| Vegas gambling giant places bets on Britain | | Posted Thursday, November 02, 2006 2:47:42 AM by Blog57 Team | | THE biggest bets in Las Vegas take place behind closed doors. In the private high-rollers? suites, punters bet $1m a hand on blackjack while sipping $5,000-a- bottle cognac. This month the biggest bet in town is being made away from the slot machines and roulette wheels. It is being placed on the boardroom table, not the card table; and the prize is in Britain. .... | |
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| | | Highlights from the South Florida International Auto Show | | Posted Monday, October 09, 2006 10:45:56 PM by Blog57 Team | | Auto manufacturers showed off their new models in a series of press conferences Friday at the South Florida International Auto Show in Miami Beach. Keep reading to see highlights from Jeep, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Ford, Bentley, Chevrolet, Nissan, Maserati, Subaru and Infiniti: JEEP: For 2007, the Jeep brand grows to seven models -- Grand Cherokee, Liberty Limited, Wranger Rubicon, Wranger Unlimited, Commander, Patriot and Compass -- from three just three years ago. The Wranger Unlimited is the ''first five-passenger Wrangler and the first four-door convertible,'' said Dan Tardella, senior manager, Jeep Marketing. The Compass and Patriot are both compact SUVs but Tardella said research showed they appealed to two difference markets. The Patriot's looks appealed more to males.... | |
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| | | Bentley's Big Boy: The Arnage for 2007 | | Posted Saturday, September 16, 2006 6:46:13 PM by Blog57 Team | | Never mind that Bentley's Arnage T is the Fatty Arbuckle of the automotive world (minus the Coke bottle), it's still Bent's flagship, retrograde as it is, and improvements must be made as a matter of course. The company says the 2007 T will get a power upgrade to the great thumping beast of a turbo V8, to 500 horsepower, with a new ZF six-speed autobox to improve fuel economy (stop snickering, Pennyworth). Lesser models, R and RL will get a 50-hp boost to 450 hp. And in a nod to the 21st century, the new models are getting Bluetooth. Yep, it's most definitely the end of the world. More at Dubspeed Driven Related: Frankfurt Premiere: Bentley Azure [internal] .... | |
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| | | Upgraded Bentley Arnage | | Posted Monday, September 11, 2006 8:45:50 AM by Blog57 Team | | The Arnage T has had a power upgrade and now has nice, round 500 bhp and an even rounder 1,000 MN of torque (that is 738 lb ft in old money), mated to a six-speed, instead of four-speed, gearbox. 0-60 mph now takes 5.2 seconds - an amazing time for something that weighs over 2.5 tonnes empty. It also has a top speed of 179 mph, which is not bad for something that has almost the same frontal area as Westminster Abbey. As the last Bentley model that can trace its roots back to the Rolls-Royce era, the company seems determined to keep developing it. The Arnage embodies the heritage of the company and the new owners, VW, are smart enough to understand how important that is. Apparently the 47 year old V8 engine, ditched briefly in the 1990s in favour of a BMW V8, can now keep going until at least its 50th birthday.... | |
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| | | Nixon: Charity founder spent funds for personal use | | Posted Thursday, August 17, 2006 8:46:13 AM by Blog57 Team | | Gateway to a Cure founder and president Lou Sengheiser spent thousands of dollars of the charity's money to make mortgage payments on his home in Imperial, pay off personal credit cards and finance a Colorado ski trip, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon says. In addition, papers filed this week in St. Louis County Circuit Court allege that Sengheiser used the charity's tax-exempt status to buy vehicles for "private individuals" so they wouldn't have to pay state and local sales taxes on the purchases. The buyers were not identified in the court document, and a spokesman for Nixon's office declined to identify them. The document also raises questions about the legitimacy of a charity raffle drawing in Kansas City, saying investigators have found no evidence that the announced winner of a $98,500 Maserati Spyder automobile ever existed.... | |
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| | | If You Have To Ask . . . | | Posted Tuesday, August 15, 2006 10:46:03 PM by Blog57 Team | | Over two tonnes of metal, wood and leather make up the Bentley Arnage, but there is no problem moving it as the driving force is the 6.75-litre twin-turbo V8 designed and produced in Crewe. Driving through a standard four-speed automatic transmission, the 400bhp can be trickled to the road in the smoothest of fashion or unloaded in one full-throttle sweep to move the vehicle in a manner most inappropriate to its gentleman's club interior. Gear choice is immaterial with a massive 615lb/ft of torque available at 3250rpm. The Arnage is the large Bentley, the historic and important link to the company's past and rich heritage before new ownership in 1998 parted it from Rolls-Royce and heralded a new and dominant future for the make. It is elegant on the outside and sumptuous on the inside, but underneath is a progressively developed all-aluminium power unit and state-of-the-art chassis technology.... | |
