2016/02/18

Aston Martin Vulcan

Aston Martin Vulcan is a sport car launched in 2015 at Geneva Auto Show. It has a 12V 7L engine, an aluminium alloy chassis and a carbon fiber body. It has a 6-speed sequencial transmission and can develop a power of 800HP.This car has a price of $2.3 million.
It is one of the best car model ever made and fully respects all FIA race car safety demands. If you are interested on this model you can contact your local dealer and if you want to place an order you can use this link.

2016/02/03

Renault Formula 1 In 2016

Kevin Magnussen will drive this year for Renault Sport F1 team. This means a dane is back in the circuit. Microsoft Dynamics will help to strengthen their business processes from aerodynamics for the production of the new car. Renault Formula 1 team launched today their new car for 2016. The biggest surprise of the model called RS16 is the color: black and yellow. Even their boss said they have the support and resources to win this season, general opinion is they can't face a fight against Mercedes and Ferrari. 
Another problem is the well known new entry in Formula 1 of HAAS team. It seems they will compete using the same design and colors as Renault. This is a big issue because the viewers will have difficulties to notice which car belongs to one team or another. Anyhow... let,s see what this new season will put on the table.

2016/02/02

Lamborghini Gallardo

This car is a super car. We are talking about a coupe 5,2 V10 E-gear Lamborghini, made in 2010. This was the best selling model of Lamborghini - over 14.000 units between 2003 and 2013. This car was named after a fighting bull and in 2014 this model was replaced into production with Lamborghini Huracan.
This car has an engine which can develop 520 HP at 8000 rpm and can reach a top speed of 325 km/h. Two cars of this model were donated to Italian Police in 2004. the car in the photo was present in Classic Race Aarhus - a major yearly automotive event located in Denmark. The price of such a car is $237,600 plus taxes. 

2016/01/31

Futuristic Cars By Apple

Trying to be in trend with the other technological top inventors, Apple just hired an engineer who used to work in Tesla until now. 
Jamie Carsoln and a team of other 6 person who used to be part of Tesla joined Apple in August 2015. All of these were possible due to efforts of Apple to build a semi-autonomous car. The rumors are a bit contradictory and it is unclear until now if this car could drive itself.
In September, apple hired people who used to work for different car factories in the World. Between them VW, BMW or Ford. After a meeting in last May, in a naval base in San Fancisco people from Apple decided to use a part of Concordal Naval Weapons Station as a testing platform for their future projects. Honda and Google are working, too, in such projects. 

2016/01/28

Lamborghini Veneno

Lamborghini is a car manufacturing company located in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy, close to Modena and the well known Maranello. It seems to be a pretty good car production hub in the area. Actually Modena can be called Southampton of Italy because of this reason.

It has more than 130 dealers worldwide being one of the most expensive luxury super sports cars provider. Lamborghini is one of the most wanted Italian employer, being recognized like this because of many prizes won during last years.
Lamborghini Veneno is a car which provides a high-tech interior combined with a less weight than other models. This makes it more fun to drive. For building of this car the Italian designers had chosen futuristic materials like different types of alloy and carbon-fiber. Lamborghini shape is a trade mark and can be easily recognized on every highway.

Lamborghini Veneno Roadster is one of the most exclusive cars in the world. In 2014 there were produced only 9 units each for a price of  $4.5 million. Every car has an engine capable of 750 hp. This kind of car can reach 100 km/h (0 to 60 mph) in only 2.8 seconds and has a top speed of 356 km/h (221mph). 

There are some guys who paid a car like this without seeing it, in order to be the first or among the first owners of it. Details ?

2016/01/25

Pagani Zonda

Horacio Pagani was born in November 10th 1955 in Argentina. Pagani Zonda is a sports car made in Modena, Italy. 
Starting with 1999 until 2011 were built 135 Zondas. Last 3 cars of this series were produced in 2012: Zonda 760RS, Zonda 760 LH and Zonda 764 Passione. The Formula 1 champion, Juan Manuel Fangio did some of the engineering of these cars. Unfortunately he died in 1995 and, since then, this series was named Zonda wind, this being the name of a regional air current above Argentina.
The Zondas have carbon fiber bodies. This help them to be really fast. In February 2003, the UK automotive magazine Evo, measured a top speed of 319 km/h which means 198 mph. A full package Zonda F including durable carbon-ceramic brakes and Pirelli sticky tires costs $2.87 million plus taxes.

