Car Throttle

Once the Megane range gets a mid-life face lift in April, we will be saying bye-bye to the 250 and a big hello to the new 265. It's Renault's latest record breaking hot hatch to hit our roads with a lap time of 8 minutes and 8 seconds around the Nurburgring which makes it the fastest front-wheel drive car ever to go round the famous German track. Thanks to the new 'Renaultsport Dynamic Management' system, the new 265's 2.0L Turbo will produce 261bhp and 265lb ft of torque meaning a 0-60mph time of around six seconds and a top speed of 160mph. All that is available once you've pushed the 'Sport' button, with the car acting calm and civilised, "ish", in normal mode. Renault have

It's a sad day for car people.  If you've been on the internet, especially Facebook, and especially General Motor's Facebook page, you probably heard today's big news. Saab filed for bankruptcy in a district court in Sweden today.  We don't make a habit of reporting industry news here at Car Throttle, but this is Saab we're talking about, and this story has been leading to this inevitable conclusion basically since Spyker bought Saab from GM.  With no money to buy the parts to build cars, or pay the workers to build the cars, Saab was in a rough spot.  With accusations of their funding coming from shady places it was hard to secure additional funding to float the company.  And with GM unwilling to supply

If there is one brand that has been happy to oblige enthusiasts with all manner of performance cars over the past few years, it has been Audi. It has successively brought out variants of the R8 (V-10 FSI, R8 GT) as well as with other models up and down the lineup. The Audi TT-RS is the most powerful version of the TT available, and we're sure glad it made its making its way to the United States. Initially, it was supposed to be sold in Europe only, along with the RS5. What's up with that? However, Audi has decided to bring both cars here for North American buyers. RS is the most powerful line of performance vehicles at Audi, but French magazine L'Automobile

Ahahaha, oh my. An "entry level" supercar - right, that makes sense.  It used to be there were sports cars that normal people could afford (Mustang, Corvette, Porsche 944, etc), and Supercars that only oil barons and filthy rich Enron executives could afford (F512M, Countach, Cizeta Moroder, EB110.)  As the industry moves along, though, we've actually developed upper and lower echelons of the supercar.  It's funny to think of something costing nearly a quarter-million dollars as being "entry level," but despite all the insanity of the Ferrari 458 Italia, it's not the craziest thing they make. There didn't used to be a lot of choice here, either - you could pretty much get an F355 or an Esprit, and a few others have crept in here

Let's see: Audi TT-RS and RS5 heading to the United States, S7 and RS7 Sportback in the works, R8 GT and the possible (make that likely) production of the Quattro Concept. Those are a few of the Audi performance products we've seen recently. With that list, is there any Audi performance project they will say no to? Apparently, yes - if it has to do RS SUV or crossover models. BMW held out on this issue for quite some time, never affixing its M badging onto a SUV or crossover until the X5 M and X6 M. Audi's RS badging is reserved for the upper crust of its performance lineup, taking it even further than S-Line or S. The report comes from Autoblog.it who says the policy

Porsche's had enough, and they're not gonna take it any more. What am I talking about?  Nissan's constant bragging about Nurburgring lap times, of course.  Surely all parties involved realize that the difference between a 7:26 and a 7:18 on the world's most difficult track is entirely academic, but praise be to the car Gods that Porsche is so obsessed with this matter, because I can't think of another reason for the newest (and arguably meanest) 911 derivative to exist.  I mean, for God's sakes, the first thing they say in the press release is the car's 'Ring time.  So while the numbers are pretty stupid (a different driver in different weather conditions with different traffic could be 30 seconds slower), the new GT2 RS isn't

The current generation of Ford Focus is headed for the hills. Not the rehashed-three-times version they've been foisting on the American public like we're stupid for the last decade-plus, but the second-generation Focus that's been impressing Europeans since 2005.  And sitting at the top of the current Focus heap is the totally bonkers 305bhp Focus RS, a scooped-and-spoiled turbocharged rocketship powered by a snarling Volvo 5-cylinder.  As a final hurrah for the Focus RS, Ford just announced a limited-edition run-out model called the RS500, and it's absolutely badass. The name RS500 harkens back to the final evolution of the Sierra Cosworth in 1987.  After dominating Group A touring car racing for most of it's existance, the road-going RS500 took the Sierra out with a bang with

At some time, I'd say every automotive journalist reaches the point where they're sick of writing about 911's. I mean, Porsche releases 12 new variations of the 911 each year, sometimes seemingly just for the fun of it, and we're supposed to treat it like it's news.  It's not news.  The 911's had the engine in the wrong place since it was born in 1964, and the engineers at Stuttgart are too stubborn to put it in the right place. Still, even if a new variation of the 911 isn't quite as exciting as say, an actually new car coming out, it's still a 911.  So it still deserves some love.  The latest variation (I think it's number 13,468?) is an updated version of the 911 GT3

The five cylinder finally returns to the Audi lineup after an extended absence this year, under the hood of the hottest TT ever. The TT-RS is the pinnacle of Audi's small sportscar lineup, and it's packing the firepower to back up it's aggressive appearance.  With a 2.5L direct-injected turbocharged I5 and 340bhp, the TT-RS coupe will rocket to 60mph in 4.6 seconds thanks to Quattro four-wheel grip. Audi just released another batch of high-resolution pictures of the TT-RS, and I figure any reason at all is good enough to feature the TT-RS whenever possible. Although there's no word yet on whether Audi's going to import the hottest TT to the horsepower-hungry States, we can always keep our collective fingers crossed.  I mean, I'll never be able to

On again, off again. The 305bhp Ford Focus RS, which has every EuroSnob hot hatch enthusiast in America foaming at the mouth like Cujo, might be coming stateside after all.  Automotive News claims that Ford's Advanced Product Creation and Global Performance Director, Hermann Salenbauch, is gauging public opinion on US interest of the über-hatch for importation to the US. "How much do they like it? Is it really what they want? We are pretty confident that it is," says Hermann.  Well, DUH.  Not every blue oval lover in the states is utterly enamored with the Mustang GT.  Some of us like fat wads of turbocharged torque, tight independently sprung chassis, and hatchback practicality.  I mean, VW sells every R32 they can import without a noticeable advertising campaign,