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Porsche releases new images of LMP1 racecar

Porsche has released another batch of images of its LMP1 competitor preparing for its debut season in 2014. This isn't the first we've seen of the new car, as June saw four images of the new racer undergoing testing. Where those images looked merely like someone taking pics during the test, the 11 new images seen above have all the hallmarks of highly polished PR shots.
That aside, the camo-covered cars still provide another look at what the new LMP1 car will look like when it arrives next season. The taillights follow the example set by Audi, by vertically mounting ultra-thin LEDs on the tips of the rear wing, while the LED headlights sport the four-prong look that Porsche has been pushing of late. Besides those two items, its difficult to make out many details due to the amount of camo.
Porsche's LMP1 effort will be focused on the FIA World Endurance Championship, which will see the revered brand return to the top flights of the 24 Hours Of Le Mans with F1 ace Mark Webber behind the wheel. As we've mentioned before, the German brand has set up a dedicated microsite that will cover its newest racer's progress.

Genesis cars win accolades, offer value — so why are sales so bad?

My high-school buddy Brent Cormier was so smitten with the Genesis G80 when he saw it at an event I hosted at SXSW in 2016 he bought a used 2013 Hyundai Genesis a short time later and fell in love with the car. "It surpasses my every expectation," said Cormier, a self-described "renaissance man" who owns and runs a real estate agency with his wife Laura, is a food service executive chef and part owner of Austin-based Thin the Herd Guitars. "I was locked into Mercedes and Audi for 10 years," he added. "And felt trapped in an endless pit of maintenance costs." After owning the Genesis over the past two years — including using it as an Uber and Lyft driver to earn extra cash — Cormier learned what some frugal luxury sedan buyers and a handful of car reviewers have discovered: Genesis offers great bang for the buck compared to other premium brands and can compete with the best in terms of performance, features and comfort. Hyundai's luxury brand also earned a prominent third-party endorsement last week when for the first time Genesis topped J.D. Power's 2018 APEAL study, surpassing German luxury-performance icon Porsche. The APEAL study (which stands for Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout) "measures owners' emotional attachment and level of excitement across 77 attributes," ranging from performance to comfort, and asks nearly 68,000 owners of new 2018 models to score vehicles on a 1,000-point scale. In its second year ranked as a stand-alone brand, Genesis earned an APEAL score that bumped it up 15 points to 884 and helped push it past Porsche — and past BMW, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, Cadillac, Land Rover and Lexus, in order of ranking. Last month, Genesis also topped J.D. Power's Initial Quality Survey (IQS) for the first time this year. And both its models were awarded Top Safety Pick Plus ratings by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, among 11 Plus ratings in all for Korean vehicles. Despite high J.D. Power rankings and great reviews, Genesis U.S. sales were off 50 percent for the first six months of 2018 compared to 2017, and in June Genesis sold only 796 vehicles — the first time U.S. numbers dropped below 1,000 in a month. Part of Genesis's APEAL and IQS success can be attributed to its small product lineup: just two models, the G80 and G90 sedans, with a third, the 2019 G70, launching later this year. And while those numbers may help in J.D.

Porsche 918 Spyder could lap the 'Ring even quicker [w/video]

Porsche had a lot to crow about at the Frankfurt Motor Show last week. Not only did it debut the new 50 Years edition and Turbo versions of the 911 and the new hybrid and diesel versions of the Panamera, but while unveiling the final production version of the new 918 Spyder, it revealed the record lap it set around the Nürburgring.
The 918 Spyder's 6:57 lap time makes it the fastest street-legal production car ever to lap the Nordschleife and the first to break the seven-minute barrier. But the driver who clocked the time thinks it can go even faster.
That driver was Marc Lieb, who has won the Nürburgring 24-hour race four times, making him something of an expert on the subject. In speaking with Australia's Drive TV, Lieb suggested that they could get even more out of the car, as you can hear for yourself in the video below.