Welcome to The Smoking Tire. Kick ass automotive videos and more.

Season Premiere of TUNED, Our New Show on the DRIVE Network!

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Some of you may not have heard of Tuned, our new show on the DRIVE Network. Whereas here on The Smoking Tire we tend to focus on factory stock car reviews, Tuned is all about the best custom projects around, from street cars to trucks, offroad to land yachts. In our season premiere, we hit up our old friends at BBi Autosport, who said we absolutely must try their 650 horsepower Porsche 997 Turbo S PDK. The car isn’t just about horsepower, either; it’s got the chassis, suspension, and brake upgrades to match. And as you can imagine, I take it out, drive it hard, and put it away wet. Hit the jump for the video and see what Tuned is all about.

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09.01.2012 News, Reviews, Video 8 Comments

TST’s Cars of the Year: And the Winners are….

Sunday, January 1st, 2012

 Last week we sat down and looked at all the cars we had driven in 2011. It was a great year at The Smoking Tire. Though we hadn’t driven hundreds of cars with a team of only 1.5 journalists (Matt and Zack) we did pretty well, driving at least 60 cars. Some were used in episodes, some for written reviews and some were from Matt’s work on “The Car Show.” We decided to break them into 3 categories: Sedan of the Year, Truck/SUV of the Year, and Sports Car of the Year.

After coming to an agreement on the Sedan and Truck/SUV of the Year Matt chose the Sports Car of the Year. He drove everything, so he would be the best judge. LIES! We locked in our votes and then posted a contest for all of you: Whoever picked the same 3 cars we did before midnight on New Year’s Eve would win a t-shirt. It’s now January 1, 2012 which means it’s time to reveal our choices for Cars of the Year, as well as the contest winners.

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01.01.2012 Editorials, News 9 Comments

No More LS Swaps! Oh, into a AWD Porsche 996? Ok, One More.

Monday, December 26th, 2011

 

You know how the Chinese have the Year of the Dragon, or Cat, or Dog? As Matt put it after SEMA, this was the Year of the LS Swap. Every project had an LS motor. Pro-touring cars, off-road machines, Japanese drift cars, shit, you can probably get an iPod case that has an LS motor in it. I know, I know; cheap, reliable, easy-to-find power. Yeah yeah, we get it. Logically it makes sense but I hate logic and nothing is immune from becoming over-played. After all, advancement and new ideas are what drive the entire automotive industry.

 

Then I saw this guy, 1dirtyZ, on the ls1 forums. He’s putting an LS1 into 996 Porsche. And there’s a video of it. Fine, one more, but then we’re at capacity. (more…)

26.12.2011 Editorials, Photos 5 Comments

911 Most Reliable Car of the 2000s.

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

 

According to the German Technical Inspection Agency, TÜV, the Porsche 911 is the most reliable and trouble-free car of this century. The century is only 11 years old, so I look at it as a decade, but that doesn’t take away the fact that a Porsche can show up to the Super Terrific Reliability Party*, hosted in Japan each year. The TÜV tested 8 million vehicles between June of 2010 and 2011 and concluded the 911 had the fewest number of reported defects since 2000. It doesn’t matter if the car had been driven 100 miles or 100,000. Make the jump for the year-to-year breakdown and to see what other cars will reliably take you to and from the….I actually have no idea what they do in Germany besides Nurburgringing. (more…)

21.12.2011 News, Photos 2 Comments

GT3RS To RSR Street Car

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

 

Welcome to the beautiful world of a street-legal race car. This is a street-legal Porsche 997 GT3  RS wearing the shoulder pads and muscles of a Porsche RSR race car and put together by Orbit Racing. Make the jump for pics and videos, and more information on this equally gorgeous and obnoxiously crazy street car. (more…)

14.12.2011 Photos No Comments

Best Motoring Goes out with a Pricey Bang

Monday, May 16th, 2011

Let’s cut the fluff shall we? Best Motoring is cancelled, and for their last race, their lineup was awesome: Lexus LF-A vs. Porsche GT2 RS vs. Corvette ZR-1 vs. Nissan GTR vs. Ferrari F430 GT3. There’s street cars, super-cars and might-as-well-be-a race-cars. The price is all over the board, as are the cylinders and countries of origin. Each of our favorite countries is represented in a cool, if not the best, way. Thanks Best Motoring, for all your hard *cough* work over the years. You’ve put together some of the coolest and most expensive super-cars in wheel to wheel races.

