Elfin Sports Cars is a little known company – certainly outside of its home territory of Australia. The company was founded by Garrie Cooper in 1959. Cooper was a successful Australian racing driver and decided to build his own racing cars from facilities in Adelaide. Cooper, like Sir Jack Brabham, was a championship winner in one of his own cars taking out the Australian 1.5 … [Read more...]
48 Volt Batteries
Audi has become the first mainstream manufacturer to start selling a car with a 48 volt battery - the SQ7 SUV has the extra power. Like most technology in vehicles, the car battery has evolved over the years with the first common battery being introduced in the 1920s. The first battery was to help get the car started as electric starter motors became more popular and … [Read more...]
Alpina
Alpina is a world leading tuning house, specialising in building cars based on BMW chassis – in fact they are an official German manufacturer using BMW shells and some running gear, however, unlike Abarth and AMG, Alpina has remained separate from the donor company. They are based in Bavaria, southern Germany. The company that became Alpina was founded in 1962 by Burkard … [Read more...]
Future Engine Technologies
I watched an interesting podcast from Autoline.tv on a flight back from the UK. The main guest was MaryAnn Wright, a VP at Johnson Controls (JCI) who manufacture and sell one third of all lead acid batteries in cars globally. They have also signed an agreement with Mercedes-Benz and a couple of other US built brands to supply Lithium Ion batteries for hybrids. The focus of … [Read more...]
Volvo Polestar
A few months ago, Volvo announced it was to acquire Polestar, a tuning company. Many other marques have gone down this path in the past, the notable ones being Mercedes-Benz who bought AMG, FIAT who bought Abarth and Renault who bought Alpine. Volvo being the odd one out because their tuner starts with a "P"! Other manufacturers have created their own performance lines: BMW … [Read more...]