Category: On The Street


Walkinshaw Performance will be opening the doors of their state-of-the-art Victorian workshop for the first time to the public tomorrow for the official opening of the Autotechnique facility.

V8 Supercar driver Garth Tander and 2007 Development Series champion Tony D’Alberto will the there on the night as well as David Reynolds, a Carrera Cup series driver. Demonstrations will be given on dyno tuning as well as a full tour of the facility.

Doors open from 5:30pm and the workshop is located at 1634 Ferntree Gully Rd, Knoxfield, Vic.

Category: On The Street

The petrol giant Caltex today has warned of a increase in petrol prices over the next 12 months and slammed comments about price collusion and price gouging methods. Caltex chairman, Elizabeth Bryan told shareholders today at the company’s annual general meeting that long term pressure is too blame.

“There is long-term upward pressure on petrol prices and Australians, like motorists around the world, can expect to pay more. Petrol prices are rising, and are expected to continue to rise, but not because of collusion or price gouging, as our critics suggest.”

It’s all speculation as to how far it will go and how quickly but experts guess it could easily get to $2 a litre by this time next year which is bad news for anybody driving a car which requires 98RON fuel, like most of the poor fellas here in the office.

Category: Misc

It seems Ford is uncertain about the future of V8 powered Falcons going into 2010 amid fears of environmental concerns.

Due to dipping Falcon sales and strict emissions systems in place, the V8 powered Falcon could prove to be a financially foolish path to take considering the V8 variants are both slower and thirstier than their turbocharged six stable mates.

Once avenue being explored is to replace the Boss with the 5.0-litre V8 currently being developed in North America to be used in the Ford Mustang, from there turbo charging and supercharging can be used to satisfy the Australian market.

When asked about the V8 futures, Ford’s newly appointed president, Bill Osborne, said “We have taken a look at [that V8] and it looks like it will be a pretty competitive engine, particularly if we decide to boost (turbocharge or supercharge) it as well”

Could be signs of a new F8 Typhoon on the horizon and a battle of biblical proportions with HSV. Bring it on we say!

Category: Misc

At this rate we recon that the new Bond film could be ready by 2021, that’s if they don’t run out of stuntmen first. That’s right, yet another accident has happened while on set and this time it had left the stuntman in a critical condition.

Details are a little sketchy at this stage but it is alleged that the car used by two stuntmen had rammed into a liming lorry and then into a wall at the same lake in Italy as the previously mentioned DBS crash.

The Bond film series has always been chock full of intense car action scenes and it certainly sounds as if this one is no exception.

Category: GM News

General Motors have posted their Q1 financial information and announced a sales drop of 1%, or total sales of 2.25 million vehicles. 64% of Q1 sales were from outside America and amounted to 1.45 million vehicle sales.

John Middlebrook, GM’s vice president of Global Sales, said that despite a drop in sales, things were looking pretty good..

"GM posted record sales in three of our four regions driven by continued strong demand in emerging markets," John Middlebrook, GM vice president, Global Sales, Service and Marketing Operations, said today.
"While the challenges of the U.S. economy continue to put pressure on the automotive industry there, we saw nearly 20 percent growth in the Latin America, Africa and Middle East and 6 percent growth in the Asia Pacific region. We're also very pleased to see 3 percent growth in Europe, where we established a new sales record with 572,000 vehicles sold. We continue to see a higher percentage of our business coming from outside the developed markets - and the non-U.S. share of GM's global sales of 64 percent clearly reflects that trend."

Spotted over at www.camaro5.com, the new Camaro has been sprung testing on Germany’s famed Nurburgring, the track which separates the men from the boys. Wearing Victorian numberplates (yeah that’s right, Victorian. We’re quite shocked that they weren’t ‘CAMARO’ or ‘1BLKGM’ given its Victorian-ness), the black Camaro can be seen cutting some deep yaw angles as it was no doubt having the wheels driven off the thing. A roll cage can also be seen through the windows, although I doubt GM will list that as a option in the brochure.

No times have been posted for the Camaro which is surprising given its potent package but we’re guessing it’s probably got something to do with the GTR recently rocking up and destroying all production cars that have gone before it.