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Weekly Recap: Racing legend Jim Hall explains Chevy's futuristic Chaparral concept

"I said our cars are built to be winners." – Jim Hall Racing legend Jim Hall never thought he'd be a video game consultant, but when Chevrolet asked for his advice to create a futuristic Chaparral for the Vision Gran Turismo series, he was eager to help. He reviewed early sketches and suggested some changes that made it onto the concept, including the addition of a camera that's mounted onto a mast over the cabin to aid the driver. The Chevy Chaparral 2X Vision Gran Turismo concept was revealed this week at the Los Angeles Auto Show and will be part of a downloadable update for PlayStation 3's Gran Turismo 6 in December. Theoretically, at least, it uses a laser-beam propulsion system and an air-powered generator to produce 900 horsepower in the video game. It's capable of sprinting to 60 miles per hour in 1.5 seconds en route to a top speed of 240 mph. Those gaudy performance specs – even in the virtual world – came at Hall's urging. "I said our cars are built to be winners," Hall told Autoblog on the floor of the Los Angeles show. The 79-year-old drove Lotus racecars in Formula One before launching the successful Chaparral Cars in the 1960s. Like his innovative Can-Am racers, the Vision Gran Turismo project has an eye toward the future. It also introduces the iconic Chaparral name to a new generation of fans, and hopefully, Hall says, gets them excited about engineering and design. "It emulates what we did in the '60s," he said. And what they did back then still resonates. Chaparral Racing and Chevy partnered more than 45 years ago for development work on the composite monocoque chassis, lightweight alloy powertrains, automatic gearboxes and active aerodynamics. "He [Hall] walked right back into this and was able to apply thinkings and learnings," said Clay Dean, General Motors executive director of advanced design. The Chevy Chaparral 2X Vision Gran Turismo concept was created at GM's North Hollywood advanced design studio, and it will be on display at the show through November. Other News and Views Sebastian Vettel joins Ferrari team in 2015 Ferrari confirmed that four-time Formula One World Champion Sebastian Vettel will join the Scuderia for the 2015 season, jettisoning Ferrari's current ace, two-time champ Fernando Alonso. Vettel has been F1's most successful driver since Michael Schumacher, though he's struggled to match his previous accomplishments in 2014.

Berger and Vettel swap F1 cars old and new at the Red Bull Ring

This weekend the Formula One circus heads to Spielberg. No, not the Hollywood director, but the town in Austria that's home to the Österreichring. Subsequently known as the A1-Ring, these days it's called the Red Bull Ring, which makes this weekend's revived Austrian Grand Prix something of a home race for the defending champion Red Bull Racing team. But long before that it was the home race of the sixteen F1 drivers that call Austria their home - not the least of them Gerhard Berger.
The only Austrian driver to have won a grand prix (ten of them, all told) but not a championship, Berger was a fixture of F1 racing in the 1980s and 90s, spending much of his career driving for Ferrari. He later ran Scuderia Toro Rosso for three seasons, during which time Sebastian Vettel won his first (and still the team's only) grand prix. So with the Austrian Grand Prix back on the calendar for this weekend, the two highly accomplished drivers headed to the Red Bull Ring for a little juxtaposition.
Gerhard rolled in with the Ferrari F1/87-88C in which he won the 1988 Italian Grand Prix at Monza (which was, incidentally, the same race that Vettel won for STR twenty years later under Ferrari power), and Seb in his championship-winning RB8. Then they switched off, giving the four-time world champion his first chance to drive a grand prix racer with three pedals. If you can't believe that, it's also (as far as we can tell) the first time, despite years of neck-and-neck competition and retention of some of the best drivers on the grid, that a Red Bull or Toro Rosso driver has driven a Ferrari F1 car, and vice versa. See how it went down in the video below.

The SP275 RW Competizione is the latest one-off from Ferrari

They say money can't buy happiness, but I disagree. I'd be very happy if I had enough cash to have Ferrari's Special Projects team build me a bespoke variant of any one of its current crop of cars. The group's latest creation, the SP275 RW Competizione you see here, was shown for the first time at the year-ending Finali Mondiali event at Daytona International Speedway. Details are scarce, but the 275SP appears to be based on the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta in either standard or TdF guise. (The F12 TdF debuted at last year's Finali Mondiali.) Based on design elements like the louvers behind the wheels, it seems likely that the new model started as a TdF. That means special touches like a front-mid-mounted 769-horsepower V12 and rear-wheel steering. It also means a 0–60 mph time of 2.9 seconds. It's difficult to say how much the 275SP weighs, though the F12 TdF is about 240 pounds lighter than the standard F12 Berlinetta. Looks are subjective, so you'll have to decide for yourself whether the new styling queues, like a redesigned front fascia, hood, doors, and glass, are an improvement. It's unlikely you'll find this particular shade of gold on another Ferrari. To my eyes, it looks like the Solarbeam Yellow hue that's available on the Mercedes-AMG GT for $9,900. The takeaway should be that if you have the means, Ferrari Special projects will build whatever you want. Look to the F12 TRS or the F12 SP America for more examples. Money may not buy happiness directly, but it will sure as hell buy you a nice Ferrari. Related Video: Featured Gallery Ferrari SP275 RW Competizione View 16 Photos Image Credit: Copyright 2016 Drew Phillips / Autoblog Design/Style Ferrari Coupe Supercars ferrari f12 berlinetta ferrari f12 ferrari f12 tdf