The Volvo s70 was introduced in 1997 as an executive luxury car. The T5 was a model that offered a 5-speed transmission, which made the car a lot more fun to drive. The Volvo v70 was the station wagon version of the s70. The Volvo v70 R featured a better engine and offered 300bhp for the driver that was somewhat demanding on the car.

The Volvos s70 T5 is still sought today by many Volvo enthusiasts. Many of these seekers love the fact that the Volvo s70 T5 features explosive power and power that the standard s70 didn’t possess. The car is also fun to drive with its manual transmission. The 5-speed transmission shifts smoothly and the all wheel drive kicks in the minute you shift into gear. The car features an excellent and luxurious ride over highway and a little fun off the main roads. The Volvo s70 T5 is also considered one of the quickest cars in Volvo’s line. Plus, it has all the safety features that you would expect from Volvo. From the looks of this car you see traditional Volvo written all over it, but that’s just because they were trying to hide the sports car that lives within. Buyer beware, it could be very easy to get a ticket in this car!

Volvo has introduced a reworked and upgraded car in the Volvo v70 R. These cars featured an upgraded engine in 2004 along with more luxury accessories. The car was made to look sport inside and out, despite being a station wagon. The cars also featured better handling with a new braking performance system that works in a well-balanced fashion. The R line Volvos also come with standard all-wheel drive, monitor traction by Haldex and an aggressive new chassis. As Motor Trend puts it, these cars feature both sport and utility.

Either car has the power you want and desire as well as the safety features you want for your family. These cars are excellent whether you are traveling down the highway or picking your kids up from soccer practice. If you are looking for something fun and feisty, go with the Volvo s70 T5. If you want something with a little get up and go but still room for four kids and the family dog, then the Volvo v70 R is for you. Either way you won’t be disappointed.

Modern Formula One cars are mid-engined open cockpit, open wheel single-seaters. The chassis is made largely of carbon fibre composites, rendering it light but extremely stiff and strong. The whole car, including engine, fluids and driver weighs only 605 kg. In fact this is the minimum weight set by the regulations – the cars are so light that they often have to be ballasted up to this minimum weight.

The cornering speed of Formula One cars is largely determined by the aerodynamic downforce that they generate, which pushes the car down onto the track. This is provided by ‘wings’ mounted at the front and rear of the vehicle, and by ground effect created by the movement of air under the flat bottom of the car.

A significant difference in the design of the latest breeds of F1 cars is that they make far greater use of vortex “lift,” or in this case, downforce. Since a vortex is a rotating fluid that creates a low pressure zone at its center, creating vortices lowers the overall local pressure of the air.

Since low pressure is what is desired under the car, allowing normal atmospheric pressure to press the car down from the top, by creating vortices, downforce can be augmented while still staying within the rules.

The aerodynamic design of the cars is very heavily constrained to limit performance and the current generation of cars sport a large number of small winglets, “barge boards” and turning vanes designed to closely control the flow of the air over, under and around the car. The “barge boards” in particular are designed, shaped, configured, adjusted and positioned not to create downforce directly, as with a conventional wing or underbody venturi. They are designed so that air spillage from their edges will create these vortices.

The other major factor controlling the cornering speed of the cars is the design of the tyres. Tyres in Formula One are not ’slicks’ (tyres with no tread pattern) as in most other circuit racing series. Each tyre has four large circumferential grooves on its surface designed to further limit the cornering speed of the cars. Suspension is double wishbone or multilink all round with pushrod operated springs and dampers on the chassis. Carbon-Carbon disc brakes are used for reduced weight and increased frictional performance. These provide a very high level of braking performance and are usually the element which provokes the greatest reaction from drivers new to the formula.

Engines are mandated as 2.4 litre normally aspirated V8s, with many other constraints on their design and the materials that may be used. The 2006 generation of engines rev close to 20,000 rpm and produce up to 740 bhp (552 kW).[10] The previous generation of 3-litre V10 engines are also allowed, albeit with their revs limited and with an air restrictor to limit performance.

Engines run on unleaded fuel closely resembling publicly available petrol. The oil which lubricates and protects the engine from overheating is very similar in viscosity to water. For 2007 the V8 engines will be restricted to 19,000 rpm with limited development areas allowed, following the engine specification freeze from the end of 2006. As outright speed and power are effectively being capped it is widely believed that teams will work on improving reliability, and the torque range of the engine to improve driveability.

