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Shell Ultimate Automotive Enthusiast contest returns to send winner to Barrett-Jackson and Maranello

The first Shell V-Power Ultimate Enthusiast contest was held last year and sent finalists to a VIP experience at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, while the grand prize winner went to Maranello, Italy for some intimate time with Ferrari. The Dutch member of the seven sisters is doing it again this year: from now until September 17 anyone who wants a chance to live the same adventure can submit stories and photos that prove why they're the ultimate enthusiast.
Among the judging panel will be Roger Penske, Craig Jackson of Barrett-Jackson, drag racer Don Prudhomme, Tony Marini of Hot August Nights, Car and Driver chief Eddie Alterman, Road & Track honcho Larry Webster and last year's contest winner Harold Craige (pictured above with his wife at Fiorano).
Anyone in the US is welcome to submit. Three finalists will be flown to Scottsdale for a three-day VIP tour of Barrett-Jackson's January action, and they'll get a year's worth of V-Power premium gasoline. The grand prize winner will be announced in Arizona, and that person will get a week in Italy to explore the Ferrari factory complex and drive one of the company cars on the Fiorano track. Having been to the Maranello factory ourselves, we can attest that it's a bucket-list item for anyone who truly digs cars.

LaFerrari gets shakedown from Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso is quite cool behind the wheel, as evidenced by an earlier video where he gave a full interview while actively hooning a Ferrari F12 around the Nürburgring. So when you see the Spaniard somber-faced and sweating while hustling a Ferrari LaFerrari around the Scuderia's Fiorano test track, you know the new hypercar is pretty demanding.
Alonso doesn't give commentary on this one (except to the engineers at the end), but he does wrestle the 949-horsepower hybrid around the track. It does look like a handful. Take a look below for the full video.

BMW, Ferrari, VW cars use tungsten mined by terrorists

Bloomberg Markets is reporting that BMW, Volkswagen and Ferrari have been using tungsten ore sourced from Columbia's FARC rebel terrorists. The extensive story focuses on Columbia's illegal mining trade and calls into question the provenance of the rare ore that is used not only in crankshaft parts production, but is also found in the world's computing and telecommunications industry for use in screens.
The ore is mined by the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army), and exported to Pennsylvania, where it is refined. The refined ore is then sent over to Austria, where a company called Plansee turns it into a finished product. Now, it's important to note that we aren't talking about the world's supply of tungsten here. In 2012, Plansee's American refinery purchased 93.2 metric tons of tungsten, valued at $1.8 million. That's peanuts, with the entire Colombian tungsten mining industry producing just one percent of the world's supplies.
That doesn't make indirectly supporting FARC any more acceptable, though. BMW, VW and Ferrari are all committed to not accepting mineral supplies from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is also in the grips of a guerrilla insurrection funded, in part, by illegal mining. The same commitment would figure to extend to Colombian mining, but as BMW points out, it's difficult for a multi-national manufacturer to know where every item in its supply chain comes from. A company spokesperson says as much, telling Bloomberg, "These few grams out of the billions of tons of raw materials passing through the BMW supply chain are of no practical relevance."

2013 Ferrari FF [w/video]

The World's Fastest Four-Passenger is Frickin' Fabulous
"I miss my mommy."
Those frightened words floated from the mouth of a five-year-old boy strapped snugly into a booster seat in the backseat of the Ferrari FF I was piloting. Moments earlier, his father had allowed me to take him, and his two brothers, for their first ride in a supercar, and I had apparently failed miserably.

Glickenhaus' FIA championship-winning P4/5 Competizione comes home [w/video]

The sexy Ferrari P4/5 Competizione, a cross between the lightweight F430 Scuderia and the race-only F430 GT2 with special Pininfarina bodywork, spent some time in Europe notching a few race victories. But it finally has made its way back to the US and into owner Jim Glickenhaus' collection, where it met its sister car and inspiration, the original P4/5.
During its short-but-sweet two-year racing campaign, it competed in just two races but left a big impact. We'd call any lap of the Nürburgring that's under seven minutes a victory, but, with the help of a hybrid drivetrain, the P4/5C qualified for the 2012 Nürburgring 24 Hours with a lap of 6:51. That's faster than any Ferrari-powered vehicle has ever gone around the 'Ring. The car then went on to win the EXP-1 class (for experimental vehicles), for a World Championship, and finished the race 12th overall in a field of 170 cars. Not bad at all.
For those who haven't kept up on the P4/5C, the hybrid powertrain was introduced to the one-off racecar for 2012 after it had attempted the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2011 with negligible results. A Ferrari 4.0-liter V8 was joined by a Formula One-style Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), good for a combined 563 horsepower.

