Live streaming for the 2013 Nurburgring 24 Hours includes direct coverage from Radio Le Mans. Excitement is brewing ahead of the 41st running of the Nurburgring 24 Hours, and with good reason. Fresh off its inaugural win on the event last year – a victory they cemented with a one-two finish – Audi Sport Team [...]

Having just finished a tour of the Morgan factory in the UK, we’re invited to take the company’s legendary 3 Wheeler for a spin. We don’t need to be asked twice. After a couple of hours enjoying the rustic charm of the Morgan factory, my appetite was sufficiently whetted. I wanted to see how the [...]

Aston Martin reveals the new CC100 Speedster Concept, a tribute to both the company’s centenary and one of its most successful sportscars, the DBR1. There are numerous ways for a manufacturer to celebrate hundred years in business. The opening of a new showroom or two. The launch of the next generation Vanquish, or Rapide. Landing [...]

‘The DeLorean Story’, newly published by Haynes, tells the company’s controversial story from the perspective of Nick Sutton, a former DeLorean employee who claims to have seen it all. Amazing to think that, given the embezzlement, sectarian violence, and FBI drugs sting involved, that the DeLorean’s most iconic Hollywood appearance involved its only model breaking [...]

Red Bull Car Park Drift hits Saudi Arabia, and sees Amir Mansour and Saeed Al Mouri top the table in Jeddah. Getting Saudi Arabia enthusiastic about drifting has never been much of an issue, and yet Red Bull managed to raise the roof even higher on its latest sojourn to the Kingdom. Red Bull Car [...]

Race2Recovery: Beyond Injury, Achieving the Extraordinary recounts the incredible story of the injured servicemen who set out to compete in the 2013 Dakar Rally in a quartet of Bowler Wildcats. Anybody who has competed on the Dakar Rally will tell you that competing, let alone finishing, the two-week enduro is beyond tough (just ask three-time [...]

Daigo Saito takes victory as Vaughn Gittin Jr climbs to the top spot in the standings at the second round of Formula Drift in Road Atlanta. Rain, as we’ve saw far found out on the 2013 Mille Miglia, will sometimes do its utmost to stop play. This past weekend, it even took a swing at [...]

crankandpiston’s intrepid reporter on the Mille Miglia finds the going tough as competitors on day two hit Rome via San Marino. And yes, it’s still raining. “Dude, I am wiped.” For those of you curious to know why the name on our Mille Miglia coverage has changed mid-event, hopefully this email quote will explain the [...]

Highlights from the 40th running of the Nurburgring 24 Hours last year ahead of this weekend’s event, a race that could see another record tumble. Competitors and fans came into last year’s Nurburgring 24 Hours knowing the event was on a roll. Four years earlier in 2008, Marc Lieb, Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Marcel [...]

Emirati Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi overcame differential problems to finish third on Rally Jordan behind winner Nasser Al-Attiyah and Roger Feghali in a Ford one-two. Turns out Abdo – winner of the Spring Rally and the opening Lebanese Speed Test – is not the only fast Feghali in Lebanon. Namesake Roger Feghali set a storming [...]

It’s day one on the 2013 Mille Miglia, and crankandpiston is on-hand to watch competitors leave Brescia and arrive in Ferrara. There are certain staples that spring to mind when we think of the Mille Miglia: hundreds of immaculate pre and post-war racing machines; camaraderie between competitors; Italian fans lining the single track roads, roaring [...]

Fancy smelling like a Bentley? It turns out that manufacturing cars for well over a century can get a bit…same-y.  That half-though hypothesis might explain why Bentley has just released Lalique for Bentley Crystal Edition, the marque’s first ever men’s aftershave. In a collaborative effort with Lalique – the Art & Fragrance owned company which [...]

eGarage meets Tyler ‘Twisty’ Archuleta, a grass roots drifter from Washington, and his 1991 Nissan 240SX ‘Schindig Machine’ during a competitive run at the Evergreen Speedway. Meet Tyler Archuleta. He’s from Sammammish, W-ar-shingt-an, drives a 1991 Nissan 240SX, and his moto is ‘go hard’. Thankfully, he’s a drifter. The latest production from eGarage follows Archuleta’s [...]

crankandpiston meets a Toyota legend, and is walked through the work that has gone into making this 1995 Supra a 950hp absolute monster. Upon the arrival of the 86, much was made about the fact that Toyota, finally, had a sportscar in the range for the first time in nearly ten years. Suddenly the firm [...]

