Author: ATH

Name: Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione
Debut: 2007
Engine: 4.7-Liter V8
Specs: 444 Horsepower / 354 pound-feet
Price: $301,600

Today we know Alfa Romeo as a mainstream, luxury manufacturer responsible for cars like the Giulia sedan and Stelvio crossover. But 13 years ago, the company returned to the U.S. following a notable 22-year absence with a stunning, limited-production coupe known as the 8C Competizione.

Worth The Wait

The first 8C debuted as a concept in 2003. But the final production model didn’t show up in Europe until 2007. Limited to just 500 units worldwide, the production 8C barely strayed from the concept that debuted four years prior. It still had the same shapely body lines, dramatic triangular grille, and rounded taillights. Only, the road-going 8C bore new wheels, updated Xenon headlights, and a rear-hinged hood.

Hiding under the rear-hinged hood was a Ferrari-sourced 4.7-liter V8 good for 444 horsepower (331 kilowatts) and 354 pound-feet (480 Newton-meters) of torque. With its standard six-speed transaxle gearbox, the 8C Competizione could sprint to 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour) in just 4.2 seconds, and on to an official top speed of 181 mph (292 kmh).

But there was one slight problem: the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione was exceptionally pricey. The coupe started at $301,600 in the U.S. when new. And it only offered two standard colors, red or black. Buyers interested in additional hues would have to pay extra. Notable celebrities like James Glickenhaus and New York Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes both owned one.

Top-Down Thrills

Following the success of the 8C coupe in 2007, Alfa Romeo released a convertible version just a year later. Like the coupe, the company limited production of the 8C Convertible to just 500 units – and just 35 made their way to the States. But unlike its hardtop sibling, the droptop 8C offered a slightly more reasonable price tag. The convertible sports car started at – wait for it – $299,000 in the U.S. Chump change, really.

Of course, the 8C Convertible used the same 4.7-liter V8 from the coupe good for 444 hp and 354 lb-ft. Only now with the removable roof, the car’s top speed dropped from 181 mph to 180 mph (289 kmh). A small price to pay for such a stunning droptop.

19 Photos

Name: Porsche 959
Debut: 1986
Engine: Twin-Turbo 2.8-Liter Inline-6
Specs: 444 Horsepower / 369 Pound-Feet
Price: $800,000+

Despite the misuse and abuse of the term supercar, some vehicles truly deserve the title. One of them is the Porsche 959, built between 1987 and 1993. Conceived and built as a World Rally Championship Group B racer, this masterpiece of 1980s technology was teased by the 1983 Porsche Gruppe B concept car shown that year in the Frankfurt Auto Show. Notwithstanding the use of the existing 911 platform and basic body, the concept was equipped with technologies that, 33 years ago, were regarded as automotive science fiction – things like adjustable height and variable all-wheel drive controlled by computer. 

1983 Porsche Gruppe B Concept

1983 Porsche Gruppe B Concept

Homologation to compete in the Group B, however, required production of 200 street legal units. This gave Porsche the perfect opportunity to create a true technological powerhouse on four wheels. 

The Porsche 959 arrived after a gruesome and long development process, but the result was well worth the wait. The car, considered the most technological advanced automobile of its day, was powered by a 2.8-liter twin-turbo six-cylinder engine that could generate 444 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque. Power was delivered to all four wheels through a special manual transmission with five forward speeds plus an extra all-terrain gear and of course, a reverse gear.

With an official top speed of 197 miles per hour (317 Km/h) the Porsche 959 was the fastest street legal car in the world when it arrived, excluding the U.S., where it was never approved for circulation in public roads. Its 0 to 60 mph (97 Km/h) time was 3.6 seconds, and the 959 ran the quarter mile in 11.8 seconds at 126 mph (202 Km/h). 

Porsche offered the 959 in two trim levels Sport and Komfort, being the latter the more road-oriented car while the former was the ultimate track machine of the duo. In 1988 Porsche also built 29 units of the 959 S, a version of the 959 Sport with modified turbo chargers that increased the power to 508 hp and top speed to 211 mph (339 Km/h), according to independent testing.  

Ironically, the 959 was never ready on time for Group B racing, which was cancelled for the 1986 season. But it still managed to have an illustrious motorsport career. During its development the 959 entered the Paris-Dakar Rally obtaining first, second and fifth places. Also, in 1986 the 959 entered in the 24 Hours of Le Mans winning its category and obtaining the 7th place over all. 

