The world’s best police cars

Dubai police Ferrari FF

Announced on Twitter earlier this year, Dubai's police force admitted that yes, they had bought a V12-engined pursuit vehicle in the shape of the four-seat Ferrari FF. The four-wheel drive will doubtless prove vital for all those snow-and-ice police chases across the UAE.

Dubai police Lamborghini Aventador
 

That FF was preceded by a Lamborghini Aventador cop car, handy for pursuing criminals driving Lamborghini Aventadors

 Italian police Lotus Evora S

Ah yes, the Evora S again. Though this time, used by the Carabinieri - surely the world's hardest and most scariest police force (they're trained as soldiers for crying out loud) - for expediting the transfer of essential human organs. They're even equipped with fridges to keep said organs fresh. Don't get on the wrong side of the Italian rozzers, mind, or you'll find your own offal-parts in there too....
 UK police Caparo T1

Another ‘safety-message' stunt saw this Caparo T1 liveried up as a police car. But just imagine if it really was a police pursuit vehicle. Assuming it didn't become on fire, you'd have NO chance of escaping.

Italian police Lamborghini Gallardo

203mph, 0-62mph in 3.7 seconds, 560bhp and four-wheel-drive: this is how the Italians do law enforcement. Meet the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560, donated by Lambo to the Italian State Police to help ‘accident and crime prevention and sustain security on Italian roads'. Yikes.

US police Chevrolet Corvette

Not a Real Thing, unfortunately, instead drawn by former GM man 'Maximum' Bob Lutz as a flight of fancy. Quite a good flight of fancy.

Dubai police Brabus G63 AMG

This 690bhp ‘Widestar' can accelerate from 0-62mph in 4.9 seconds and on to an official top speed of 149mph. Unofficially, you'd have to be clinically bonkers to attempt to outrun any police force that ultimately decides on a four-wheel-drive, modified off-roader as a suitable police vehicle.

Humberside Police Lexus IS-F

Yes please. You can keep your Astras and Insignias and Hyundais thanks; we'd much rather see UK cops behind the wheel of a 416bhp Lexus IS-F. Although mainly used as a deterrent, it could be used to chase crims on the run: the IS-F packed an onboard computer to allow officers to access the national police database while on the move.

Dubai police Aston Martin One-77

Oh dear god, they just won't stop, will they? Not content with stickering up an Aventador, FF and G63 to police duty, Dubai's offices pressed one of the world's most beautiful, rarest and fastest cars into service: the Aston Martin One-77. For the love of all that's sacred in your life, please, do not speed in Dubai.
 Brabus CLS V12 S ‘Rocket'

Be very thankful that this isn't actually a real life, working-dog police car. It was built way back in 2006 to promote safe tuning in Germany, though there's nothing safe inside here. Underneath sits a twin-turbo V12 produced 730bhp, enough to haul the CLS ‘Rocket' to a top speed of 225mph. Schnell!

US police Dodge Charger

 
Replacing the ageing Crown Vic, this Charger was built with feedback from actual police officers in the States, and is a working, badge-holding, real-life police car. In fact, Chrysler claims it to be the fastest American police car in the history of ever: the RWD version clocked the fastest lap time ever recorded for a cop car around Michigan State Police's Vehicle Evaluation Race.

UK Police Lotus Evora S

You're looking at a police-liveried Evora S, donated by the fine chaps over at Lotus to officers from Norfolk, Sussex, Essex, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, to help spread the message that speeding, drink driving, not wearing a seatbelt, or driving while using a mobile phone simply isn't cricket.
The idea is that an Evora S will engage younger drivers better than, say a diesel Astra, thus allowing the rozzers to deliver their important safety messages. And also look well cool, innit.

source:topgear.com

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Flying cars???????

An ambitious firm has revealed their plans for a new type of personal air transport vehicle that takes off and lands like a helicopter. Will the idea fly?

I received an email this week from a researcher based in Los Angeles, who I wanted to interview. “I hope to be back before 4pm,” it read. “Of course, if I had a flying car I could better negotiate the LA traffic congestion and be back earlier.”
An unusually imaginative response, you might think. In fact it was pretty apt as I wanted to ask him about the future of personal transportation, and the sender was Professor Mario Gerla, who studies traffic congestion, pollution and intelligent transport at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Many of us have wished for a personal flying machine to lift us out of infuriating traffic jams and deposit us on our driveways. With recent advances in materials, power sources, and automation, those dreams may become reality more quickly than many of us realise, as I’ve discussed before. Earlier this month, US aerospace start-up Terrafugia unveiled the TF-X, a concept design for a radical new type of personal air transport vehicle. So I talked to Carl Dietrich, co-founder of the company, to find out how it might work.
“We think this is the right time to start seriously looking at the challenges associated with creating what people call a flying car," he says. "The vision is to try to create the future of personal transportation that people have dreamed about for years." Dietrich believes all the required technology already exists, and that initial discussions with the US Federal Aviation Administration suggest existing regulatory obstacles can be overcome.
Terrafugia is just one of a number of companies proposing personal aviation and it has been taking orders for an earlier design – the Transition, a road-legal aeroplane with foldable wings – for several years. The TF-X design is more futuristic, but is more likely to provide what most of us dream of when we think of flying cars.
One of its main selling points is the ability to take off and land verticallylike a helicopter. In car mode, the plug-in hybrid can rely on its electric motors and battery packs. For lift-off it needs extra power from its hydrocarbon combustion engine. Folded winglets are extended. Two huge motor pods on either side of the vehicle are pointed vertically up, and the propellers provide lift. Each pod has 16 independent electric motors, with its own controller and battery pack, meaning a failure is not catastrophic.
When it attains the required altitude the pods start to point forward. A ducted fan at the rear provides thrust and the wings start to operate as a conventional aerodynamic surface to provide lift as it accelerates. At full speed the propellers on the ends of the pods fold back and the vehicle enters “cruise” mode. The TF-X has a maximum speed of 200 miles per hour and a proposed range of 500 miles.
Off-road visions
“With electric propulsion we can go to much higher levels of what we call parallel system architecture, so a given failure of a battery, or a motor controller, or even a motor itself, would not necessarily result in total loss of propulsive capability,” says Dietrich. “One of the big advantages of going to electric-powered aircraft is that there is the opportunity to change the system architecture away from what’s been typical in aviation to date where you have one, two, or four engines tops,” he adds.
“It’s definitely an interesting proposition,” says Dr Frank Nieuwenhuizen, Aerospace Engineer at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, and one of the people behind the EU MyCopter project that looks at how the air transport industry might change over the next century. “The vision takes parts of what we think is important for a personal air transportation system, like the vertical takeoff and landing feature for example.”
However Nieuwenhuizen cautions that futuristic visions are not enough to get flying cars off the drawing board. “It’s not just the vehicle, it’s the complete system that has to be set up for something like this to be useful. Acceptance is a big part of it, and that’s where a lot of work still needs to be done in terms of what will actually happen when something like this becomes available. Would people want such a flying vehicle above their homes all the time?”
Mario Gerla likes the idea but warns the concept has significant hurdles to overcome. "We always think how nice it would be if we're stuck in a traffic jam, to all of a sudden, just take off from the road pavement and go where you want," he says. "I can understand the idea of flying from airport to airport, folding the wings and becoming a car. In the air, you're just one more plane. But if you take off from your parking lot and fly a few blocks away, it is more like a helicopter. It becomes much more flexible, and interesting, but maybe dangerous."
Terrafugia originally hoped to be shipping its less radical Transition in 2009, but now says the first customers will take delivery sometime in 2015 or 2016. As for the TF-X, Dietrich acknowledges the concept is a long way from becoming airborne, but he says discussing the idea early is a way to shorten the time it will take to make it a reality, which he currently estimates as between eight and 12 years.
“We’re a small company," he says. "We do have expertise in developing flying/driving vehicles now, but we haven’t developed an electric powered aircraft before. That’s a reason to take the concept public – to find potential development partners.”
Reservations are being taken for the TF-X, although its price tag has not yet been revealed. It's a fair bet that it'll cost more than the quoted $279,000 that the Transition will set customers back by.
But even those of us unlikely to be able to afford the first personal flying cars when they become available will benefit thanks to our early-adopting neighbours, says Gerla, who as a result may be able to get home from his office at UCLA more quickly.
“If you could levitate just some of these cars, fly them through the air and deposit them somewhere else, you could remove some of the major road congestion,” he says. “Just removing 10% or 15% of the cars would help it all flow again.”

Posted By :: Muhammad Usman

Source::BBC

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Maserati stuns in Geneva with Alfieri

Maserati has clocked one of the early surprises of this year's Geneva show, whipping the covers from this, the not-at-all-ugly Alfieri concept.

It's a potential vision of a more affordable Maserati than anything in the firm's current line-up – a bottom-of-the-range two-plus-two hatchback to sit below the GranTurismo, and built on a lightweight aluminium platform.
But is it any more than a potential vision? We'd say so. When Maserati CEO Harald Wester announced the car, he initially stated, "We're evaluating it for production." Then later slipped, "It completes – could complete – the line-up of Maserati." Oops.
That said, we've known about an impending “baby Maser” for a while. TG's Paul Horrell revealed Maserati was planning an F-Type rival called the Gran Sport last summer. It's slated for production between the end of 2016 or into 2017, will be rear-wheel drive and powered by the V6 and V8 turbo engines currently found in the Ghibli.
But obviously, for now – and save for an embarrassing slip of tongue – the official word is this is still a concept, named after company founder Alfieri. He was the most prominent of the three Maserati brothers, and the very engineer that founded "Officine Alfieri Maserati" in Bologna a century ago.
Like the swoopy outline? It's been drawn by Lorenzo Ramaciotti, who says the short wheelbase sportster pays homage to the old A6GCS. He told Top Gear, "The long bonnet, wide shoulders, oval hatch, and kick on the door skins echo the A6."
We don't think we'll hear much on a production Alfieri till at least 2015, largely because the company's busy working on the Kubang SUV. We don't mind if you push this one to the front of the queue, Maser...

Posted By :: Muhammad Usman

Source::BBC

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Audi Risks Fading as BMW Recovers

 



Volkswagen will have little to display from its luxury brand Audi at the upcoming Geneva Auto Show, other than a sports car. Audi accounts for almost half of the operating profit at Volkswagen. It will unveil a new version of the TT sports car at the auto show. This model accounted for less than 2 percent of the brand’s 1.58 million sales in 2013. Its biggest rival, BMW will showcase the latest model from its cutting-edge i series of electric cars. Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz will present a new version of its best-selling C-Class.
In comparison with its rivals, Audi has not revealed any new models. Tow VW sources revealed that overhauls to Audi’s top-selling A4 sedan and the Q7 SUV, slated for 2014, will be pushed into next year as the cars need to be reworked. Europe’s car market is back in growth as the region’s long-suffering economy recovers from a debt crisis. The luxury car industry avoided the worst of the downturn, thanks in part to strong demand from developing countries, and will be a key battleground as the European market recovers.
Research firm IHS Automotive forecasts Audi will briefly snatch the luxury sales crown in 2017/18, as it aims to double its line-up of popular premium crossovers that includes the Q5 compact SUV. But it expects both Audi and Mercedes to miss their goals to overtake BMW by 2020, with Mercedes staying in third place throughout the period. BMW, aiming to stay in the top sales spot for a tenth straight year, will flaunt the i8 plug-in hybrid sports car in Geneva. Other unveilings will include the new four-door Mini Clubman concept car and the new 2 series Active Tourer minivan. Mercedes will present the new V-class minivan and a coupe version of its all-new flagship S class sedan, the brand’s top-end product.

Posted By:: Muhammad Usman

Sources: Auto news

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