A wide variety of technologies – including active suspension, ground effect aerodynamics and turbochargers – are banned under the current regulations. Despite this the 2006 generation of cars can reach speeds of up to 350 km/h (around 220 mph) at some circuits (Monza).A Honda Formula One car, running with minimum downforce on a runway in the Mojave desert achieved a top speed of 415 km/h (258 mph) in 2006. According to Honda, the car fully met the FIA Formula One regulations.

Even with the limitations on aerodynamics, at 160 km/h, aerodynamically generated downforce is equal to the weight of the car and the often repeated claim that Formula One cars are capable of ‘driving on the ceiling’ remains true in principle, although it has never been put to the test. At full speed downforce of 2.5 times the car’s weight can be achieved.

The downforce means that the cars can achieve a lateral force of around four and a half times the force of gravity (4.5 g) in cornering - a high-performance road car might achieve around 1 g. Consequently in corners the driver’s head is pulled sideways with a force equivalent to 25 kilograms. Such high lateral forces are enough to make breathing difficult and the drivers need supreme concentration to maintain their focus for the 1 to 2 hours that it takes to cover 305 kilometres.

If you would like a car that looks almost ordinary, but that is as fast as many supercars, buy the BMW M5. Yes, on the outside, this is an ordinary European sedan – but under the hood is a 500 bhp V-10 engine that you might imagine came from a sports-racing car! Will it do 180 mph? No, it could, but it won’t because BMW uses a limiter to prevent you going faster than 155 mph on all its hot cars. Actually, BMW says it will do over 190 mph without the limiter in operation.

The BMW M5 is powered by a very advanced 5.0 liter V-10 engine, ad fits neatly into the standard engine compartment. This is a very special engine, being built in small numbers and at high cost by BMW’s M Center. It’s a 90-degree V-10, which means that it won’t be quite as smooth as some – in theory, at any rate.

ADVANCED 500 BHP V10 ENGINE

Maximum power is 500 bhp at 7,700 rpm – a real screamer this – while the maximum torque of 380 lb ft is produced at 6,100 rpm. Boy, you’re really going to keep this revving if you want to use all that power. Still, when it’s just mooching along at 4,000 rpm, this amazing unit produces quite a chunk of power.

Needless to say, it has all the features you’d expect in a supercar engine, such as a stiff aluminum block, twin overhead camshafts per bank of cylinders and and narrow 4-valve heads. BMW uses its variable valve timing system, and drives the inlet camshafts on each bank by chain, with a gear drive to the exhaust camshaft, a system pioneered by Toyota to save space.

SEVEN-SPEED SEQUENTIAL GEARBOX

Coupled to this marvel of a power plant, which would seem more at home in a slinky coupe, is a seven-speed sequential gearbox. This is the latest development of the BMW sporty semi-automatic. BMW claims it’s the first seven-speed box of its type. Mercedes-Benz has a seven-speed automatic, and Audi has a CVT with seven stages, but these are not quite the same.

Why all these seven-speed boxes? Well, for maximum acceleration, and so that you have the right gear coming out of any corner, the more gears the better. When you’ve got that many gears, the shift pattern gets pretty complicated with a manual box, so they’re going for either automatics or semi-automatics.

To go with the powerful power train are bigger brakes than standard, wider wheels and tires, and stiffer suspension. The handling is surprisingly good for such an ordinary-looking car.

HOT PERFORMER, QUIET LOOKS

The result of putting this engine in the BMW 5 Series is very hot acceleration for such a big car: 0-60 in 4.7 seconds, and 0-125 mph in 15.6 seconds.

Will people pay over $100,000 or so for a 500 bhp sedan? You bet they will. There are a lot of people out there that want supercar performance, but don’t’ want to have to struggle to get in and out of the car. They also want to travel with plenty of luggage, and have room in the trunk for two sets of golf clubs – and more.

And they’ll get a real kick from burning off cheeky guys in sports cars who get in the way. Cars that are much faster than they look, which we used to call Q cars, have quite a market. What’s it like to drive? Well, at normal speeds, the car is very quiet, and you would not know how power you had. In fact, there is a switch on the steering wheel which limits power to 400 bhp. To get the full 500 bhp, you need to press that.

So, most of the time you’ll drive with 400 bhp, and the problem is that the engine does not have a lot of power until you get to 5,000 rpm, an the power keeps coming in until you get to 8,000 rpm. You need deserted roads to use that power, but the car works pretty well in traffic and normal commuting. Not quite so good in everyday use is the gearbox. It does not have a torque converter, so it can be quite jerky when you shift up.

