1985 Merceds-benz 380sl V8 3.8l Hard Top & Soft Top Convertible Runs Great on 2040-cars

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2015 Austrian F1 Grand Prix switches to alternating current

It's called the Red Bull Ring, guests are welcomed by a statue of a leaping bull, and dominating its layout demands powerful cars that can run it hard. Perhaps all that aggression is what led both Mercedes-AMG Petronas cars to run off the track in the final qualifying session on their final hot laps, a little too aggressive on the charge. Lewis Hamilton was first into the gravel at Turn 1 when he lost his car under braking, but he was still fast enough to get pole ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg, who spun at Turn 8. Rosberg started second. Or perhaps it wasn't the red bull but the scarlet horse that caused The Silver Arrows to muck it up: Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel had Mercedes' attention all weekend, and he'd line up in third just 0.355 off Hamilton's time. Williams truly rediscovered its power, Felipe Massa going fourth fastest, teammate Valtteri Bottas in sixth. Between them was newly-minted Le Mans winner Nico Hulkenberg, yet again – can we say that enough? – pulling the still-not-updated Force India to fifth place on the grid. Max Verstappen led the Renault-powered top-ten duo in his Toro Rosso in seventh, Infiniti Red Bull Racing driver Daniil Kvyat behind him in eighth. Kvyat, however, would start down the order because of a ten-place grid penalty for needing a fifth Renault engine. After that it's back to Mercedes Ferrari power, Felipe Nasr in the Sauber in ninth, Romain Grosjean in with Mercedes power in the Lotus in tenth – but fellow Lotus driver Pastor Maldonado actually started in tenth because of Kvyat's demotion. Before we get to the race, can we take a moment to talk about the shenanigans and gaudy penalties? Kimi Raikkonen waved the Ferrari flag in Canada after a season that's been full of "We didn't get it right this time," and we thought he was back. But no. In Austria the refrain returned, the Finn kicked out of Q1 after another miscommunication with the team – he qualified 18th. If the scenario plays to form, we'll now wait for team boss Mauricio Arrivabene to issue a clarification that suggests Raikkonen missed a step. Daniel Ricciardo parachutes ten spots back for the same reason as his teammate Kvyat, needing a fifth Renault power unit, dropping him to 18th on the grid and forcing him into a five-second time penalty when he comes in to pit.

Pre-Race notes from the 2015 Nurburgring 24-Hours

Autoblog has come to the German countryside to watch the Nurburgring 24-Hour race, and just one day in, we have to say it's outstanding. Le Mans has been the highlight of our summer racing schedule for the past few years, the 'Ring 24-Hour event being the appetizer we always skipped. Earlier this year, however, while visiting Miami to check out the Cigarette Racing 50 Marauder GT S, we met Scott Preacher. He oversees digital marketing for both Cigarette and AMG during the week, then comes to Germany to compete in the VLN race series on the weekends, driving an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 for Team Mathol. If Le Mans is the Oscars of endurance racing, the Nurburgring 24-Hour race is the Screen Actors Guild award – the one voted on by the actors, for the actors. In this case it's the race by the teams and fans, for the teams and fans, even though the increasing manufacturer presence has altered the team equation. We were told that it wasn't so long ago that true privateers could win the overall, but that's not really the case anymore. Front-running teams have heavy factory involvement – Audi Sport Team Phoenix, for instance, which finished in first and third last year, has its own 'Ring race center and is running the 2016 R8; Aston Martin is represented by Aston Martin Racing and Aston Martin Test Center, and Bentley has a Bentley Motors team and uses HPT to run another team. The fan component hasn't changed, though, and you can't talk about the race for more than 60 seconds before someone brings up the battalions of spectators. Every driver we spoke to cited them as the most incredible part of this race after the track itself. It feels to us like a giant German Sebring, with thousands of people camped out in the ginormous, forested infield, many of whom have been here since Monday erecting their ornate camping compounds. There will be parties everywhere Saturday night, and so much bratwurst on the grill that the drivers can smell it when as they're blasting full speed through Wehrseifen. Even when we drove a Mercedes S63 AMG Coupe on a lap before the race, the fans waved like it was a competition. Scott Preacher's Australian co-driver Robert Thompson said, "You come around a corner and it's like you're driving full speed through the middle of a carnival." The race field itself could also be called a carnival, with an officially invited field of more than 170 cars. Even on a track that's 24.4-km long, that's like racing on the 405 at midday.

Test drive the Mercedes SLS AMG Electric Drive with Chris Harris

It's hard to not like the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT. The all-aluminum coupe is fitted with a wonderful naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V8 delivering 583 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque. Not only does the burly combustion engine launch the two-seater to 60 miles per hour in less than four seconds, but it does so with one of the world's greatest exhaust soundtracks as it roars, burbles and cackles down the road.
But what happens when Mercedes-Benz takes away the V8 and its accompanying fire-burning song? Stripped of one of its most appealing assets, does the SLS lose its soul?
Chris Harris recently had the opportunity to take the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Electric Drive for a track spin in Europe. Sans gasoline, but with four electric motors providing a combined 740 horsepower (737 pound-feet of torque), all-electric all-wheel drive coupe uses sophisticated torque vectoring and a multi-mode operating system to put oversteer - drifting! - back into the equation. Fun? You bet. See for yourself, below.