The latest offering from Italian supercar marque Ferrari is a Grand Tourer cum hard-top convertible with direct fuel injection, 7 speed double-clutch gearbox & well over 400bhp. Before this model came along, the F430 Spyder was the automatic hoice for any billionaire playboy under 30 years of age, but now the choice has just gotten a little harder to make.
The video shows a review by Fifth Gear & it seems rather positive. Since it costs around the same as a Ferrari F430 Spyder albeit the 200kg weight disadvantage, it just might fit into what I want from a car in the very near future.
It was a Friday evening & me & a few colleagues were trying to catch a cab to Mohn Sultan so we can have out end-of-week drinks in Dbl O. Before that, we have 2 games of bowling at Marina Square. I did not play as I was really trying my best to fight off the ever-powerful Zee Monster & I wasn't really in the mood to hurl a heavy ball down an oily lane so I can knock down ten whitish thingys.
Seems like there are no cab drivers who are willing to stop for us by the road. I wonder if it is because they are just complying with the rules of having to pick up passenger sonly at taxi stands in the city area or they were just waiting for us to call a cab so they can earn an extra few dollars. Or it could simply be that those taxi drivers are blind.
An alternative was to walk to the hotel lobby next door where there would be a taxi stand for guests of the hotel as well as desperate people like us. In my mind, I was hoping there will not be too many hotel guests as they are given priority & there would not be too many people in the queue overall.
The driveway to the hotel lobby was long, curved & impressive. So this is what the driveway of a self-declared 6-star luxury hotel look like. Nevertheless, it created the feeing of being exclusive & private, yet grand & inviting, provide you can afford to stay there or have a meal in their restaurants.
At the top of the stort climb, this was the sight that greeted me. I was blown away, slightly overwhelmed by the aura. I wanted to come here often. Drive up in my sports car, accompanied by a very attractive partner (could be physical attractiveness, could be because she has a great character that makes everybody like her, etc) to stay for the weekend or just to have a meal. People would know me on a first name basis & I would feel comfortable in such settings which could be intidimating to the man in the street.
I booked a room during the following week for my birthday. Will have some pictures of the place posted soon after, if not I will provide a link to a short write up of the place & the stay in general. Hope the hospitality is legendary.
Ja neh!!!
P.S. have not been writing for quite a while so the words just did not come out easily. Do forgive the substandard post.
One of the nicer GT cars that I set my sights on. Costing roughly $410,000 with COE, it is a huge investment & it shall remain in my fantasies for now. With a 10% downpayment & taking up a 10-year loan, it would cost about $4100 / month excluding petrol, parking charges, ERP charges, traffic offence summons, insurance & road tax.
Assuming parking costs $90 / month for multi-story carparks (normally people who can afford such cards do not stay in HBD areas though) as well as around $50 for occassions where you use parking coupons or park in shopping centers, that adds up to around $140 / month just for parking.
ERP charges can go up to $50 depending on where you go & what time, but let us take an average & also considering how our government erect these gantries on a whim, I mean, after deliberated studies & valuable feedback from traffic indicators & the general public.
As it is a 4.2 litre V8 engine, it is really thirsty. With petrol frequently crossing the $2/litre mark, I guess petrol cost should cost anywhere from $500 onwards. If you have a lead foot, probably around $800 onwards. I am not really a speed demon, so I'll take my estimate as $600 as I like to drive to wherewver I go.
I'm 28 this year & it being a supercar with only 2 doors, insurance should be around $3500 / year? I'm only guessing because I never did any research on this.
Road tax for a car with this engine capacity should be around $5000 / year? For the 2-litre car, it is around $1400 / year but it jumps exponentially as you cross the 3 litre mark.
So what is the total cost of maintaining this beauty? Probably around $$6000 / month. I do not even earn $6000 / month. So I guess it is out of reach until I take home around $8000 / month. Which is ridiculous because I spend more on the car than pampering myself. Hahaha.
For the longest time, it has been a bittle struggle between these 2 supercars with a foldable roof, or convertible as it is more commonly known. Some will call them cabriolet or spyder depending on which part of the world you come from & the era too. They all mean the same thing, whether the roof is made of fabric with a metal supporting structure (soft top) or purely out of metal pieces that still fold away neatly (hard top).
The Ferrari F430 Spyder has all the right curves & a small capacity engine. The Lamborghini Gallardo spyder has a sort of angular look that appeals to the engineer-trained, logical side of me too. The interiors are different & each car maker represents contrasting school of thoughts. Ferrari owners are usually said to be successful but serious in a nutshell. Lamborghini owners are successful & crazy & fun loving with disregard for the rules. Somehow that sounds like me.
