No, they can’t use GPS. Here’s what it’s like to train for the grueling race.
The Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles, the largest all-female motorsport competition on the planet, is tough stuff. The nine-day route across southern Morocco’s most demanding deserts and mountains prohibits the use of GPS, cell phones, or support crews. The two-person teams—a driver and navigator—are allowed only four navigation tools: outdated maps, a compass, a ruler, and a plotter.
“I didn’t want to do this rally because of those bloody maps that have symbols in French. In the past I’ve always had navigational systems,” says Sue Mead, an automotive journalist and award-winning off-road racer.
Mead was first approached to do the rally about six years ago, when Emily Miller took second place overall in the rally in 2011 and became mentor for the U.S. Gazelles.
No newcomer to the sport, Mead already has legs on desert [...]
Mark Doyon wasn’t looking for a ’69 Camaro RS/SS convertible with 60,000 original miles and original paint. He says, “A year ago Labor Day weekend, my son and I hit a few garage sales in our area [Rochester, Michigan]. We almost passed by one. They had baby things out in the driveway.”
Luckily, they did stop. Mark’s young son, Alexander, said, “Hey Dad, I think there’s an SS something in the garage…”
The car didn’t appear to be part of the garage sale. However, on closer inspection, Mark found on the window a sticker that read, “1969 RS/SS convertible for sale, $18,000.”
Even though Mark had no intentions of buying the Camaro, he asked the lady, “Why so much?” She explained the Camaro was “all original” and had been parked since 1987. She bought [...]
Aztec Gold Car Number 5 out of 15 Made!
In 1998 GM experimented with a high metallic paint “Aztec Gold Metallic” for the 50th Anniversary in 2003. GM first took 5 cars and painted them. Then Will Cooksey and his team noticed that in certain light and angles the car looks like a different color from neighboring body panel. Then Corvette took 5 more cars and some advice from DuPont and tried again. With the same results Will Cooksey had an expert from DuPont fly out and try again with 5 more. The first series was painted on 10/22/1997. The second series was painted on 11/17/1997. The final five were completed on 11/26/1997. The paint results on all 15 corvettes were the same. All the body panels where removed from the cars and inspected. Then panel-by-panel each corvette was hand assembled with the panels [...]
If you were wondering what is taking so long for Chevy to bring the new Corvette Z06 to Europe, you will be glad to know that the wait is over as the carmaker has officially brought the sports car to the 2015 Geneva Motor Show, where it made its public debut. The debut of the model has been made back in 2014, at the NAIAS, in Detroit, and it will be offered for sale on the Old Continent starting from this spring.
“The Chevrolet Corvette Z06 is the most powerful and technologically advanced model in the iconic car’s 62-year history. The Z06 rejoins the Corvette lineup in 2015 with a strong aluminum frame, an aero package designed to produce performance-enhancing downforce and an all-new, supercharged 6.2L V-8 engine [...]
In late 1979, Chevrolet had huge plans in store for the fourth-generation of their Corvette. Former Corvette chief engineer Dave McLellan said they were applying “new technology that hadn’t been used in Chevrolet or in any automotive (application),” as they tried to “bring the car back to date in all aspects.” However this led to production delays for its planned 1983 launch, so GM gave up on going through the government certification process for the car that year and planned a 1984 launch instead.
Because of this confusion, only 43 1983 Corvettes were ever assembled. These cars were used for different engineering evaluations and crash tests and were later crushed, save for car number 23, which has was sent to the National Corvette Museum.
Until now, the 1983 Corvette was located in the Museum’s Sky Dome room with no display, however it has since been moved to [...]
