How do you get the owners of head-turning cars to turn their heads? How do you make a Porsche 997 Turbo or GT2 better — not just different but faster, better appointed, more fun than it was when you excitedly took delivery of one of the world’s premier sports cars? Call CEC in Los Angeles: Claus Ettensberger Corporation, 10349 Santa Monica Boulevard, one of the great automotive tuners in North America and the exclusive importer and distributor for TECHART in North America. The 997T is the platform for the company’s GTstreet R and the GT2 for the GTstreet RS — platforms […]
KEEP READING >This Prancing Horse will gallop and lope for you all day and far into a Pacific-coast sunset. Unveiled at the Paris International Car Show in October 2008, the new Ferrari California celebrates the tradition of the legendary 250 California Spider. This all-aluminum Grand Tourer is not only the least expensive current Ferrari — a base price of $196,450, with an average equipped price of about $226,000 — but it’s an accessible Ferrari, offering in one remarkable vehicle muscular performance, Pininfarina styling, comfort, great handling and, of course, the panache of the marque. This is a world-class GT for everyone — even […]
KEEP READING >Want to ride happily into the sunset with one of America’s — one of the world’s — great sports cars? Ride over, then, to Sunset Ford, 9130 W. Bell Road in Peoria, to order a 2010 Shelby GT 500. When you take delivery of this very special ‘stang, you’ll find yourself making unnecessary trips for rutabagas to the food store, topping off your gas tank at 7/8ths or asking your significant other if he/she needs anything at Walgreens. This steed is a stud, and the road, even the quiet asphalt to the Circle K a block away, will look like Le […]
KEEP READING >Be different, be UNIQ! This difference you see, touch, hear, even smell, at UNIQ Motorsports, a member of the UNIQ group of companies, 3045 E. Main St. in Mesa, between Lindsay and Val Vista roads. It’s sensed through the speakers, the smell of leather, the stare of hand-stitching. Opened in October of 2008, UNIQ is a high-end auto salon that sells customized vehicles including Lamborghini, Ferrari, Rolls Royce, Bentley, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Aston Martin. The boutique also handles “niche” cars such as MINI Cooper, Smart Cars and Hummers. The UNIQ Team purchases the finest vehicles, then its expert technicians discuss each […]
KEEP READING >Audi is just now getting to 100. It’s new R8 5.2 FSI Quattro — blink! — just got there a whole lot faster. Ten cylinders, 525 horses at 8,000 rpm, 0 to 62.14 mph in 3.9 seconds, and a top speed of 196.35 mph. MSRP: $114,200–$123,300. This isn’t your Vater’s Audi, by any means, or his father’s. Did either have a Quick Launch Control program at his fingertips — catapulting him into automotive ecstasy — when the mood, and time, is right? The Bavaria car company, which produced an “Alpensieger” in 1912 to celebrate the young company’s racing victory in the […]
KEEP READING >Can the new Ariel Atom 3 top the AA 2? Ask Franz Forman. He knows. Franz and wife Emily own Forman Motorsport, 22515 N. 19th Ave. in Phoenix, the only authorized dealer in the Southwest for the Ariel Atom 3, an asphalt rocket ship that will contort your face with astronautlike g’s — and still make you smile. “The Ariel Atom 3 is really about creating a true sports-car experience for the driving enthusiast,” says Franz, whose north Phoenix shop also showcases select late-model, pre-owned imports such as Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Lamborghini as well as distinctive upgrade packages for these […]
KEEP READING >Zero to 60 in less than 6 seconds — and zero emissions. Irvine, Calif.-based Fisker Automotive is producing the Karma, a performance four-door sports sedan that performs for the environment as much as it does on the road. A plug-in electric-gas hybrid, the Karma is said to eco-responsibly zip to 60 mph from start in 5.8 seconds and attain a top speed of 125 mph from a maximum 403 horsepower. The car premiered at the North American International Auto Show in 2007. Shortly afterward, “Green Car Journal” named it a finalist for its Green Car Vision Award. This January in Detroit, […]
KEEP READING >The Fourth Phantom has arrived. The long-awaited Coupé completes the sixth–generation Phantom family, which includes the Phantom, Phantom Extended Wheelbase and the Phantom Drophead Coupé. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars began production of the motorcar last summer. This isn’t just a cosmetically different version, though, of the lead model. Designed for those who want to drive and not be driven, for whom the journey is the joy, the Coupé is the enthusiast’s Phantom — dynamic, agile and just a little rakish, incorporating what the legendary British carmaker calls “subtle but significant modifications.” “The Coupé is contemporary, cutting-edge, muscular and beautifully proportioned, exuding power […]
