The News for May 29th, 2015

bmw-3-csl-hommage-028-1
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:

  • BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage Concept proves BMW can’t do retro

  • Ford Shelby GT350 pricing guides leaked, are mostly accurate

  • Nissan’s third 24 Hours of Le Mans entry will feature iconic 80’s livery

  • Lamborghini confirms production of a new SUV

  • What’s your automotive news?

BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage Concept [I’m sorry]

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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.
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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

The All-new Shelby GT350 Mustang
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

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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

urus
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?

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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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38 responses to “The News for May 29th, 2015”

  1. Alff Avatar
    Alff

    If I were the fortunate owner of a 3.0 CSL I’d be thanking BMW for demonstrating why the design of my car is so very special.

    1. Cameron Vanderhorst Avatar
      Cameron Vanderhorst

      Sometimes when a band releases an awful new album to try and stay relevant it reminds you of how incredible their early work was.

      1. Tanshanomi Avatar

        I listened to U2’s “Boy” just the other day so, yeah, this.

        1. Cameron Vanderhorst Avatar
          Cameron Vanderhorst

          YOU WOULD LIKE U2, TASHANOMI~!
          …actually, I kind of like some of their early stuff, too. Don’t tell anyone lest I lose my punk rock street cred.

          1. Tanshanomi Avatar

            Oh, I DO like U2. It’s just that my “LIKE” slides downward on a pretty consistent scale from Boy to WhatTheHellJustShowedUpInMyITunesShoppingCart.

  2. tonyola Avatar
    tonyola

    I remember seeing a few Lambo LM002s around Miami in the cocaine cowboy days.

  3. Cameron Vanderhorst Avatar
    Cameron Vanderhorst

    A Lamborghini SUV sharing a platform with a Porsche SUV.
    Hold on, six-year-old Cam’s brain just exploded.

    1. Vairship Avatar
      Vairship

      Imagine having been told back then that a Lamborghini would have been based on a Volkswagen…

  4. theskitter Avatar

    Did BMW pick the wrong color? Yes.
    Is it slightly overstyled not to mention Staypuft? Yes.
    Are the forward sloping headlights the best thing to happen to BMW styling in a decade? Definitely.

    1. Manic_King Avatar
      Manic_King

      tbf, this new thing seems more of a hommage to Batmobile version of old CSL, not the normal CSL above. Wild design would be kinda understandable but those front wing things seem pointless…
      http://bringatrailer.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/1973_BMW_3.0CSL_Groupe_4_Batmobile_E9_Coupe_Front_1.jpg

  5. Tanshanomi Avatar

    “…the thrill and spectacle of driving a Lamborghini but in a more spacious and practical form…”
    Oxymoron alert. The thrill and spectacle of a Lambo are precisely that it’s neither spacious nor practical.

    1. nanoop Avatar
      nanoop

      I saw my first Countach just today. Here’s the owner’s try to manhandle visibility – but the tray is very handy for picnics!

      View post on imgur.com

  6. Jeff Glucker Avatar
    Jeff Glucker

    That Nissan livery is wonderful
    In my own car news, I’m going to learn how a carb works this weekend… I need to clean it out after I was blasting way too much fuel through it.

      1. Jeff Glucker Avatar
        Jeff Glucker

        Do I just dunk everything in there?

        1. Tanshanomi Avatar

          Disassemble as much as possible, drop everything in, wait overnight. When you take it out, wash parts off with water (add a little baking soda to the water to inhibit corrosion). Blow all the orifices dry with an air gun. Reassemble/adust/install, etc., knowing you don’t have any blocked passages or fuel varish affecting your jet diameters.

          1. Cameron Vanderhorst Avatar
            Cameron Vanderhorst

            While you’re at it, Jeff, get some 3-in-one oil too.

          2. Sjalabais Avatar
            Sjalabais

            I had a hole in a carb membrane once, on a related note. Feels just like a worn-out clutch: No matter the rpm, there’s no guts in it. Drove 40km with what must have amounted to 10hp, my mechanic found a natching 25 year old part in his…eh…”shed”.

        2. Rover 1 Avatar
          Rover 1

          No.
          You drink it.