Abdo Feghali’s Guinness World Record is broken, with Johan Schwartz and BMW drifting continuously for almost 83km in Greenville, USA. Well that didn’t last long…. Back in February, crankandpiston watched history in the making at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi when Red Bull athlete Abdo Feghali – in a specially prepared Chevrolet Camaro [...]

The 2014 Dubai 24 Hours is already up to 50 confirmed entries, despite their being over half a year before the seventh edition. Despite there still being two races left to run of the Creventic 24H Series – as well as seven more months to go – before the next scheduled race on 9-11 January, [...]

crankandpiston is in Italy and hits scrutineering – camera in-hand – ahead of the 2013 Mille Miglia. “A museum in motion, unique and charming, in a beautiful framework of jubilant visitors” – Il Drake di Maranello Old man Enzo spoke a lot of truth when he uttered those words during the 1980s. At the time, [...]

Wörthersee 2013 saw the debut of the Power Pickup alongside an awesome collection of classic Golfs.   The Volkswagen Design Vision GTI wasn’t the only crowd pleaser at the Wörthersee 2013. The largest Volkswagen and Audi show in Europe – held at the same location since 1981 – brought together Mk Is, IIs and IIIs [...]

British independent sports car company Morgan is preparing to open a showroom in the Middle East. We take a look around the UK factory to find out more about this highly regarded and somewhat eccentric brand. It’s funny how things work out sometimes. This particular tale began at this year’s Geneva Motor Show, when I [...]

At the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este 2013, BMW and Pininfarina – will unveil the result of their debut cooperation to the global public on 24 May: the BMW Pininfarina Gran Lusso Coupé. Together they have created the embodiment of sheer elegance. The BMW Pininfarina Gran Lusso Coupé is the sequel to a new approach introduced [...]

 Jaguar Land Rover opens a new $1.5 million test and development facility in Dubai, UAE. There are numerous ways one can spend $1.5 million. That property in Beverly Hills you’ve always hankered after; early retirement and a cruise or two around the Caribbean; one – yep, just one – LaFerrari, or the downpayment for a [...]

Chris Harris and drive take the new Porsche 918 Spyder for a thrash on-track in Leipzig, Germany. Following on from his review of the Cayman S, Chris Harris is once again donning the driving gloves and sliding behind the Porsche wheel. And yet drive channel’s latest sideways escapades starts, not on the road as you [...]

Can’t decide whether to watch a drift vid, a time attack run or a supercar vignette? Maihma Media have an interactive answer for you. It’s reached that point of the day when the creative juices aren’t quite flowing, the mind is only mildly willing and the body has lost all interest, and YouTube is calling [...]

crankandpiston catches up with two of Monster Jam’s most popular drivers – Chad Fortune and Bari Musawwir – to discuss the series’ first sojourn to the Middle East, the key aspects of competing with a 1500hp monster truck, why track preparation is so critical, and why a dab hand at radio controlled cars can prove [...]

“What happens when you take a Subaru BRZ, double the horsepower and triple the torque output?” Madness. Plain and simple. Anybody who’s followed the Factory Five and Mitsubishi Evo X builds on crankandpiston will know that opening the bonnet and spannering the power needle up to ‘mental’ doesn’t work. You’re going to need a new [...]

Ferrari F40, Alfa Romeo Giulia, Ferrari GTO. Not a bad start to the day in Dubai, UAE. It’s been nearly 18 months since the plane wheels first touched down in Dubai for me, and I can’t help wondering how the emirate has changed me. Every now and then – in an emirate boasting 50+-degree temperatures [...]

crankandpiston’s Goood Morning shot hits a new medium thanks to Jaguar and Playboy. Writing a description for a video takes more time than you might think. First you have to watch the video – sometimes several times – to pick up the nuances and motifs. Oh yes, there’s much more to a Behind-the-Scenes shoot with [...]

