AUDI RS3….. OH YES!!!!!

Here are some more spy pics from VW Group testing over at the Nurburgring circuit, this time of a chassis test mule for an Audi RS3 dressed in an attention-grabbing orange.

Differentiating this model from the current Audi A3 range are the larger air intakes on the modified front bumper, notes our spy photographer. The rest of it looks like an S3 Sportback body.

What lies beneath that bonnet, though, is the real question. Previously reported on the statement by an Audi dealer in Cape Town, South Africa who claimed that the Ingolstadt-based automaker will be fitting the RS3 with the same 2.5 liter, 5-cylinder turbocharged engine as in the TT RS model. That engine produces 250 kW) and 450 Nm of torque.

With competitors such as the Golf R 199 kW, Ford Focus RS 224 kW and, of course, the BMW 135i that packs 225 kW into the compact 1-Series, Audi may just want to completely outdo the competition by offering an RS3 with more power and an all-wheel drive system – its storied Quattro technology.

Source: WCF

Mrs Tokai Forest – We’ve started missing you!

When presented with an essay assignment that asked us to answer the question of ‘The Great Environmental Debate’ and, would you believe, take a stance on what side of the fence you possibly stand on, I thought ‘oh this’ll be easy, there’s the ozone layer, the CO2 issues, fishing, whaling and so the list goes on. However I needed to choose just one environmental issue, one that I feel strongly about and take a stance on that, as opposed to just babbling off a whole load of issues that we are all well aware of, such as the above mentioned.

Thought back to the movies I have seen on the issue, such as the 11^th Hour, The Cove and An Inconvenient Truth, just to name but a few. I also thought about the discovery shows that I watch, such as Whale Wars.

Then I realised I was staring the topic in the face.

My choice in the end is one that I feel strongly about and one that has affected me on a daily basis for the past 4 years since returning to South Africa, that issue being, deforestation, but particularly, the Tokai forest deforestation.

 It was only really the other day, while my wife Philippa and I were walking our dog Troy and baby girl Anna that we thought, how sad, Anna is never going to enjoy what we did and have. That’s when it came to me about Tokai forest. After all, we mountain bike, run and walk our dog here, as do many of our friends.

 A brief history

SAFCOL used to run and control these forests, it was then put out to a nation-wide tender. A company called Cape Timber Resources (CTR) won the state tender to the harvesting rights of the Tokai and Cecilia in these plantations. CTR then bought 75% share in MTO – and the state retained a 25% share. Table Mountain National Park has a 20-year lease to manage the 1000ha which make up Cecilia and Tokai plantations, and MTO Forestry, formerly SAFCOL, has the right to harvest the 600ha of pines during this time.

Tokai has always had some form of forest whether indigenous or exotic. Jan Van Riebeeck of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), who occupied the shore of Table Bay in 1652 and then established a settlement at the Cape, issued the first ever South African conservatory measure, in 1658.

It made it illegal to cut down any Yellowwood except for planks. Simon van der Stel also introduced the first exotic forest in 1694 when he planted 4379 Oak Trees at Tokai.

The pine plantations were the idea of Joseph Storr Lister, who was the Chief Conservator of Forests for the Cape Colony during the 1880′s. Lister sourced these trees from all around the world. The Tokai plantation was established in 1884, making it the second oldest plantation in the country.

The argument and the problem

I have lived in Cape Town most of my life and I use Tokai forest, sorry ‘plantation’, on almost a daily basis is some way, and have done for most of my life. As I mentioned in the introduction, we, as do many other people, use this for recreation, and have done for many years.

 When the plan to harvest these trees was implemented, the government used the following as their main means of attack to why it should be done:

Pines trees are exotic and consume too much ground water and nothing else grows underneath pine. But what’s this? Trees and fern last time I checked.

 
 

According to the Ottawa Forests Advisory Committee, pines are on the low water demand list, and other trees that are in the forest and the arboretum on the high demand for water list, like oaks.

Another point is that if the government and SANP want to say that pines are exotic and should not be there, which is true, but then why they don’t tell us what they going to do with the following list of exotic trees that are still there and remaining there:

Californian Redwoods – USA
Saltwater Paper Bark Tree – Western Australia
Apply Myrtle – Australia
Mexican Cypress – Central America

That’s just to name a few that are also there and, well, not understandable if the driver is the indigenous factor.

The second factor and again, a main driver, is that Fynbos is indigenous to the area and needs to be rehabilitated, which we all know and respect, but Fynbos doesn’t help with a windy place, like pines or trees in general, it also doesn’t help when the rains and fires come either. When the rains come, they can’t absorb the amount of water needed to possibly prevent a mud slide, and if you one of those people living on the slopes of Tokai, you better hope that the rain never come, as its all clay and sand that’s left.

