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Wednesday, August 2, 2017
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Toyota TMG 86 Cup Car To Compete in Pirelli World Challenge
Light, nimble, and fun-to-drive, the Toyota 86 and its variants have won fans all over the world. Now Toyota is planning to bring the old-school charm of the 86 to the cutting edge of the race track by creating a racing version for the Pirelli World Challenge.
The Toyota TMG 86 Cup Car features an enhanced suspension, brakes, and engine tuning, plus safety gear. The engine and transmission are otherwise stock, however, meaning the racing 86 actually has more than the average connection to the production car. The 86 will compete in the PWC Touring Car A category against the likes of the Mazda MX-5 Cup, Honda Civic Si, Kia Forte Koup SX, Mini Cooper S, and even its own doppelgänger, though from the 2013-2015 era, the Scion FR-S.
Backing the racing effort in conjunction with Toyota Racing will be Dan Gardner Spec Racing (DG-Spec). DG-Spec driver Craig Stanton will be taking the wheel for the PWC push, starting with the team’s first race at Utah Motorsports Park (UMP, formerly Miller Motorsports Park) in Tooele, Utah, August 11-13.
“It’s been a while since we raced in Pirelli World Challenge with our championship-winning Scion, but we’ve been at the track constantly over the last few years, testing, developing, and racing in other venues,” said Dan Gardner, team owner
and namesake of DG-Spec. “The team is really sharp and Craig is on his game. The Toyota 86 is ready to go and we hope to turn some heads in Utah.” DG-Spec previously won the Pirelli World Championship TC class, with an aptly named Scion tC, in 2010.
Toyota and DG Spec won’t be starting from scratch with the 86, fortunately, basing the PWC race car on the 86 Cup Car built by Germany-based Toyota Motorsports GmbH (TMG) for the VLN Series. Hence the TMG 86 name.
“Bringing the TMG 86 Cup Car to Pirelli World Challenge presents a cool opportunity to test and showcase the ability of our Toyota 86 in a competitive racing series,” said Keith Dahl, General Manager, Motorsports for Toyota Motor North America (TMNA). “[W]e’re hopeful they can perform well with the 86. We have a great combination of team and driver with Craig Stanton to showcase the ability of this TMG-built 86, so we’re cautiously optimistic for solid results in the Utah doubleheader.”
The August 11-13 race at UMP is the eight event in the 2017 Pirelli World Challenge season. Three races will follow, including stops at Circuit of the Americas, Sonoma Raceway, and the season finale at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.
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Nissan’s ProPilot Assist and the State of Autonomous Technology...
Nissan’s ProPilot Assist and the State of Autonomous Technology http://ift.tt/2vpLRDL
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Nissan’s ProPilot Assist and the State of Autonomous Technology
The 2018 Nissan Leaf, scheduled to debut on September 6, adds ProPilot Assist, which provides SAE Level II autonomy. It will stop and start on its own in stop-and-go traffic and it will keep to its lane on the freeway, though you’ll still be in control with your hands on the wheel. That last bit is the legal disclaimer. Though Nissan-Renault is one of several leaders in the driverless car race, it’s not ready to take responsibility like Volvo is with the XC90 in the Swedish company’s very limited Drive Me test, which is underway in the automaker’s hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Nissan demonstrated ProPilot Assist in modified Rogue SUVs because it wasn’t ready to show us the second generation of its electric hatchback. The route began on a wide boulevard near Nissan’s Metro Detroit facility so it could demonstrate the full-braking intelligent cruise control, which works at speeds up to 90 mph. The system stops the car completely and will resume driving using the cruise control if the full stop lasts for no more than three seconds. If the stop breaches that time limit, the driver must press the “resume” button on the steering wheel to get the car going without resorting to the throttle pedal.
It’s easy, intuitive and works as advertised.
On the freeway — in this case I-696 eastbound to Woodward Avenue and back, roughly 15 miles in each direction — the steering assist accurately followed the lane lines, even under a couple of tunnels that are well-lit, but still outside of the sunshine. ProPilot gives you about five seconds of no torque on the steering wheel before a dashboard warning tells you to grab the wheel. This is more conservative than systems that have been on the market for a few years from brands like Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and Acura.