DIESELS are still gaining popularity in Europe, thanks to low gas mileage and good performance. The latest diesel cars can take on gasoline engined cars and come out on top!

All turbocharged diesels generate much more torque than gasoline engines, so you get better mid-range acceleration. In other words, from, say, 40-80 mph, a good diesel will see off a good gasoline engine car of the same apparent performance.

Jaguar has introduced a special version of a V-6 2.7 liter diesel that has been developed in Europe jointly by Ford and Peugeot. This is the most advanced diesel around at present, with the brand-new piezo-electric injector operation, the latest common rail injection system and twin turbochargers.

PIEZO-ELECTRIC INJECTORS

What are piezo-electric injectors? Cunning little ceramic devices, and when an electric current is applied they produce a pressure, and so can be used to force fuel into the cylinders. The thing is that they can be operated four times faster than other electro-mechanical injectors so the injector can be opened and closed incredibly quickly. Also, the amount of movement is very small, and you get less noise that you get from mechanical injectors.

Like I said, very cunning, and they all go with high pressure injection to give high power, low noise, emissions and gas mileage. It’s developments like these that mean we’ll have some diesels in Fast-Autos soon - but not a lot!

As a result, the fuel is injected at horrendously high pressures with incredible accuracy. The result? Masses of power, and almost no smoke, the weakness of old-fashioned oil burners, like the dreadful engines GM introduced about 20 years ago.

This new Jaguar S-Type diesel, develops 206 bhp so it lives up to the Jaguar tradition of high performance. Maximum torque is 320 lb ft (430 Nm) which is more than the 4.2 liter gasoline engine can manage without a turbocharger. Although performance is not sensational, it is definitely not what you’d expect from a diesel.

The Jag diesel will push the S-Type automatic up to 60 mph in about 8 seconds, and top speed is 140 mph. You’ll get the idea that Jag regards this as a sporty engine from the fact that it has a six-speed manual or automatic box - both are supplied by ZF. Of course, the most powerful S-Type is the S-Type R.

BMW HAS AN EVEN MORE POWERFUL DIESEL

BMW is also ready with a very powerful 3.0 liter diesel engine which turns out 272 bhp, which would be considered very nice thank you from most makers of 3.0 liter gasoline engines - Ford’s top version of its nice 3.0 liter V-6 develops 225 bhp. BMW uses twin-stage turbocharging to get this much power. In this system, one small turbocharger provides power at low speeds, and a bigger turbo is matched to high speed requirement. It is switched in when the speed and load increase sufficiently, and so can generate as much power as a gasoline engine of the same size.

If that is not enough power consider the latest news. Audi is racing diesel-powered cars at the Le Mans 24-hour race! These V-12 engines develop more than 600 bhp, and will challenge the best gasoline engined sports-racing cars.

You might think that 6 liters was enough to make the Corvette two-seater fast enough, but not for the competition department lurking inside GM. They wanted to be able to compete head-to-head with the European supercars in the international endurance races for sports cars.

To do so, they took a leaf out of Ford’s book. In the 1960s, when Ford found it could not compete with the smaller Ferraris at Le Mans with the 4.2 (ex-Indy) or 4.7 liter engines, they brought out their 7-liter mill. And it was so much bigger than the competition that they won. So the guys behind the Corvette decided to produce a 7-liter version of America’s favorite and most famous sports car.

By the way, the 7 liter Corvette more than competes with the Dodge Viper SRT-10, which could give the standard Corvette a bit of a run for its money. Of course, this is not just any old engine. This is a very special version of its GEN IV 7.0 liter V-8.

This 2006 Corvette is challenging for muscle car of the year with no less than 500 bhp on tap at 6,200 rpm. Maximum torque from this mammoth engine is 475 lb ft at 4,800 rpm. This is bound to be a stunner with a top speed of about 185 mph and 0-60 in under 4.0 seconds. GM expects the quarter-mile be under 12 seconds.

To give durability, the engine has been beefed up in a number of ways. First, the connecting rods and inlet valves are now made of titanium – these weigh about half as much as steel ones and are used in quite a number of high-performance engines. Because of the low weight, the titanium parts put less load on other critical parts of the engine - the crankshaft, bearings and in this case the valve gear as well. The titanium valves also allow the engine to rev faster safely.