When it comes to fires, well fynbos is a beautiful burning agent. Nice and dry and ready to be the fuel to the runaway fire. Take a look at these photos below of what happens when an area is cleared and fynbos was left.

 
 

The irony, look what’s left standing? Pine trees. As one website put it with this picture that they can be brilliant fire breaks (all three pictures are from the fire in 2006 on Table Mountain).

They don’t care about fynbos; I mean if they did, would Tokai forest now look like this picture?

 

As you can see, it’s over-run by weeds where the so called fynbos conservation should be.

What was truly unbelievable was that around November 2008, just prior to felling, the following signs popped up at the core walk entrances:

 

On top of that, they also had the cheek to start charging people to walk their dogs and ride their horses in the lower forest. Needless to say, no one does and it’s something that they haven’t even policed, as they know all hell will then break loose.

 If truth be told, I want money, that’s what I want

Why use these two as the driver, when the actual reason is money! Copious amounts of money.

The math for the value of the harvested timber:

There are about 500 pine trees per 1 ha, yielding a very conservative average of 3 cubic meters / tree, i.e. 1500 cubic meters of timber per ha. 1m³ sells for about R2,000, according to Cape Saw Mills.

One hectare is worth to MTO 2,000 x 1500 = R 3,000,000

Therefore the total worth to MTO 2,000 x 900000 (600 ha) = R1,800,000,000

They can fool some people all of the time and they can fool all people some of the time but they can’t fool all the people all of the time! Abraham Lincoln, US President

(R1,8 Billion) over the next 20 years.

There we were all thinking it was that they were doing this for biodiversity and for the future of fynbos.

 Why were they not honest from the start, saying its business and that’s why they were planted. It was like they felt they needed to lie about the whole thing, leaving out the monetary gain from the start. Only once people started making a ‘whooohaaa’ about the whole process, and the fact that they walk, run, ride and enjoy the ‘plantation’, did they bring out dossiers and ‘all the answers’. Well the answers they wanted to tell you that it is. They failed to add the sums and financial gains seen above.

What else is interesting is the fact that they are not cutting down the braai area part of Tokai forest. Why, its plantation after all isn’t it? Fynbos is indigenous and pines are evil are they not? They consume up to 25 litres of water a day each do they not?

 Well it would seem that, that is because they make money from that area, you have to pay to go in, and nearly every single weekend day in summer and many days in winter, it is full. Are you allowed to walk dogs there and cycle there? No, of course not, and where you can mountain bike, yes you guessed it, you have to pay again and they have got rid of lots of the tress up there too.

 Summed up, nature is a resource to government.

 Promises you can’t keep

What the government promised in their report, was that new trees were going to be replanted and that there are going to be shaded walks where you can walk your dogs, as you can see in the map attached at the end. Problem with that, the area they have shown as a shaded walk, is the perimeter, which is a 4.3km walk! Most people that you see walking in the forest on a daily basis are not 4.3km walkers.

By 2025 all the pine trees in Cecilia and Tokai plantations will be gone and no new plantations will be established in their place.- Melanie Gosling     Cape Times October 20 2006

Where they not planning on cutting down the trees that are in the shaded area? Well if that was the case, then someone at MTO didn’t get the memo, as northern part of the map provided trees have been cut down.

CSR and our health

In a world that is becoming more and more polluted and emphasis being put of the climate and the environment, you would think that we could start by being at the forefront of using the environment as prevention.

For example 1000ha (which ironically is the area of trees being felled till 2025) of 500,000 alien trees can remove up to 35,000 tons of dust and air pollutants per year. These same trees produce also up to 6,250 tons of oxygen and remove up to 7500 tons of CO2 per year.  A person uses less than 453.5 grams of oxygen per day, or about 126 kg’s per year. That means that every hectare of forest produces enough oxygen for about 44 people.

We, as humans, are all about CSR, so why are they getting rid of so many trees, that do so much, and not even bothering to plant more? Fynbos does not do half of what a tree does, for example: 

• In one year, an acre of trees can absorb as much carbon as is produced by a car driven up to 14000 km’s
• One acre of trees removes up to 2.6 tons of carbon dioxide each year.

 As you can see, the importance of our trees is something that needs to be considered.

 The wildlife; humans vs. nature

Well, it seems it’s once again; it’s us vs. them, humans vs. nature. There is a massive wildlife issue at hand with the removal of these trees.