Here’s a question for you: what is going on with Lamborghini? With the company celebrating its 50th anniversary this year (a milestone many considered beyond the reach of a tractor manufacturer turning its hand to the supercar game in the late 1960s), this may seem an odd question. Surely now more than ever is the [...]

The official livery for nine-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb’s Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak runner has now been unveiled, just days after footage of his first test in the Peugeot appeared.  Anybody who’s read our exclusive interview with Sébastien Loeb will know that the nine-time World Rally Champion isn’t ready to reach for his [...]

Volkswagen reveal at Worthersee what a race-prepared Golf GTI might look like with a 296bhp one-off concept. What happens when you take a Volkswagen Golf GTI – which by the way we’ve just taken for a hoon around southern France – and leave Michael Bay alone with it for five minutes? Chances are you’ll end [...]

Jaguar Heritage Racing returns to the Mille Miglia this year with three C-Classes and three XK120s for another historic run. “I just drove as fast as possible and hoped for the best frankly.” It’s a statement that leaves you wide-eyed, but in the 1950s the Mille Miglia asked for nothing less. Indeed, Stirling Moss proved [...]

Monster Jam hits the Middle East for the first time, with Carl Van Horn and Grave Digger making a sizeable impression in Abu Dhabi, UAE. “Who’s ready for Monster JAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMM?!” There’s only one answer to that question, especially when it’s being asked at high volume across the tannoy system to tens of thousands of monster [...]

The Porsche 910, a former winner of both the 1000km Nurburgring and the Targa Florio in 1967, proved a draw on the 2013 Tour Auto Optic 2000. In Porsche’s illustrious history of endurance racing, the 917 and 956/962 (and even the 908) stand head and shoulders above all else, courtesy of numerous wins at Le [...]

Abdulhadi Al-Qahtani drifts to victory in the Drift UAE Finale held at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, UAE The final round of the Drift UAE Championship cemented Abdulhadi Al-Qahtani’s dominance in the Pro Drift category with the Saudi taking both number one spot and clinching this year’s title. As the first champion of the [...]

Racing&Emotion debut a brand new Art Egg chair, designed exclusively for crankandpiston.com We always knew that one day crankandpiston would join the hallowed greats. We just never expected those greats would be Aryton Senna and Jim Clark. The render you see here is a one-of-a-kind creation by Racing&Emotion, whose signature Art Egg chairs – which [...]

University students in Jordan – including crankandpiston mate AmmaniV12 – competed in the inaugural WE Drift Festival, putting their own cars through their sideways paces. There are certain stereotypes that come with being a student: baked beans on toast eight times a week; all-night essay sessions for last-minute deadlines; oversleeping and missing tutorials by the [...]

Hennessey puts its new 650bhp Jeep SRT8 Grand Cherokee to the test on the quarter mile drag strip. SRT CEO Ralph Gilles can tell you what it’s like powering a Jeep SRT8 Grand Cherokee on-track, but it’s unlikely he’s come across anything quite like this. The boys at Hennessey Performance have been up to their tinkering [...]

Team Icericers and Clash productions head to Kabdalis in northern Sweden to nail a Nissan GT-R up a ski slope. Safe to say that McLaren has ably proven – with one video or another – that driving a supercar down a ski slope is a piece of cake. The guys at Redhouse Media (in accordance [...]

XCARFilms and Revolution walks through the mechanics involved with lumping an extra 200bhp into a Subaru Impreza for a potentially record-breaking run around the Nurburgring. ‘Fastest Subaru Impreza round the Nurburgring’. It’s a cunning tease, certainly, but regrettably the lap itself isn’t included in this video from XCARFilms. Fear not though, you can see the [...]

Last year Williams driver Pastor Maldonado became the third driver to take his maiden Formula 1 race victory at the Spanish Grand Prix. In 1975, McLaren driver Jochen Mass secured his one and only series win at Montjuic, while one year earlier, three-time World Champion Niki Lauda took the first of his eventual 25 series [...]

Created by Jim Phillips, Big Mutha Tank Moto tee commemorates the first issue of Moto Tank from Fuel Press. It doesn’t matter how old you get, there are certain things that will still have the eight-year old in you grinning like an idiot. Take the idea of walking around with ‘Big Mutha’ plastered across your [...]

