Issue Twenty-Five

In This Issue

Ferrari 458 Speciale – Naturally aspirated V8 sounds incredible and is likely to be last from Ferrari.
BMW M3 CSL – The perfect blend between old and new world performance car technology.
Nissan GT-R – Performance of the original R35 GT-R is shocking by todays standards.
1 of 29 BMW M4 GTS – The latest limited edition car from the M Division is a gem, find out how great it really is.
MotorStars Market Update Part One – We look back at the first twelve cars we featured in MotorStars magazine and analyse how much they have appreciated in value over the last two years.
Print book from PDF

The digital version of the magazine is available here

Note from the Editor

The three cars we’ve selected to feature this month are what I would call modern icons. They are the Ferrari 458 Speciale, BMW M3 CSL and Nissan GT-R. All three have tried to incorporate modern technology whilst not interfering with driver engagement.

The Ferrari 458 Speciale demonstrates a tried and tested formula of taking an already great car (458 Italia) and adding a touch more power and reducing the weight. With the Speciale, Ferrari produced the ultimate track day car. It has all the sounds, performance and driver involvement you could ever need. Ferrari built in some very trick electronic systems, one being Side Slip Angle Control which can turn any driver into a God. It basically analyses the rate of slip instantly and adjusts the torque to keep the car at an optimum angle through the corners, cutting down lap times and making the driver look like Sebastian Vettel. With the system off the driver can still try and replicate this, so the driving challenge is still there, on demand.

Some believe that the M3 CSL was a wasted opportunity by BMW, they fitted an automated manual gearbox (SMG II) to their track focussed M3. I would argue that in the CSL package, the SMG II gearbox shines, it allows total focus by the driver. You still have to select gear, but now with paddles, like an F1 driver. Those that have learnt to use an SMG system over the long term swear by it.

We are busy gearing up for this years Charity Driven 24 Hour simulator race, in aid of The Brain Tumour Charity. This year the venue has switched from a virtual Nurburgring to Spa. Also new for this year are three classes of cars, LMP1, LMP2 and GTE. The variation in speeds between the different race cars, together with a shorter track and more teams (16 in total) should raise the level of adrenalin. Team MotorStars have already had their practice at The Race Hut and are keen to get racing in the LMP1 Toyota TS040 Hybrid.

Raj Hunjan