The 2011 Shelby GT350 seemed to have a polarizing effect when it debuted at Barrett-Jackson’s opening gala event on Monday night. Some of you loved it and others instantly objected to everything from the looks of the car to the $33,995 price tag that doesn’t include the base car. With 500 horsepower from the new 5.0-liter V8, there’s no arguing that the 2011 GT350 has plenty of performance potential, but is another $60,000+ Mustang what people really want?

The first thing we did when we arrived in Scottsdale last night was to make a bee-line to check out the car in person. We also caught up with Jim Owens, Shelby’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications, who talked to us about the car. Follow the jump for what we learned about the 2011 GT350.

Lotus Motorsport announces the Evora Cup race car together with an innovative European points based race series for 2010. The race car will make its first public appearance at the Autosport International racing car show in Birmingham, UK on the 14th January 2010.

The Lotus Evora is a highly acclaimed road car that incorporates many race car elements to give it incredible handling and performance. The Evora has a mid-engine layout, high-tech, super-stiff extruded and bonded aluminium chassis and double wishbone suspension all round. These elements mean that it is a relatively easy progression from the production car to a competitive race car.

The Evora Cup race car has been developed by Lotus Motorsport and is designed to offer a level of performance that would make it competitive in GT4 racing. The race car will be eligible to compete in a number of different national and international series, with options for endurance racing and sprint racing.

The Evora Cup show car is finished in Epsom Green with a Solar Yellow stripe down the centre. It is an evocative sports car that will offer a great platform to race in high level motor sport.

At the heart of the Evora Cup race car is a new 4 litre V6 race engine that boasts more than 400 PS and a dry sump system for the high cornering forces encountered during racing. The mid mounted engine is mated to a Cima six speed sequential paddle shift dog gearbox, which is designed for international motor sport.

The efficient Evora body has received a Dallara developed aero package, which includes a number of updated carbon fibre parts and significantly improves performance for racing applications, giving greater downforce and improved cooling.

“Performance through light weight” is a Lotus philosophy and the Evora Cup race car has been pared down to less than 1200 kg, which translates into a reduction of more than 200 kgs over the production car. This weight saving has been achieved by using high performance parts and materials and deleting parts not required for motor sport

The Evora Cup race car will come with adjustable motor sport dampers and six piston front brake callipers, with two piece aluminium belled brake discs. The car has an electrical cut off, fire extinguisher, traction control and is designed to have all the relevant FIA compatible motor sport equipment to race.

Claudio Berro, Director of Motorsport at Group Lotus plc stated, “Lotus has an enviable heritage of producing very competitive racing cars and we wish to continue this heritage with the Evora Cup race car. The company started by creating world beating racing cars and this is evident from the design of Lotus cars as the production cars have many racing car design features and perform exceptionally well on track.”

Claudio Berro continues, “The Evora Cup racing car is the first step along the route for Lotus Motorsport to realise its racing ambitions. I am looking forward to seeing the Evora racing this year in the Lotus Evora Cup competition and I am excited by the plans for 2011, where Lotus intends to introduce a pan European one make race series for the Evora Cup.”

The 2010 Evora Cup series will be a European event with points initially being awarded to competitors for entering races with the points values awarded relative to Evora finishing positions. There will be five points for attending any eligible national race meeting with five points awarded for the first Evora to finish down to one point for the fifth.

The series will then culminate with two Lotus Festivals, with provisional dates for Donington Park in the UK (16th & 17th October 2010) and the second at Vallelunga in Italy (21st and 22nd November 2010). All the competitors from around Europe will be invited to race at these festivals and there will be double points on offer. The championship winner will be the driver who accrues the most number of points from a maximum of 6 races over the 2010 season.

A prize fund of at least €100,000 will be available. The final design and specifications will be presented at the Geneva Motorshow in March 2010. Drivers are invited to register their interest at the Lotus Evora Cup website: http://www.lotusevoracup.com The Evora Cup race car will go on sale at £120,000 excluding taxes.

