N.Technology’s Porsche Panamera race car has already had great success in the Italian Supercars series with its limited race time, but it looks like those efforts aren’t enough to satisfy the team at N.Technology. And just like that, they’ve completed and tested their second Porsche Panamera race car that will be competing this weekend at the Paul Ricard circuit in France.

With the success of their first car, it’s no surprise they’ve expanded their major sponsorship with Zegg & Cerlati, a manufacturer of fine watches and jewelry. The Panamera race car also gets its new official livery of black and chrome.

We’ll keep our eyes glued to see how it does this weekend and whether or not N.Technology will experience growing pains with an all new race car… or just go blow the doors off of its competition right from the start – again.

GALLERY: N. Technology Porsche Panamera S

Official press release available after the break.

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For the man who has everything and is too lazy to wind his own watches, ORIGINTIMES has the ultimate timesaver for you – the BIG BLOCK WINDER.

Based on a Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron engine block, the BIG BLOCK WINDER will wind your luxurious watches for you, while offering you the ultimate conversation piece for your next dinner party. Able to store 16 valuable timepieces (one for each cylinder), this cool watch winder comes with a small touch panel that’s integrated into the design of the engine block, which helps control the complete watch winding system. Each of the watch winders found inside can be individually programmed, depending on the requirements of the respective watch. If you prefer, each modules can be handled simultaneously.

While in the stop-, pause- and sleeping-mode, each watch automatically aligns in the 12 o’clock position. It also comes with a pedestal, which costs extra, and you have to supply your own watches. The Bugatti watch winder will run you about $115,280, or if you can’t pony up that kind of cash, you may just want to consider winding them yourself.

[Source: Ride Lust]

We haven’t heard a whole lot of noise out of HKS recently, but it looks like they’ve returned to one of their favorite chassis of all time, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.

The 7460R Ball Bearing Turbo Kit is a true bolt-on to the factory setup, which is very impressive considering it’s a ball bearing turbo. The result is an impressive 430-whp with 398.70 ft-lbs of torque with boost set at 25.8 psi. HKS states that it runs perfectly fine on 93 octane with that boost level. And remember since this is bolt-on, the kit comes with the turbocharger, actuator, air outlet pipe, water pipes and hardware required for the install. That’s right, just bolt this baby up to your stock exhaust manifold.

We’re guessing that if you paired up this kit with a few other HKS goodies, threw on a boost controller and got yourself some dyno tuning you could easily and safely hit 500-whp. Now that’s a fun AWD car!

GALLERY: HKS Ball Bearing 7460R Turbo Upgrade for Mitsubishi EVO IV-IX

[Source: Evolution M]

While we have no problems commending the efforts of those who think outside the box, we have to admit we threw up a tad when we spotted this Mitsubishi Eclipse. And as much as we want to criticize this build, we have to give the owner some kudos for really overhauling the car in order to support the gigantic wheels and tires. In fact, he completely modified the car’s suspension in order to fit the 28-inch wheels on it.

And our donk-obsessed owner doesn’t plan on stopping there, with dreams in installing an LS1 V8 under the hood.

While we hate to criticize creativity, we feel like a donk’ed out Eclipse is just downright silly. Does it garner attention? Surely. But there’s a good reason no one has done this before.

[Source: Tampa Bay Sports Car Examiner]

Check out the video after the jump

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Things are already getting interesting in the sport compact motorsports world, and it isn’t even the off season yet. The rumor mill is churning on Redline Time Attack’s plans for 2011, but one thing has already been confirmed: the Pacific Tuner Car Championship Series is a reality.

MotoIQ has signed up as the official media partner for the Pacific Tuner Car Championship Series, and is helping bring a class of racing that will hopefully inspire others to participate. One thing that has really plagued Redline Time Attack’s growth over the year is the lack of excitement – especially when you have options such as drifting to watch, or even drag racing. The overall lack of wheel-to-wheel (or door-to-door) Touring Car-style racing has limited Redline’s growth as a spectator sport. But it looks like that’s all about to change.

The Pacific Tuner Car Championship Series will enforce a power to weight ratio and tire size to determine the class that you will run in. Instead of limiting the amount of modifications you can have on your car, or throwing you in some ridiculous class just because you opted for an engine swap on your car, MotoIQ’s brilliance will bring competitive wheel-to-wheel racing to the sport compact world.

So long as you meet the safety requirements to go wheel-to-wheel racing, your car will be classified based on its power to weight ratio. Currently there will be two classes, Tuner Over and Tuner Under. Tuner Under will field vehicles with a 12:1 power to weight ratio, while Tuner Over will field those with a 8:1 power to weight ratio. And in order to keep things equal based on the various vehicles in competition, tire restrictions will be put in place.

We’re extremely interested to see how this will all work out, especially on the basis of supplying a certified dyno sheet in order to classify your car. We’ll be guessing that some of those not-so-fun competitors will be sandbagging, but it’ll also be pretty easy to tell on the straightaways if someone is fibbing their horsepower figures. So hopefully rule enforcement will be strict to keep it a level and fun playing field for all. Will this bring Time Attack to the masses in an exciting way? Only time will tell, but we look forward to the growth of the sport.