2016/01/19

Fernando Alonso - Ferrari

Fernando Alonso Diaz is a Spanish Formula 1 World Champion in 2005 and 2006. He was born in Oviedo on July 29th 1981. He became champion driving for Mild Seven Renault team. 
In 2007 he moved to McLaren Mercedes and after only one year he moved back to Renault.
In 2010 he signed for Ferrari. In 2011 his team was celebrating 150 years of Union of Italy. This fact was writen on his car and one of the 2011 Ferrari cars can be seen in Morro del Jable - Fuerteventura, Spain. 
In this little shop called Sabina - Beauty and Fashion placed on Avenida de las Afortunadas anyone can admire such a beautiful engineering masterpiece as a Formula 1 Ferrari car.

Bentley Trend

As everybody knows Bentley is an old English car brand owned by Volkswagen. They have a good name in automotive industry and they are producing SUV's only. The car body is made in Germany being similar with Audi Q7 but is 150 mm longer. The rest of the components are still made in England.

This was initially a very expensive and exclusive car. As we can see in the next words this situation seems to change. Bentley is still a top quality brand. Even the biggest market for these cars is China the quality remains the same. But the price of them is going down. The top model which used to cost $200,000 in 2014 or 2015 is going to cost $150,000 in May 2016. 

What is the explanation ? Probably the growing market of electric cars will not let too much space for the other exclusive brands. 

2016/01/07

Porsche 917 - Le Mans

Porsche 917 is the first race car which won the Le Mans 24 hours circuit for the German company in 1970 and 1971. Probably is the most beautiful race car ever participated in this circuit and was capable of an acceleration from 0 to 100 km/hour in 2,3 seconds.  
John Wyer and the JWA Gulf team made a joint with Porsche and in this way they reached this big success . The driver was Pedro Rodriguez. This car was so stable that the driver could take the hands of the steering wheel at a speed of 300 km/hour.

24 Hours Of Le Mans is the oldest sports car endurance competition in the world. It started in 1923 and stating with 2012 it is part of FIA World Endurance Championship. 

2016/01/06

Maserati Alfieri - 2017 concept car

Maserati is a company established in 1914 in Bologna, Italy by five brothers: Alfieri, Ettore, Bindo, Carlo and Ernesto. The concept car which was presented in 2014 at Geneva Motor Show is named Alfieri after one of the Maserati brothers. It is a 2+2 car with a V8 engine of 4,7 L which can produce a power of 460 bhp.

Today Maserati is a part of the group which owns Abarth and Alfa Romeo. Their main goals are exclusivity and luxury. In 2014 Maserati sold 4000 cars. Their target is to sell in 2018 75.000 units. Pretty ambitious, right ? The price of such a car will be £65,000 or more.

2016/01/05

Formula 1 Motorhomes

There are many concepts of motorhomes in Formula 1. We are speaking about transportable houses built on trucks. The small race teams have only one truck with two levels - the car is placed above and the spare parts are placed in a little store bellow. Sometimes there is a place for a small office or a little restroom for drivers there. 
Let's see what happens in Formula 1. Ferrari presented a 8 trucks built motorhome in 2015. They have 10 workers who start building this home in the Saturday before the Grand Prix. The entire operation it takes no more than 2 days.

The price for such a motorhome is not disclosed yet, but for people interested there is on sale a motorhome used by "Scuderia" in 2003.  It consists of two fully accessorized Iveco trucks at a price of €2 million plus taxes. More details can be founded here.

2016/01/04

Engine Of A Car

If you're into automotive industry you should know some details about how a car engine works. In the picture bellow this concept it is very nice explained. Let's thank for the image to Jacob O'Neil who posted it on his blog.
This is an engine in 4 strokes: 
- intake stroke
- compression stroke
- power stroke 
- exhaust stroke
Because of these phases we need an engine with at least 4 pistons, everyone being in a different stroke. In this way a constant power will be ensured. 