To start with, we just have to look at the baboon problem of late. This has all stemmed from them not having food, being scared of the machinery and having less place to sleep and play.

Dogs can’t have fun and be protected by the shade. Dog walking is a huge part of Tokai forest and hundreds of people make use of it.

The wildlife that relies on all those trees, have nothing to go too. This is a 1000 plus hectares we talking about. There is a mind blowing amount of life that depends on that, not just human.

Everyone loves a conspiracy

As mentioned above, Table Mountain National Park has a 20-year lease to manage the 1000ha which make up Cecilia and Tokai plantations, and MTO Forestry, formerly SAFCOL, has the right to harvest the 600ha of pines during this time.

Are MTO and the SANP the same company? You wouldn’t  be wrong in thinking that, based on some of the evidence you have read so far, but for the conspiracy theorists amongst us, and if you had a half brain, would you not wonder who was benefiting, i.e. how much of a hand do government have in MTO.

One of these strange things is the lease that has been granted, excludes replanting of trees for commercial harvesting. When the lease expires in 2025, Tokai and Cecilia will be incorporated into the park, making Tokai forest look like the lunar surface, as there will be nothing. Which has also made people ask the question, ‘I wonder when the land will be sold off for commercial/residential development’, as it will have no use to the government as pointless fynbos, we that amount of fynbos.

Another rather odd thing that I picked up was the similarity between the two websites; they seem to have very similar font, colour and layout.

 

 

 Though, when you look anywhere or ask anyone, you cannot find who the directors are of MTO and even their website is vague.

Conclusion

Well where one begins with a conclusion on something that is so close to you and something that has so many side effects in the great environmental debate. From the health, recreation and environmental advantages of trees, exotic or indigenous to the BEE contracts, lies and greed.

I have read and understood the fact that The South African Forestry Industry plants 360 000 trees every working day – more than 90 million trees every year, and that our forests are a national asset and a renewable resource.

So with that being the case, why get rid of an urban forest, they a rarity. Plant the trees for economic resource out of town, where people don’t need or want to travel to, just for recreation.

The pines in Tokai have been there for 30 years growing, and no one was complaining about them using water and nothing growing underneath. It wasn’t an ‘issue’ then. Now suddenly government sees an issue with it, when as explained above, that wasn’t the case, it was business, plain and simple. Surely they have a million and one other plantation’s that they could be felling first, especially with that fact presented above of the amount of trees being planted.

So with that said, that is just the point, pines and exotics may do wrong, but they do so much right too, whereas fynbos does what? Burns nicely and looks ugly and quite honestly depresses me.

The funny thing is, while everyone, me included, is taking their corner or trees or fynbos, MTO, the SANP and government is carrying on making money. They must be having a great laugh at our expense. For them it’s the tree huggers against the fynbos fanatics.

Don’t get me wrong though, I do see the benefit of fynbos too and I do appreciate the fact that it is needed, but I, personally, just don’t think it’s as needed as our urban forests. After all, when 2025 hits, where are we going to go?

We have a gorgeous little girl and dog, and we want to run, ride and have fun in the forest with them, like we did when we were young. Where must we and so many other people go soon with our children and for us? We want Tokai forest that we have known to be around for years to come, like my picture below.

 

She is a beautiful urban forest that should be protected and loved.

Not this Tokai forest, though prescribed burning of the felled trees ‘leftovers’, it could well be what we will be seeing more of.

Global temperatures are soaring, the climates have gone mad, thanks to man, and I have cycled in 45 degree direct sun, it’s not pleasant and most people can’t do that.

The animals mentioned above, dogs, baboons, karakal’s, birds and so on.

While the likes of Al Gore and other crusaders are doing there bit, our government is not. They don’t need to get clever, the answers too many questions are being cut down right in front of them and they don’t see it. In fact they have now even started cutting down Yellow Woods, an indigenous species.

That’s just it; they see all this wood in the trees, that they can’t see the wood through the trees.

Government, please think about me

 

Cant Afford an Audi R8??? Here is the next best thing! GENIUS!

So the R8 out of your price range? Well Audi’s ad guys in Canada came up with this innovative ‘advert’ and gave people the next best thing!
This is hilarious!

Audi R8 Spyder ‘Beauty and the Beasts’ Advert

Audi UK have taken the ‘non’ Iron  Man 2 route to advertise the new R8 Spyder.

What do you think of the advert compared to the Iron Man 2 version or even Audi TV’s version?

Audi R8 V10 Clubsport! The best R8 yet!