[Source: MotoIQ]

The Toronto International Film Festival is a massive event, that brings thousands of film fans, A-list celebrities and professional celebrity worshippers together for a week of movie premieres, parties and camera-phone stalking.

TIFF is also a major hassle for some of the Autoguide staff, as we like to test cars in Toronto when given the opportunity; the landscape and roads can give us a simulation of nearly every environment, from smooth two-lane blacktop to Manhattan-like urban traffic. But when TIFF is in town, the place is mobbed.

Audi took advantage of this and decided to plaster Toronto’s downtown core with an untold number of 1/43 scale models and added magnets to their undercarriages. After placing them all over Toronto’s lamp posts and parking meters (and a competitors exhibit at a TIFF screening), Audi recorded festival patrons grabbing the model cars for themselves. To see what happens, hit the jump and view it yourself.

[Source: Sympatico Autos]

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Chrysler not only invented the concept of the garageable van with it’s original 1984 T-wagons – the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager - but it also invented the concept of the Premium soccer mom special with the Town & Country. Now 21 years after the T&C’s introduction it’s packed with an incredible array of standard features and for 2011 it gets even more. With safety being all the rage these days key elements on the new Town & Country include a Safety Tec umbrella, which brings together more than 40 separate standard features, including Blind Spot Monitoring and Rear Cross Path Detection.

Alongside safety; other improvements include a dual DVD system that can play two different media at the same time; Sirius Backseat TV and FLO TV (the latter which provides 20 channels of live programming); plus voice command functions for such things as iPod/MP3 players, radio control, phone communication and navigation.

Besides safety and gadgets, Chrysler has also made improvements to the interior – a new dash and instrument cluster; better quality upholstery for the seats; more ergonomically sound steering wheel with integrated vehicle functions and a revised HVAC system.

Under the hood the  2011 T&C also gets a version of Chrysler’s new 3.6-liter “Pentastar” V6, rated at 283 horsepower and 260 ft-lbs of torque. Combined with a six-speed automatic transmission EPA fuel economy estimates are 17 miles per gallon in town and 25 highway. Those fuel economy numbers are the same as last year, but the power output has jumped considerably. The 2011 T&C will be built exclusively at Chrysler’s Windsor, Ontario assembly plant, with the first examples set to arrive in dealerships, sometime in the final quarter of this year.

GALLERY: 2011 Chrysler Town & Country

Either stealing a car has become a lot more difficult or the thieves just threw in the towel and decided to try their hand at another career. One thing’s for sure – car thefts were down in 2009.

According to the FBI’s 2009 crime statistics released this week, vehicle thefts dropped 17 percent from 2008. The numbers fell 35.7 percent when compared to 2005 data.

But this doesn’t mean you can stop locking your car when you leave it. There were still 600,000 vehicles stolen last year. High on the “to steal” list is the 1994 Honda Accord for some strange reason (better gas millage perhaps – even thieves are thrifty these days).

But with good news comes some bad news. News from LoJack states that the national recovery rate for stolen cars is at its lowest point in 25 years. This means that 43.2 percent of vehicles stolen in 2009 were never recovered.

According to LoJack, these vehicles are typically stolen by professional thieves. They find their way to chop shops to be stripped down to their components. By stripping the cars down, thieves can make two to four times the vehicle’s actual worth.

Transported across the U.S. boarder, thousands of stolen vehicles are used to commit other crimes or resold as used vehicles, most often to unsuspecting customers. Damn those Canadians and their love of ’94 Accords!

[Source: Edmunds]

It seems that Jeep is having quite a busy year. First we got a redesigned Grand Cherokee; then an updated Wrangler with a new interior and now this. The Patriot, the brand’s entry level trail rated vehicle is receiving some improvements of its own. On the outside, the most obvious change is a revised front fascia, with driving lights now integrated into the lower bumper assembly, a body colored grille, new exterior colors, plus newly styled 17-inch wheels. Suspension changes include retuned shock absorbers and higher rate springs, a thicker rear sway bar, plus on 4×4 models an inch increase in ride height for better clearance out on the trail.

But like hardcore brother Wrangler, the changes on the inside are perhaps even more significant. Chrysler products in general have long been criticized for chintzy interiors and the Patriot, first introduced in 2006, was no exception. In response, the automaker has made significant strides for 2011, including better quality upholstery for the seats, soft touch door panels and a new steering wheel that incorporates audio, hands free communication and cruise control functions (the last now standard on all Patriots we might add). Other inside upgrades include backlighting  for power window and mirror switches, plus on the Latitude X trim level, standard automatic climate control.

Although the Patriot is getting on in years, Chrysler is hedging its bets that these upgrades will give this little rig a few more bragging rights. And given that it’s one of the few, affordable car based SUVs that can actually work properly off-road, it’s not a bad strategy.

GALLERY: 2011 Jeep Patriot

UPDATE: Audi’s official statement below

Jalopnik is reporting that an Audi commercial shoot at Pikes Peak took a tragic turn after a helicopter crashed during filming. Reports say that the pilot is in critical condition with the other three passengers injured as well.

The commercial apparently involved the autonomous TTS, with the helicopter filming the driverless car as it made its way up Pikes Peak. We’ll have more on the story as information becomes available. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families.

[Source: Jalopnik]

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