The Good Oil: Venom packs powerful punch

The Venom GT supercar. Photo / Supplied

Niche Texas company Hennessey has officially taken the covers off its Venom GT supercar it first showed at Britain's Goodwood Festival of Speed. Hennessey used the Pebble Beach Concourse to lure US buyers and claimed the Venom GT's V12 engine delivers 895kW and catapults the car from zero to 100km/h in 2.5 seconds. The car has a claimed top speed of 430km/h.

3-Series follows big brother's style

The new BMW 3-Series picks up styling cues from the bigger 5-Series, an influence obvious in changes to the headlights and tail lights.

Spy pictures of the production-ready 3-Series also show bonnet slashes, and shorter front and rear overhangs, to produce an altogether more compact version of the 5-Series.

Expect a similar approach on the inside with a 5 Series-inspired cabin. Much of the 5-Series' technology will trickle down to the new 3-Series including gizmos such as a head-up display.

Under the bonnet, there will be new 1.6-litre turbo petrol engines, revised 2-litre diesels and new gearboxes in the shape of an eight-speed automatic.

BMW's Eco Pro mode, which makes the car more fuel efficient by modifying throttle response and air-conditioning performance, will appear across the range alongside standard stop-start and other EfficientDynamics tweaks.

The 3-Series will be unveiled at the Frankfurt motor show next month and on sale in New Zealand early next year.

One size fits all

Social media is changing consumer tastes worldwide. Teenagers in New Zealand these days like the same things as teenagers in Britain or the United States. That's one of the reasons carmakers are pulling back on the number of platforms they use. Nissan, for example, once had 16 platforms; now it uses six. Worldwide, cars now share the same styling and components, with only minor concessions here and there. According to Sheryl Connelly, a consumer trends analyst at Ford in Detroit: "A 20-year-old in the US has more in common with a 20-year-old in the UK than with a 40-year-old in the US."

British museum licensed to thrill

Bond's Aston Martin DBS will be on show alongside other automotive stars.

Britain's National Motor Museum will next year display more than 50 cars from the James Bond films, one for each year of the secret agent's fight against the baddies.

The museum got together with Empire magazine and Bond film-maker EON Productions to create the exhibition, which will include the Aston Martin DBS from Quantum of Solace, the DB5 from Goldeneye, the Jaguar XKR from Die Another Day and the 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom lll from Goldfinger.

Bond's slick wheels will be on display from January through to December 2012.

Out of this world

Arkansas motorbike dealer Landers Harley-Davidson has a motto: We'll trade for just about anything. And it lived up to that when Jim Griffey wanted to use a meteorite as down payment on a Harley. Griffey was planting trees in his backyard when he dug up the rock. Landers Harley-Davidson agreed to make the trade as long as Griffey could get official documentation that his trade-in really was a meteorite. Griffey did just that.

BMW to launch high-tech turbo triple-threat

BMW's next M3 will be the first of the go-fast saloons to be turbocharged - and there'll be three of them.

Word has it that the new car - part of the 3-Series range not yet revealed to the public - will lean heavily on high-tech materials that have featured in the eco-friendly "i" range, with carbon-reinforced plastics and aluminium helping to slash weight where possible. It's likely to hit the market, coupe-first, in 2014.

Alleged spy shots of the car show a staunch stance with super-wide wheel arches, an aggressive front bumper and an even larger rear apron - complete, of course, with the traditional quad exhaust pipes.

Three turbochargers will be used on the 3.3-litre straight six - two driven by exhaust in the traditional manner and the third using electricity. This is said to offer about 335kW, a gain on the current 308kW set-up.

World's fastest Skoda goes for speed record

Skoda marked the 10th anniversary of its RS performance brand by nudging the world's 2-litre land speed record at the Bonneville salt flats in Utah. The world's fastest Skoda achieved an official run of 327.4km/h (202.15mph) at the Bonneville Speed Week. The bodyshell of the go-fast Octavia RS was changed to minimise wind resistance, the tyres were special, and the engine picked up a larger turbocharger and intercooler. Other than that, the RS was pretty much an off-the-shelf model. Skoda now wants to challenge the 2-litre speed record, which stands at 349.9km/h (216mph).

Research focus

Autoline Detroit analyst Seamus McElroy investigated what the world's largest carmakers spent on research and development. Volkswagen is the third-largest carmaker but spends more than the two firms ahead of it, Toyota and General Motors. At 5.5 per cent, BMW and Honda spend the largest amount of their revenue on R&D and VW is behind at 5.4 per cent. Chrysler, Fiat, Hyundai and Kia are at the bottom of the list.

Irked by electric

An electric Ferrari is a no-go, says company chief Luca di Montezemelo. He told website Engadget: "You will never see a Ferrari electric because I don't believe in electric cars because I don't think they represent an important step forward for pollution or CO2 or the environment. But, we are working very, very hard on the hybrid Ferrari."