    1. P161911 Avatar
      P161911

      Make sure you use non-ethanol gas in that engine. Old carbs HATE ethanol. I won’t run the current E-10 stuff in anything but a car made in the last 15-20 years or so. All my small engines and the boat get non-ethanol.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads18/No_Ethanol1301184255.jpg

  7. Tanshanomi Avatar

    Everybody bags on Chrysler and GM for adhering too closely to the original with their retro-cars. Now here comes BMW’s retro car in which the majority of its styling cues have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to with the original.

    1. Alff Avatar
      Alff

      It replaces all of the original’s clean elegance with fussiness and gimmickry. It is abhorrent.

  8. Tanshanomi Avatar

    It’s also TT week!
    Because Manx…

  9. ptschett Avatar
    ptschett

    I found out that my Dakota needs a steering rack. It had been leaving a small, slightly greasy spot on the floor, below the right front suspension, for the last several months. With the rack so close to the front 4×4 gear housing I wasn’t sure what the source was, and there wasn’t enough dripped to even moisten a finger and check for the smell of ATF vs. gear oil vs. CV joint grease. That changed on Wednesday when it left a bigger puddle of oil, which smelled like ATF; I found the rack boot covered in oily dirt, and pulling it off the rack resulted in dumping a nice salad-plate sized puddle of ATF/steering fluid.

    1. Preludacris Avatar

      My friend’s Dakota has the same problem. Wonder if it’s a more common issue.

  10. Sjalabais Avatar
    Sjalabais

    Sort of car “news”: Everybody here is pretty familiar with the tracked Volvo BV202NF now, the two-element swimmer with an inadequate car engine. Nobody is or should be too familiar with this one:
    http://finncdn.no/mmo/2015/5/vertical-3/29/8/599/241/28_325130736_xl.jpg
    http://finncdn.no/mmo/2015/5/vertical-3/29/8/599/241/28_1041931985_xl.jpg
    It’s a VW Caravelle cab mongrel with a Mercedes I5 300 Turbodiesel engine. A true crapshoot.

    1. Batshitbox Avatar
      Batshitbox

      That trailer sure has a lot of traction. That’s a good thing, right?

      1. Sjalabais Avatar
        Sjalabais

        Looks like its been used to pick up firewood. Neat rig for that purpose, actually.

        1. Batshitbox Avatar
          Batshitbox

          I still think the motor wouldn’t need to work as hard if the just took the tracks off and let the wheels roll over the ground. Tracks provide a lot of friction between the axle and the ground; good when you’re driving the tracks but on a trailer they’re just a drag.

          1. Sjalabais Avatar
            Sjalabais

            Isn’t there a drive shaft going to the trailer?

          2. Batshitbox Avatar
            Batshitbox

            Hrrm… From that video you posted it looks like it does indeed have driven trailer. Which means you need to cross-post it in the Last Call: Hooniversal Joint thread!

    2. theskitter Avatar

      I’m flattered that you think I’m familiar with the Volvo BV202NF.

      1. Sjalabais Avatar
        Sjalabais

        Who doesn’t know the BelteVogn (tracked vehicle) 202 Norwegian Forces like the inside of their left-hand pocket?
        http://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=ZlhHFR7Zk18

  11. CraigSu Avatar
    CraigSu

    Things I learned in route to looking up other things:
    What do you get when you cross a C2 Corvette with a Datsun 240Z? The 1964 Nissan 2000GT!
    http://www.nicoclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Datsun-2000GT.jpg
    A streetable Delta Wing? Yes, please! The 2013 Nissan BladeGlider.
    preview.netcarshow.com/Nissan-BladeGlider_Concept-2013-1024-07.jpg

    1. Rover 1 Avatar
      Rover 1

      Isn’t the internet great? !!

  12. nanoop Avatar
    nanoop

    The local P-dealer invited the local P-club chapter for a get-together with some food and a free check-up. They found my fuel leak (of course, because they don’t need to rob under a 10″ lifted car with a torchlight and have a bright, tiled, clean floor where every. single. droplet. will show), the people in the workshop were very accessible and knew their stuff, and there were some nice cars there, too.

    View post on imgur.com


    It looked a bit as if I used the MINI SERVICE:

    View post on imgur.com


    I have pictures of the fuel leak, too, but this is a family site.