Now days car brands are bring out the best, then bettering the best and then making them even better. take Lamborghini with the Gallardo, then to top off with the best, enter the Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni, Ferrari with the 599 GTO and FXX, Porsche with the GT3RS and so on…

Now Ladies and Gentlemen, would you please make way for the legends that are Audi and let me introduce the R8 ClubSport!

The Audi R8 is already one an awesome speed machine right out of the box,  and not to mention so beautiful it could bring a tear to a grown man’s eye!
With that said, look what we have here… Some spy photographers have just sent in photos that may prove that an even more awe-some R8 is on the way. Believed to be the awe inspiring ClubSport model, making this model, the daddy of R8′s! (just when you thought it couldnt get any better)

There are no true details about the R8 CS yet, but keep checking back here and you will sure find the answers you are looking for in time! However, in the mean time you can see the few changes that have been made and the R8 pictured looks MEAN!

As you can see, this R8’s front has been revised (bear in mind this is a test mule), now  showing an even MORE aggressive splitter and air winglets.

At the rear end there is a newly styled bumper, round exhaust pipes (which i think look amazing), and a fixed rear wing, which on other famous CS models normally means ‘Yay i love track days…. take me to the track, take me to the track!

According to inside sources, the R8 Clubsport will be between 100 and 150 kgs lighter than the standard R8 V10, will have rear-wheel drive only and will see a slight power increase.

The Audi R8 CS should be debuting at the Paris Motor Show later this year. Expect prices in SA to be around the R3million mark… if it even comes here!

Keep checking back as i am onto my source in Audi Germany for some answers!

R8 Spyder Advert… BEA-UUUUUUUTIFUL!

If this doesnt make you want to work day and night to save for one, then i give up!

IRON MAN 2 and the AUDI R8 SPIDER!!!! BEAUUUUUTIFUL!!!

Ferrari 599 GTO makes world debut – VIDEO!!!!

The Ferrari 599 GTO is a 1495 kg supercar with a 6.0-liter V12 engine that produces 493 kW and 619 Nm of torque. The Berlinetta clocks the 0-100 km/h sprint in at 3.35 seconds and has a top speed of 335 km/h.

The 599 GTO will be (appropriately) limited to only 599 units, three of which were on hand here at the model’s unveiling.

Starting price for the 599 GTO will be €319,495 ($426,843 / £285,053). Deliveries are expected to begin later this year and who knows what the SA price will be!!!!

2011 Audi A8 L – That’s L for Long Wheel Base!!

Audi have unveiled the ne A8 L!

It keeps the W12 engine and the gorgeous good looks, but just stretches them out a bit!

LOVE IT!

Now the tech talk:

The car’s overall length is 5,267 meters, 130mm longer than other models. It features a longer wheelbase and an increase in height of 3,122 mm and 2 mm respectively.

Interior luxuries:
standard and optional, include the MMI system, 3D satellite navigation with Google Earth, a 19-speaker Bang & Olufsen Advanced Sound System, a panoramic sunroof and tanned Valonea leather.
Rear seat passengers are treated to several luxuries, including the two optional separate power-adjustable seats which can be heated and ventilated, a full-length centre console that can be equipped with things like a folding table and a fridge, as well as four-zone automatic air conditioning.

Exterior features:
such details as a single-frame radiator grille with chromed horizontal bars, W12 badges and two trapezoidal tailpipes. Four 15-spoke 19-inch alloy wheels with 255/45 tyres are fitted as standard, but customers can also order optional 20-inch or even 21-inch rims.

Power & Engine etc:
Based on the 6.0-liter engine found in the previous generation A8, the new W12 has been fully revised with increased displacement (now 6.3-liters) and added petrol direct injection. It weighs 247 kilograms and has a power output of 368 kW plus torque of 625 Nm at 3,250rpm. Running all four wheels is an 8-speed Tiptronic that helps the A8 L get from 0 – 100km/h in 4.9 seconds, reaching a top speed of 250km/h. Average fuel consumption is said to be a low 12.0 litres per 100 kilometres.

Something SAFE yet STYLISH? Bring on the Audi A8 Security! Perfect car for SA!

Thinking of someything safe, yet stylish….

The A8 Security is an armoured version or special protection series.  One of the first clues can be seen in the special run flat tires which you can always tell by the reinforced inner bead that runs along the rim’s edge.  Also, looking closely at the inner windows frames, they seem to be a bit beefier than usual possibly indicating the use of thicker multi-layered bullet resistant glass.  Lastly, looking through the grille, there appears to be some kind of inner shroud or reinforcement in place of the radiator.

Shame we have to wait till 2012…