Car News Articles

When Chris Atkinson goes to work he puts his life on the line.

As he straps himself into his Subaru Impreza he is preparing to race the clock over some of the toughest and most dangerous roads in the world. With zero margin for error.

“What we do in rallying is like turning up to a racetrack and trying to do pole position on your very first lap,” says Atkinson.

“If you freeze you’re going to crash. It only takes one second for things to get away if you lose concentration.”

The 28-year-old Queenslander proved it on the first day of the Rally of New Zealand as he was battling for a podium place in the latest round of the World Rally Championship. He got things very slightly wrong on a tight left-hander, and rolled.

It was only a tiny mistake but it cost him any chance of a good result on the closest thing he has to a home event in the world series.

“I know what I did. I know what I did wrong,” says Atkinson

“It was nothing. Today was like having a bump in the carpark.

“In the back of my mind I knew I wasn’t taking any risks, so I kept going. I felt I could have won that stage.”

This is typical from a youngster who originally planned to become a stockbroker, until his need for speed got in the way. He is sharp, intelligent and articulate.

In many ways he is like Mark Webber. Except that Webber is a Formula One highwire artist and Atkinson is a forest racing lion tamer.

His job is to drive as fast as he possibly can over some of the fastest, toughest and most dangerous roads in the world in a constant fight against his car and the elements in a search for precious seconds. His weapon of choice is a hand-built, $500,000 Subaru Impreza that is packed with technology so advanced that it is banned from F1.

Atkinson is still on the way up after three years in the WRC and, in a sport where drivers do their best work in their mid-30s, he is still considered a potential world champion.

“He is getting better all the time. I’m expecting big things from Chris,” says his Subaru team boss, David Richards. He is a former world champion co-driver who has groomed a lot of rally talent, including the late Colin McRae, as well as running Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards in his Ford Performance Racing team in V8 Supercars.

But no-one expects more from Atkinson than himself.

He had to buy his way into the WRC, spending around $2 million despite a career which had three major titles and runner-up spot in the Australian series before his money-backed graduation to the world title in 2005.

He was 12th in his first year in the big time, improved to tenth and then seventh, and is currently running fifth in this year’s world series. And he earns an estimated $1 million in salary, although he has to pay his Belgian co-driver Stephane Prevot and is also repaying the Aussie backers - and his father John - for their early investment.

“It’s been a good season. I’ve had five podiums. A lot of podiums was the target for this year, and then a rally win . . .”

But there has been no real sign of a win. Atkinson has been quick, usually outpacing his team mate, the former world champion Petter Solberg, but has been let down badly by the car. At first it was a previous-model Impreza but Subaru has just upgraded and is battling to make the new WRX competitive with the pace-setter Citroen C4 and Ford Focus which have dominated 2008.

“I guess it is a little bit away, but the podiums have been won on merit,” says Atkinson, upbeat as usual.

“We probably set our expectation here in New Zealand a little high. I heard a rumour that we were meant to win.”

As it was, four-time world champion Sebastian Loeb did it again in his Citroen. But only after surviving a first-day mishap which was much like Atkinson’s effort - except it happened at 140km/h, not 40, and he did not roll.

But Loeb has the best car in the championship and Atkinson admits he has to push harder to get similar speed from his Subaru.

“You can push at this level for a couple of stages, but . . .,” he says.

“You do take risks. It’s about how many you’re prepared to take.

“We decided to push as hard as we could from the start in New Zealand.”

But what is a risk? Is it the sort of scary moment most ordinary drivers never survive, or some sort of crazy X-Games jump into the unknown?

“Risk isn’t about cutting a single corner. It’s more about going into every corner faster than you think you can get away with, and then seeing what happens.

“When you’re really going for it, you keep pushing. We’ve found a level where I can be comfortable in the top five.

“But even driving at a no-risk level you can have an accident. Thing can catch you out. You think there is no risk, but . . .

“It’s nice to take bigger risks and get away with it.”

Away from the forests Atkinson has a good life. Home base is Monaco, where he recently met Bono at a party, although he still likes to get back to the family on the Gold Coast.

He spends most of the year on the road, like all the motorsport professionals, and has made friends with a group in Monaco that includes World Superbike Champion Troy Bayliss and Tour de France cyclist Stuart O’Grady.

“It’s good fun to hang out with those guys. It hurts a bit when we go cycling, but it’s worth it. You have to try to prove something.”

It’s typical of Atkinson that he has his intercom plummed for rock between special stages, with Grinspoon often playing.