In fact, titanium used to be an aerospace-only material because it was so expensive, but it is now bein gused more in exotic cars and the heads of golf clubs, helping the lesser pros feel not so outclassed by Tiger Woods as they might with ordinary drivers.

You will see that the Corvette 7 liter is intended for the race track by the fact that the engine has a dry sump lube system. A dry sump system prevents the oil in the oil pan from slopping away from the pick-up on fast cornering – the sort you can do only on a track – and thus damaging the main bearings.

Instead of staying in the oil pan, the oil is pumped out to a tank, and then pressure fed from there directly to the engine bearings and other critical areas. Definitely a system for top supercars.

The underpinnings of the car have also been beefed up with a new aluminum perimeter frame which reduces weight. Further weight reduction comes with a new magnesium engine sub-frame. To ensure the car is stiff enough, it will be available only as a hardtop. The front fenders and wheelarches are now carbon fiber composite panels, which also reduce weight.

But there’s more…

To get all that power onto the road, and to get it to stop, bigger wheels, tires and brakes have been fitted. The front brake discs are now 13.9 inch diameter, and 19 x 12 inch wide rims are used at the back; front wheels are 18 x 9.5 inches. Such massive rear tires for a car with 50:50 weight distribution suggest that the car will have a tendency to oversteer – smoky drifts could be the order of the day!

All-in-all, this is a really special car, developed to compete with the best.

Ferdinand Porsche was an automobile engineer with more than a thousand patents to his name, and played an important role in the development of airplanes and the construction of tanks for the Wehrmacht as well. In the 1920s he was appointed chief engineer at Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart and later set up his own engineering workshop. There he designed, among other things, the Volkswagen. He acted as chief of operations at the plant where the Volkswagen was made, Wolfsburg, and at the end of the war he was interned by the Allies.

He was released a few years later and immediately went to work building his first car with his son, Ferry Porsche. This car was named the Porsche 356, after Ferry, and was a sports car with styling reminiscent of the Volkswagen. In fact it had the same four-cylinder boxer engine, and wore it rear-mounted, just as the VW did. This meant that it was far from being a powerful sports car, boasting a mere 40 bhp and a maximum speed of 87 mph (140 km/h). Distinguished by its elegant and innovative body, the Porsche 356 was first produced as a convertible and then as a hard top. Father and son developed it in the workshop of Erwin Komenda, a master of restrained streamlining who had been in charge of sheet metal and design techniques for Ferdinand Porsche since the VW Beetle. This new style of closed coupe designed by Komenda soon became the embodiment of the sports car, due in part to its "fastback".

Erwin Komenda and Ferdinand "Butzi" Porsche, the founder’s grandson, continued this tradition with the 911.

The 911 became instantly recognizable: it had an attractive sloping bonnet reminiscent of the 356, what later became characterized as "frog eye" headlights, curves running from the top edge of the windscreen to the rear bumper, and a straight waistline. From a functional and technical point of view it shared more in common with a BMW 1500, but it retained the distinctive stylistic features of the original Porsche. The new 911 became the keystone of Porsche’s identity, even though the design was not always fully appreciated. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, many Porsche designers attempted to distance Porsche from its legendary design and nearly brought the company to the edge of disaster. The more modern 924 model, "a people’s Porsche", developed with Volkswagen, as well as the 928 fell short fulfilling expectations, and failed to allow the company to branch out in new directions and styles.

However, in the 1990’s the company seemed to realize that what some perceived as a stylistic straitjacket was in fact a market advantage. During this period Porsche embraced the timeless nature of classic styling to become highly profitable. Nearly forty people now worked in the design department solely dedicated to further improvement of the long running 911. Such developments included the 911 GTI, put forward by the in-house designer Anthony R. Hatter as a powerful combination of sports and racing car. In 1999, Porsche’s chief designer proudly unveiled the new Boxster, enabling Porsche to establish a second independent range of successful models.

Designed to win races, the Maserati MC12 is actually sold as a road car, albeit it a very impractical one. Still what do you expect with a 620 bhp exotic car? The car looks just like the sports racing car that it is. To be fair, it is a real two-seater while the cars that race at Le Mans are more like single-seaters.

Only 25 MC12s were built initially, and quite a few were used for racing. Actually, when they heard about Maserati building the MC12 for the GTA championship (ooops, sorry for sale as a road car, was the official line, I think) some of the other companies threatened to withdraw as they thought the presence of the MC12 on the starting grid would make a farce of the whole series.

