News

BMW XM Label is the fastest hybrid at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb

The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is an annual automobile hillclimb held in Colorado, USA, in which BMW entered with the XM Label but failed to complete the climb. It was an infamous attempt for the Bavarian company, which decided to successfully complete the almost 20-kilometer long track in the second attempt. They succeeded in doing so with a time of ten minutes and 48.60 seconds, setting the best time in the hybrid SUV category.

The BMW XM Label is powered by a 4.4-liter biturbo V8 engine combined with an electric motor totaling 738 hp (550 kW) and 738 lb-ft (1,000 Nm) of torque. It reaches 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3.8 seconds with a limited top speed of 155 mph (250 km/h).

The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb course is 19.98 kilometers long and has 156 turns, and the finish line is located at 4,302 meters above sea level. The car was equipped with a roll cage and behind the wheel was BMW’s sports driving instructor Matt Mullins.

When it comes to SUVs, the record time on this track was set in 2022 by the Lamborghini Urus. Lamborghini achieved a time of ten minutes and 32.06 seconds.

Source: BMW

News

VW ID.7 Tourer

VW has announced the arrival of its first all-electric station wagon, the ID.7 Tourer. The car will be produced at the factory in Emden (Germany), where the ID.4 and ID.7 models are already produced, and the company did not reveal the date of the premiere.

The car will be built on a modular MEB platform that brings an extremely spacious passenger cabin and a lot of space behind the backrests of the rear seats. This means a standard luggage capacity of 545 liters, or 1,700 liters when the rear seats are folded down.

The published photos show the car covered in pixel camouflage that does not reveal any significant changes compared to the sedan presented at the beginning of the year. Also, VW did not reveal the car’s specifications, so we can only talk about the performance of the ID.7 sedan, which is powered by an electric motor with 286 hp (213 kW) and has a range of 382 miles in the standard version or 435 miles in the Pro S version with a larger 86kWh battery. VW has not released photos of the interior of the ID.7 Tourer, so it is assumed that it will be identical to the interior of the sedan version.

Source: VW

Auctions

2017 Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta is up for auction

At the 2013 Geneva Salon, Ferrari unveiled a limited edition sports car that was supposed to be the definitive Ferrari, the LaFerrari. Three years later, the open-top version of this model, the LaFerrari Aperta, arrived on the market. Only 210 cars were produced until 2018, and one of them, the 2017 Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta is up for auction.

LaFerrari Aperta is powered by a 6.3-liter V-12 engine (789 hp/580 kW @ 9,250 rpm) combined with an electric motor (161 hp/118 kW) with a total output of 950 hp (708 kW) and 664 lb-ft (900 Nm ) of torque, with a compression ratio of 13.5:1. Power is sent to the rear wheels via a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. It reaches 60 mph in just 2.4 seconds with a top speed of 218 mph (351 km/h).

The body of the car is made of carbon fiber, and the entire design focus was on the driver’s position, whose seat is directly attached to the floor and the rear firewall. It is equipped with a reinforced chassis, angled radiators to reduce cabin heat, a longer front air-dam to improve downforce, and a reconfigured angle for the butterfly doors, with correspondingly altered wheel arches.

This LaFerrari Aperta is finished in Nero Daytona metallic paint with Rosso racing stripes, serviced at authorized Ferrari dealerships, rarely driven and has only 2,072 miles on the odometer. It features a digital copy of the Ferrari window sticker on file, which shows that this car has extra equipment worth $113,000 (carbon-fiber hardtop and the carbon-fiber exterior package), which with the standard equipment gives an MSRP of $2.3 million.

Inside, the seats are upholstered in Nero leather with Rosso accents and embossed Prancing Horse stitching on the headrests. There is also a carbon-fiber and Alcantara steering wheel with its signature Manettino drive-mode control.

The car comes with the carbon-fiber hardtop and a canvas soft-top, battery charger, center lock socket, owner’s manuals, the OEM set of five-spoke forged alloy LaFerrari wheels, and an extended two-year Ferrari powertrain warranty.

The auction will take place on November 17 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the estimated value of the car is $5,300,000 – $5,800,000 USD.

Source: RM Sotheby’s

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