KEEP READING >The gavel is down: Everyone is SOLD! on Barrett-Jackson. The 38th annual Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction returns to the big white tent at WestWorld in north Scottsdale, Jan. 11–18, with a docket of collector cars for all budgets, hundreds of automobilia vendors as well as events for all family members. Bidders from the 50 states and a dozen countries are expected as well as some 300 credentialed media outlets and more than a quarter million paying guests. Leading the hundreds of vehicles scheduled to cross the famous B-J blocks is the 1947 Steyr-Allard racer owned and raced by Sydney Allard; the […]
KEEP READING >January 14–18, 2009: Set your stopwatches to Russo and Steele time. For bidders, consignors and lovers of legendary cars: The Ninth Annual Russo and Steele Collector Automobile Auction returns to the Valley for its ninth year — just south of the Loop 101 at Mayo Boulevard and Scottsdale Road. For five days in January, more than 500 European sports cars, American muscle cars, hot rods and customs will appear in the boutique all-reserve auction under 200,000 square feet of white tents. More than 1,500 bidders will vie for $20 million of the world’s great cars, including a one-of-a-kind 2007 Creative Workshop […]
KEEP READING >A $150,000-plus Porsche pulls up to your right at a quiet stoplight. You’re in your Griggs Racing GR40 ST and could extend a kowtow nod: After, all, you’ve been challenged by supposedly superior European automotive force. Instead, your custom Mustang smokes the classy Carrera. Next stop, the Porsche is ready with all six gears and hand-stitched leather upholstery. You deliver a smoke show again. Then, to show that your GR40 corners at the highest levels as well, you take a tight freeway onramp and kick Griggs’s g’s in his face as well. This is Bruce Griggs’s dream come true — and […]
KEEP READING >The “gallant one” from Lamborghini just got gallanter. Revealed at the 2008 Geneva Auto Show, the 2009 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 charges even more fearlessly than its predecessor with a new 5.2L V10, which puts down 560 horsepower at 8000 rpm and 398 foot pounds of torque at 4250 rpm. The engine, with FSI direct injection, based on owner Audi AG’s potent RS6 V10, is not only slightly larger than the previous version but is mated to a new transmission and its four-wheel rear-biased drive system. Lamborghini also says the LP560-4 is 44 pounds lighter than the former edition, which should reduce […]
KEEP READING >Only five fortunate drivers will own one. Only five 2009 Zonda Cinque cars will be built at Pagani Automobili in Modena, Italy — hence the “Cinque” (Italian, “cheen-kway”). You will need an armored car of American five spots, though, to own one of these carbon-fiber supercars, equal to the best of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. The ticket price for the svelte Italian mid-engine is $1.24 million. This street legal version of the race-only Zonda R carries a 7.3-liter V12, detuned, if you will, to 678 horsepower from that rocket ride’s explosive 750. Still, the Cinque accelerates, in equally galactic style, […]
KEEP READING >“The car has multiple personalities,” says a smiling Stan Briggs of the Aston Martin DBS. Stan is the brand manager at Scottsdale Aston Martin, a Penske Automotive Group dealership, which is awaiting delivery of the new luxury sports car from the Land of Bond. Excited AM-ers might want to rush down to 6825 E. McDowell Road as soon as the DBS lands. “For city driving, this is a very-easy-to drive coupe,” he explains. “Or, it’s a car that can be taken on a long trip with great comfort. On the track, due to the adjustable suspension, ceramic brakes, weight distribution, racing clutch, […]
KEEP READING >Michael Schumacher didn’t just drive the new Ferrari 430 Scuderia. The seven-time world champion honed it to Formula 1 excellence, adjusting gear-change timing, traction, suspension, stability. So, the 510-horsepower limited-edition supercar from the land of the Prancing Horse is directly connected to the racetrack, where it is as comfortable as it is on the freeway or a street in Scottsdale. Hence, the name that echoes that of Ferrari’s Formula 1 team: Scuderia Ferrari. Schumacher tested the V8-equipped mid-engine at Nürburgring, the great German track that sounds Wagnerian, mythic, a place for the gods. For sure, this car, with its extraordinary weight/power […]
KEEP READING >For sure, a 2008 Porsche 997 Twin Turbo is not a mild-mannered Clark Kent kind of ride. But after Evolution MotorSports smokes the tires of this great sports car into, and out of, its Tempe laboratory/ garage, it’s a super-car — prepared to mete out justice to bad street cars everywhere. Buckle up, grab your cape, and hold on for a trip across time and space. If you can catch up to him, ask Karim Mashouf of Beverly Hills, a 30-year-old entrepreneur. A former Bentley GT driver, he wanted a car that was more than its marque. Ferrari and Lamborghini? Just […]