The Tour Auto Optic 2000, a classic car show first inaugurated in the France in 1992, returned for its 22nd running this year. You wouldn’t expect a modern supercar and a performance-savvy sports coupe to be show stealers during a classic car rally, and an oft-celebrated one to boot. Visitors at the Grand Palais during [...]

New Aston Martin One-77 Dubai police car makes its debut in the UAE. A few blurry photos leaked through instagram left many petrolheads wondering if news of an Aston Martin One-77 arriving on the Dubai Police fleet was just a well-orchestrated joke. But no. Before its assembled line-up at the Arabian Travel Market near the [...]

Detroit, home to Super Bowl XL, is now making a pitch for an X-Games calendar spot. The four-wheeled fanatics amongst you may think ‘Detroit’ (for reasons not overly clear) and immediately have images of muscle cars, stonking V12s, tyre squealing quarter miles sprints between red lights, and a night in the slammer for failing to [...]

The final battle for the Drift KIng title will be decided at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. The final round of the Drift UAE Championship will be held tomorrow (10 May) at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. Mohammad Al Falasi and the team at Motorsport Solutions have managed to turn an amateur [...]

What is the connection between Bathurst, an R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R and skateboarding? Petrolicious has the answer… I tried skateboarding once. It didn’t end so well. Professional downhill skateboarder, Kevin Reimer, obviously had a bit more success and has even raced at Bathurst in Australia and won. Yup, I didn’t know skater dudes raced at [...]

It’s a shame that hot hatches haven’t got the same rich history in the Middle East as they do in my native Europe. Most hatchback sales here tend to be little runabouts or bargain basement white goods – those that like their driving go rear-wheel drive. But there’s a lot to be said for a [...]

Rolling with the Police Special Car Unit on the streets of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. There is quite a bit of fuss being made about all these new super cop cars in Dubai. Yes, they have a Ferrari FF, a Lamborghini Aventador, a Camaro and an Aston Martin One-77 which, granted, is a bit special. [...]

crankandpiston takes a shot at car spotting in Dubai, UAE. in the hope of catching a glimpse of the BMW i8 during its regional testing programme. Just ask 4WheelsofLux and Patrick3331 and they’ll tell you that the life of a car spotter in Dubai is not an easy one. Finding the perfect location is a [...]

Tandem of Die introduce your pink giraffe microwaves, and an impromptu couple of burnouts… This is a real thinker. A puzzler at no mistake, and we’ve spent a while now trying to read between the lines, ponder this and that hypothesis, and otherwise make sense of this particular conundrum: what the hell are pink giraffe [...]

The Biker’s Café – yep, a café for bikers – celebrates its second anniversary in Dubai, UAE. crankandpiston felt it worth joining the open-air barbeque for the historic occasion. The last time crankandpiston visited the Biker’s Café for a quick bite, our attention at first wasn’t grabbed by the Yamaha VN900 Classic by the cash [...]

Behind the scenes action from Mad Mike Whiddett’s recent hoon across the Crown Range in New Zealand aboard a 750hp Mazda FD RX-7. “I looked out the kitchen window and saw this bloody great white truck outside. I thought either the neighbours are moving or maybe a pop group is coming to town”. I doubt [...]

The MkII Ford Escort takes class honours on the Pirelli Richard Burns Foundation Rally, an emotion-filled event on the 2013 MSA British Rally Championship calendar. Back in 1993, Richard Burns took four victories en-route to the RACMSA British Rally Championship at the wheel of Subaru’s Legacy RS. Just eight years later, the Englishman would take [...]

FS Aviation give a bird’s eye view of the action on Rally Portugal, eventually won by Sébastien Ogier in the Volkswagen Polo R WRC. Turns out the old dog still knows a few tricks. Despite a few butterflies creeping in pre-event, Sébastien Loeb – whom crankandpiston caught up with for a few words recently – [...]

crankandpiston takes the Jaguar F-Type S for a few laps around the Circuito de Navarra in northern Spain before hitting the open mountain roads. This morning I have had the shortest test drive of my life in the new Jaguar F-Type. Barely enough time to place my buttocks in the driver’s seat, fiddle with some [...]

