Mercedes decided to throw the pictures of the new SL65 AMG Black at us this week. I’ve always thought the SL cars were great and the AMG versions were awesome, slightly crazy iterations. The Black is certifiable.

This great-looking rocket can boast more oompf (technical term) than the SLR McLaren. The SL65 has a twin-turbo 6.0-litre V12 that produces a mighty 661 HP. You can’t really argue with the torque either: 738 lb-ft, or just about 1 000 Nm. This brings us back to that highly descriptive adopted technical term, oompf - and plenty of it.

According to Jalopnik.com, this supercar is expected to reach a price tag of about 320 000 US dollars. That is, if you can find one. Only 350 will be made, of which 200 will be for the US market. The cars will be made over a 12-month period.

A full gallery of this gorgeous beast of a Mercedes AMG is available after the jump.

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Here they are, the photos from Gatebil Festival July 2008 which took place last weekend at Rudskogen, Norway. Getting the photos out took a day extra as it was decided a different, better gallery plugin should be used.

There should be just over 60 photos, of which the first half consist of drifting photos. The latter half include various supercars on show at the event, such as a Ferrari F40, a Lamborghini Diablo, the most brilliant Il Tempo Gigante, a Porsche GT3, a Dodge Viper SRT10, and others, including some surprise classics.

Oh, and last, but not least (well, in a sense, also least, as far as volume goes): a Saab having been treated the way a Saab should be treated. I kid, I kid. Well, kind of.

The gallery is available after the jump. Click on the thumbnails to view the large versions. Also, be sure to check out the drifting video posted a couple of days ago. Enjoy!

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There’s a video after the jump showing a bit of the drifting that went on. Alas, issues with the video equipment means all you get this time is cell phone quality, but it’s better than nothing, right? It’s not like you would have seen much more anyway, with all that smoke!

Photos from the event will come tomorrow.

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The Bugatti Veyron Targa is set to be showcased at the upcoming (next month) 2008 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in Monterey, California. While it will be great to see the Veyron Targa through other means than publicity shots, “elegance” might be a hard sell for this beast of a car.

The supercar becomes a targa through a removable hardtop. So that you, if you are fortunate enough to acquire a Veyron Targa, won’t have to stuff the removed hardtop into the nonexistent backseat, a fabric cover can be pulled out should the forces of nature require it. Naturally, reinforcements have been installed to keep the chopped up roof from making the car twist in all the wrong ways when you do nothing more than fire up the engine.

The Targa will sport an increased weight and a reduced speed, and as such, presumably be a bit less fun. However, as we know, in the world of supercars, less is more, so expect to have to shell out a bit more than the about 2 million dollars the original version demands.

The first Bugatti Veyron Targas will roll out onto the streets next year.

Another pic after the jump:

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Audi TT looked great as a concept. It looked great as a production car. It looked even better after its semi-big facelift. So that’s half the deal taken care of…

…but what about the other half? The main annoyance with the little sports car has always been its lack of a really hungry engine. It has gotten better and better with time, especially with the TTS, which takes you to a hundred km/h in 5.2 seconds. It still never quite hit the mark, though. That may soon change, with the Audi TT RS.

The RS version is rumoured to come with up to a tasty 350 HP, though 330-ish may be more probable. Still, we can hope. The 100 km/h run should thus take 4.something seconds, which we can’t but be quite pleased with.

It is believed that a 2.5-litre - perhaps the trusted VW 2.3-litre with a bit more space - will be the source of the intended power.

When it comes to the gearbox, Audi does not have any ‘boxes small enough for the TT’s tight fit and simultaneously strong enough to withstand all the torque, so we’ll have to wait and see what they come up with.

Quattro goes without saying. So I said it.

The sad bit of news is we will probably not see the TT with this much juice on the market until 2010, with a launch in 2009.

More photos after the jump!

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AutomoLove.com is back, with a crispy clean look! The site should now be easier on the eyes, with its orderly and more logical layout, as well as a somewhat brighter background and a consistent colour theme.

As always with design changes, there may be issues here and there, in particular with old posts. Bare with me as I identify and fix these, if there are any. Additionally, small tweaks to the design may come, but the general look you see now will be with us for quite some time to come!

Several ideas for the site and future posts are brewing in the pot and will be served over the next few months and beyond. And of course, regular blogging will commence again promptly!

Stay with us for lots of automotive goodness!

It has been decided that in conjunction with the unexpected break it would be a good idea to look at upgrading the feel and look of the site. While news posts are likely to pop up now and then for the next couple of months (such as when Ferrari are in the lead of both F1’s WDC and WCC), they will not come daily - or perhaps even weekly. Instead, focus will be on obtaining a far better design for the site and also hopefully add a forum, so that Automolove.com can return stronger and better.

So keep checking in and before you know it, in about two months’ time, we’ll be back in full business, looking our best. Make sure you do too.

In the series of F1 liveries 2008 I have to say the supposed livery for the FW30 is doing a good job. Especially if you compare to Force India who presented the livery of their car, the VJM01, last week, at a “glitzy Bollywood-style affair in Mumbai” according to Autoblog.com.

Having taken over the Spyker team, Force India’s VJM01 is simply a Spyker F8-VII with a new paint job. Sadly, considering the Spyker paint job was pretty darn cool. The VJM01 livery has got to be one of the most pompous examples of a Formula 1 livery in recent years. Imagine yourself a brand new reincarnation of a team in a sport dominated by two or three participants. Imagine that the team you are a reincarnation of hardly did overwhelmingly well in that sport. Then imagine sitting down table with your creative team to design a livery for your car - and you come up with a design involving large chunks of gold and silver colour. I would define that as pompous, at best.

Check the picture for yourself after the jump.

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So first Petter Solberg starts out well, but then drops down the ranks while big bro’ Henning Solberg moves up. In the end Henning dropped all the way down to 13th place in the Swedish Rally, while Petter made it to 4th, almost 3 minutes behind the winner.

So that sucks.

But wait, there’s good news too, for fans of the Norwegian drivers and fans of records being broken: Andreas Mikkelsen came in 5th place, the four points gained from that position making him the youngest person to score WRC points, at the tender age of 18. How cool! I for one am rooting for him, though I’m not convinced he will be a highly frequent face in the points this season. He’s definitely one to watch though. WRC-retiree, two-time World Champion, and silver winner of last year’s WRC, Markus Grønholm, is Mikkelsen’s mentor. That should give you a hint.

Incidentally, Latvala did indeed win in the end, in front of Hirvonen and Galli, which puts him second overall together with Loëb, both with ten points, behind Hirvonen with 16. Mikkelsen’s in 8th overall.

[Sources: WRC and Aftenposten]

That is one evil car - and it looks it, too.
© Audi.com

If the stunning looks aren’t enough for you, the 414 horsepower V8 ought to do the trick. Not to mention the 187 mph/301 km/h top speed. No wonder several mags, like Top Gear and Automobile Magazine, designated it car of the year 2007. Playboy Magazine (nope, you’ll have to type in the link by yourself for that one ;)), too. Proof, at last, that the mags really are worth picking up for their articles (as well).

PS. For those deprived ones out there who have never seen The Godfather or heard about the emulated scene, the guy finds a (real) severed horse’s head in his bed.