KEEP READING >The Lady: Scottsdale’s Lynn Smith. The Beast: A Shelby Daytona Coupe from John Panfil’s Anthem Motors. Smith and husband Barry accepted delivery last October of the super-car from Panfils’s north Phoenix company. The continuation car is a natural for a woman who has loved horsepower since she was a child in North Carolina. A horse rider, she had her pilot’s license by the time she was 25. She’s also parachuted 99 times out of airplanes — two jumps with malfunctions. “My love for cars began when I was 16,” she recalls. “My dad used to take me on obstacle courses and […]
KEEP READING >A purpose-built go-cart for the street. That’s the 2008 Exige S 240 — Lotus’ quickest, most powerful street-legal production car to date — as described by one man who knows. Road and Track also recently salivated: “There’s absolutely nothing else remotely like it,” its writer noted. “This Lotus is special in a lot of ways when comparing it to anything else that is offered from other manufacturers for the street,” says Chad Wilkens, sales associate at Scottsdale Lotus, 7652 E. Acoma Drive in the Scottsdale Airpark. The family-run, no-pressure agency will also put you into a new Elise SC or an […]
KEEP READING >Tony Blair has driven the new Jaguar XF. Sometime in March, you can, too, at Scottsdale Jaguar Land Rover, 6725 E. McDowell Road. The former British Labour prime minister couldn’t comment, but he’d no doubt be joined by Conservatives across the aisle in acclaiming the new sports sedan’s convergence of luxury and performance. Almost 8,000 of his very proper countrymen have pre-ordered the vehicle which represents a new styling language for the Coventry-based luxury carmaker. “This exciting new vehicle will put Jaguar back on people’s shopping list,” says Michael Famileti, general manager of Premium Luxury Brands for Penske Automotive, which owns […]
KEEP READING >A Yenko, a Jag, a Cobra, and a Spyder. Scottsdale Photo Radar Alert: Drew and Josephine Alcazar have these sizzling-hot cars and 500 other collectibles revving up and rolling into town again. Their eighth Russo and Steele “Sports and Muscle in Scottsdale” auction-in-the-round returns to north Scottsdale Jan. 16 through the 20. Among their 500-plus consigned cars — most with reserve — will be a 1950 Jaguar XK120 Alloy; a 1971 Plymouth Hemi Cuda; an original, numbers-matching 1965 Shelby Cobra; a rare 1969 Chevrolet Corvette L-88; a 1966 Lamborghini 350 GT; a 1969 Yenko Chevelle; a 1973 Ferrari 365 Daytona Spyder; […]
KEEP READING >A one-off Italianized ’63 Vette, a ’35 very English Rolls originally delivered to très French Montreal, and a fire-breathing California-built Robosaurus: Where else but Barrett-Jackson? These two collectibles as well as 1,000 other muscle cars, classics, hotrods, and customs will be offered at the 37th annual “Worlds Greatest Collector Car EventTM” Jan. 12–20, 2008, at WestWorld in north Scottsdale. Last year’s Barrett-Jackson auction spun out record sales of $112 million for 1,270 cars sold at no reserve during the week, including the world-record gavel price for an American car: $5.5 million for Carroll Shelby’s “Super Snake” 1966 Cobra. Attended by 250,000, […]
KEEP READING >One day John Panfil may arrive as one of America’s car legends. To get there, he sells them. American Legends, 21242 N. Black Canyon Highway, specializes in home-grown race car classics you can park in your garage. If names such as Shelby AC Cobra, Shelby Daytona, and Ford GT40 excite you, as they have excited racetracks for almost 50 years, then pit stop at John’s place — and let everyone know you’ve arrived. At American Legends, you can purchase a variety of 21st-century versions of American supercars — classic lines with the finest contemporary components. His showroom and shop is on […]
KEEP READING >Three tons, 12 cylinders, two coach doors, four seats and a base of just over $400,000: one superlative automobile. The long-awaited Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé, which began as the 100 EX concept vehicle at the 2004 Geneva Auto Show, has arrived, but if you want it to arrive soon in your garage, motor on down — now — to Rolls-Royce Motorcars Scottsdale, 6725 E. McDowell Road. Only 300 of these mega-convertibles will be delivered in the United States, and the waiting list will put you in with kings and queens and business royalty, but you’ll have to have the patience of […]
KEEP READING >The Trident has made its points, again. Meet the Maserati GranTurismo. Grand touring cars combine power with roadability, strength with elegance, assurance with grace. They meet the road with the panache of a race car and the dependability of the family car. They’re long distance and short-trip to the market, regal as well as every day. They can show it off on the track, the autobahn — or to the in-laws, due in on the 5:15 at the airport with all of their baggage. The new four-seater from the great Italian automaker delivers all of these qualities: 405 horsepower from a […]
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