Aston Martin has officially debuted the newest version of the Vanquish and what a beauty it is. Taking several styling cues from the One-77 supercar, the Vanquish is still has that unmistakeable Aston Martin shape and of course that air of British luxury.

With its 6.0 liter V12 making 565bhp, Aston Martin is calling the Vanquish its second most potent model, behind only the aforementioned One-77. It’s claimed the car will hit 62mph in just 4.1 seconds and it will be on sale in Europe later on this year.

Speaking of the One-77 here’s one catching a bit of air at the 2012 Cholmondeley Pageant of Power held over the weekend in the UK. Over 50,000 spectators came out to see the three-day display of land, water, and air vehicles.

During the festivities a new track record of 61.89 seconds was set by Scott Mansell in a Caterham Superlight SP/300.R.

The SATS Motorsport crew was also on hand with their 1,000hp Supra drift car. They released this in-car video clip showing the monster machine attacking the course.

Vauxhall played a significant role in the event, bringing out a historic 1926 OE-type 30-98 Velox Tourer which took the win in the Classic Pre-War Car Class.

Representing the modern side of the Vauxhall lineup, they also brought out a 2012 VXR Maloo which added a bit of Aussie flavor to the event’s Autocar Super Car Class. Yeee haw.

Simply Bond – the name of an event being held on July 29th at the Beaulieu Motor Museum. As the title suggests, this will be a gathering of cars and motorcycles featured in the James Bond films over the years. I wonder if anyone will show up in a Toyota 2000GT Roadster?

Another event hosted at Beaulieu was the Custom and Hot Rod Festival, which happened over the weekend. Taking the Best in Show award was this beautiful 1950 Mercury Lead Sled.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of Mercedes’ AMG division, and AMG has released some very cool photographs commemorating the milestone. This shot shows Michael Schumacher’s Formula 1 car alongside a pair of DTM and GT AMG entries.

Another image showcases the entire modern day AMG lineup. We’ve now added a selection of high resolution desktop images to our Week in Pictures entries and you can find large versions of both of these shots below at the end of the post.

Infiniti announced that it will be running its EMERG-E concept for the first time at the upcoming Goodwood Festival of Speed. Piloting the car will be none other than Red Bull F1 pilot Mark Webber.

As if the Goodwood Festival of Speed couldn’t get any better, this year’s event will include the first ever gathering of all three six-wheeled Formula 1 cars from the ’70s and ’80s. The lineup consists of the Tyrrell P34, the March 2-4-0, and the Williams FW08B.

Bentley’s new Continental GT Speed will also be making its international debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Its twin turbocharged W12 makes 616bhp and is mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Capable of hitting 205 miles per hour, Bentley is calling the Continental GT Speed its fastest production car ever. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in October of this year. If you happen to be at Goodwood this year, look for Juha Kankunnen, Guy Smith and Derek Bell taking a pre-production GT Speed up the hill twice a day.

Meanwhile in the area of cool cars climbing hills, we have this Jaguar Works D-Type OKV1 that took best in show honors at the Vernasca Silver Flag Hill Climb in Italy over the weekend. Seeing priceless, historic machinery driven hard never gets old.

Here in the states the SRT squad recently took to the track for some testing with the 2013 Viper GTS-R and captured the experience on video. What an amazing looking (and sounding) car!

2012 also marks the 25th anniversary of the Sierra Cosworth RS500, and the car will be celebrated at the next month’s Silverstone Classic.

The event will include a pair of touring car races as well as a special display dedicated to the history of the car in both competition and street form. If these amazing group shots don’t get you excited for that, I don’t think anything will.

Feast your eyes on the new ŠKODA Rapid. You’ll have to excuse me as a simple American who is largely unfamiliar with the ŠKODA lineup, but it looks like a solid family sedan nonetheless.

For those of you in Europe, you can expect the car to debut in at the Paris Motor Show before it goes on sale in the later part of the year.

Amidst all the action at Le Mans over the weekend, Mazda announced that it will be racing its SKYACTIV-D diesel engine at Le Mans in 2013.  The clean diesel powerplant will be supplied to teams running in the LMP2 class.

The first team to use the new Mazda ebgube will be Dempsey Racing. Patrick Dempsey, the actor and longtime Mazda racer plans to be behind the wheel of his SKYACTIV-powered LMP2 at next year’s race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekwR_YbXXm0

During the race Audi aired this very cool commercial  focusing on the brand’s cutting edge technology.

Another one meanwhile highlights both the past and future of its motorsport programs. Makes it very easy to see why Audi is so highly regarded across the world, doesn’t it?

The streak is over – Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s non-winning streak, that is. Junior had a commanding victory in the Sprint Cup race in Michigan on Sunday, capping off what’s so far been a very impressive season for NASCAR’s fan favorite. It marked the first time the #88 car has been to victory lane in exactly four years.

Some pretty big news on the rally front as Citroën Racing and Sébastien Loeb have announced they will be taking part in this year’s X Games rally competition in Los Angeles. Loeb will be driving a custom-prepared Citroën DS3 ‘XL’ in the Rallycross event.

The eight-time WRC champ is looking forward to competing alongside fellow Red Bull driver Travis Pastrana in LA and is quoted as saying “I didn’t need to be asked twice to race against Grönholm in a 545bhp Citroën DS3!’. We look forward to seeing the competition.

Don’t forget to check out the selection of high res images below!

-Mike

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