Although the Maserati MC12, is a true exotic car, it is based on the Ferrari Enzo. The whole idea was to upgrade Maserati’s image following a checkered history. The glory of the 50s, when Maserati was a regular winner of Grand Prix, got lost in the mire of an economic downturn, when the company took the wrong turn more than once.

As Ferrari and Maserati are both part of the Fiat Group, and were in fact in the same sub-group, it made sense to modify the Enzo to get Maserati back as a winner. Now, Ferrari and Maserati have been put in different sub-groups, so this sort of collaboration is not expected in the future.

V-12 from Ferrari with 622 bhp

The Maserati MC12 looks completeley different from the Enzo, though,, with a long nose and very long tail. Where the Enzo is angular, the MC12 is curved. It has a carbon fiber body structure with steel sub-frames front and rear. Power comes from a 6.0 liter V-12 developing 622 bhp @ 7,500 rpm, and 480 lb ft (652 Nm) torque @ 5,500 rpm. A semi-racing engine to be sure. It is coupled to a semi-automatic six-speed sequential gearbox, developed by Ferrari in racing.

Suspension is by double wishbones, with inboard spring and damper units acting through pushrods. These are mounted horizontally as on the Enzo. The dampers have variable rates. Quite a car, but not as extreme as the Bugatti Veyron or the latest Saleen S7.

Following the racing success of the MC12, Maserati is now to build a more extreme version - the MC12 Corsa. The MC12 Corsa has a massively uprated Enzo V-12 engine giving about 750bhp. You can get this for about $1.3 million - or £700,000 or Euros 1 million depending where you live.

But this is not a road car, nor will you be able to race it in any official categories – so this is a trackday special at a huge price. Maserati plans to build about 12 MC12 Corsas a year.

Latest super-sports car from England is the Caparo Freestream supercar, which will have a power-to-weight ratio of 1,000 bhp per ton! The Bugatti Veyron which has 1,001 bhp manages about 560 bhp per tonne, so how you can see that the Caparo is streets ahead of any other supercar in power-to-weight ratio, and that is what makes cars accelerate fast. And fast acceleration is very exciting, and can also improve safety of the car in some circumstances.

So how does the Caparo do it? Not with 2,000 bhp because the car would weigh at least 2.5 tons, which would miss the target. In fact, Bugatti has demonstrated that sheer power means a lot of weight, particularly in the transmission and brakes.

To get a high power-to-weight-ratio you need a light car. And why is a high power-to-weight-ratio important? Because it dictates how fast the car accelerates flat out. A car with a high power-to-weight-ratio can cover the ground quicker because it gets out of corners fast and accelerates up the straights faster. So long as the handling is good, the car will be very fast anywhere.

Lightweight solution

Instead of going for a big engine with masses of power, the designers, who worked on the McLaren F1, have gone for ultra lightweight and a compact V-8 engine based on F1 technology. The result is a pencil-slim car with 480 bhp at 10,500 rpm from a supercharged 2.4 liter engine, and a weight of under 1,100 lb. Both the new engine and transmission are very light, as are all the components. The very narrow body without fully enclosed fenders also reduces weight.

The whole design concept has been aimed at reducing weight, ore not putting in things that add weight. First, the power train is very light compared with mass-production units. Then, the carbon fiber body/chassis is also much lighter than most, as designers without Grand Prix experience tend to over-design their structures. Also, because the power train is light, the loads on the body are lower, so again less weight does not need to be built into the structure.

It has a very narrow cockpit, with the passenger sitting slightly behind the driver to reduce width, so this is more of a track racer or trackday special than a road car. Even so, this car changes the concept of exotic cars to where it should be - ultra-lightweight, compactness and exciting performance round twisty roads or circuits.

To save weight they have adopted a narrow coupe body with cycle-type front mudguards, and side-mounted radiators which flow into the rear fenders.

In fact, these are all factors used by Colin Chapman to design the early Lotus cars, and since used by all racing car companies. In other words, the Caparo Freestream really takes advantage of Grand Prix technology to build a supercar.

The Caparo Freestream looks very unusual, but if you want sheer performance this is it! The makers say the car will hit 200 mph, and accelerate from a standing start of 100 mph in 5.5 seconds!! Holy mackerel that is fast. Oh, and they also say that owing to the downforce available, the T1 will be able to corner and brake at 3g - incredible. This tremendous cornering power and braking would not be possible without the use of Grand Prix design principles.

On top of all that, Caparo, which produces a lot of components for the auto industry, have priced the Freestream at about $320,000 (£176,000).