Story by Group Lotus PLC

The ZR1 might be the fastest Chevrolet Corvette to ever come out of Bowling Green, Kentucky, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved upon. That’s where Lingenfelter Performance Engineering of Decatur, Indiana comes in. They’ve built some of the fastest Corvettes in the world, plus some other pretty wild tuned Chevys. Their latest super-Vette is this Jetstream Blue Metallic ZR1 that Lingenfelter took out to the drag strip at Maryland International Raceway last month. The result? A best pass of 9.813 seconds at 145.74 mph.

As you can imagine, Lingenfelter made more than just a few minor modifications. The ZR1’s supercharger was upgraded with a cast aluminum air intake snout and an 11-rib, 2.6-inch pulley, an upgraded air filter, a four-inch diameter intake tube with mass air sensor, a ported throttle body, and a cast aluminum air inlet all help to stuff more air into the 6.2-liter V8. Other upgrades include a larger heat exchanger, larger intercooler reservoir system, and a set of sticky R345/35R18 Mickey Thompson ET Street Radials. The finished product puts out 739 horsepower and 740 pound-feet of torque measured at the rear wheels.

Seems like Toyota is doing everything in its power to shake the fuddy-duddy, emotionless appliance image its built for itself over the last fifteen years or so. First came word that ToMoCo’s Mr. Toyoda stated the brand needed to get sportier. Next came the very welcome news that along with Subaru, Toyota would be introducing a lightweight, RWD sport coupe (now known to be the FT-86) that would cost about $20,000. Finally, there’s the LFA, the $500,000 Lexus, that if the reviews are to be believed, just might be worth every penny.

That’s all well and good, but what if you want a sporty Prius?
Meet the G Sports Series. To quote Toyota, the G Sports Series, “is designed for customers who strongly desire to own a unique vehicle, offering them a personalized interior and exterior design along with sports-driving performance.” Put another way, Toyota is bringing the aftermarket in-house.
With a total of five vehicles getting the G Sports Series treatment, Toyota is looking to offer customized sportiness to whomever wants it. Only two of the five cars however are U.S. market vehicles: the Prius and the FT-86. The Prius gets one hell of a body kit, including sleek rear-wheel skirts. While far from beautiful, we have to say that we like the G Series Prius much better than the regular one.
But, the real news is the G Sports Series FT-86. Because it’s the FT-86 is still officially a “concept” Toyota isn’t revealing any hard data beyond RWD, 2.0-liters and six-speed manual. Good enough for us. As far as the G Sports Series version goes, it’s a little busy and the rear wing is beyond unnecessary. Still, we’re quite excited.
Especially as the front of the FT-86 might just be revealing an intercooler. Which would mean a turbocharger. Or is that just a fancy radiator?

Last sold on these shores in 1982, the Lancia brand has pretty much slipped into obscurity for most Americans, but there was a time when Lancia was on top of the world. From the mid-’70s to the early-’90s, Lancia racked up an impressive tally of international race wins and championships with its doorstop-like Stratos and Montecarlo successor. With the recent Chrysler/Fiat nuptials, the Lancia brand is having a bit of a renaissance, but only as a source of future badge-engineered Chryslers. That’s why it’s so refreshing to come across something like the car we just found on Craigslist: A genuine Lancia LC2 Group C racecar.

In 1983, Lancia introduced the LC2, a closed-cockpit Group C car co-developed with Ferrari. It went up against the legendary Porsche 956, and later the 962, with a big power advantage courtesy of the dual-turbocharged Ferrari V8 in the engine bay. Its 720 horsepower helped the LC2 win a string of pole positions, but the car wasn’t very reliable. It did win a few races for Lancia from 1983-1986, and continued to run in privateer campaigns until the early ’90s, but Lancia eventually dropped out of sportscar racing altogether at the end of 1986 in order to concentrate on rallying. The Lancia Delta went on to be one of the most successful rally cars in history, but the LC2 remained the pinnacle of Lancia’s rise to glory in international sportscar racing.