In the upper left part of the image is explained a typical cylinder and its components. First we have a sparkling plug which has the role to start a fire in the cylinder. The is a fuel injector which is sending gasoline through the intake port. Once the fuel is inside the cylinder it will burn because of the sparkling plug. This burning will produce gases which are creating pressure. This pressure is pushing down the piston and this will move the crankshaft via a connecting rod. Having 4 cylinders in this engine, there will always be a piston moving the crankshaft and this movement is producing a power which moves the car. The pressure in excess is pushing up the valves and these are pushing some cams. These cams are moving the cam gear. 

Both cam gear and crankshaft are connected through a belt or a chain. In this way they synchronizes and preventing the pistons to strike the valves. 

RPM of an engine stands for "revolutions per minute". You may see them on the car's display. When RPM is 3000 this means the crankshaft moves 50 times in a second.

2016/01/02

Boat design - part II

I have made some improvements to my boat. 

The most important line in every boat is the center line. Doesn't matter what you design, you have to establish first where is the center line situated. This line will be intersected by athwartships and in this way will establish the weight point of the ship. 
I was thinking of a lite boat  which is all made in wood. The next phase after the skeleton is deciding the shape of the hull. So I firstly made a basic shape which will be modulated later. Next step: I designed the port (left side) and starboard (right side). The will be a grill, too, which is the ground of the boat and the main feature of it is not to be slippery. 
I covered the bow (front side) of the boat with a wooden cover and placed and ornament over it. This has dual role being used as an anchorage point of the boat, as well. The next phase will be the chairs in the boat and the engine. 

2015/12/30

Boat Design

Let's try to design a boat using Autodesk Inventor. 

First we need some technical details: this boat will have 4 meters length and 1,5 meters width. It will be all built in wood. The shape will be classical, traditional and ergonomic in the same time.
The first component will be the upper part of the skeleton. This will be modeled after drawing the shape. After this comes the bottom skeleton, the one which is the basis of the careen. For this I am using 50,5 mm frames. This skeleton will be reinforced by horizontal sleepers made in the same kind of frames. I will make a little space behind in the way an engine could be placed there. As you may see in the picture above this is how my boat looks like until now. 

2015/12/26

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Circuit

Abu Dhabi is one of the most revolutionary Formula 1 circuits. The first race was held on YAS island in 2009 and continues every year since then. Once this circuit was accepted in the F1 calendar, Ethihad Airlines became one of the most important sponsors of "the big circus". The circuit is situated about 30 minutes of Abu Dhabi - the Capital city of UAE.

The design of this circuit was made Hermann Tilke and is very complex. It has a length of 5,5 km, an area of 161,9 ha and a seating capacity of 41.100 viewers.The marina includes a theme park, a water park, hotels and beaches. 

In the picture below one may see Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi. The image is taken from a ride in the world's fastest roller coaster - Formula Rossa. The Formula 1 Grand Prix circuit at YAS Marina is just next door.






2015/12/22

HAAS - Formula 1 Debut

Gene Haas - the co-owner of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series decided to be part of Formula 1 starting with 2016. Originally he wanted to do this in 2015 but he postponed for next year. Mercedes already claimed Hass as being the second team of Ferrari but the Americans declined pretending they are a self made team trying to win the circuit according all existing the rules. 

Haas F1 team will be powered by Ferrari. They will have as logistical partners TEXACO, HP and Budweiser. The most surprising rumor is the color of their cars. Usually any American team has 3 colors: red, white and blue. It seems Gene Haas has chosen yellow for his first Formula 1 season.

Another good sign for the next season is Renault staying in the big circuit despite the news announcing they will give up. Let's hope these two teams will not have the same color for their cars.

Anyhow I am waiting for your opinion: which of the concept cars presented looks better ? Anyone who knows who will be the pilots of HAAS F1 team ?

2015/12/21

Ferrari 2015 Design Challenge

Everybody knows what means Ferrari. Probably the most known race car, the team with the most fans in Formula 1. 