Felix Petrol/Guy Allen is one particular item of illustrative choice at shotdeadinthehead.com. The Octane readers amongst you may recognise the name Felix Petrol, the well-respected cartoonist whose pieces take their respective micks out of the automotive community and its key players. Scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find another name, Guy Allen, Felix’s non-Octane alter-ego [...]

The Fiat 500 Abarth Auto-X proved a big hit during round three of Ferrari Challenge North America at Sonoma. As the name suggests, the Ferrari Challenge North America celebrates the best, brightest and (usually) fastest to have rolled out of Maranello. The North America contingent of the company’s famous Corse Clienti – of which we [...]

Race Builder from Sparco allows you to individualise your racesuit for the track. Why not give the new online configurator a whirl? With organising bodies across the globe placing an ever-tightening grip on technical innovation (and the coffers that usually fund them), motorsport must find more and more ingenious ways to be creative. In an [...]

Formula Drift Asia hits the streets of Melbourne for round one. If you’re looking to escape the Dubai heat Mr Al Falasi, this might be a good place to start… Over the past couple of seasons, we’ve grown accustomed to falling grid numbers threatening the livelihood of motorsport in the Middle East. All hope may [...]

Police in Dubai add yet another supercar to their illustrious fleet, the hyper exclusive and desirable Aston Martin One-77. The drift elite amongst you will no doubt groan when I mention this, but who among you has seen ‘The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift’? I bring it up not for the depth of character [...]

Mad Mike Widdett drifts the Crown Range in New Zealand in his 750hp quad rotor RX-7. With a name like crankandpiston you could be forgiven for thinking that we have a bias to a particular form of internal combustion engine. Not true. We can appreciate the round and round as much as the up and [...]

crankandpiston catches up with Motorsport Solutions’ Mohammad Al Falasi and his very busy Blackberry to discuss the motor racing situation in the Middle East. RING The impeccably dressed gentleman sitting across the desk from me apologises as he looks at his Blackberry and asks whether we’d mind if he took this call. Naturally we don’t, [...]

The new Porsche 991 Turbo S makes an appearance ahead of its official launch at the Frankfurt Motor Show, 50 years after the original 911 made its debut at the same event.   Just how ‘exclusive’ this first look will be to most of you remains to be seen, considering images of the new Porsche [...]

 The international launch of the new Volkswagen Golf GTI has brought crankandpiston to St Tropez in southern France. Gorgeous rolls of green hills, forest-scape and mountain rock are a feast for the eyes – as hopefully these snaps convey – during our combined five-hour 300km trek, despite stop-start traffic through Nice taking the edge off [...]

Thanks to RSRNurburg we get a sense of life behind the scenes at a mighty VLN race in Germany. VLN races, or Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring if you want us to be proper, could be described as the ultimate test of man and machine. Comprising of 10 mini enduro races throughout the European racing season. Tough, [...]

4WheelsofLux walks us through his side of the car spotting scene in Dubai. The supercar scene in Dubai is a fast-growing entity. Indeed, if I happen to wander into conversation with a fellow petrolhead (which, as a car spotter in Dubai, is hardly out of the question), it’s one of the more frequent topics discussed. [...]

Petrolicious meets Anneta Calisi and her 1964 Fiat 500D which has been fully restored with a program that took four months to compete. Meet Luigi. He’s 49 years old, has spent his life travelling around Europe, and recently underwent surgery that took four months to complete. Since then he’s been left with carer Anneta Calisi, [...]

Jaguar celebrates 25 years of the R brand this year. What could be better than getting angry? Come on Jaguar… you can do it. The Jaguar XJR15 is a beast. A hark back to the slightly unhinged approach Jaguar Cars used to have. A monster created in hell by men and machine wanting nothing more [...]

‘Goodwood Festival of Speed: The First Twenty Years’ comes direct from the event itself and does exactly what it says on the tin. Now that the summer months are fast approaching in the Middle East, we’ve started eying up where best to get our motorsport fixes. And since most of the crankandpiston team are British [...]

Hublot Manufacture reveals the new MP-05 LaFerrari, a tribute to Ferrari’s latest Special Edition Series that was also developed in tandem. Chances are your thoughts on the new MP-05 LaFerrari watch are similar to those about the real thing: every fibre of your being immediately wants to own one, but you’d stop short of calling [...]

