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Weekly Recap: Racing legend Jim Hall explains Chevy's futuristic Chaparral concept

"I said our cars are built to be winners." – Jim Hall Racing legend Jim Hall never thought he'd be a video game consultant, but when Chevrolet asked for his advice to create a futuristic Chaparral for the Vision Gran Turismo series, he was eager to help. He reviewed early sketches and suggested some changes that made it onto the concept, including the addition of a camera that's mounted onto a mast over the cabin to aid the driver. The Chevy Chaparral 2X Vision Gran Turismo concept was revealed this week at the Los Angeles Auto Show and will be part of a downloadable update for PlayStation 3's Gran Turismo 6 in December. Theoretically, at least, it uses a laser-beam propulsion system and an air-powered generator to produce 900 horsepower in the video game. It's capable of sprinting to 60 miles per hour in 1.5 seconds en route to a top speed of 240 mph. Those gaudy performance specs – even in the virtual world – came at Hall's urging. "I said our cars are built to be winners," Hall told Autoblog on the floor of the Los Angeles show. The 79-year-old drove Lotus racecars in Formula One before launching the successful Chaparral Cars in the 1960s. Like his innovative Can-Am racers, the Vision Gran Turismo project has an eye toward the future. It also introduces the iconic Chaparral name to a new generation of fans, and hopefully, Hall says, gets them excited about engineering and design. "It emulates what we did in the '60s," he said. And what they did back then still resonates. Chaparral Racing and Chevy partnered more than 45 years ago for development work on the composite monocoque chassis, lightweight alloy powertrains, automatic gearboxes and active aerodynamics. "He [Hall] walked right back into this and was able to apply thinkings and learnings," said Clay Dean, General Motors executive director of advanced design. The Chevy Chaparral 2X Vision Gran Turismo concept was created at GM's North Hollywood advanced design studio, and it will be on display at the show through November. Other News and Views Sebastian Vettel joins Ferrari team in 2015 Ferrari confirmed that four-time Formula One World Champion Sebastian Vettel will join the Scuderia for the 2015 season, jettisoning Ferrari's current ace, two-time champ Fernando Alonso. Vettel has been F1's most successful driver since Michael Schumacher, though he's struggled to match his previous accomplishments in 2014.

Race Recap: 2013 Twelve Hours of Sebring, cakewalk up front, grindfest out back [w/spoilers]

This year's 12 Hours of Sebring wasn't exactly a foregone conclusion because we're still talking about racing, and anything can happen when the speeds are as high as the adrenaline and the desire. But we're still talking about Audi bringing it's two top-spec racers - and its huge budget and its nearly neurotic attention to detail - to a race that it uses as a test bed for The 24 Hours of Le Mans and as a way to open the endurance racing season with a victory.
Besides, 12 hours is a long time, especially at Sebring, and things didn't go all Audi's way. On top of that, although it was a pretty quiet race, behind the Audis things got even grimier, with plenty of battles, plenty of mechanical issues, and the new BMW Z4 GTE and Viper GTS-R being race tested. Oh, and that brand new chromed-out DeltaWing...

GM investing $167m in Spring Hill for new midsize vehicles

General Motors has announced a large investment in its Spring Hill, Tennessee facility. The former home of Saturn production will be getting a $167 million addition to a previously announced $183 million, to cover a pair of new midsize vehicles. The investment is expected to create 1,800 jobs at the factory.
That $350 million is being divvied up for a pair of programs at Spring Hill. The first will take the bulk of the money ($223 million) and create 1,000 of the 1,800 jobs, while the other will take the remaining $127 million and generate the leftover 800 positions. But GM says the investment will cover "midsize vehicle programs." So what could they be?
The leading candidate in our minds is a new crossover for Buick, called the Anthem, that will slot between the Encore and Enclave, but will be slightly smaller than the Equinox and Terrain. As we've explained, the new model will likely be the first product to sport GM's new D2UX platform, which will eventually replace both the Delta and Theta platforms. Spring Hill is already building the Equinox, so there could be some credence to this theory.