Sebastian Vettel, the most important pilot of Ferrari team just visited a showroom containing the most challenging concept cars of "scuderia". For these masterpieces were involved the best designers in the World. Actually the team of wild horse is the only one carrying the flag of Formula 1 from the very beginning until today. In the video bellow you may admire this incredible work and please, feel free to say your opinion about it.
All these model cars were first drawn on paper. after this they were projected using a CAD program. Probably something intern of Ferrari factory in Monza - Italy. After these they were produced in a smaller scale in the way every person in decision to chose the future look of Ferrari cars. It is a huge work made by the best people money can buy. I think these are very good spent money.

2015/12/19

Concept Cars

Every race car was a concept car before. There are very complex teams working to develop a race car. One of the most important members of such a team is the designer. A very good designer with a very impressive work is Simon Williamson.

You may see some of his work here . 

A concept car is the first step to build a car. It is sometimes only one idea or a lo of drawings or models. All these suggestions are analyzed and finally the future design is picked by engineers and made technically available. Most of these models are projected using CAD programs, as disgusssed before, the most known are Solidworks or Autodesk Inventor.

Another really interesting work in this field is the Ferrari Formula 1 concept car presented here . This is always a good starting point in car manufacturing industry.  

2015/12/16

Autodesk Inventor

Another CAD very used program is Autodesk Inventor. This program is directly competing with Solidworks and Solid Edge. Autodesk is a company which develops AutoCAD and Revit as well. These programs are very well known between designers worldwide.

Solidworks and Inventor are very similar. It is just a matter of choice of the designer to use one or another. In the end, the most important is the result of a designer work. If you're a fan of Star Wars, I bet you will really like the video above. R2D2 is my favorite character in this movie.

2015/12/12

Formula 1

Everybody knows what s Formula 1. This is a very popular international car race with a very long tradition. Anyone who speaks about Formula 1, thinks of Bernie Ecclestone - the boss of this event. This is a big show in the same time and men like Enzo Ferrari or Frank Williams can't be forget when speaking of it.

The best part of Formula 1 is it stimulates creativity. This is an industry already which forces contestants to improve themselves everyday. There are drivers who want to become better and better, mechanical teams trying to their best all the time, designers and engineers who are working for future projects of every team. Actually every year it is already known the next year's shape of the car. 

The aerodynamic engineers are a special category of specialists in this field. They are testing everyday the monoposts using wind tunnels, collecting data and parameters in order to receive the best car with the best performance. 

On the other hand, this is a tough business. There are circuits all over the World and many countries are interested to host one of them. Such an event represents a good opportunity to monetize science and technology but also offers a great exposure for sponsors and a huge image for people involved in it.

You may see here a video taken in a Formula 1 demonstration in Aarhus Denmark. It is the Classic Race Aarhus which was already presented in a previous post.

2015/12/11

Kailasa Temple

Kailasa temple is a temple build din the VIII century in India. It is a part of a complex  consisting of 34 temples of Ellora cave. Kailasa is a hindu temple. 

The most impressive fact is the way it was made. There were no pieces of rock used to rise this building. Actually it was carved in a mountain starting from the top of the mountain to the ground. All the details are incredible good and the technology of the VIII century wasn't able to produce such an architectonic masterpiece. The video bellow explains all the details of this building. In my opinion they are just amazing.



2015/12/10

CAD

CAD acronym stands for Computer Aided Design and it describes a software category of programs used in design. There exist 2D (for curves and figures) and 3D CAD software (for spaces and solids). This kind of software are very popular toay and they are used almost everywhere from industry design to architecture and building applications.

One of the most used CAD software is Solidworks. This program has alomst 2 million users around the World. CATIA company which owns it sold 1,5 licenses until now. This is how it looks the technology of 2015.

2015/12/08

Classic Race Aarhus 2015

Classic Race Aarhus is the biggest race festival in Northern Europe. It has a tradition of almost 10 years. In 2015 it was registered an assistence of around 32,000. This festival covers 3 days of races and one of celebration and prizes for the best contestants. There are many car classes involved in this event and a Formula 1 demonstration is the most interesting part of it.
In the video it may be observed the Gangster Car Class Race. There were more than 90 cars in this competition in 2015. The contestants were coming from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and UK. The admission fee for all the days of the festival costs 200€.