One great feature the Diablo VT has is a switch on the dashboard which raises the car enabling you to go over speed humps without grounding out. When you reach 20mph the car automatically goes back down again.

www.Auto-journals.com Lamborghini Diablo VT

Whenever I drove through places that my cars had a hard to clearing without scratching the bottom, I wondered how I would do it in an exotic like a Ferrari or Lambo… I seriously did not know they got such feature in a Diablo, very cool… LOL!

technorati tags:Diablo, Diablo VT, Lamborghini

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Oh yeah, I like it! We didn’t get the stupid moonroof to save the 90lbs, now the base model is 192lbs lighter! that’s awesome! Me likes!! I like the new door panels too, not sure what color to get now though.

BMW has released official images of the 2007 Mini Cooper (Mk II aka R56). As previously reported, the car will be offered in Mini Cooper (120 horsepower) and Cooper S (175 horsepower) guise. Both cars are powered by a 1.6 liter four-cylinder engine. The Mini Cooper reaches its peak 120 horsepower output at 6,000 rpm and peak torque of 118 lb-ft at 4,250 rpm. It features Valvetronic technology for an added edge over the previous model. The turbocharged Cooper S makes 175 horsepower at 5,500 rpm, and peak torque of 177 lb-ft comes at just 1,600 rpm. While the 2.76-inch-longer exterior is mostly evolutionary, BMW describes the new interior as “revolutionary.” For increased safety, curtain airbags now protect all passengers. Despite the car’s increased measurements, its weight has been reduced by 192 lbs for the Cooper S manual, 72 lbs for the Cooper S auto, 181 lbs for the Cooper manual, and 49 lbs for the Cooper auto.

2007 Mini Cooper, Cooper S (Mk II – R56) unveiled | Leftlane News – Car News For Enthusiasts

technorati tags:mini, mcs, minicooper

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Well my Evo’s Perrin “shorty antenna” got stolen, it was bound to happen, took almost 2 years for it to get stolen, so not bad… I am pretty sure it was taken when the car was parked at the Sunnyvale Caltrain station last night, Sherry had to go to SF to do some stuff and car was parked there til like 21:30, I didn’t notice it was gone until tonight at around 9 when I walked to my car at my work garage.

Good thing she removed my Valentine One from the windshield, otherwise I would probably be looking at a broken windshield and stolen Valentine One, that would cost a lot more than a Perrin antenna… Whoever stole it also knew exactly how to remove it and didn’t cause any damage to the base or the paint, so not bad at all!

Just ordered another one from LancerShop, hehe, should be hear next week…

Technorati Tags: perrin, evo

A British engineering firm has put together a high-performance hybrid version of BMW’s Mini Cooper. The PML Mini QED has a top speed of 150 mph, a 0-60 mph time of 4.5 seconds. The car uses a small gasoline engine with four 160 horsepower electric motors ? one on each wheel. The car has been designed to run for four hours of combined urban/extra urban driving, powered only by a battery and bank of ultra capacitors. The QED supports an all-electric range of 200-250 miles and has a total range of about 932 miles (1,500 km). For longer journeys at higher speeds, a small conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) is used to re-charge the battery. In this hybrid mode, fuel economies of up to 80mpg can be achieved.

Treehugger: Electric Mini: 0-60 in 4 Seconds: It Has Motors In Its Wheels

technorati tags:mini, mini cooper

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This is pretty damn cool…

technorati tags:f1, honda, formula1, formulaone

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Got an email invite to apply, pretty cool, I can customize the MINI on the card… hehe… I don’t need another credit card though, but if I knew about this card when I was looking a month ago I probably would’ve got one…

MINI PLATINUM VISA® CARD:

I’m gonna bring the Evo to San Rafael Mitsubishi this Friday to get diff and tranny fluid flush, brake/clutch line flush with Motul 600, and a free oil change. I just found out my car has “free maintenance”, but it doesn’t cover fluid flush until 30k miles.

I also got a K&N drop-in air filter coming in, and I need some new front tires as they are worn down to the wear bars (again!). After that my car should be ready for the track. 😀 I should probably get some dedicated track wheels and tires, coz these Advan A046’s only last about 1-2 weekends and they’re crazy expensive.

It really sucks to be without my tools and a garage.

SRM has been highly praised at the NorCalEvo forum, and they have a “speed shop” next door that carries good stuff like WORKS products. I’ve talked to a few of the SRM guys on the phone and they were all Evo enthusiasts, and best of all, they are very mod and track-friendly.

technorati tags:evo, evomr, evolution viii, evo8, hpde

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So we’re selling our MINI tomorrow, it will be a very sad day for us. But life goes on, and I’ve just built another one online, it’s pretty much the same car with the following exceptions:

• Limited Slip Differential (LSD), oh yeah baby, gotta have LSD!!!!
• price hike, damn, MCS’ are not cheap now, a reasonably-optioned one costs almost as much as an Evo9 RS, and there is no question which one I would prefer for myself!! a new one that is spec’ed similarly costs more than $2k more than what we paid 3 years ago
• getting the Sport Pack items a la carte; so we can get 16″ wheels instead of 17″, this is to save weight, and 17″ rims and Run Flat tires don’t go well with San Francisco roads. We can also skip the Dynamic Stability Control (DSC), I definitely do not want it, as it’s annoying as hell, I turn it off almost every single time. But we might add the DSC just for resale as most people would prefer having it than not
• I’m adding the Cold Weather Pack (CWP); heated seats and mirrors would be nice for San Francisco
• Rear fog will come from factory instead of DIY’ing it
• I’ll get the armrest from Classic MINI and install that myself

Most likely we’re going to wait for the MY07 cars to roll out, but we might not line up for the very first batch as I am worried about reliability with the amount of design (and motor) changes from 06 to 07. I know the MY06 MINIs will be damn reliable for sure, but we had owned one already, and it’s already May, by the time she completely settled in the city the MY07 models will be available.

Technorati Tags: mcs, mini, mini_cooper_s