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Motor Trend holds World's Greatest Drag Race for the third time

As part of Motor Trend's Best Driver's Car competition, the buff book has held its third iteration of the World's Greatest Drag Race. With an airfield and a dozen of the world's finest performance cars at its disposal (oh, and a helicopter), the MT team did what any good group of enthusiasts would do, and tried to figure what car could cover a quarter mile the quickest. World's greatest drag race, indeed.
The contestants, as MT points out, cover a huge variety of engine types, drivelines, aspiration types and body styles, making for a genuinely varied and interesting field of competitors. Here's the full list of cars taking part.
Aston Martin Vanquish

Supercar 'Holy Trinity' raced at the track, drag strip, and to 186 mph

There was a time when we weren't sure if we'd ever get the Ferrari LaFerrari, McLaren P1, and Porsche 918 Spyder on the track together. Now, we've have a multi-part series dissecting how each supercar approaches all kinds of go-fast tasks. Supercar Driver (SCD) looks at their performances around the track, on the drag strip, and on a runway. SCD didn't get any help from the automakers, it used three cars all owned by one British gentleman, Paul Bailey. The first video has British Touring Car Championship driver Mat Jackson running all three around Silverstone. The second video takes the coupes to Santa Pod Raceway to run the quarter-mile. The third video runs them out to Bruntingthorpe Airfield for a drag race to 300 kilometers per hour (186 mph). We found that latter video especially interesting because SCD shows a graph of how fast each car hit speed marks, and it's interesting to see where the winner made up all of its time and the where the third-place getter lost its time. Nota bene, the McLaren is using its fly-paper sticky Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tires. You'll find the first video in the series above, the second two videos below. If you still haven't had enough, then check out the Hyper 5 three-part series by Alejandro Solomon filmed at California's Thermal Raceway, starting with the Holy Trinity and adding the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport and Pagani Huayra. Chris Harris also did fantastic work around Portimao with the help of Marino Franchitti and Tiff Needell, with assistance from the factories. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Ferrari McLaren Porsche Convertible Coupe Hybrid Luxury Special and Limited Editions Performance Supercars Videos porsche 918 spyder mclaren p1 ferrari laferrari

Porsche to develop new line of engines for next Panamera

When the second generation of the four-door Porsche Panamera launches, it will likely be riding a new platform, complete with an all-new family of V6 and V8 engines, according to a report coming out of the UK.
Autocar reports that the so-called MSB platform will likely underpin the Panamera, and it could be shared with Bentley, provided the Volkswagen-owned, British-built brand commits to the architecture. As for the engines, it's reported that they'll have a sportier character than the V6s and V8s being built for Volkswagen and Audi's vehicles.
"Porsche will have its own new V8 that will be common to the new MSB platform," Porsche's chief engineer, Wolfgang Hatz, said. "It's a family for the next 10 years of cars." Whether the V8 and V6 will be used outside of the Panamera line, though, remains unclear. There's also no mention of what place turbocharging would have with the new engines.