Both cars give amazing performance, are incredibly bloody expensive & are every man's dream ride. I guess since Audi owns Lamborghini, there will be some German practicality, engineering & sensibility trickling down to all that Italian passion. After all, Audi cars are known to be one of the best in the world.
At the moment now, the Gallardo Spyder has a slight edge, but all that could change in the near future. There is still the viewing of the actual car & the actual sales experience to be factored in. Now all I need is to win first prize in Toto. Twice.
Really an awesome car. Carbon composite materials everywhere, more than 600 horsepower in a nice little package. The gull-wing doors are simply to die for!!! However, in land scare Singapore where the cars are parked quite cloe to each other & almost all drivers are inconsiderate & open doors without making sure it does not hit the neighbouring car, I guess such a car can only be parked at places like in front of hotels or valet parking. The roof can be lowered or riased in about 10 seconds which is pretty quick I guess.
What an experience to sit in such a luxurious & high performance sports car. Actually the proper term should be supercar, & an everyday one at that. Heard from SZL (only a select few know about what the initials mean) that Porsche makes supercars that can be driven everyday & to almost all locations. We have all heard of how troublesome other supercars like Ferrari & Lamborginis can be when travelling to places like underground carparks, HDB carparks, places with numerous speed bumps amongst other places. While their road handling capabilities are in a class of their own, it is precisely their low ground clearance that make them almost impossible to clear without scraping the undercarriage. Lamborghinis are not that bad as in they can be driven everyday but for Ferraris, their engines will be damanged if subjected to heavy urban driving. What an irony. Paying so much that cannot do what an inexpensive Japanese or Korean car can do.
There goes my dream of owning a Ferrari F430. Looks like I might need to change it into a Raging Bull & forfeit my Prancing Horse. Personally I prefer the Ferrari's design. Oh well. When the time comes to really put pen to paper & splash some cash, I hope the reviews would have gotten a little more positive.
I will add a Porsche into the destiny list when I find out more about the cars. As they say, owners knows best as to which cars can be recommended to prospective buyers. In the meantime, the seats are superb in cocooning you into a nice tight (a little too tight in my case) fit while you negotiate those corners. The layout is sensible, with the most often used controls a short reach away. The exhuast note is simply amazing. It would definitely turns heads wherever you go, & attract the attention of the fairer sex (though this might not be so applicable in today's modern era).
While the majority of Gallardos are the coupe version, I personally prefer the Spyder version or the convertible version. It has always been my dream to drive my sports car (as you can tell from my list, I do have a few) with the roof retracted down an expressway on a quiet night, Class 95 blasting from my quality sound system & my S.O. sitting by my side, with her right hand outstretched towards the sky, comparing the rock on her finger with the stars in the shy, much like that cheesy commercial (that spoiled a lot of "markets") shown on television.
At the top of this range is the Gallardo Superleggera which features a lot of carbon fibre components which helped it shed 100kg with an increase of 10bhp, bringing it to a total of 530bhp. The last time I checked, it will cost SGD$921000 in Singapore!!!
Personally I feel this looks better than the Lamborghini Gallardo & it has a smaller engine too. 4.3 litre V8 versus 5.0 litre V10. Nevertheless, every bit as impressive as the Raging Bull. I vote for Prancing Horse anytime. One setback of any Ferrari is that it usually looks best in the tradmark Ferrari Red. Maybe I should get it in midnight blue. Or purple. Or pink.
The video is a little boring without the fancy sound effects or any commentry for that matter, but it is rather informative & gives a pretty good idea of the folding roof mechanism, the interior finishes, the exterior lines. Some insight into the road handling can be found, but to me, only experts can tell from the sections where they take the 3 Series Convertible for a spin.
A picture paints a thousand words. A movie clip paints a thousand pictures.
I have been eyeing the Nissan 350Z Roadster for a pretty long time, until i set my sight on the new BMW 3 Series convertible. I always wanted a to cruise along the roads of Singapore, with the roof down & the wind in my hair, with Class 95 playing in the background & my S.O. by my side. A Nissan 350Z Roadster, is frankly quite impractical because it has only 2 seats while the Convertible has 4.
It has a hard top which gives a greater sense of security & of course it is more durable than a soft top which must be replaced every few years at a cost of a few thousand dollars.
The level of interior finishing is definitely above the Nissan & so is the price. I assume it would be around SGD$250000 for the 325i Convertible from what I have seen but my guess is as good as anybody's.