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| | | Bentley team welcomes a very special guest | | Posted Tuesday, July 25, 2006 1:05:02 PM by Blog57 Team | | A national newspaper competition organised by Bentley Pangbourne resulted in a fascinating meeting of Bentley past and present when the winner, Johnnie Hutton, proved to be a relative of the founder of the world-famous British car company – W.O. Bentley. Paul King, senior manager of the flagship Bentley dealership, said: "The competition received a huge response as we were offering the opportunity to drive some of the very latest Bentleys, so we asked everyone to provide an interesting reason as to why they'd like to win the prize as a final tie-breaker. You can imagine our team's surprise when we received John's lovely response which told us his grandmother had been married to W.O. Bentley but he'd never actually driven a Bentley. Needless to say, we felt it was high time John had that first drive." Johnnie, who joined the Bentley Pangbourne team for a day of exciting and challenging driving exercises in cars like the Continental GT and Continental Flying Spur, commented: "I really did not expect to win so it was a great surprise to spend an entire day driving Bentleys with a professional instructor, meeting the skilled craftsmen from Crewe and learning about the many legends surrounding Bentley." Johnnie, who is agency director of Berry Bros & Rudd Ltd, the highly respected family-owned wine business in St.... | |
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| | | Lamborghini set to burn rubber on Indian roads | | Posted Sunday, July 23, 2006 10:46:05 PM by Blog57 Team | | New Delhi: Adding to the ballooning list of luxury cars that cost over a crore on Indian roads, Italian sports car maker Lamborghini today rolled out its super luxury hot wheels: 'Gallardo' and 'Murcielago'.Lamborghini President and CEO Stephan Winkelmann told PTI that the company had already sold six cars in India (two of them delivered) and hoped to finish the year with ten."We come to India not by chance but with a plan. The Indian economy is growing and so is the list billionaires and millionaires, which makes it an attractive and important market for us," he said.Winkelmann said as the Indian economy grew and so did the capacity of people to buy luxury cars, the company hoped to sell as many as 50-60 cars per year in the country, rapidly developing infrastructure also being one of the positive factors.The Indian market has seen a flurry of cars priced over Rs one crore hitting the roads with the entry of cars like the Maybach, Bentley Arnage and Rolls Royce Phantom, to name a few.With its debut in India, Lamborghini will make available three of its latest international models -- the compact two-seater sports-cum-luxury Gallardo, the convertible 'Gallardo Spyder' and the Murcielago, which is a 2-seater, 2-door coupe (with gull-wing doors).While the Gallardo will sport a price tag of Rs 1.65 crore, the Gallardo Spyder will cost a coll Rs 1.85 crore.... | |
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| | | 2006 Bentley Continental Flying Spur | | Posted Sunday, July 02, 2006 12:45:46 PM by Blog57 Team | | The marque's latest vehicle, the 2006 Bentley Continental Flying Spur was inspired by the 1952 Bentley R-Type Continental and the 1957 Continental Flying Spur, and continues the trend. It's also a very different from car from the Bentleys of just a decade or so ago – it's not only modern, it is being touted as the fastest four-door production car in the world with a reported top speed of 312 km/h! The power needed to motivate something that tips the scales at slightly less then a three-bedroom house to this sort of speed is mind-boggling. Thankfully, the Flying Spur lives up to its name, due to the twin-turbo, 6.0-litre, 12-cylinder engine under the hood, producing 552 horsepower and no less than 479 pound-feet of torque at an amazingly low 1,600 rpm! The instant you tromp the gas this thing pulls, taking just 5.2 seconds to reach 100 km/h.... | |
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| | | News in brief | | Posted Saturday, July 01, 2006 10:45:48 AM by Blog57 Team | | Raising motorway speed limit to 80mph could save British business £460 million a year in reduced journey times, says Department of Transport. But environmental impact makes change unlikely. VW introduced site for potential Eos convertible buyers. Visitors ‘drive’ car online and register interest with local dealer. Details at www.rediscoveryour senses.co.uk site. DUNDEE most car-friendly place in UK, according to new survey. Virgin Money research found parking facilities and petrol prices best in Scottish city. BENTLEY to sell £115,000 Continental GT and Flying Spur, plus £180,000 Arnage in Korea. "It’s an exciting opportunity," said spokesman. SINGLES can pick up new partners at wheel. ‘Drive Dating’ by Kia, visiting Manchester this week, gives speed-dating pairs three-minute drives.... | |
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