Belissimo! We take the ‘new’ Alfa Romeo Giulietta for a spin in Dubai, UAE, to find out what we’ve been missing in the Middle East since the model’s launch three years ago. It’s been a long time since I’ve driven an Alfa Romeo. There are few marques in the world with such an illustrious history, [...]

Just bought yourself a Bugatti Veyron? The Veyron-exclusive Parmigiani Fleurier Bugatti Super Sport might be just the watch you’re looking for. Here’s a scenario for you to consider. Your brand new Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse, Sang Noir, 16.4 Special Edition and/or Grand Sport by Bernar Vernet has just arrived and is now sitting on [...]

“A 1.4?!” The responses from virtually everyone I’ve told about crankandpiston’s new long-term Volkswagen Golf Mk 7 contain the same phrase, said in a variety of tones ranging from incredulous to pitying. It’s true. Even in the modern age, the capacity of an engine says a lot to the masses about a car. Generally, and [...]

crankandpiston takes a high-speed walk down memory lane at the Bosch Hockenheim Historic, and can’t help but put on the rose-tinted glasses as single seaters, GTs and touring cars from yesteryear roar past. There is a feeling of both excitement and tension as fans pour into the grandstands at Hockenheim and drivers suit up in [...]

BMW’s $130,000 hybrid sports car, the i8, is spotted extreme weather testing in Dubai, UAE. We think. Chances are our recent feature on the BMW i8 left many of you sitting on the fence: ‘yes, the principle is all well and good and the technology seems sound, but is this something we should be taking [...]

The Mass Tuning Meet & Greet saw high-tech mods meet aging classics in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. B The Mass Tuning Meet & Greet is the first major show of the season for the good people of New England, USA. Indeed, the event has been a downtown Boston staple for a number of years, but even [...]

crankandpiston has received a new format, a new colour scheme, and some enticing new features.  Since our humble beginnings in 2008, we’ve prided ourselves on offering that little something extra for the discerning petrolheads out there, a philosophy held since day one and one that has seen our standing grow from strength to strength not [...]

I’ve just been handed the keys to the Ford F-150 FX4 Supercab 142 in Dubai, UAE, and I’d probably be rendered speechless were I not too busy laughing. It is massive. No, I mean properly massive, even by F-150 standards. And as I stand here not really knowing how to take in this formidable sight, [...]

McLaren has released a video of its new supercar, the P1, being put through its paces in northern Sweden during extreme weather testing. And there we were thinking that the McLaren 12C ‘race’ against prolific snowboarder Chanelle Sladics was just a one off. It turns out apparently that you can’t keep the boys and girls [...]

SportErfolge by Tony Adriaensens takes a look at the early racing history of Porsche in the late 1950s and early 1960s. What do you do when if you are a big fan of one car in particular but can’t find a detailed book on the subject? Well, you write one. That’s what Tony Adriaensens did [...]

Red Bull athlete Abdo Feghali secures the opening round of the Lebanese Speed Test Championship, give or take a small fire here and there.   There’s an old cliché that competitors will walk through fire to win the laurels. In Abdo Feghali’s case, that proved all too literal, rogue flames in his first run proving [...]

crankandpiston hits Umm Al-Quwain, UAE, to wander the Bin Jumah Motorsport Pro Sand Drag, er, paddock. For those of you familiar with standing starts on asphalt, quarter mile sprints from the Christmas tree lights and the heady aroma of burnt rubber and VHT TrackBite lingering in the air, this might seem a little unorthodox. On [...]

SP Engineering hits Dubai, UAE, to up the Nissan Juke-R ante. The Juke-R. It was a car that Nissan said would never be built and was purely an engineering exercise, a promise that lasted at least a few months before demand got very high. Indeed, since we drove an example at the Dubai Autodrome just [...]

Rain, as it so often does at Hockenheim, invariably tried to stop play during the 2013 Hockenheim Historic, an event that annually commemorates the passing of the great Jim Clark, who perished in a Formula 2 accident at the circuit in 1968. It seemed only fitting then that – as well as sportscar prototypes, Formula [...]