“I don’t want anything that’s slow,” he says.

He also dumped two co-drivers, his brother Ben and fellow Aussie Glenn MacNeal, to try and find the right combination for the WRC big time. Now he has Prevot, a Belgian veteran, and the pair have clicked.

Atkinson knows he can be a WRC winner and he is getting impatient. But he always gives 110 per cent.

“It’s probably not the smartest thing to do, but it’s fun. There is nothing more satisfying than going fastest on a stage, against the best guys in the world.

“The only reason I turn up is that I think I can be fast. No matter what, no matter where.”

So, is Chris Atkinson crazy? Or just crazy fast?

“It’s all relative. When I’m in the rally car I don’t feel like I’m driving at all crazy,” he says.

“In other things in my life I’m actually probably quite safe. I don’t like to take risks.”

- Herald Sun

Future F cars are still officially a dream, but Lexus is definitely doing a coupe convertible in the IS family.

The hardtop coupe is set for sales next year. “That will be in Australia by late next year and it is going to be a very important model for us with what we see as almost totally incremental sales,” Roca says.

He confirms the as-yet-unnamed and unseen hardtop convertible will not be a replacement for the ageing V8 SC430 boulevard cruiser.

“We have been told that the SC will remain as it is until 2011 and there are no plans beyond that as to what will replace it. By 2011 it will be a 10-year-old model . . . and that’s too long in the tooth,” he says.

According to Roca, the convertible IS will be based squarely off the IS 250 platform with the same 153kW 2.5-litre V6 engine.

A facelift version of the IS 250 with new front and rear sheetmetal, reworked lights and external jewellery, as well as a substantially refreshed interior, will head the coming Lexus range changes.

The new IS 250 arrives in twin with the IS-F in November, followed by an all-new RX350 in February.

“Three months after that will come the RX450h (hybrid) and later in the fourth quarter of the year will come the IS Coupe Convertible,” Roca says.

“The IS Coupe is going to be pretty much all incremental sales, and we are expecting the RX volume to increase with the new model because when we launched the original there was no car park of RX owners. We now have a huge car park, and that is a great advantage.”

With the new models and an increase in dealerships that will almost double the present 22 outlets to 38 by 2015, Roca is confident of steady sales growth.

“Sales of 8200 by the end of this year is where we want to be, then next year around 9000,” he says. “By the end of 2010 we will have put 10,000 sales a year behind us.

“It will be through a combination of customer growth and model expansion. It’s a bit of both.

“What we can’t really accurately measure is the effect of the growth of the dealer network with a lot of those new outlets being regional.”

- The Daily Telegraph

Many times when a company releases concept sketches and a few details about a new supercar, we have to take our excitement with a grain of salt. The unfortunate part is that a lot of the time the cars don’t get much further than a few drawings and dreams. That’s why we can truly get excited when pictures of the Bizzarrini P538’s chassis in production.

Back in May we posted the information and sketches, but now we can see that there is a real car in production. Actually the legendary car builder is working on four racers for testing this year. The P538 will be based on the Arbitrage GT and utilize a GM sourced LS7 V8 that will be tuned by Lingenfelter Performance Engineering. The mid-mounted engine will produce a minimum 500 hp, but Bizzarrini says that the P538 will have the option of going as high as 1000 hp. This is all wrapped in carbon fiber for a total weight of around 1760 lbs. With that kind of power and weight, this is definitely a car we can now fully be excited about.

2008 Bizzarrini p538 Picture Gallery

Steve Sutcliffe was wrapping up Autocar’s annual 0-100-0 test when a well spoken Japanese gentleman wandered over and started checking out the cars. Now what would you do if you had a car park full of supercars, a private track rented for the day and a Formula 1 driver hove in to view?

Give him the keys then grab a video camera? Evidently Steve thinks the same way. Rather than let Taku embarrass Steve’s 0-100-0 times “because he’s small and lighter” (yes Steve, we’re sure that’s the only reason he’d be quicker…) Autocar let him off the leash on the full track. Click through to see what Taku, who drives a classic Mini Cooper in the UK and a Honda Beat when in Japan, got up to in his first few minutes in a real supercar — and why he got red flagged all too early.

Taku, who lost his F1 drive when Super Aguri folded earlier this year, has an official test with Scuderia Toro Rosso on September 18th. On the basis of this video alone, it’s a fair bet that Red Bull will finally have a popular spokesperson for the Japanese market next year.