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Happy New Year!!!

Out goes 2020, and here comes 2021. Man, what a crappy year… 😣 I’m more than glad it’s over, and probably everyone feels the same. The pandemic hit us hard, but thankfully me and all my family stayed healthy. On the other hand my income was drastically affected, so things got a lot tighter around here. I think you all certainly noticed from the very few new model reviews I’m posting. The passion is the same, and so is the interest, but since money is shorter… Even so, I should not complain. Everyone I love is healthy, and that’s all that matters 🍺.

So let’s hope that things get better in 2021. Happy New Year!!!

🍹🍾🍷🎉

And now Porsche will also be back to La Sarthe!!!

Only in 2023, but then we will have a Porsche LMDh (Le Mans Daytona hybrid) car! I read the news on Jalopnik this afternoon, when they posted a link to Porsche’s Twitter page. According to both sources, Porsche will indeed be back to La Sarthe, with a brand new 1000 kg hybrid car with around 680 hp of power. After all the bad news lately with the LMH (Le Mans Hypercar) class, I confess I was feeling a bit bleak about the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But with the recent good news coming from Audi and Porsche, things look a lot brighter.

Audi back to La Sarthe?!?

Yep, looks like it! According to Jalopnik, earlier today the manufacturer announced that it would be back at Le Mans. They will build a new LMDh car and starting in 2022 will compete in the WEC and IMSA series. So far Audi is the only big name confirmed for the new LMDh class at La Sarthe, but we can hope it will not be the only one.

Fingers crossed! 🤞

I’m in love!

On this 18th Lamborghini officially revealed the new Huracán STO. The STO (Super Trofeo Omologata) is basically a street legal version of the Huracán Super Trofeo, Lamborghini’s model for their exclusive championship series. Based on the regular Huracán Evo, the STO uses the same V10 engine and chassis. Obviously though, the STO is lighter and more powerful.

I think it looks A-W-E-S-O-M-E and I really wish one of the nice (and affordable) brands release it in 1:43 😍

Was the 2020 race a “good Le Mans”?

Don’t think anyone will say it was a bad race, but it was certainly atypical. The pandemic forced it to be closed to the public, so there were no fans and only the technical pre-race events happened. The pre-race parade and all the fan events did not happen, and media coverage was limited. So all in all a very peculiar race compared to the traditional “Le Mans experience”.

Petrolicious wrote a very nice article about this year’s race, and touches exactly on those points. In the future people will look back and see 2020 as the last LMP1 race, where the TS050 won it’s third Le Mans in a row. But for us experiencing all this first hand and live, it sure was something strange.

New 1:18 917K from Amalgam

Thankfully it’s 1:18, therefor too big for the W-143 Garage. Because it’s EXPENSIVE – US$ 1300,00 (Classic Driver) 😲😲😲. Ultimately, however, it’s g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s! Though I’m not a big fan of weathered models, for a jewel of this caliber I would easily open an exception.

Amalgam will only make 100 models of the 1970 Daytona winner 917K, so don’t wait too long to go after yours.

The new 1929 Bentley Blower is coming along

Back in October last year I wrote about Bentley making a brand new 1929 Bentley Blower. The plan was to produce 12 new cars that are exact replicas of the original model. For that, a specialized team at Crewe, in the UK, took apart the second car of the 1929 “Team Blower” and laser-scanned every single part of the car. Recently Bentley showed photos of some of the new parts already made for the prototype model.

From the images that Bentley released, the new “Continuation Series” car will look absolutely fantastic. The cars are expected to be available by 2021, and all 12 are already spoken for. As I said before, sometimes it’s really nice to be rich…

New camera!!!

new camera

Last month I wrote about my new dioramas, since I thought that my old track diorama was not good anymore. I even mused that the next upgrade would have to be a new camera, since my old Nikon D90 is by now totally dated. A great camera, but released in 2008, so it just can’t stand up to current hardware. AND, it’s a cropped-sensor camera, so the resolution isn’t the best. But since good cameras are far from cheap, specially a full-frame one, I thought it would take a while.

However, my adorable wife and my dad (!) teamed up and got me a new one for my birthday 🥰. And not just any new camera, but possibly one of the best ones available right now, the Sony A7III!!! The A7III is one of Sony’s professional mirrorless full-frame models, with features that I never dreamt of. With a Zeiss 24-70mm lens it’s a true powerhouse.

Boy oh boy 😊!!! Now I need to learn how to use all those features.

And we have a winner!

Rebel Williams Esports #1 won the first 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual! 🏆
Piloted by Raffaele Marciello (factory Mercedes GT driver), Louis Deletraz (Haas Formula 1 reserve), Nikodem Wisniewski (sim racer) and Kuba Brzezinski (sim racer), it started eighth in the grid. But slowly the team climbed up and finished in first.

In GTE, the #93 Porsche dominated the race. Piloted by Nick Tandy (Le Mans winner), Ayhancan Guven (Porsche Supercup), Joshua Rogers (Porsche Esports Supercup champion) and Tommy Ostgaard (sim racer), they took the flag. Pretty nice, since this weekend was Porsche’s 50th anniversary of their first overall Le Mans win.

Not the real thing, of course, but you know? It was cool to watch. Graphics were fantastic and the inboard filming looked like you were seeing it from a real race car.

Made me want to fire up Forza 7 on the Xbox One…