Day: 7 May 2015

Categories
News

I’m back, what next?

Adenauer Forst, Nurburgring

I’m back from my overseas holiday. It was an awesome month away which saw me visit the homes of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche in Stuttgart, Audi in Ingolstadt, BMW in Munich and Volkswagen in Wolfsburg. And, of course, there was that sub-8 minute lap of the Nürburgring, plus the extra 10 laps I drove myself.

You don’t need me to tell you, it was an amazing experience, but it was! It was also a welcome rest from daily AUSmotive duties.

I often find myself in a quandary with the site; not knowing if it’s still providing value to the readers out there; not knowing if it should be bigger with more contributors; not knowing if I should just close it down and make better use of the extra time; not knowing if I should change the site’s focus—should it just be motorsport, should it just be reviews, should it just be news, should it just be something else?

One thing I’ve always wanted to see here is more comments from the readership. It’s a balance, of course, as a sole contributor I don’t want so many comments that it becomes tiresome to manage, but I would love to see more interaction on here as it gives a much better boost to my motivation than numbers on stats page.

Anyway, in the short term I guess I’ll slowly get back into the routine of things. And I will write updates about my travels. But here’s your chance to tell me what you like about AUSmotive, what you don’t like and what you might like to see in the future. Or perhaps you just don’t care. Either way, I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below this post or by email.

Cheers
Liam

Categories
Volkswagen

An update on the mighty Golf R400

Volkswagen Golf R400 Concept

Over the last week or so there’s been some talk about the Golf R400 being signed off for production. This is a good thing, I’m sure you’ll all agree, but it’s not actually new news. It’s over a year ago now that Car and Driver reported that Volkswagen’s powertrain boss Dr Heinz-Jakob Neusser told them the R400 would become a reality.

What is news is that the R400 might actually be an R420. That’s to say instead of boasting 400 horsepower it might actually have 420PS to play with. Dr Neusser is again the source of the latest discussion, as reported by Car.

“We have the Golf more sporty than ever before, since we soon will have the Golf R400—we will do this car,” Neusser confirmed. “We are in fact in development of it right now.”

So where does this R420 bit come from? Cast your mind back to the 2014 Geneva Motor Show and the Audi TT quattro sport concept. Yep, its EA888-based 2.0 litre turbocharged four-pot had 309kW or 420PS.

It may be that Volkswagen will leave Audi to the top-spec version of this revised high-output engine. For now, though, let’s pretend we’re going to see a Golf R420 because, well, it’d just be a bit cooler to comfortably exceed 400 horsepower in a standard production model Golf don’t you think?!

Even cooler is the suggestion that the production-spec Golf R400/R420 will debut at the Frankfurt show this September, with deliveries to follow shortly thereafter.

Bring it!

[Source: Car]

Categories
Formula 1 McLaren

McLaren updates MP4-30 livery

McLaren-Honda MP4-30

McLaren has a new car! Yes, a brand new MP4-30 ready to tackle the world’s best at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.

Alas, for McLaren, it’s nothing more than a new coat of paint. With all the problems the team is currently having with its much heralded Honda reunification you’d reckon the last thing they’d be concerning themselves with is the livery. Especially when it looks like a re-worked version of last year’s Sauber C33.

The original livery for the MP4-30 wasn’t much chop and this revision isn’t much better. If nothing else, and for McLaren’s sake, let’s hope this new livery brings in some better fortunes for the mechanical bits underneath the bodywork.

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