The colour shown in the pictures (champagne gold???) is quite elegant. What do you think is the best colour for this car?
Standard equipment for the 325i Convertible includes
seat heating for driver and front passenger,
premium Dakota leather upholstery with SunReflective technology,
Bi-Xenon headlamps,
Brake Force Display two-stage brake lights,
17-inch light alloy wheels,
BMW Business navigation system with colour monitor,
six-stacker CD player,
rear Park Distance Control,
automatic climate control,
extended lights package for interior illumination,
cruise control with brake function,
Bluetooth mobile phone preparation.
Sports seats for driver and front passenger,
Active Steering,
Sport Suspension,
18 or 19-inch light alloy wheels,
Adaptive Headlights,
Active Cruise Control,
High Beam Assist
LOGIC7 sound system.
Being BMW, safety was top of the agenda, and the base model comes standard with safety systems including
Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) which incorporates DTC Dynamic Traction Control,
CBC Cornering Brake Control
DBC Dynamic Brake Control,
Dual front airbags and front seat integrated side airbags with combined head airbags complete the passive safety list.
The Bentley Continental GT has a 6 Litre W12 engine with twin turbochargers which develops 552 hp at 6100 RPM and 650 Nm of torque at 1600 RPM. Never before had a 12 cylinder engine been employed on a Bentley car. Acceleration from 0-60 mph takes 4.7 seconds (0 to 100 km/h in 4.8 s), the top speed is 198 mph (312 km/h). It has all-wheel drive, the first Bentley to do so, and a six speed automatic transmission with steering wheel mounted gearshift paddles for instant override. The engine and air suspension are manufactured by Bentley, but are loosely based on owner Volkswagen's flagship car the Phaeton.
The Continental GT features the largest brake disc on any production car at 405 mm (16 inches) in front. The rear disc measures 335 mm (13 inches).
In Singapore, this car would cost around SGD$700k - SGD$800k inclusive of COE which is a really mind-numbing sum of money to be paying for a car that only has two doors. I can get 2 nos Mercedes S350 or maybe a nice Mercedes CLS 55 AMG. or maybe even 10 Hyundai Sonata in a different color each. Or maybe 5 Nissan 350Z Roadster!!!
Building on the 100EX concept that debuted at the 2004 Geneva auto show, Rolls-Royce unveiled a convertible version of its Phantom sedan, dubbed the Phantom Drophead Coupe. Unlike the concept car, whose engine held an outlandish 16 cylinders, the Drophead uses the Phantom sedan's 6.8-liter V-12.
Features include a rear trunk gate that flips down for what Rolls-Royce calls "picnic" seating — the world's priciest tailgating party, perhaps? — and a camera mounted up front for better parking visibility.
Exterior
Iconic Rolls-Royce elements include a descending beltline (in contrast to most convertibles, whose lines typically ascend toward the tail), as well as a short front and an enormous rear overhang. The automaker says the sedan and convertible share no major exterior panels, though they look similar enough that Rolls-Royce aficionados will easily identify the tree this Drophead fell from.
Up front, the grille and hood carry a softer profile than that of the hard-nosed Phantom sedan. The front doors are hinged at the rear, which is sure to make for a show every time they're opened. Run-flat tires hug the Drophead's 20-inch wheels, and 21-inch wheels are optional.
Interior
The four-seat interior comes drenched in wood, leather and chrome. Rolls-Royce says it avoided bleaches, stains and lacquers in favor of natural surfaces. Even the convertible roof housing can be adorned with more than 30 pieces of teakwood.
A 15-speaker stereo broadcasts music through nine channels. The seats boast flat leather surfaces designed to be wiped free of moisture — though you'll want to put the top up at the first sign of rain, no doubt.
Under the Hood
The Drophead's 6.8-liter V-12 makes 453 horsepower and 531 pounds-feet of torque. Working through a six-speed automatic transmission, the drivetrain allows the Drophead to reach 60 mph in just 5.7 seconds. That's impressive; it's about as quick as an Infiniti G35 in a car that weighs as much as a Ford Expedition.
Safety
Four-wheel-disc antilock brakes and an electronic stability system are standard. A rollover protection system can automatically deploy reinforced bars from behind the backseat head restraints. Seat-mounted, side-impact airbags and active front head restraints are also included.
Ah, finally a Rolls Royce for the young at heart. Gone were the days when a Rolls Royce is a stately car, meant only for royalty & the obscenely rich (which I aim to be in the not too distant future). They finally made a car that actually looks like fun to drive, & cool to be seen it. It is a tough call, between the Bentley C. GT 7 the RR Drophead (who the hell though of putting this in the name of a car that costs a few millions?) Coupe.
