1962 Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider 1600 Normale; Well Known North West Car. on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Alfa Romeo Disco Volante Spider is a beauty in blue

Be still our beating hearts. The beautiful blue sportscar you see above is the Alfa Romeo Disco Volante Spider. It's the latest work from Italian design house Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary. As you can see, it's a work of art, but what you can't see is that, like the hardtop version that came before it, this car is actually based on the bones of an Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione. That means it's bound to be a rare beast, since only 500 8C coupes and 500 8C Spiders were ever built. Apparently, just seven of these droptops are planned, and each one will be painted in a different color. The hue we see on the car that's debuting at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show is called Blue Ceruleo, which we figure pretty much means Sky Blue. Here's hoping at least one comes in a green scheme similar to the one shown off at Geneva back in 2014. We don't have any details about what powers the Disco Volante Spider, but we'd guess it uses the same 4.7-liter V8 and six-speed semi-automatic transmission that powered all the original 8C models. That would mean 444 horsepower and 350 pound-feet of torque, a 0-60 run 4-ish seconds and a top speed of around 180 miles per hour. But the actual performance seems mostly superfluous to the Disco Volante Spider's real mission, which is to look pretty. You'll want to check out our image gallery for more close-up shots. And if you just can't get enough, it seems that someone with early access to the show floor in Geneva smuggled in a camera. Check out the video above. Related Video: Related Gallery Alfa Romeo Disco Volante Spider by Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera View 17 Photos News Source: SellerieCimes via YouTube Design/Style Geneva Motor Show Alfa Romeo Convertible Luxury Special and Limited Editions Performance 2016 geneva motor show carrozzeria touring superleggera

12 new cars that will never go out of style

Some cars never go out of style. It’s rare, but it happens. They get old. They get depreciated. But they never stop looking cool.  Some might call them modern or instant classics. Within a few years theyÂ’re no longer the latest and greatest, no longer the flavor of the month, but they remain special. Eternally special. Timeless.  These cars arenÂ’t necessarily going to be worth a fortune someday. However, some may not depreciate as rapidly or as far as other models. But thatÂ’s not what weÂ’re talking about here. These are the cars that enthusiasts will always find desirable from the curbside. TheyÂ’re the cars you end up shopping on eBay late at night 10 years later because you canÂ’t get them out of your head. TheyÂ’re the cars that will forever excite you when you spot a clean one in traffic or in a parking lot.  There are plenty of recent examples over the past couple of decades that could count as instant design classics. But then we got to thinking, what 2021 models will be forever cool to stare at? Which new cars and trucks on sale today will we be shopping on eBay late at night in the 2030s? We kept supercars and other ultra-expensive cars off the list to keep things within the realm of attainability, and ended up with 12 total cars. Lexus LC WeÂ’re not applying a numerical ranking to any of the cars on this list, but if we were, the Lexus LC would be No. 1. There isnÂ’t another car design out there that can stir our emotions the way an LC can when itÂ’s just standing still. This car is a concept design come true in the most beautiful of ways, and itÂ’s a shoo-in winner for Concours events decades into the future. All of this heaping praise, and we havenÂ’t even gotten to the LC 500Â’s intoxicating 5.0-liter V8. It doesnÂ’t win drag races. It wonÂ’t be the fastest around the track against any similarly-priced competition. But none of that matters. ItÂ’s quite possibly the best car you can buy new, and that says it all when it comes to the LC. Chevrolet Corvette It might not be the stunner that the Lexus LC is, but the new C8 Corvette is and will always be a special vehicle. ItÂ’s the first mid-engine Corvette, which instantly cements it into an automotive hall of fame section of sorts. All of the performance stats and specs are there to back up its supercar-like looks, and it remains the best performance bargain on sale today.

These 'blind' automotive world record stunts have to stop

Drivers setting world records "blind" – wearing a blindfold or with something obscuring the windshield – is the new thing for some reason. First it was an Alfa Romeo Giulia setting a blind lap at Silverstone with help from a spotter trailing behind, and now this: a stunt man doing a J-turn within a narrow path with nothing but a Nissan Juke's cameras guiding him. He matched the "sighted" J-turn record, flipping the car around in a space about 7 inches longer than the car. I have two issues with these stunts. First, there are just too many world records. Yeah, I said it. Are these meaningful? Is someone else likely to ever attempt this feat? No, because it's just marketing, both for the manufacturer and whoever's still trying to sell those annual books. Stuff like the fastest production car is fine with me. Heck, I'll even take unofficial Nurburgring times – the kind where the drivers can actually see. Second, I'm all for stunts, but do something cool! And preferably something that could only be performed with that particular car, if you're going to make an ad out of it. Yes, the Juke has an Around View Monitor system, which stitches together feeds from four cameras to make it look like the car is being filmed by a drone hovering overhead. I happen to love 360-degree cameras – they let you see things that are just not visible from the driver's seat and make parking and low-speed maneuvering really easy. But the Juke isn't the first car to offer one, and the feature isn't even new to the car. Nissan was at least forthright enough to admit that this professional driver (on a closed course!) had a bunch of practice. But this really says more about his precision driving skills than about the car, or the camera. And just so we're clear, you really shouldn't try to park a car without looking out the windows, even if you have fancy cameras. So what's next? Pretty soon there will be a record for blindest blind stunt. Let me know when someone actually does something interesting. Related Video: