Wednesday, January 15, 2014

What's in our Car Town garage today? (January 15, 2014)

What's in our Car Town garage today?

2025 Mazda Kaan

At the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show Design Challenge, a selection of carmakers send on their top designers to envision futuristic concepts fit for the year 2025. For Mazda, their vision 2025 is an electric racer designed to compete in the E1 races. They foresee that in the future, the freeways of California have been resurfaced with a sub-level electro conductive polymer that powers modern electric cars. The Kaan's inspiration comes from electric fields and textures from nature. It comes with a patented electronic tire system to send the Kaan at a top speed of over 250mph with no harmful emissions.

2025 Mazda Kaan

1986 Ford RS200 Evolution

The iconic RS200 is Ford's rally legend made to compete for the WRC's Group B racing. To comply with homologation regulations, 200 of these models were made. By the time the RS200 is ready to compete, major carmakers competing in this group have been struggling and numerous fatal accidents spell the end of Group B rallying but the RS200 story didn't end there. What they did to the remaining 200 cars is adding some carpets on it and make it a road-going supercar. The road cars can reach a 0-60mph time in a sub-6 second mark and most geared at 150mph, all with four-wheel drive. Even today, the RS200 is a rarity.

1986 Ford RS200 Evolution

1983 Lancia 037 Stradale

One of the most memorable rally cars made for Group B rallying, the 037 is loosely based on the Montecarlo and it's served as the replacement to the iconic Stratos. Developed in cooperation with Abarth, the 037 is powered by a 2.0L engine from a Fiat Abarth 131, developing 265HP of power. At the hands of Markku Alén, Attilio Bettega, and Walter Röhrl, the Lancia 037 is the last rear-wheel drive to win the WRC, especially the manufacturer's world championship in 1983. As always, for homologation purposes, 200 road-going versions are made and the road-legal version produces 60HP less than the rally car.

1983 Lancia 037 Stradale

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