Today’s Rare Ride is a prototype super car from 1996, 1997, or 1998, dependent upon which place you see it online. Scissor doors, 8.2 liters, 550 horsepower, and a fully bespoke body all sound great. There are no YouTube videos or even any news articles about the Shark S-1, so this is some exclusive content for you.
Quite a few questions remain.
Pop quiz, hotshot. What’s hand-assembled in Britain, rips to 60mph in 2.7 seconds, and turns the quarter-mile trick in less than 10 seconds? If you guessed the outrageous new 2020 McLaren 765LT, give yourself a gold star. Or at least a tank full of premium.
Oh, yeah; did we mention that it is completely sold out?
Today’s Rare Ride is one of those stand-out vehicles which had little (if any) real competition. Ten lamps up front, two seats in the middle, and 16 cylinders at the back. It’s a wonder it doesn’t take off in flight.
Cizeta time.
You may remember when Mercedes-Benz worked with McLaren to develop the SLR McLaren in the early 2000s. The supercar birthed from those creative loins trumped most everything else on the market upon its debut. As expected, it was very rare and very expensive. But did you know there was a further development of the car that was even rarer, and off-limits to all but a select few?
Presenting the SLR Stirling Moss.
Bizzarrini — a name which conjures images of, well, probably nothing for most people. In the Sixties, Bizzarrini was a short-lived auto manufacturer, but after the company’s demise, the name popped up once more in the early Nineties.
Let’s find out a little more about this one-of-one BZ 2001.
Sometimes, motorcars of high specification end up off-limits to some markets due to issues relatively outside the manufacturer’s control: funding, distribution, or perhaps regulation. Aston Marton took a different approach with the Lagonda Taraf, and intentionally limited their super sedan to just one market.
Maybe that was for the best.
By our count, Rare Rides has discussed Italian coach builder Zagato’s works on exactly two occasions. Both those times, boxy red coupes filled the screens of our millions of dear readers.
Today, Zagato surfaces once more, this time on a car which is certainly not boxy or red. It’s a very yellow Ferrari 348, with additional Zagato passion and flair.
Audi unveiled the PB 18 e-tron Concept at the 2018 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance with absolutely no assurance that it would ever be more than a fun idea. In fact, the company outright said it had no plans to put the vehicle into production. Miraculously, Audi flip-flopped, and the electrified hypercar is now slated for assembly.
You might hate it, but this is one of the few concept vehicles to ever make this author cream the proverbial jeans during office hours. Maybe it’s because I normally wait until the darkest point of the evening to unfurl my shame over a bottle of homemade wine and revisit vintage photo rolls of the Honda Unibox and Suzuki Regina — the latter of which was too good for this world.
However, whether or not Audi can successfully capture the magic of the PB 18 Concept remains to be seen. (Read More…)
Long before Bugatti released the record breaking Veyron, it produced a slightly less famous supercar. It’s the angular two-door which was simultaneously the beginning and end of an era in Bugatti’s history.
It’s the EB110, from 1993.
Concept vehicles have been a bit of a snoozefest for enthusiasts lately. Despite the fact that automakers are still plenty capable of bringing out gorgeous designs, the autonomous angle has become so pervasive that it’s overridden the idea of having fun.
Then, during this week’s Monterey Car Week festivities, Audi dropped the PB 18 e-tron concept at Laguna Seca and fun slapped us across the face. This is the kind of car you have on your bedroom wall as a child and work your entire life to put into a garage as an adult.
With three electric motors (one driving the front axle and two out back) providing a combined output of 671 horsepower and 612 lb-ft of torque, the PB 18 should already be a menace. However, it can also temporarily bump itself up to 764 hp using stored energy via a kinetic energy recovery system. As a result, Audi claims the car is capable of a 0-to-62 mph rush in just over 2 seconds.
Combine that with an ultra-modern design that’s within the boundaries of what’s currently possible and several scoops of driver-focused tech, and you have one of best concept vehicles we’ve seen in years. The PB 18 expertly rides the line between fanciful and plausible. (Read More…)
In what’s bound to be one of the most obscure editions of Rare Rides yet, today’s ride is very limited-production in nature. So limited, in fact, that only one was produced. And it’s so limited in its exposure that the Internet can’t seem to decide the year it was actually built.
It’s hard to know where to start with this thing.
Bright red paint, an interior to hide even the largest cocaine spillage, a targa roof, and sweet deep dish aero alloys all help define the Lamborghini Jalpa as a product of its era.
It’s the one everyone forgets as their minds gravitate to the older Countach or the newer Diablo.
We’re having a Jaguar kick in the Rare Rides series, and by that I mean two cars in a row from the leaping cat.
Though most everyone’s heard of the XJ220, fewer are likely aware of its predecessor: the XJR-15. It’s not slow, it isn’t cheap, and it’s not luxurious.
You want it!
Silver on the outside, and multi-shaded maroon on the inside, this Porsche 959 is the most expensive car we’ve featured in the Rare Rides series to date. What do you get for $1.25 million dollars, aside from service visits costing $100,000?
As you prepare to sell off your mixed security holdings, let’s find out.
Lamborghini has said it is more or less open to the idea of an all-electric car, though it definitely hasn’t considered it seriously. While parent company Volkswagen AG has made lofty promises of sweeping electrification and imposed its zero-emission mindset onto the majority of its automotive brands, the Italian supercar manufacturer is not yet among them.
However, Lamborghini has shown that it’s not immune to industry trends. Its almost-family-friendly Urus SUV begins production next month and the automaker has said it plans to launch a hybridized version by 2020. While you can’t ignore the LM002 that preceded it, that’s still a far cry from the pavement-scraping exotics it’s best known for. There has also been plenty of speculation that the company was developing a Porsche Mission E-based electric model called Vitola. Lamborghini dispelled those rumors and has since gone on to say that a battery-only car won’t be on the table before 2025 — and perhaps not even then. (Read More…)
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