Organised by the British Automobile Racing Club (BARC), there seems little doubt that Chevron sees this as an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Ginetta, which has seen an impressive revival in fortunes over recent years. Powered by a Cosworth YD 2.0 litre unit, the GR8 is also expected to achieve British GT eligibility, perhaps later this year. Further details from Chevron Racing.
MotorMouse
It
seems hard to credit that the now-famous MotorMouse
made its television debut as recently as September
2009, when David Bailey presented his high-quality
car-shaped wireless mouse to the Dragon’s
Den. After a nail-biting discussion, it was entrepreneur
James Caan who stepped forward with the best offer
on the deal, and sales – and reputation
– of the sleek sportscar-shaped mouse rapidly
took off. Recognition soon followed, including
a Garmin T3 Award and the Top Gear Gadget Award
MotorMouse
had a small stand at Autosport International,
but were doing brisk business. On offer were four
versions of the original design, in silver, black,
metallic red and vibrant blancmange pink. Although
tactfully described as being “based on an
iconic sports car”, the similarity between
the MotorMouse bodyshape and Porsche’s 911
has now been acknowledged with a licencing agreement,
but an all-new model is due for launch in February.
This
is expected to be a more accurate scale model
of the new-shape Mini Cooper, and will be followed
by a series of new designs, rumoured to include
Audi TT, VW Beetle, a Lamborghini and Aston Martin.
Although there have been copies, including PC mice in the shape of TVRs, BMWs, Mercedes, the iconic Ford GT40, the McLaren F1 and others, none has yet managed to match the MotorMouse for build quality, dpi resolution and the discrete size of the wireless receiver, which remains the world’s smallest. Further info from Motor-Mouse.
Aspira
Although its arrival was delayed, and thereby missed the trade days, another new car certainly caught the public’s attention over the weekend. Despite a very unassuming corner stand, and no trimmings, the presence of an Aspira F630 was confirmation, at last, that this much-mooted project is now a reality.
The car is a fresh design, but there are styling clues that hint at inspiration from a number of other low-volume cars, ranging from SLC or Stealth, to Arash AF10, Noble M600, Koenigsegg and Ferrari Enzo. The overall effect, however, is one of svelte power, with few of the slatting, ducts and other adulterations that so often mar the lines of supercars in this league. Perhaps the only flaw, and one put down to necessity, is the antenna-like door-mirrors that droop ant-like over the side windows. Any lower, however, and there’d be nothing visible behind at all.
The Autosport appearance represented the world debut of the Aspira, with the car on display being the first production example to leave the factory. Fitted with a race-derived GM Corvette LS376 6.2 litre V8 generating over 580 bhp, supercharged units will also be available, and the top speed for even the most basic variant is expected to exceed 200 miles an hour. On-the-road prices are, for a car of this type, not completely eye-watering, but will still start at around £130,000. Henry Nickless, Aspira’s Managing Director , was on hand to introduce the car. He is perhaps better known as the man behind Worcester-based Chiron WSC, the LMP3 chassis that has taken several Supersports titles and is also seen in VdeV and current Speed Racing competition.
The whole project is still so new that the website remains unfinished and “under construction”, so please don’t take the Latin text too seriously. However, there are some images on www.aspiracars.com that give some idea of how this car looks in the flesh, and it’s certainly impressive.