Autos

I’ve been a Datsun/Nissan/Infiniti fan many, many years now. Although the design of the Nissan Juke is way too bold for my taste, I still enjoy looking at the vehicle and admiring the very unique design. And those of you who are Juke fans, you are already very familiar with the Juke-R which started out as a bad ass concept and Nissan is now producing in very, very limited numbers.

Since most of us can’t afford the 485hp Juke-R, there is some good news as Nissan has announced that they are releasing a Juke with the Nismo badge. There is also a 400hp Juke by Fox Marketing but lots of Nissan fans want to keep it “factory” with no outside influence. Although the Nismo Juke is not nearly as powerful as the Juke-R, the 1.6 liter turbo engine will be tuned to bring more life to the vehicle.

Although Toyota had a bit of a head start when it comes to hybrid technology, the competition has pretty much caught up to them and the playing field is relatively level at this point in time. Ford has its marketing guns aimed right at the Toyota Prius V Plug-In Hybrid with their all-new C-MAX Energi.

The 2013 C-MAX Energi is Ford’s Plug-in Hybrid and is scheduled to hit the show room floors during the third quarter of 2012. The C-MAX Energi is powered by a 2.0-liter Atkinson-Cycle four cylinder engine that works in conjunction with an electric motor reaching a peak of 195 horsepower on a fully charged battery.

The Volkswagen Golf is one of the most popular small cars around the world; I always see at least one of these cars when I go for a drive.  The Golf has been around since 1974 and has developed a cult-like following with a huge tuner market.  Each new model has been getting a little bigger and a bit more luxurious and the all-new 7^th generation 2013 Volkswagen Golf MK7 is no exception.  The car will be officially unveiled at the 2012 Paris Motor Show.

If the 2013 SRT Viper producing 640 horsepower and 600 lb-ft of torque isn’t enough, perhaps the folks over at Hennessey Performance may be able to help you out. Hennessey Performance has a couple of tuning packages that can squeeze every little juice out of the massive 8.4-liter V10 engine.

The two packages are called the ‘Venom 700R’ and the ‘Venom 1000 Twin Turbo’. The Venom 700R package includes “mild” modifications which increase the output from 640hp to an impressive 725hp while the torque is increased by 95 for a grand total of 695 lb-ft. That translates to the 0-60mph dash in only 3.1 seconds while the quarter mile being achieved in 10.7 seconds and a top speed of 218mph. Not bad, not bad at all.

The East is rising in economic power, if you didn’t know this piece of breaking news, you can go to any of the major luxury automobile brands’ websites and have a look at all the special edition cars they’re churning out made specifically for the “Eastern countries” – mainly China and oil-rich Middle Eastern countries.

Today Rolls Royce released pictures of a special edition of the already pretty special Ghost sedan for the Middle East market.  The car is called the Rolls Royce Ghost One Thousand and One Nights edition, part of a new line of