Cholmondeley Pageant of Power 2012

 One thing I love about having moved to the UK is that there is an amazing variety of car shows, clubs, events etc etc all the time. Not far from my house is the Ace Cafe for example...they have gatherings there EVERY single day! Its really fantastic. In that vein a couple of weeks ago I went to the Cholmondeley Pageant of Power and saw some amazingly varied and cool stuff! Here is a tiny selection of some of the things there...there was way more. And part of the fun is that in many cases you could speak to the owners of these machines and they would gladly sit there chatting and really enjoying describing their cars or bikes. I also got a ride (a very fast ride with full launch included!) in a Nissan GT-R. It was in a word, amazing. After I finish my Firebird I know what Im saving up for!

Here's a brake assembly from a racing GT-R from Sumo Power racing team. Its interesting because Ive never seen a disc completely covered by the cooling duct before outside of F1.

This Lancia S4 looked really fantastic. Maybe a bit TOO fantastic? It was too clean. Well, turns out its a replica! Hard to believe because from a few yards away its impossible to tell. But once you look in the engine bay you see that theres a turbo engine from the FIAT coupe in there. Still...beautiful looking project! I later found out that a person I work with is having this same builder make him a Lancia 037 replica!

What can I say. Well one thing...looked hard as hell to ride that thing!

 

Looks like a regular delivery van with some graphics and a pair of nice seats right? Talk about a sleeper! Theres a full fledged Jaguar XJ-220 engine and transaxle back there!

Speaking of Jaguars, personally one of the most beautiful cars ever made...the XJR-15. Unlike the XJ-220 this one had the full Jag 12 cylinder in it. Apparently beauty is only skin deep in this case...seems like most professional drivers think its a bear to drive.

One of the nice things about this event is that all cars get driven. The sound this Lotus F1 was making out of its Lamborghini V-12 was fantastic!

This Bentley was just awe inspiring. That's a Packard V-12 in there...same as on the P-51 Mustangs! Needless to say it created its own crowd control...and that was just at idle!

 This Bentley had a sweet temp gauge. You can just see the gears making the needle move. I forgot to write down what year it was.

Well...we can at least say the show goers weren't taking themselves too seriously!

Ford 1.0 liter Ecoboost 3 cylinder

Drove the new Ford Focus with the 1.o Ecoboost 3 cylinder. I must say...I was really impressed! Considering its only a 1.0 with 125 horsepower it reved very nicely, and was torquey all the way from idle to redline. It was also really surprising how smooth it was, I could barely tell the engine was on from inside. I was wondering how they managed to balance a three cylinder so well but it turns out this was all NVH tuning. When the hood was poped open thye engine vibrated quite a bit at idle. However, the performance was incredibly good, it even made some nice sporty sounds as it reved up, never sounded like it was running out opf breath. That was also suprising considering the size of the turbo! You can see how small it is compared to my hand. It really goes to show how far a modern engine can go now when good fuel injection, variable vane turbo, and variable valve timming are combined!

Big Red Camaro: Driving Fast & Taking Chances

Big Red...not the first road race Camaro, but most likely the first one that people took notice of and set the bar for the start of the Pro-Touring builds. Whatever its place in car history theres no arguing with an 1107hp @ 7000RPM 598 ci naturally aspirated big block!