The LC2 available on Craigslist is chassis number 2 of just 5 ever built. It ran under the works Martini livery from ‘83-’86 scoring a win at the Imola 1000K in 1983 at the hands of Teo Fabi and Hans Heyer. Bob Wollek and Alessandro Nannini piloted 002 to a fastest lap after winning the pole at Le Mans in ‘84. It finished 8th in that 24 hour run, but followed up with a 246-mile-per-hour Mulsanne Straight clocking the following year when it qualified P3 and finished 6th. Chassis number 002 ran in more races than any other LC2 before retiring in 1986. Riccardo Patrese, Michele Alboreto, Mauro Baldi and Lucio Cesario were the other drivers who got seat time in Chassis 002 before it was sold off to a private party in 1988.

Canepa recently put 4,000 hours and $350,000 into a 100-point restoration of the car and is now offering it for sale at $1,250,000. That might seem like a lot of money for a racecar that only scored one win and never really lived up to its promise, but it’s not likely you’ll find another LC2 cheaper anytime soon. For fans of the Lancia marque, the LC2 ranks right up there with the Fulvia HF, 037 Rally and Delta S4 in the pantheon of Lancia racecars.

Fans of classic racing liveries were elated when Aston Martin brought Gulf racing back on its Le Mans challengers. Now we’ve got another classic scheme on our hands, courtesy of STP.

The iconic American motor oil company has sponsored such notables as Graham Hill, Jim Clark and Mario Andretti, but is most commonly associated with Richard Petty’s stock cars. This year, however, the livery will be coming back on the GT3-spec Ferrari 430 Scuderia shown. It’s being fielded by Chad Racing in the British GT Championship and driven by Daniel Brown and Chris Hyman, the former a highly rated rookie driver in open-wheels. Details in the press release after the jump.

As far as Alfa Romeos go, the 8C Competizione is as exotic as they come. Still, some are looking for more. Originally, rumors surfaced that Alfa was working on a lightweight GTA version, but while we wait for that to pan out, Alfa tuner par excellence Autodelta is working on tuning the svelte supercar themselves.

Few details are known at this point, but a remapped ECU should squeeze out a modest 17 horsepower boost from the stock 444-hp, 4.7-liter Ferrari-developed V8. Autodelta is also working on fine-tuning the chassis, taking their 8C around some of the finest tracks in Europe to get it just right.

The result is slated to be unveiled at the Pistonheads Performance Car Show in Birmingham later this week, so stay tuned, and follow the jump for the press release in the meantime.

[Source: Autodelta]

We kind of have the Aussies to thank for it, so we guess it’s all right that they get to keep it… but we can still be jealous. Four months ago General Motors’ Down-Under division unveiled the Holden VE Commodore SS V-Series Special Edition, essentially a Commodore with the front end from the late Pontiac G8, minus the Pontiac badges.

The old company line was that they would be made until the parts ran out. Then buyers started tripping over themselves to buy the sedan at a $1,000 Australian premium ($923 U.S.). The new company line is that Holden will offer the G8 look “indefinitely,” for the same premium. Dealers have also been ordering Pontiac and G8 badges to make the no-longer-limited-edition sedans closer to the real Yankee thing. The package will remain available on the three models in the line: Pontiac G8 SS-V ute, sedan, and wagon, all of which come with a manual transmission. Have a look at Australian fortune in the high-res gallery below, and excuse us while we drown our frustrations with the nearest hammer.

Let’s make one thing very clear from the onset. The images you see above are not official shots of the Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Super Veloce. They’re renderings. Good renderings, mind you, but nothing more than photoshopped speculation. So with that out of the way…

It’s been assumed for months that Lamborghini would unveil a final special edition Gallardo at the Geneva Motor Show this March. If the most recent reports are to be believed, the V10 will be tweaked and tuned to put out 570 horsepower through all four wheels – just as it’s LP570-4 designation would imply. However, there’s still no word on whether the Super Veloce moniker will be applied and what kind of weight savings will be exacted. If it’s anything like the Murciélago LP670-4 SV, expect the curb weight to drop by around 200 pounds and the 0-60 time to speed by in under 3.5 seconds. And if the folks in Sant’Agata really want to bring the noise, the Gallardo SV will drop the “-4″ and go rear-wheel drive like its Valentino Balboni sibling.

[Source: Lambocars via Insideline]