Tag Archives: RaceCar

Retro 1940s-Inspired race-car concept is powered by an electric drivetrain!

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The Helvezzia Tipo-6 exists in a parallel universe where electric vehicles were commonplace back in the 1940s. I wouldn’t be surprised though, if the world, plagued by the 2nd World War and the need to have an efficient way to transport humans and resources, developed electric cars on a mass-production scale.
[Fun Fact: EVs did, in fact, exist in the 1900s but were soon phased out after the discovery of large petroleum reserves in the USA]

Let’s step out of that scenario for a second to admire the beauty that is the Helvezzia Tipo-6 concept, an alt-reality race car with a 1940s-inspired exterior and a powerful electric interior. Designed specifically for racing, the Helvezzia Tipo-6 seats just one person with a pretty advanced looking dashboard featuring a steering wheel with gauges and switches, and a secondary set of gauges behind the steering. The car comes with a nice, tubular body, an open cockpit, and wheels that pop out of the bodywork, with hubcaps covering the rims entirely. There’s even a step knee located to the left of the driver, headlamps with their own covers too, and by far my favorite detail, that ridiculously beautiful chrome grille on the front, added purely for vanity purposes because an EV wouldn’t really need a radiator. Finally, the Helvezzia Tipo-6 caps off with a chrome rear, giving the entire car quite a unique retro-meets-modern vibe from front to back!

Designer: Alexander Imnadze Baldini

How Lamborghini successfully carried over its racecar design language onto a luxury yacht

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Behold the ‘Tecnomar for Lamborghini 63’, a one-of-a-kind, limited edition motor yacht that turns Lamborghini’s adrenaline-pumping driving experience waterborne. Created as a collaboration between Lamborghini and The Italian Sea Group, the Tecnomar beautifully captures the raging bull experience, with design details that almost instantly make it synonymous with Lamborghini’s stile. We’re not going to dive into the technicalities of the Tecnomar, but rather look at how wonderfully the two design groups created a yacht that’s so innately Lamborghini, it’s hard to ignore!

The Tecnomar pulls inspiration directly from the Lamborghini Sián FKP 37’s design details (the two even feature together in the video). Outwardly, it’s pretty easy to draw parallels between a car and yacht, simply because they both need to be incredibly aerodynamic and streamlined, but the Tecnomar manages to do so much more to look the part (apart from the angular bodywork, of course). Take for instance the Y-shaped headlights, a detail that’s directly taken from Lamborghini’s playbook (remember the Terzo Millennio), or the zig-zag stepping on the rear of the yacht that’s inspired by the rear profile of the Aventador. The yacht even sports 3-bar taillights, a detail seen in most of Lamborghini’s racecars, and the hexagonal shape of the transparent paneling on its sides is a direct reference to the air-intakes found under the headlights of most modern-day Lambos. To top things off, the yacht even sports the same color schemes, although cooler hues like blue and green work better on water, while warmer tones like orange and yellow are more suited for land. It’s a remarkable replication of styles that really shows that Lamborghini’s brand of speed is truly universal, and can easily be carried anywhere!

The Tecnomar is a two-man yacht powered by two V12 – 2000HP engines that allows it to reach speeds of 60 knots. The interiors come with heavy Lamborghini influences too, including the cockpit that looks almost like you’re on a racetrack. There’s even that unmistakable “Start/Stop” button that you’d find in the Italian automotive company’s racecars! The ‘Tecnomar for Lamborghini 63’ (representing the company’s founding year in 1963) will be available from next year as a part of a limited edition run.

Designers: Automobili Lamborghini & The Italian Sea Group

What would a Tesla-made Le Mans racecar look like?

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I’ll tell you what it would look like. Short of having Elon Musk’s flamethrower as an afterburner, a Tesla racecar would be all kinds of awesome. Even Miguel Angel Bahri feels so, as is captured in his conceptual Tesla T1 racer. Originally designed for the Michelin Design Challenge, the Tesla T1 is a conceptual Le Mans racecar with an electric drivetrain powered – in part – by the wind hitting against your vehicle when you drive at high speeds. The car comes with specially designed wheels that have independently rotating turbines in them that begin to generate power to the four individual drivetrains, along with a massive turbine right behind the driver that rotates more the faster you drive, generating power for the car. It’s an incredibly ambitious concept, but so was landing all three boosters of the Falcon 9, digging a tunnel under the ground to circumvent traffic, and creating a brain-to-machine interface… in short, nothing’s quite impossible for Mr. Musk. You’d probably wonder that those turbines would need to create sufficient drag to rotate fast, and you’d be right, but the car would probably more than make up for that by giving it the range it needs to complete the 24 hour Le Mans race.

Designer: Miguel Angel Bahri

Holden’s Time Attack Concept can hit 100km/h in a second

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On paper, Holden’s Time Attack concept, built for the 50th anniversary of their first ever Bathurst 1000 victory, has the fastest acceleration in the world. With the ability to go from 0 to 100km/h (62m/h) in a little over a second, the Time Attack is almost twice as fast as the car with the fastest acceleration in the world (the Tesla Roadster, which can go from 0-100 in 1.9 seconds). Side note, that’s enough inertia to cause some serious whiplash if you’re not prepared!

The Time Attack comes with a carbon fiber and Kevlar body that contributes to its high strength to weight ratio. The practically-bahn-hugging car comes with four axial flux permanent magnet electric motor drives pumping out 250kW each, contributing to a total of a 100kW or 1360 horsepower along with and 3,240 Nm of torque. Having run simulations using this very setup, the Time Attack managed to go from 0 to 100 km/h in 1.25 seconds. Designed in memory of the company’s first ever Bathurst 1000 victory, the car was made to run on a virtual reconstruction of the Mount Panorama circuit (where drivers run 161 laps to complete the 1000km endurance race), where it managed to beat the McLaren 650S GT3’s standing lap record of 2:01 minutes by a staggering 32 seconds!

You can check the simulation of its victory lap in the video above!

Designer: Holden

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Jaguar’s next-gen Formula E race car packs more power

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The next wave of Formula E cars is finally trickling out, and it's clear they're considerably more exciting this season. Panasonic Jaguar Racing has unveiled the next generation of its racer, the I-Type 3, and it's a dramatic improvement even compar...

Roborace’s self-driving car isn’t faster than a human (yet)

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Ever since Roborace unveiled plans for driverless track cars, there's been a lingering question: can its technology outpace a human? The answer is a solid "no..." for now. The company used the recent Formula E race in Rome to pit its DevBot prototy...

VW unveils electric race car built to tackle Pikes Peak

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Volkswagen is delivering on its promise of an electric car powerful enough to conquer the Pikes Peak hill climb. It has formally unveiled the I.D. R Pikes Peak, and the design is very clearly tailor-made for the job -- it looks more like a Le Mans m...

VW’s Seat unveils the first fully electric touring-class race car

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You've seen electric Formula cars, Le Mans racers and even a Pikes Peak machine, but there's still room for more firsts in EV racing. VW's Seat brand has unveiled the Cupra e-Racer, which it says is the first completely electric touring-class race ca...

Volkswagon is building an electric supercar to tackle Pike’s Peak

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Last month, Volkswagen laid out a roadmap for its EV rollout, promising 300 zero-emissions vehicles by 2030. While it's certainly good PR to move the company beyond its lingering diesel scandal, it also follows other automakers that recently committe...

Infiniti prototype melds a 1940s race car with EV power

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As a rule, electric car concepts embrace the future. Even those with a retro flavor are clearly products of the 21st century. Don't tell that to Infiniti, however -- it's going deep into the past. Nissan's luxury badge has unveiled the Prototype 9, a...