You’re not supposed to take your attention away from the road, though in stop-and-go, rush hour freeway traffic. ProPilot Assist just gives you some time to key in a phone number or find a radio station or a song on your playlists. Officially, as far as Nissan’s lawyers are concerned, ProPilot alleviates the stress of throttle-brake, throttle-brake and need for minor steering corrections during such rush hours.
In the bigger picture of frenzied autonomous car development, Nissan’s system is a small step towards the ability to text or have breakfast during your morning commute. It appears to be a half-step short of Cadillac’s SuperCruise, which goes on sale this fall and is also described as “Level II,” and it’s certainly short of the 2019 Audi A8’s AI Traffic Jam Pilot, though it’s unclear whether that system – hands and feet off up to 37 mph, and automated parking – will be legal anywhere when the car goes on sale later this year.
This can be blamed, partially, on Tesla, whose CEO Elon Musk claimed to have solved autonomous driving in record time until dangerous YouTube videos and a tragic fatal accident hampered the brand’s genius.
Don’t be swayed by claims from any one company, whether tech, automotive, or Tier 1 supplier, that it’s a clear leader in developing autonomous cars. While it’s true that Google (now Waymo) has been working on it since the last decade, GM has been working on it longer and like Google and Volkswagen, among others, eagerly participated in the DARPA Challenges that jump-started interest in driverless vehicles. Google/Waymo, for one thing, has done virtually all its testing in Northern California, where there’s no snow or ice to obliterate the road markings that cameras must read.
Honda received criticism recently for being behind in autonomous development, though I took part in a couple of demonstrations several years ago. And this Japanese automaker has taken the lead in developing systems that can identify motorcycles, with their constantly changing profiles, because, of course, Honda sells motorcycles.
Ford Motor Company, which was very quiet about its efforts just a couple of years ago, is now considered a leader once former CEO Mark Fields started talking about it and made promises of Level IV by 2021. Toyota Motor Company, like Daimler, has long been a leader, though neither company has been saying much about self-driving cars in the last couple of years.
As for Tesla, I “drove” a Continental AG test car with, say, Level III autonomy about a year before Musk appeared to have just discovered the technology.
All these companies rely on such suppliers as Velodyne and Mobileye for their systems, and so I think they’re all at similar levels of development, though so-called disruptive tech companies don’t appear to have the same sort of patience for long-term development that safety regulation-wary automakers have. The tech companies, even Tesla, have started to learn a more zen-like attitude: When the technology meets all the new safety standards, the driverless car will appear.
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New 2018 Porsche Macan facelift spied testing – pictures...
New 2018 Porsche Macan facelift spied testing – pictures http://ift.tt/2viT3Si
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An Afternoon With Two Vintage Porsche 911s Re-Imagined by LA’s...
An Afternoon With Two Vintage Porsche 911s Re-Imagined by LA’s Workshop 5001 http://ift.tt/2vmWw1J
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An Afternoon With Two Vintage Porsche 911s Re-Imagined by LA’s Workshop 5001
Marlon Goldberg has worn many hats in his 30-some years as a lover of cars. He grew up in New York and spent younger years hanging out at racetracks, spent some time training as a Ferrari tech, and then moved to sunny Southern California, selling new Porsches for a spell. He went on to become Singer’s operations director, ultimately leaving and making a return to Porsche sales. And now, Workshop 5001, Goldberg’s fledgling Porsche restoration business.
Based in an unglamorous industrial section of Los Angeles, CA, the shop itself is nearly surgically clean and has been completely renovated by Goldberg. The restoration of this space, with its pitched roof and beautiful exposed wooden beams, was a labor of love, and indicative of the passion he pours into his air-cooled creations.
