Car Throttle

217 mph, in a BMW 7-Series? 0-62 mph in 3.5 seconds? Forget about the M5, this is the M7 BMW never has produced. These numbers have been made possible by the aftermarket, in what truly amounts to a four-door super car. The work has been done by German company TuningWerk. There are two packages available, impressive and insane. The first is what the company calls "small scale power augmentation." That package brings power up to 530 horsepower and torque to 545 pound feet, on its way to a top speed of 192 mph. Acceleration is down by .7 from the fastest model, to 4.2 seconds. For stopping power, an upgraded HighPerformance steel braking system is fitted. The full monte takes power up to 720 horsepower

I liked the Fiat 500 Sport quite a bit.  And that was with 101bhp.  It's a fun little car, with Italian flare, enough cute to make a Mini puke, and a fun little chassis that likes the curves.  How much more fun would the 500 be with oh, say, triple the horsepower?  I'd bet a lot.  I want to drive one. This is the Fiat 500 Abarth Stradale, built by Romeo Ferraris.  It's a road-legal version of their 360-horsepower Abarth race car, complete with a carbon-fiber widebody kit that gives it a striking resemblence to everyone's favorite Sith Lord. While the Abarth race car makes a ridiculous 360bhp from 1.4L, it's toned down a bit for the road going version - with 300bhp.  Romeo

The Honda CR-Z has a lot of potential.  It's really a neat little car.  I drove one a while back, and there's a lot to like about it.  It's got a well-appointed, comfortable and high-tech interior.  It's light, and it handles pretty well.  Fuel economy is decent, and in sport mode the IMA battery assist gives you a useful thump of torque.  But frankly, for those expecting a CRX Si, it's a massively disappointing car.  I mean, here's this sporty looking low-slung hatchback with a racy interior, and it has less power than a lot of garden tractors.  It's terribly slow, and after a while the game of "how many corners can I take at wide-open throttle?" becomes boring.  Adnan drove one too,

"Money affords exclusivity". That's a saying which pretty much rings true in life with a large wallet able to open larger doors than many would think possible. So - if money was no object - why be content driving around in a luxury vehicle or supercar that hundreds if not thousands of others like you also own? This is where Afzal Kahn steps into the fray. A British business tycoon from Bradford, this self-made mogul asked himself the same question, and then proceeded to do something about it. Enter Project Kahn who in their own words are "for the individual who will not submit to a life of uniformity and who will only accept perfection". Such individuals who have £88,875 to spare, may look toward

I'm a big fan of comparisons.  Let me make one real quick: a Camry is to cars, what KFC is to Chicken.  As a society that accepts "good enough" as good enough, America loves the Camry.  There's not a whole lot to actually love about the Camry, but it's quiet, comfortable, and has good resale value.  And Toyota says it's reliable, when it's not experiencing demonic acceleration influence and catapulting you into your neighbor's hedge. The Camry is the unflavored ramen noodles of cars.  It's boring, and it's meant to be boring.  The less people you can offend, the larger a demographic your product appeals to.  So how do you make a Camry that fuel-in-their-veins car enthusiasts would like? Well, you give it 728 horsepower.  At

We've spent some quality time with the S5, and after doing so CarThrottle is a definitely a fan of Audi's A5/S5 lineup. For 2012 (model year 2013 in the United States) the car has been updated with a mid-cycle enhancement. Before this hits the market though, Project Kahn, headed up by Afzal Kahn, has released a new tuning package for the standard 2011 A5 Coupe. The effort turns up the A5's aggressiveness quotient significantly, borrowing from the R8's signature styling cues to do so. It reminds me a lot of some of the A5-based "Ur-Quattro" renderings we've seen thrown around. Up front there is a new fascia, with black grille and red surround. R8-like air inlets dominate, and black trim sits just below the headlights.

The Ariel Atom is already the purest distillation of a sports car you can get your hands on in the US.  I suppose with the exception of the kit-form-only Cateram 7 and the soon-to-be-imported KTM X-Bow, anyway.  It doesn't even have body panels.  It looks like an alien probing device with an engine, wheels, and a license plate. A regular Ariel Atom weighs in at 1,350lbs(!) and the weakest engine is a Honda K20 drive-by-wire motor out of the RSX Type-S, an aluminum 2.0L 16v motor with VTEC, 200bhp, and an 8,000+rpm redline.  There's also the option of a tweaked naturally aspirated 245bhp K20, and a supercharged 300 horsepower K20.  300 horsepower in a "normal" car is pretty intense.  300bhp in a 1,350lb car gives it a

Ford's new 5.0L "Coyote" V8 is a potent motor. My short time behind the wheel of a 2012 Mustang GT left me with surprisingly little negative to say about the Mustang itself, and a mix of shock and admiration for the new 32v quad-cam V8.  It's such a quantum leap forward for Ford's pony car that you're left sort of wondering what planet it came from. An engine this good does a 3,600lb Mustang wonders.  So there's no doubt shoehorning it into other places will work wonders, too.  How about under the hood of a brand-new Ford Ranger pickup truck? This 2011 Ranger was brought to Blow-By Racing in Delray, FL for an infusion of a little more power.  Out went the old 4.0L Cologne V6,

Among the MANY things that bothers me about the "Fast & Furious" franchise are the innumerable technical errors. I mean, come on, these are movies about cars made for car guys.  How do they get so much stuff wrong?  Nitrous isn't explosive, blowing the intake manifold (how do you do that?) won't cause your diamond-plate floorboards to pop out, 2G Eclipses only have 5 gears, Nissan SR20's don't go into Honda Civics (Ted!) and I bet some people do like the Tuna. But the most annoying to me, at least from the first film, was when the mousey little white kid character Jesse pops the hood of the junked Toyota Supra that Paul Walker brings to Dominic Torreto's shop, and exclaims "...2JZ, no @#%$!!"  Jesse, a

The Honda CR-Z has been panned by many reviewers and enthusiasts as a missed opportunity. The CR-Z has left performance out of the equation, instead of being an affordable and fun successor to the CR-X. Since its introduction we've heard rumblings about a sport-tuned by Honda tuner Mugen. Last month, Mugen made it an official with the announcement of a Mugen CR-Z concept headed for a debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July. The changes focus primarily on boosting power from the 1.5-liter four-cylinder combined with an electric motor. Now with forced induction, the combined setup makes 197 horsepower and 191 pound feet of torque. Those numbers are up dramatically from the standard car's 122 hp. Along with a drop of 110 pounds