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George Lucas Takes Delivery Of First Mosler MT900S

Noted American film director, producer and screenwriter George Lucas, an avowed high-performance auto aficionado, could buy any car on the planet. He chose the car Darth Vader would drive a stunning black-on-black Mosler MT900S from Mosler Automotive.

In mid-December at his ranch in San Rafael, California, Lucas, who created American Graffiti and the epic Star Wars saga, took delivery of the first street-legal production Mosler MT900S. He first became interested in the Mosler six months ago when his 13-year-old son brought a car magazine into his office. The boy was fascinated by the car and it caught Lucas’ eye as well. After a few calls, an order was placed.

“I was drawn to its looks, its power, its use of high-tech materials, and, of course, its speed,” said Lucas, who also owns a Ferrari F360.

The filmmaker ordered his car with an all-black interior and exterior, rear wing delete option and an Alpine 12-disc CD changer/stereo with a lightweight carbon fiber subwoofer enclosure. In addition, Mosler Automotive custom fit the seats and interior to Lucas’ personal dimensions. Final sales price was $203,000.

Lucas’ car was delivered personally by Mike Vietro, owner of Mosler Mike Motorsports, the exclusive North American distributor for Mosler Automotive.

“We designed the MT900S to be the extreme performance vehicle,” said company founder Warren Mosler. “The MT900S is intended as the ultimate road-going street car for a discriminating group of enthusiasts, collectors and investors capable of appreciating its performance to the fullest.”

The Mosler MT900S utilizes lightweight carbon fiber and Kevlar(TM) composites in its body panels, floor, and door structures. The result is a 2400-pound, fully certified street car powered by a 435-hp, all-aluminum V8 that delivers class-leading performance with 0-60 times 3.1 seconds.

Final assembly is completed in Riviera Beach, Florida. A stunning example of cutting-edge technology and beauty, the MT900S features 18- and 20-inch magnesium and carbon-fiber wheels (Mosler was the first to adopt carbon rims).

In third-party testing, the Mosler MT900S officially set nine performance records for acceleration, braking and handling.

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Six-cylinder Bio-ethanol Engine For The Volvo XC60 Concept

The powertrain for the All Wheel Drive Volvo XC60 Concept, due to make its world debut at the Detroit show in January, is a six-cylinder, 3.2-litre bio-ethanol engine. The engine offers dynamic performance with 265bhp and 340 Nm of torque – with 80 per cent lower carbon dioxide emissions compared with the same engine running on petrol.

“We believe that the FlexiFuel also has great potential for larger engine sizes and we are planning to expand our range of bio-ethanol-powered engines in the coming years,” says Magnus Jonsson, Senior Vice President, Research & Development at Volvo Cars.

The powertrain for the Volvo XC60 Concept uses the same six-cylinder, 3.2-litre, in-line petrol engine that was introduced in the all-new Volvo S80 and revised XC90 in mid-2006. The engine has been optimised for E85 (85 percent bio-ethanol, 15 percent petrol). This gives acceleration from 0–60 mph in 8.2 seconds and a top speed of approximately 143 mph. Fuel economy when running on E85 reduces to 19.2 mpg, as the energy content of ethanol is 40% lower than that of petrol.

Environmental benefits

Bio-ethanol is an entirely renewable fuel that can be produced from just about any biomass source, such as corn, wheat, sugar-cane or cellulose. On top of these environmental benefits, in many markets the car owner is compensated at the fuel pump through the lower price of bio-ethanol.

“One single renewable fuel will not be able to replace today’s fossil fuels, and the range of alternative fuels will probably be far wider in the future. Many different fuels and technologies are therefore being developed in parallel. Ethanol reduces dependency on fossil fuels and Volvo’s FlexiFuel programme makes a vital contribution to our strategy of environmental sustainability,” says Fredrik Arp, President and CEO of Volvo Cars.

Bio-ethanol – the future?

The demand for renewable bio-ethanol is growing steadily in Europe. There are already 23 plants producing ethanol in Europe which is expected to rise to just over 60 by 2008. Approximately 720 million gallons of ethanol are produced annually within the European Union, primarily from sugar beet and various grains. Capacity is expected to increase threefold by 2008.

In comparison, the USA has 101 bio-ethanol plants with a capacity of 4.8 billion gallons per year. It has a further 39 bio-ethanol refineries under construction, which will add more than 2.5 billion gallons capacity. There are already about 1,000 filling stations for E85 in the USA.

Volvo Cars has already launched a four-cylinder bio-ethanol-powered FlexiFuel engine in three of its nine models – the C30 SportsCoupe, S40 saloon and V50 Sportswagon – which are available in several European countries – Sweden, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland – and plans to introduce them to more countries in 2007, including, probably, the UK. Volvo predicts sales of 7,000 FlexiFuel cars worldwide in 2007.

Rinspeed Presents Ethereally Transparent Concept Car eXasis

Is it just a clever 3-D projection or maybe a mirage of a four-wheel art object? Or is it actually a real car sitting there? Some visitors to this year’s Geneva Auto Show (March 8th thru 18th) will ask themselves just these questions when faced with the new fully transparent Rinspeed creation “eXasis.” The insect-like body and even the floor pan of the seemingly “glass” concept car from the renowned Swiss powerhouse for new designs and ideas actually consist of a transparent high-tech plastic with a tinge of pale yellow.

The “eXasis” has open wheels, a cigar-shaped body with fore and aft tandem seating, and has elements of the legendary Auto Union race cars from the first half of the last century combined with a modern Baja-1000 off-road vehicle.

The transparency “dematerializes” the car to a large extent. Behind the seemingly fading matter the spirit of the “eXasis” reveals itself: The ideas, thoughts and imagination that were the basis of its development. For Rinspeed boss Frank M. Rinderknecht the “eXasis” symbolizes this development process, a process that takes immaterial spirit and turns it into matter, transforms a mere vision into a concrete car: “And in all its transparency the “eXasis” still seems as if it hadn’t arrived fully yet in the material world.”

Definitely part of the material world is the engine of the concept car: A compact and powerful two-cylinder 750-cc engine provides some 150 environmentally friendly horsepower for swift conveyance. Bioethanol that reduces CO2 emissions powers the tiny supercharged engine. With a projected vehicle weight of just 750 kilograms thanks to plastic lightweight construction each horsepower has to account for just five kilograms - on a level with a Porsche.

Altogether these figures give plenty of reasons to expect of loads of driving fun and numerous visionary technologies and innovations from Rinspeed’s “eXasis.” A very special thrill will be the view through the transparent floor pan - it will be an absolutely unique anniversary ride.

The $1.3 Million Maserati MC12 Versione Corse

The MC12 Versione Corse makes 755 horsepower, compared with 600 hp for the GT1. It also is equipped with an electrohydraulic Cambiocorsa semiautomatic transmission in place of the racing car’s manual gearbox, and features a passenger seat.

The price: a cool 1 million euros, or $1,333,000 at current exchange rates. Plus taxes, of course. The car goes on sale this month, with the production run limited to a mere 12 units.

The car, which Maserati observes is not street legal, was designed “to give an exclusive number of Maserati clients the possibility to test their driving capability in the most exclusive gentleman drivers’ environment.”

The official exterior color is “Blue Victory,” but Maserati says it will customize the car, inside and out, to the customer’s personal specifications.

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