Another luxury car I am very interested in. The top of the range model, LS 460 (LWB) with Mark Levinson (is this how it is supposed to be spelt?) system cost a little more than a Mercedes S350!!! Seldom you will find a case where a Japanese car costing more than a Continental car. What blew me away was not the world's first 8 speed automatic transmission, or the relentless pursuit of perfection, but rather the interior of the car. The back seats are almost as luxurious as a Maybach!!! At a fraction of the cost. Will keep in view. In the meantime, must work hard to pay off my study loans before I can buy anything remotely unnecessary. Sigh.
One of the nicest luxury cars available in our local market, & one of the best value for money in my opinion. The absolute cost might be a little out of reach for most of us, but the gadgets that come standard in any S class should more than justify it. Find out more about the latest incarnation of the Mercedes S class in this video I have leeched from YouTube. I aim to buy the S350 within the next 5 years, maybe 6.
My family & I had dinner at Subway (Tampines Central) as my sporty (as if) sister wanted to go for a short jog round Tampines Stadium which is just opposite the place.
After dinner, we passed by the Nissan showroom which is just round the corner. What caught my eye was this Roadster with a 3.5 litre V6 engine (the V means that the cylinders are arranged like the letter 'V' with 3 cyclinders on each side, I so smart hor!!!)!!!
What a luxurious interior & a wicked body!!! As i sat in the dirver's sit, I was imagining myself crusing down the expressway with the top down & the wind in my hair (or what is left of it).
The price is around SGD$163000 which includes COE.
This is the monthly payment for 1 year loan up till 10 years if I want to take a 100% loan, i.e. zero downpayment. So if I decide to take a 6 year loan, I need to pay almost SGD$3000 every month, exlcuding petrol & servicing & insurance & road tax!!!
This is the payment play if I place a SGD$100000 downpayment is which like the bulk of the cost of the car. OMG!!! Still a lot of money. I think I should just go rob a bank or hope I strike Toto twice in a row before I can afford such an expensive car. Meanwhile, I'll just daydream about owning it & stare at the brochure.
Hybrid cars have always attracted me because of their superior fuel economy & at the same time I can also do my bit for the environment. When I was in university, there was a recycling bin at the bus stop & I would set aside all recycables like paper & plastics & drink cans & bring them to the recycling bin when it was full.
One of the main reasons for havng excellent fuel economy is that it translates into lower operating costs in the long term. The more you use the car, the more you save. This should offset the higher initial cost of owning a hydrib vehicle here in Singapore.
Right now, I do believe that the road tax for hydrid cars is based on housepower rather than displacement. I wonder who is the moron who though of this scheme. Why should hydrid cars be taxed differently from normal petrol engine cars? If my hybrid car has a 1-litre engine but advances in technology made it possible to produce very small electric motors that will give me the equivalent of 200bhp, won't my tax be as high as that for maybe 3-litre car when it is more fuel efficient & environmentally friendly?
They should given even more incentives instead of "penalizing" us who support hybrid engines. We are the ones who made a choice to save the earth, why should have to pay because we made the obviously better choice? Even Hollywood stars drive this particular model. I do not know whether it is to make a politically correct statement or they really want to drive it.
I hope more models with hybrid engines will be launched in the market soon so we consumers have better choice. Right now, there is only the Honda Civic Hybrid & Toyota Prius in our local market.
Seems like very hard to find information on this car on the net or even pictures of the Honda Civic Hybrid. Many pictures on the normal Civic though. Think this will be the first car I get. What attracts me is the look of the car, the futuristic technology being integrated into the car like regenerative braking & most of all is the fuel economy.
Mazda Motor Corporation assembles the Mazda3, an automobile model (known in Japan as the Axela), and offers it to the public under the Mazdabrand. Based on the MX-Sportif's concept stylings, the new 2004 Mazda3 replaces the Mazda Protegé. As of 2005, 499,164 Axela and Mazda3 models had been sold worldwide since the very first Mazda3 rolled off the assembly line on December 8, 2003.
The car is based on Ford's global C1 Platform developed by Volvo and shared with the latest European Ford Focus and Volvo S40. Chassis development was carried out by Mazda and suspension designed by Ford. The Mazda3/Axela is available in two different bodyworks, a four-door sedan, marketed as "coupé style" in Europe, and a five-door hatchback, branded the Sport version in America and Japan.
For more information, refer to the following website:
