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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This weekend saw the event Gatebil Festival (literally: “road car festival”) take place at Rudskogen in Norway. Being allegedly the largest car related event in Scandinavia, there were lots of activities over the weekend, drifting naturally being one of them.

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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