Saturday, September 5, 2009

Future car


Motor cars are the symbol of the American dream and their design is a reflection of American society, which means that the 1970s had some serious problems.


The Space Age had much more fun with the automobile. Then cars were Yank tanks with steel breasts and were built so solid that the difference between them and light armour was a point of view. Engines were ever more powerful and speed seemed certain to hit the asymptote of the curve any day. Fins were everywhere and fins were king.


This bit of prediction above by the Ford company is a perfect snapshot of the spirit of the times. The 21st century would be the era when cars would be jets with fins like scimitars and the speed limit would be the sound barrier.

Pagani Zonda Production Car Lap Record

With a time of 7 minutes and 27 seconds the Pagani Zonda F broke the lap record on the world famous Nurburgring in Germany.




The Pagani Zonda F featured fully adjustable shock absorbers allowing driver Marc Basseng to let the supercar's aerodynamics to shine.

Shelby Supercars Ultimate Aero Twin Turbo

The Shelby Supercars Ultimate Aero Twin Turbo set the new Worlds Fastest Production Car record with an average top speed of 255.83 mph.

On a temporarily-closed 2 lane public highway in Washington State, the SSC Ultimate Aero posted a top speed of 257.11 mph (413.83 kph) on its first pass and 254.55 mph (409.71 kph) on its return pass, achieving a new top speed record: a staggering 255.83 mph (411.76 kph).

SSC used a turbo V8 outputting 1183 HP and 1094 lbs. of torque. The use of lightweight carbon fiber materials allows for a low dry weight of 2750 lbs. giving the Aero TT the production record for lbs/hp ratio at 2.33.

The Ultimate Aero achieved 0-60 mph in 2.78 seconds and 1/4 Mile in 9.90 seconds at 144 mph.
The Aero TT is not completely stripped either, it features air conditioning, power windows, power mirrors, a navigation system, and a 10 speaker Audio/CD/DVD. Base price is expected to be around $585,000

Ferrari California Sports Car






The new 2010 Ferrari California is the first hard-top convertible ever produced by Ferrari and the first to feature a mid-front positioned engine.

Ferrari California features a new 4.3 liter V8 with direct injection and a flat crankshaft that will put out 460HP. The result is a 0-60mph of under 4 seconds.

The 2010 Ferrari California is a true super sports car!

Audi GT3 Sports Car Race Car




The new The Audi GT3 R8 sports car is a race car that will enter into some of the great races of the world sometime next year.






Power for the Audi GT3 has been boosted to 500hp and the engineers digged deep into the technics to conform with GT3 standards. The four-wheel-drive system had to be replaced with a more conventional GT rear-wheel drive system and it is also equipped with a newly developed six-speed sports sequential gear box.

The Audi GT3 is a super sports car indeed.

Types of BMW car..

    1 Series

  1. The 1 Series is BMW's entry level model.
    The 1 Series is BMW's entry level model.
    Launched in late 2004, the 1 Series is a compact hatchback that sits between BMW's MINI line of cars and the 3 Series models. The MINI, based on the famed British-made Mini Cooper, is a separate line of vehicles owned by BMW since 2000. The 1 Series first debuted as a 5-door hatchback, with the 3-door model appearing in 2007. More than 149,000 1 Series models were sold in its first year.
  2. 3 Series

  3. The 3 Series is BMW's best-selling model.
    The 3 Series is BMW's best-selling model.
    The venerable 3 Series debuted in 1975 and has emerged as BMW's reliable compact executive car. It's offered as a station wagon, coupe, 4-door sedan or convertible. This mid-range priced vehicle has exceeded sales of other less expensive similar class cars in Europe because of its durability. It's BMW's best seller.
  4. 5 Series

  5. The 5 Series also is offered as a station wagon.
    The 5 Series also is offered as a station wagon.
    Up a notch from the 3 Series is the 5 Series. It was launched in 1975 as a mid-size executive car and offered today only as a 4-door sedan and station wagon. It's equipped with several engine options including the 282-horsepower 4.4-liter V-8, the 225-horsepower 3-liter straight-6 and the 400-horsepower 4.9-liter V-8. The M5 Motorsport version is equipped with a 507-horsepower V-10 that can hit about 155 mph.
  6. 6 Series

  7. BMW's grand touring sport coupe is the 6 Series.
    BMW's grand touring sport coupe is the 6 Series.
    The grand touring sport coupe, BMW's high-end luxury line, had a production run from 1976-89, and then returned in 2003. The sports car-style 6 Series is offered as a coupe and convertible. In addition to the straight-6 and V-8, it also comes equipped with the 507-horsepower V-10 and the 286-horsepower 3-liter Twin Turbo Diesel.
  8. 7 Series

  9. The luxury 7 Series Hydrogen 7.
    The luxury 7 Series Hydrogen 7.
    The ultra-luxury 7 Series executive sedan is the flagship vehicle of BMW. Launched in 1977, the 7 Series' most ambitious model is the Hydrogen 7, which runs on gasoline and hydrogen. Drivers are allowed to switch what fuel they want to use. However, only 100 Hydrogen 7 cars have been manufactured for testing purposes.
  10. X3 and X5