 

Make the jump to see who won. (more…)

16.05.2011 News, Photos, Video 12 Comments

TST Dream Garage: The Entire ALMS GT2 Grid

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

Text and Photos submitted by TST reader Nick Busato

Porsche 911 GT3 RS, F430 Scuderia, Corvette ZR1 and the M3 GTS are all names that will induce any automotive enthusiast’s mouth to water uncontrollably. Based on already ludicrously quick road cars, these thoroughbreds are seen as the ultimate track day toys. It seems to be an easy formula for any car manufacturer to follow; strip out unneeded bits, toss on some Brembos, coilovers and sticky tires, massage some more power out of the engine and for added bonus points put an “R” in the car’s badging. These are the speed machines that occupy the prised poster space of many car fanatics’ bedroom walls. If these cars are seen as the superior versions to their more limp wristed counterparts then surely an even more race bred car would be that much more illustrious.

Enter the realm of the American Le Mans Series GT2 class where you will find the dreamiest racing versions of road going sports cars. While other series like DTM, Nascar and Grand-Am may have fairly recognizable body shapes the cars actually share very little if any parts with their production counterparts. In contrast, the ALMS GT2 cars are based on their respective production variants and must use the same chassis and primary bodywork. What you are left with is a car with no comprises made in the interest of comfort, they have a single purpose: to go fast.

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27.01.2011 Editorials, News, Photos 7 Comments

Inaugural California Cars and Cockpits Event – Mega Photo Gallery!

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

The Smoking Tire was fortunate enough to be able to attend the first-ever “Cars and Cockpits” event at the Lyon Air Museum this past weekend. It was a great change of pace from the usual Cars and Coffee and Supercar Sunday, because not only were there several million dollars worth of metal in the parking lot, but also the museum opened its doors to us, so we could appreciate some fine vintage aircraft and military vehicles. Some highlights of the show included the famous “triple black” Ferrari Enzo (pictured above), many other Ferrari’s, Lamborghini’s, Aston’s Bentley’s, Nissan GTR’s, BMW’s, Porsches, and crazy tuner cars, including the world’s ugliest vehicle, the Mansory Panamera Turbo. In the gallery, check out the yellow F430 Spider, which isn’t special except that it’s fitted with carbon fiber hand controls so its wheelchair-bound owner can wind out the 4.3L V8 using his right hand. Inside the Lyon Air museum, we were treated to some elegantly restored World War II-era aircraft and vehicles, my favorite of which was the minimally restored and completely functional 1934 Mercedes 6-wheel parade car, formerly owned by Adolf Hitler. Hit the jump for the 80-image mega gallery of the event.

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26.01.2011 News, Photos 3 Comments

Video: 24 Hours of Dubai – The Coolest Race You’ve Never Heard Of (Update! Video Link Fixed)

Friday, January 21st, 2011

The Smoking Tire’s Tom Morningstar was fortunate enough to attend the coolest race ever that no one’s heard of: The 24 Hours of Dubai. Held at the Dubai Autodrome, surrounded by unfinished buildings and general nothingness, the endurance race features privateer racing teams fielding such cool race cars as the Audi R8 LMS, SLS AMG GT3, Porsche 911 Cup, Aston Martin Vantage GT3, and more. Check out the video to see Tom doing what he does best: getting great shots of cars.

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21.01.2011 News, Video 20 Comments

TST Dream Garage: All Group B Rally Cars

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

The Group B rally series ran from 1982 to 1987 and featured some of the wildest and most powerful rally cars ever made. The regulations on the cars were simple: There were none. Manufacturers had free reign on power output, boost, weight, materials, and speed. This amazing series spawned cars like the Audi Quattro, one of the most dominant cars of its time and platform from which the current Audi cars have grown, it popularized new technology like all-wheel drive, and it brought into focus the limits of both man and machine on the rally stage. Watch videos of a Group B race, and it seems like the drivers are having to thread their way through crowds of spectators practically standing in the middle of the road as the cars hammer their way through.

The demise of Group B was caused by the very thing that made it so appealing; danger. After several fatal crashes, some involving both drivers and spectators, the FIA shutdown Group B racing in 1987. Since then, it has been succeeded by the WRC and other rallying series, but none have been able to match Group B for its outrageous machinery. If given the chance, here are the Group B cars we’d tuck into the TST Dream Garage.

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16.12.2010 Editorials, News 6 Comments

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