Daily Drive: We talk to SRT boss Ralph Gilles and drive the BMW i8

HOME   |   CAR NEWS   |   CAR REVIEWS   |   RACING   |   AUTO SHOWS   |   VIDEOS   |   COLLECTOR   |   SUBSCRIBE Wednesday, August 07, 2013                  Ralph Gilles speaks with our friend MotoMan at the Petersen.... Ralph Gilles talks past, present and SRT future Ralph Gilles -- SRT boss, Chrysler vice president of design, curator of something called the "Man Van," has become the public face of Chrysler performance, carrying the legacy of Firepower engines and 428 Coronets and the Dodge Viper RT/10 into the future with the Challenger, Charger and Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8s. Since "unofficially" helping form it in 2003, Gilles has seen SRT...   Delusional Texan spots Jesus in BMW 3-series woodgrain People are always seeing faces in things. More often than not, at least in America, the face seems to be that of Jesus and/or other New Testament luminaries. We're generally quick to write it off as happenstance -- after all, how many leaky pipes cause thousands of dollars in property damage...   Watch 'Porsche by Design': 'Relentlessly Pursuing Perfection' In advance of their exhibition "Porsche by Design: Seducing Speed," the North Carolina Museum of Art has released a gorgeous series of historical Porsche videos to whet visitors'...   One Lap of the Web: Land Rover takes the really long way 'round, Triumph wears Italian bespoke, and a Suzuki Swift rattles We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. --If GM offered a modern...   Nissan may build more Leaf EVs to meet growing demand Nissan is making plans to begin building more electric Leafs as dealers clamor for more of the once slow-selling car. The automaker's North American...   NASCAR fans want Tony Stewart to give up sprint cars On Monday night, NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Tony Stewart got into a Sprint Car wreck in Iowa, a wreck that broke his right leg in two places.. The injury will keep him out of this weekend's race at Watkins Glen (where...   Transmissions gone wild! If you've been car shopping recently, or just paying attention to Autoweek car reviews, you've noticed that the six-speed automatic -- de rigueur as recently as a year ago -- suddenly has ratio envy. The new hotness? Eight- and nine-speed automatic transmissions. We recently paid a visit to...   Porsche 918 infotainment system to be based on HTML5 While some automakers, like Ford and General Motors, are beginning to open up their code to outside developers via application programming interfaces,...   2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek 2.0i Premium review ASSOCIATE EDITOR GRAHAM KOZAK: What can we call the 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek? Is it a jacked-up hatchback? A wagon-like crossover? Maybe it's an urban/wilderness hybrid lifestyle vehicle? I don't really care. For $22,790,...   Sebastian Vettel backs F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone amid legal troubles World champion Sebastian Vettel has jumped to the defense of Formula One's embattled chief executive Bernie Ecclestone. already under fire over the Gerhard Gribkowsky bribe affair, Ecclestone's troubles worsened this week when a... You May Have Missed...   2015 BMW i8 drive review: A 'progressive sports car' with evolved styling What is it?The second model from BMW's new i brand, the i8 coupe. Driven here in prototype form for the first time, the low-slung coupe is set to go on sale in North America next April at a price, BMW officials hint, pitching it into direct competition with the more conventional Porsche 911 Carrera ...   'Top Gear' video of Mark Webber saying he won't miss Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber, retiring from Formula One at the end of the season, has admitted he will not miss his teammate Sebastian Vettel.The Australian appeared on the BBC's popular British show "Top Gear" this week, where he admitted the sport is now "very different" to when he debuted over...   Grid girls grace the Mid-Ohio stage for the Pirelli World Challenge race Grid girls are not just for the pit lane of Formula One, as our team of Autoweek correspondents found out at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, on Aug. 4.Enjoy the team's in-depth photo essay of grid girls of the Pirelli World Challenge. The team certainly enjoyed the assignment....   Tony Stewart is the Man Kinda smiled when I heard Tony Stewart broke his leg in a Monday night sprint-car race. This bit of indiscretion will snap his 521-race NASCAR Sprint Cup start streak, and mean he's effectively out of the 2013 NASCAR championship hunt.I love it.I love it because I think Stewart did something...   Tony Stewart knows the risks and rewards of what he does; don't expect him to quit Sometime on Tuesday, after the mainstream sports media takes a moment to digest the Monday night sprint car crash in Iowa that resulted in a broken right leg for NASCAR Sprint Cup driver and team owner Tony Stewart and will cost him at least one Cup start, some pundit will look in the archives and...   Tony Stewart's racing empire in the spotlight at Eldora -- exclusive feature Tony Stewart leaned against the rail of his infield observation deck at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, amid the onlookers for the first-ever NASCAR Camping World Truck Series practice at his rural short track. The Indiana native appeared utterly unbothered as he monitored radio conversations...   Video of Tony Stewart's sprint car crash in Oskaloosa, Iowa Three-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart will miss this weekend's road course race at Watkins Glen after breaking his right leg in a sprint car race Monday night at Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, Iowa.A spokesman for Stewart said the 42-year-old driver broke his right tibia and fibula and had...   Woodward Dream Cruise unofficially in full swing The 2013 Woodward Dream Cruise officially takes place Aug. 17, but gorgeous summer weather and new legislation in Michigan has classics rolling down M1 throughout the month. Enthusiasts in lawn chairs and impromptu car shows line the road on weekend evenings, especially through the communities of...   This week in 1992: Land Rover Defender 110 Debuting in the fall of 1992 as a 1993 model, only 500 copies of the Land Rover Defender 110 were sent to the States. Building on Land Rover’s past, we thought that the Defender 110 was a nimble truck “capable of climbing slopes and fording waters that most drivers would fear to tackle....   Lotus latest Formula One team struggling with financial problems Troubling signs of financial weakness are emerging from Lotus. The German website motorsport-total.com reports that, although in the hunt for the 2013 title, the Genii-owned Formula One team is "struggling to survive" under $150 million in debt.And even though Lotus driver Kimi Räikkönen is second...   Evoque GTS by Overfinch offers style on and off road Concerned that your Range Rover Evoque is becoming invisible in a sea of other Evoques since its release two years ago? Land Rover coachbuilder Overfinch will sort you out with some proper styling modifications that'll keep your Evoque looking fresh. Overfinch is perhaps best known for creating... 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