  11. The BMW X3 crossover.
    The BMWX3 crossover.
    The X3 crossover, a passenger car with truck-like qualities, was launched in 2003. It's an all-wheel drive vehicle that is powered by either a gasoline or diesel 4-cylinder engine or the larger straight-6 also found in the 3 Series. The X3 perhaps possesses more truck characteristics than a crossover usually offers with a stiff ride and somewhat plain interior. The X5 is BMW's mid-size luxury SUV that was launched in 2000 and powered by a 253-horsepower fuel-injected 4.8-liter engine among other options.
  12. Z4

  13. The 2008 BMW Z4.
    The2008BMWZ4.
    The popular 2-seater sports roadster Z4 succeeded the Z3 in 2002. Since its introduction more than 100,000 Z4s have been built. By 2008, a retractable hardtop was offered. The 258-horsepower 3-liter version Z4 has a top speed of 155 mph and can hit 62 mph from a standstill in 5.1 seconds.

What Was The First Car?

A Quick History of the Automobile for Young People

By Omer....

Several Italians recorded designs for wind driven vehicles. The first was Guido da Vigevano in 1335. It was a windmill type drive to gears and thus to wheels. Vaturio designed a similar vehicle which was also never built. Later Leonardo da Vinci designed a clockwork driven tricycle with tiller steering and a differential mechanism between the rear wheels.

A Catholic priest named Father Ferdinand Verbiest has been said to have built a steam powered vehicle for the Chinese Emperor Chien Lung in about 1678. There is no information about the vehicle, only the event. Since Thomas didn't build his first steam engine until 1712 we can guess that this was possibly a model vehicle powered by a mechanism like Hero's steam engine, a spinning wheel with jets on the periphery. Newcomen's engine had a cylinder and a piston and was the first of this kind, and it used steam as a condensing agent to form a vacuum and with an overhead walking beam, pull on a rod to lift water. It was an enormous thing and was strictly stationary. The steam was not under pressure, just an open boiler piped to the cylinder. It used the same vacuum principle that Thomas had patented to lift water directly with the vacuum, which would have limited his pump to less than 32 feet of lift. Newcomen's lift would have only been limited by the length of the rod and the strength of the valve at the bottom. Somehow Newcomen was not able to separate his invention from that of Savery and had to pay for Savery's rights. In 1765 James developed the first pressurized steam engine which proved to be much more efficient and compact that the Newcomen engine.

The first vehicle to move under its own power for which there is a record was designed by Nicholas Joseph Cugnot and constructed by M. Brezin in 1769. A replica of this vehicle is on display at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, in Paris. I believe that the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D. C. also has a large (half size ?) scale model. A second unit was built in 1770 which weighed 8000 pounds and had a top speed on 2 miles per hour and on the cobble stone streets of Paris this was probably as fast as anyone wanted to go it. The picture shows the first model on its first drive around Paris were it hit and knocked down a stone wall. It also had a tendency to tip over frontward unless it was counterweighted with a canon in the rear. the purpose of the vehicle was to haul canons around town.

The early steam powered vehicles were so heavy that they were only practical on a perfectly flat surface as strong as iron. A road thus made out of iron rails became the norm for the next hundred and twenty five years. The vehicles got bigger and heavier and more powerful and as such they were eventually capable of pulling a train of many cars filled with freight and passengers.

As the picture at the right shows, many attempts were being made in England by the 1830's to develop a practical vehicle that didn't need rails. A series of accidents and propaganda from the established railroads caused a flurry of restrictive legislation to be passed and the development of the automobile bypassed England. Several commercial vehicles were built but they were more like trains without tracks.

The development of the internal combustion engine had to wait until a fuel was available to combust internally. Gunpowder was tried but didn't work out. Gunpowder carburetors are still hard to find. The first gas really did use gas. They used coal gas generated by heating coal in a pressure vessel or boiler. A Frenchman named Etienne Lenoir patented the first practical gas engine in Paris in 1860 and drove a car based on the design from Paris to Joinville in 1862. His one-half horse power engine had a bore of 5 inches and a 24 inch stroke. It was big and heavy and turned 100 rpm. Lenoir died broke in 1900.

Lenoir had a separate mechanism to compress the gas before combustion. In 1862, Alphonse Bear de Rochas figured out how to compress the gas in the same cylinder in which it was to burn, which is the way we still do it. This process of bringing the gas into the cylinder, compressing it, combusting the compressed mixture, then exhausting it is know as the Otto cycle, or four cycle engine. Lenoir claimed to have run the car on benzene and his drawings show an electric spark ignition. If so, then his vehicle was the first to run on petroleum based fuel, or petrol, or what we call gas, short for gasoline.

Siegfried Marcus, of Mecklenburg, built a can in 1868 and showed one at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873. His later car was called the Strassenwagen had about 3/4 horse power at 500 rpm. It ran on crude wooden wheels with iron rims and stopped by pressing wooden blocks against the iron rims, but it had a clutch, a differential and a magneto ignition. One of the four cars which Marcus built is in the Vienna Technical Museum and can still be driven under its own power.

In 1876, Nokolaus Otto patented the Otto cycle engine, de Rochas had neglected to do so, and this later became the basis for Daimler and Benz breaking the Otto patent by claiming prior art from de Rochas.

The picture to the left, taken in 1885, is of Gottllieb Daimler's workshop in Bad Cannstatt where he built the wooden motorcycle shown. Daimler's son Paul rode this motorcycle from Cannstatt to Unterturkheim and back on November 10, 1885. Daimler used a hot tube ignition system to get his engine speed up to 1000 rpm

The previous August, Karl Benz had already driven his light, tubular framed tricycle around the Neckar valley, only 60 miles from where Daimler lived and worked. They never met. Frau Berta Benz took Karl's car one night and made the first long car trip to see her mother, traveling 62 miles from Mannheim to Pforzheim in 1888.

Also in August 1888, William Steinway, owner of Steinway & Sons piano factory, talked to Daimler about US manufacturing right and by September had a deal. By 1891 the Daimler Motor Company, owned by Steinway, was producing petrol engines for tramway cars, carriages, quadricycles, fire engines and boats in a plant in Hartford, CT.

Steam cars had been built in America since before the Civil War but the early one were like miniature locomotives. In 1871, Dr. J. W. Carhart, professor of physics at Wisconsin State University, and the J. I. Case Company built a working steam car. It was practical enough to inspire the State of Wisconsin to offer a $10,000 prize to the winner of a 200 mile race in 1878.>

The 200 mile race had seven entries, or which two showed up for the race. One car was sponsored by the city of Green Bay and the other by the city of Oshkosh. The Green Bay car was the fastest but broke down and the Oshkosh car finished with an average speed of 6 mph.

From this time until the end of the century, nearly every community in America had a mad scientist working on a steam car. Many old news papers tell stories about the trials and failures of these would be inventors.

By 1890 Ransom E. Olds had built his second steam powered car, pictured at left. One was sold to a buyer in India, but the ship it was on was lost at sea.

Running by February, 1893 and ready for road trials by September, 1893 the car built by Charles and Frank Duryea, brothers, was the first gasoline powered car in America. The first run on public roads was made on September 21, 1893 in Springfield, MA. They had purchased a used horse drawn buggy for $70 and installed a 4 HP, single cylinder gasoline engine. The car (buggy) had a friction transmission, spray carburetor and low tension ignition. It must not have run very well because Frank didn't drive it again until November 10 when it was reported by the Springfield Morning Union newspaper. This car was put into storage in 1894 and stayed there until 1920 when it was rescued by Inglis M. Uppercu and presented to the United States National Museum.

Henry Ford had an engine running by 1893 but it was 1896 before he built his first car. By the end of the year Ford had sold his first car, which he called a Quadracycle, for $200 and used the money to build another one. With the financial backing of the Mayor of Detroit, William C. Maybury and other wealthy Detroiters, Ford formed the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. A few prototypes were built but no production cars were ever made by this company. It was dissolved in January 1901. Ford would not offer a car for sale until 1903.

The first closed circuit automobile race held at Narragansett Park, Rhode Island, in September 1896. All four cars to the left are Duryeas, on the right is a Morris & Salom Electrobat. Thirteen Duryeas of the same design were produced in 1896, making it the first production car.

At left is pictured the factory with produced the 13 Duryeas. In 1898 the brothers went their separate ways and the Duryea Motor Wagon Company was closed. Charles, who was born in 1861 and was eight years older than Frank had taken advantage of Frank in publicity and patents. Frank went out on his own and eventually joined with Stevens Arms and Tool Company to form the Stevens-Duryea Company which was sold to Westinghouse in 1915. Charles tried to produce some of his own hare-brained ideas with various companies until 1916. Thereafter he limited himself to writing technical book and articles. He died in 1938. Frank got a half a million dollars for the Westinghouse deal and lived in comfort until his death in 1967, just seven months from his 98th birthday.

In this engraving Ransom Eli Olds is at the tiller of his first petrol powered car. Riding beside him is Frank G. Clark, who built the body and in the back are their wives. This car was running by 1896 but production of the Olds Motor Vehicle Company of Detroit did not begin until 1899. After an early failure with luxury vehicles they established the first really successful production with the classic Curved Dash Oldsmobile.

The Curved Dash Oldsmobile had a single cylinder engine, tiller steering and chain drive. It sold for $650. In 1901 600 were sold and the next years were 1902 - 2,500, 1903 - 4,000, 1904 - 5,000. In August 1904 Ransom Olds left the company to form Reo (for Ransom Eli Olds). Ransom E. Olds was the first mass producer of gasoline powered automobiles in the United States, even though Duryea was the first auto manufacturer with their 13 cars.