Take the car known simply as “Number 1,” sitting roadside on Latigo Canyon Drive, far west of the shop and resplendent in its understated Nardo grey paintwork. Number 2, a hardcore-spec ’74 911 in vivid blue paint, also came out to play, but it’s still a work in progress. Number 3, a Porsche 356 B Roadster undergoing heavy metalwork, is still back at the shop. But we and the first two creations are ready to play in the Malibu hills, taking advantage of these winding roads, thankfully empty on a mid-week afternoon.
Number 1 began life as a 1973 Porsche 911T – a car purchased on Bring-a-Trailer by its owner, who commissioned the Workshop 5001 project at the urging of friend and factory Porsche driver (and Luftgekuhlt co-founder) Patrick Long. The car itself was taken down to bare metal, then fitted with a hot-rod 3.4-liter engine with twin-plug heads, modern Motec engine management, custom pistons, rods and much more for a total of around 305 hp. That’s roughly 50-percent more grunt than the donor 3.2-liter engine made and nearly three times what the car’s original 2.4-liter engine would have produced.
The chassis has been stich-welded for the benefit of torsional rigidity, just like a race car, and KW coilovers replace the car’s original torsion bars. A carbon fiber roof replaced the donor car’s steel sunroof-type original and the brakes have been uprated to remain consistent with the car’s newfound power. Perfect little details are everywhere and represent a combination of input from both Goldberg and the car’s owner: tartan-pattern seats, a mil-spec wiring harness, painted steel wheels, and an ever-appropriate Momo Prototipo steering wheel, recovered to match other interior stitching elements. Even essentials like the mounts for the car’s three oil coolers are finished to an astounding level of quality. There’s nary a system on the car that hasn’t received the Workshop 5001 touch in some unique way.
“We don’t want to create an assembly line of cookie-cutter hot-rod 911s,” says Marlon. “You know, pick your colors, pick which kind of carpet you want, pick your stickers, and we’ll call you when it’s done. Our process is a lot more personalized and clients are involved in many more steps of the build. It’s a much more creative process.”
On the road, Number 1 is a thrill to drive – that classic “long-hood” profile cutting its way through the air as we charge through the hills. Throws are short, heavy, and utterly positive from the long-levered 915 transmission and the steering is gleefully active and alive, just as a vintage 911’s should be, writhing in my hands as it telegraphs details of Latigo’s road surface. Despite the chassis’ hard-core stitch welding and coilover suspension, the car is composed – even comfortable on these imperfect canyon roads. The vintage-style sport bucket seats are also easy to live with, though not quite as supportive as a racier option.
Meanwhile, the 3.4 churns out a soundtrack of air-cooled cacophony and suddenly I’m Vic Elford, slicing my way through the Sicilian hills in the Targa Florio. Except that I’m not and this half-million-dollar, heirloom-quality re-think of what a 911 can be needs to be delivered back to its owner without a scratch.
Later, I catch a ride with Goldberg in the blue Number 2. This car is built on a ’74 G-series 911 Carrera (originally with a Sportomatic transmission!) and to an even wilder spec than Number 1, for a client with an autocross and track focus. The seats are narrow race buckets with five-point harnesses, while the interior is largely stripped of any creature comforts. The engine is a 3.6-liter mill from a 964, bored out to 3.8-liters with RSR-spec pistons and plenty of other tricks including Motec engine management. Ohlins coilovers are found underneath and the highly adjustable (for wheelbase and track) front end is essentially of Porsche 935 race car-type. A roll cage and stitch welding keeps the chassis tight.
There’s a world of difference between Grey and Blue; this racier build feels like it’s 90-percent race car and just 10 percent road machine. The flared fenders hide ultra-wide Pirelli Trofeo R tires and grip is no doubt massive – Goldberg is driving at maybe 7/10ths and the speed is already huge. The sensation is multiplied by the car’s lack of sound deadening – you hear this Porsche working hard, from the rocks and gravel that bounce off the car’s underside, to the flat-six’s banshee wail ricocheting off the canyon walls. It looks like it requires some work to drive, as you could argue a vintage 911 racer should. With the challenge and the risk, comes the reward.
The reward, of course, makes it all worthwhile, as Marlon Goldberg will attest.
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