Ferrari exec to lead Jaguar North America

Jaguar has announced that Jeff Curry will be serving as the brand's new North American vice president, effective August 13. The move is a coup for Jag, which lured Curry away from his previous posting as VP of marketing for Ferrari North America, and is further evidence of just how strong Jaguar's comeback has gotten.
Curry has spent over 20 years in the auto industry, and has worked with Audi, SiriusXM and Land Rover, where he made his start in the industry. His primary responsibilities with Jaguar will cover marketing communications, customer relationship management, and product planning.
Jaguar Land Rover's North American president, Andy Goss, heaped praise on the brand's newest addition saying, "Jeff brings with him extensive automotive and luxury marketing experience, critical expertise in leading-edge technologies and a personal passion for automobiles."

Ferrari vs. Ferrari: Cut convertibles unloved by collectors?

The New York Times' Wheels blog has a really interesting story on a pair of Ferraris that are set to be auctioned off in Monterey during the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. While the two cars are similar on the surface, their differing histories and Ferrari's attitude towards one of them has led to a sort of experimental auction process.
On the one hand, we have one of ten 1967 275 GTB/4 NART Spiders, in the classic Rosso Corsa and appearing at RM Auctions and seen above. On the other, we have a Fly Yellow version that started life as a 1965 275 GTB Coupe, and was converted into a NART Spider. Called a "cut" car, this particular replica is one of about 100 GTB Coupes that were converted into convertibles to satiate the climbing demand for ultra-rare Spiders.
This will mark one of the first times that an original NART Spider will go toe to toe with a replica of itself at auction, and will answer a number of questions about just how important provenance is in the collector car world. Head on over to The Times blog for the full story.

Ferrari reports fewer sales, more profit to prove strategy is working

Ferrari's angle of emphasizing exclusivity by limiting deliveries is appearing to bear fruit. The company posted a 7.1-percent increase in revenues to 1.7 billion Euros ($2.2 billion at today's exchange rates) during the first half of 2013. Net profits, meanwhile, saw a jump of 20 percent to 116.2 million Euros ($153.5 million). The Prancing Horse delivered 3,767 cars, which, while an increase of 2.8 percent, represents a rate of growth that's slower than in the first quarter of 2013.
While Ferrari may be actively trying to slow its sales down to below 7,000 in 2013, it's seen increased numbers in the US, Great Britain and Germany, along with double-digit growth in the Middle East and Japan (39 percent and 28 percent, respectively).
The move to limit sales should have a greater impact on the numbers that come in later this year, which we told you about back in May. Ferrari's controversial move has already seen a drop in sales to China, which saw 50 fewer Prancing Horses than this time last year.

Petrolicious gets super Seventies in a Ferrari Dino 208 GT4

The Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 was the automaker's first sports car with a V8 mounted amidships, and that formula quickly became the Italian automaker's bread and butter. The 308 in the name denotes a 3.0-liter V8, but for the Italian market, where a tax was imposed on cars with engines larger than two liters, Ferrari decided to de-bore the V8 to avoid the tax. Thus the 2.0-liter Dino 208 GT4 was born, and New York resident Bradley Price likes his 1976 model just the way it is.
Price initially was attracted to the Bertone-styled wedge because it "fit into the whole aesthetic of the space age and of the boundless possibility of [the late 1960s and 1970s]," he says in the Petrolicious video, adding that the opening scene of the original The Italian Job struck a chord with him, and the feeling never left. With 170 horsepower on tap, the 208 isn't very quick, but, in his opinion, it has a sweeter song than the bigger V8 and the driver-centric interior is one of his favorites.
Watch Price snake the original wedge through some East Coast back roads in the video below, and, just for kicks, we've also included the opening sequence of The Italian Job.

LaFerrari design secrets explored at Ferrari museum

For every finished vehicle design we see, there are probably hundreds of drawings and models that have long since been discarded. Housed in its own room inside the Ferrari Museum in Maranello, the LaFerrari has a unique exhibit that shows off some of the car's design evolution, and Autocar caught up with Ferrari design director Flavio Manzoni for an even deeper look at what went into creating this hybrid supercar.
In addition to the final product, the LaFerrari exhibit also reveals some of the designs that didn't make the cut - two of which made it to the full-size scale model phase, though. The display shows off five different designs (three from Ferrari and two from Pininfarina) that were in the running to become the final LaFerrari.
The interview with Manzoni even adds in some juicy bits of info, including news that one of the potential LaFerrari designs has been locked away and could resurface as a special, one-off model. Manzoni gets in a couple of good quotes while voicing his opposition of the current retro design language currently being used by some automakers, as well. Check it all out in the video below.