below and let us know.

Please note: Some of the vehicles included on the list may only have a staging RPM setting which some may call “launch control” but it is not as involved as a fully automated launch control or uses a sequential shifting transmission (paddle shifter) such as in the Nissan GT-R.

• Audi R8
• Audi TT
• BMW M3
• BMW M5
• BMW M6
• Bugatti Veyron
• Chevrolet Corvette/ZR1
• Ferrari 360cs
• Ferrari 599 GTB/GTO
• Ferrari F430/Scuderia
• Ferrari 458 Italia
• Lamborghini Gallardo/LP560
• Lamborghini Murcielago/LP640
• Lexus LFA
• Mercedes Benz McLaren SLR
• Mercedes Benz SL63 AMG
• Mercedes Benz SLS AMG
• Mitsubishi Evo Lancer Evolution/MR
• Nissan GT-R
• Porsche 911/Carrera/S/GT2
• Volkswagen GTI/Golf/Rabbit/R32

Various videos demonstrating launch control below after the jump…

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VIDEO: Corvette ZR1 and a Lambo LP670-4 SV racing around Millbrook

This video is really amazing, you get to see two super cars go head to head! A ZR1 vs a Lambo? I wish I could have been there! In theory the Lambo should be faster than the ZR1, its lighter by about 60lbs and has 30 more hp, plus it has AWD. In the video the Lamborghini is being driven by a factory driver and the Corvette is being driven by a regular old auto journalist. This really makes you think that the ZR1 is one hell of a bargain! Read more

Automotive Addicts Meet & Show N Shine Car Show August 8th, 2009

So this past Saturday, August 8th, 2009 was another Automotive Addicts (AA for short ) car meet.

At the first show (9am) there were about 180 cars! It was a record turn out for us. There were a lot of really nice cars and lots of cool people.

Pictures are posted below to see more go to Here

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