Welcome to the Hooniverse News! As always, this is a weekly recap of some of the biggest stories in the automotive industry without the fluff or bull. I just throw in a little opinion of mine because I can. This week:
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BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage Concept proves BMW can’t do retro
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Ford Shelby GT350 pricing guides leaked, are mostly accurate
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Nissan’s third 24 Hours of Le Mans entry will feature iconic 80’s livery
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Lamborghini confirms production of a new SUV
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What’s your automotive news?
BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage Concept [I’m sorry]
I needed a lead image for this week’s news and this was the only new car I didn’t cover yet…
BMW has proven once again that they’re not very good at this whole retro thing. The BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage Concept debuted shortly after last week’s news ran at Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Italy. I thought about updating it to include this, but decided I’d rather not ruin everyone’s Memorial Day weekend before it even started.
To be as fair as possible, I’ll try to describe this car using the words BMW provided. Words like “racing flair with a touch of class”, “power and elegance”, and “muscular athleticism” are used to explain what a BMW 3.0 CSL from the 70’s would look like if it was built today. The original 3.0 CSL is still cited as one of BMW’s best designs because it had gorgeous, simple styling and it looked like it belonged on a race track. It’s a design that really stands the test of time and BMW is still using design cues inspired by this car’s styling to this day.
So… what happened? BMW drank tried too hard. Everything the 3.0 CSL had styling wise gets carried over to the Hommage but then exaggerated to a cartoonish scale. It has a nose like a Decepticon and it has a smirk like a DreamWorks character. It’s almost insulting when looking at it sitting next to the old car, as if they looked at the original 3.0 CSL and thought “nah, it needs to look like this“. The car has [admittedly] been out for a week now and most people seem to gag at the sight of it. Someone at BMW will interpret this response as proof that BMW should stop pandering to enthusiasts and ditch their efforts on reliving the days when their cars were simple, beautiful road racing icons. They’ll probably put more effort into finding the perfect cubic-inch-to-M-badge ratio in their upcoming 2 Series Gran Turismo than into making their cars pure again. /enthusiast rant.
I should probably find something nice to say about it though… uhm, the interior is kinda cool. And they’ll never build more than one of these.
[Source: BMW]
2016 Ford Mustang GT350 pricing
Pricing for the wonderful 2016 Ford Mustang GT350 and GT350R hasn’t officially appeared yet from Ford’s press room, but that didn’t stop someone at Mustang6G.com from obtaining what appears to be official pricing obtained by someone who has one on order. Good lord.
MSRP for the GT350 will start at $47,870 when it arrives at dealerships for their markups and the GT350R option will cost $13,500, if this pricing list is to be believed. Fortunately, the guys at Autoblog were able to confirm with a Ford spokesperson that the pricing shown here is accurate, although still not official until Ford announces it themselves.
The horsepower/dollar ratio keeps getting higher and higher and we’re about to see a bunch of these things.
[Source: Mustang6G via Autoblog]
Nissan goes retro for GT-R LM Nismo
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is getting close, temptingly so. Nissan added to the anticipation this week by unveiling a retro livery that will be worn by their third GT-R LM Nismo.
Nissan will commit three examples of the insane LMP1 racer to this year’s race: No. 23, No. 22, and now No. 21, the latter of which gets the honor of running with the iconic blue, white, and red colors that were shown on the No. 24 Nissan R90CK.
It was 25 years ago that Mark Blundell took pole at Le Mans with his 1,100hp Nissan R90CK, so naturally Nissan will celebrate with this livery and having that same R90CK on hand for a parade lap. GT-R LM Nismo No. 21 will be driven by current Super GT Champion Tsugio Matsuda (Japan) and two winners of GT Academy, Lucas Ordóñez (Spain) and Mark Shulzhitskiy (Russia).
This year’s LM24 is going to be colorful and awesome.
[Source: Nissan]
Lamborghini SUV confirmed for production
I remember a time when car manufacturers marked SUV production as taboo. Land yachts were being axed and seemingly everyone was fleeing to smaller cars, but now look. Everyone is scrambling to produce an SUV if they don’t already have one in their lineup and even those that already have one are looking for different ways to sell them. Case in point, Lamborghini has officially announced that they will in fact add an SUV to their relatively small portfolio by 2018.
The production model will most likely resemble the Urus they showed a few years back and will be built off a shared VW platform currently being used by the Porsche Cayenne and Audi Q7. It’ll probably feature lightweight construction and will likely share a V10 with the Huracan, but we also can’t rule out the possibility of them introducing something new. With the Urus (or whatever it’s going to be called), Lamborghini hopes to properly capture the thrill and spectacle of driving a Lamborghini but in a more spacious and practical form so that everyone can blah blah blah they want to attract new buyers and make money.
The good news is that Lamborghini will hire 500 new employees and will nearly double the size of their plant in the Emilia Romagna region in Italy. They hope to deliver around 3,000 SUVs per year, more than double what they currently produce with the Aventador and Huracan. So in terms of sustainability, this really is a good move. But that still doesn’t make me like it, unless it ends up being as cool as the LM002.
[Source: Lamborghini via Autoweek]
What’s your automotive news?
I saw this in traffic and I had a sensible chuckle. If you saw, drove, bought, broke, or otherwise did anything newsworthy that you want to share with your fellow hoon on this relatively slow news week, sound off in the comments.
[Image © 2015 Hooniverse/Greg Kachadurian]
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