The Qatar Racing Club signs off another season of drag racing with the Street Drag Festival in Doha. Hard to believe that it’s been over a week since The Chase at the Dubai Autodrome marked the end of the UAE motorsport season. This past weekend, competitors were feeling much the same way as the Qatar [...]

iPhone cases inspired by the motoring world from redbubble.com Bugger! There’s a scratch in the back of your new iPhone5. Typical! You’ve had the bloody thing for two weeks and you’ve already knackered it. The eBay re-sale value has just plummeted. If only there was some way you could hide the crime from a judgemental [...]

Porsche fans rejoice. Here is proof that the Cayman really is the centre of the universe. It’s only fair to warn you – since this is Sunday and a number of our faithful readers from across the globe might be feeling a little the worse for wear this today – that this video will make [...]

We’re big fans of the Nissan GT-R on crankandpiston, so the chance to drive the stripped out, performance-focused GT-R Track Pack in Dubai, UAE, was snapped up quickly. The GT-R has been growing in power and price since it launched in 2008. From launch, where it cost $70,000, it’s gradually increased to the point where [...]

We welcome the latest addition to the Management Fleet, the new Honda Accord Coupe. Yep, well spotted. This is the same Honda Accord Coupe that crankandpiston took to Liwa, Abu Dhabi, on the regional debut of the ninth-generation Accord. However, since most of the roads were so straight you could actually see the curvature of [...]

crankandpiston brushes up on its Spanish on a trip to Cataluña to test drive the new Aston Martin Rapide S. But is a new model three years after the original really worth it? Let’s get this out of the way right from the beginning: the Aston Martin Rapide is not a replacement for a conventional [...]

The 18th annual Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance packed in half-centenary tributes to the Ford GT4o and Lamborghini among others. There are certain sounds in this video from Justin Lapriore and LetsMakeMedia that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The simple melody being played in the beginning, the roar of [...]

1970 Dodge truck packs 1000hp and a blistering quarter mile run. This is one for the Dodge L’il Red Express owners amongst you. Crack open the bonnet on your 1970s big brute and chances are you’ll find a 360 V8, which turfs out – according to Dodge – 225hp. Give or take a couple of [...]

crankandpiston takes a spin in the new Audi S3 whilst on the international launch in Munich, Germany. Turns out it’s a bit of a beast… If you’ve yet to read our review of the new Audi RS6 Avant, you’re also probably unaware that crankandpiston is currently in Munich, Germany, for the international launch of both [...]

crankandpiston heads to Germany to test drive the new Audi RS6 Avant. But will it prove a big mover in the Middle East? Carting ourselves halfway across the globe to test drive a new estate car – and a hot hatch, but we’ll get back to that soon – may not sound very crankandpiston-esque, but [...]

We talk to the man in charge of making sure the F-Type will work in the Middle East, and in part responsible for its global development. The new F-Type is perhaps not so much a game-changer as a clear sign of intent that Jaguar is getting back into the game, big time. The British company, [...]

We’re now a month into our three-month long-term test of the McLaren MP4-12C and I still can’t believe our luck. As you can imagine, when the car landed in our underground parking it took an agonisingly long time and lots of painstaking thought to determine which member of team crankandpiston.com would get to keep it.  [...]

Preparation before any debt race is tough at the best of times, but when the entry list says ‘Porsche’, the model name says ‘911 RSR’ and the series in question is the FIA World Endurance Championship, it’s fair to say there are certain expectations. The race itself celebrates the 50th anniversary of the 911. And [...]

Red Bull athlete Abdo Feghali strikes first with victory on the 29th running of the Spring Rally in Lebanon. A quick glance at the entry list for the 2013 Spring Rally suggested that the Mitsubishi Evo X was the car to have on the asphalt twisties across 172km of Lebanon. And when you happen to [...]

Welcome to Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima new Pikes Peak rig. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past decade, you will know the man they call Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima. Ok, let’s clarify that statement. You may not know him, but you will certainly have heard of the race that he has so convincingly [...]

‘One man. One job. But in the desert nothing is simple’. Operating out of Dubai, crankandpiston can certainly empathise with the tagline of this newly released film from Jaguar: you may perhaps have already seen its trailer HERE. This though is not your standard 90-minutes of badly crafted stunts, and – if we’re citing Die [...]