via TopGear.com:
Every day, something mental happens in Russia. Today is no different.
This is a truck. A big yellow truck. And it’s stuck in a river. There’s only one way to get it out - floor the blighter. Then continue flooring it until, like the Lady of the Lake offering up Excalibur, it extricates itself in a blaze of damp glory.
(Source: youtube.com)
This is the Hennessey HPE800 Twin Turbo Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8…
That 800 in the moniker stands, naturally, for how many horses have been strapped under the Santa-spec red bonnet. 805bhp, to be precise, that ride shotgun with 823 torques to give a 0-60mph time of 3.1 seconds. That’s fractionally, fractionally faster than a Ferrari 458 Italia. Mr Hennessey tells us it’ll do the standing quarter mile in 10.9 seconds, travelling at 130mph.
That massive 6.4-litre V8 gets rebigulated to 7 litres, treated to two turbos and mated to an upgraded transmission and torque converter. It also gets 20in wheels, much leather and Alcantara, a Brembo brake system, lowered sports suspension and a carbon fibre lip spoiler.
Just 24 will be built, with prices starting from £150,000 ($235,000).
Want to learn more about this beast? Visit TopGear.com
Truck. Snow plow. Jackknife. Close call. Very.
via TopGear.com
Yes, Smart has a new line of commercials out and yes, they never went away, but without a new vehicle to show outside of the fortwo, they had pretty much fallen off of our radar. And then there was this:
People of the Web, meet the Smart For-Us. It is a zero-emission, roofless pick-up headed for next year’s Detroit motor show, which kicks off on 14 Jan, 2012.
According to Smart’s logic, it marries the practicality of a pick-up truck to the 21st century reality of urban traffic. Which means it’s a miniaturised carry-all for the city.
At 3547mm long and 1506 wide, it’s the same dimensions as a Fiat 500 (but a lot taller), with a cargo area measuring 900mm.
It’s a strict two-seater - mimicking a ‘hammock-like’ feel - and the drivetrain mirrors the ForTwo ED, on sale next year. A magneto-electric motor with 73bhp and 74lb ft powers the For-Us concept, allowing a top speed of 75mph, and an estimated 0-37mph time of around 6.5 seconds.
Not bad, eh? Click through for more info.
When Jeremy, James and Richard had a go at building their own campervans, it didn’t go entirely well. There were fires. There were altercations with petrol stations. There were rubbish Bauhaus gardens.
But what if we’d been given a budget of $3,000,000 instead of, well, £3? We may well have come up with this - it’s the eleMMent Palazzo. And the roll call of gadgets is rather more attention-grabbing than some MDF and a few lightly soiled sleeping bags. We’ll give them that.
Visit TopGear.com for the full story.