The road version of the 959 debuted in the Frankfurt Auto Show in 1985, and even though its production was supposed to begin in 1986, the first units didn’t emerge from the assembly line until the next year at a price of $255,000, which reportedly was about half of what Porsche spend building one of them.  At the end its run in 1988, Porsche built 337 cars, including all test units. But Porsche wasn’t done with the 959 yet, in 1993 the automaker built eight more units made of remaining inventory parts. These last 959s were sold at around $455,000 each.  

Name: New Stratos
Debut: 2010
Engine: Twin-Turbo 4.3-Liter V8
Specs: 540 Horsepower / 383 Pound-Feet
Price: $800,000+

Introduced in 1973, we all know the Lancia Stratos as one of the winningest World Rally Championship cars of all time. By taking home WRC trophies in 1974, 1975, and 1976, the Bertone-designed coupe cemented itself as one of the best cars to ever do it on dirt and an icon among enthusiasts. Production of the road-going Stratos, though, lasted just five years. And the FCA-owned Lancia brand hasn’t looked back on the project since.

But in 2010, rally fan and German billionaire Michael Stoschek helped fund a startup project known as “New Stratos.” An homage to the original, this New Stratos promised a modern, production-ready take on the iconic rally car… but not without a few roadblocks in-between.

From The Beginning

The first prototype of the New Stratos debuted in 2010. But with an F430 Scuderia as its base and a look penned by Pininfarina, Ferrari wasn’t all too keen on the idea. The Italian powerhouse brand shut down production of the New Stratos temporarily, citing intellectual property concerns.

But after nearly eight years of back and forth between the two brands, and not to mention plenty of additional engineering in the meantime, Manifattura Automobili Torino (MAT) and its backers announced a limited run of the New Stratos for production. The car officially went on sale in 2018.

The Nitty Gritty

Still using a heavily modified Ferrari F430 Scuderia as its base, the New Stratos lobs 7.9 inches (200 millimeters) off of the Ferrari’s wheelbase, as well as sheds a few hundred pounds in the process thanks to a lightweight steel frame. Underhood of the New Stratos is a modified version Ferrari’s 4.3-liter V8, here good for 540 horsepower (403 kilowatts) and 383 pound-feet (519 Newton-meters) of torque. Some customers can even get a 600-hp (447 kW) option.

But even with its base powertrain, the New Stratos sprints to 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour) in just 3.3 seconds, and to 124 mph (200 kmh) in 9.7 seconds. The car’s top speed on the street is limited to 170 mph (270 kmh). All that power comes paired to a six-speed dual-clutch transmission.

Pricey Proposition

In 2017, the company New Stratos GbR gave Manifattura Automobili Torino (MAT) of Italy the rights to produce the New Stratos. That same company builds James Glickenhaus’s SCG003C supercar. But customers interested in taking home the New Stratos won’t get it for cheap. The cost of the New Stratos is $618,000… Ferrari 430 Scuderia not included.

Name: Mazda Furai
Debut: 2008 Detroit Auto Show
Engine: Three-Rotor Wankel
Specs: 450 Horsepower / 278 Pound-Feet

In the mid to late 2000s, Mazda proved it wasn’t giving up on the rotary engine yet. The company still found success in the RX-8 sports car, a sort of not-so-direct successor to the beloved RX-7. And in 2008, Mazda debuted a jaw-dropping, Wankel-powered concept at the Detroit Auto Show known as the Furai, meaning “Sound of the Wind.”

Race Ready

Mazda never intended to build a production version of the Furia. The company created it as a race car from the start, destined to compete in the American Le Mans series. The Furia wore outrageous red and silver aero work and the number “55” as a nod to the Le Mans-winning 787B. But a few issues kept the project from ever reaching the track.

The Furia used a complicated tri-rotary Wankel engine. The engine, essentially a modified version of the 20B found on previous road-going Mazdas, ran on E100 ethanol fuel. The Furai was fully functional, sure – the company tested it on various tracks, including Laguna Seca and Buttonwillow. But the car ended up acting as a rolling testbed for things like future design and aerodynamic testing, rather than racing. And then the accident happened…

Death By Furai

In 2008, soon after the debut of the Furai in Detroit, the company handed over the keys of its beloved prototype to test drivers at Top Gear. During a photo session at Bentwaters Park Air Force base in the U.K., driver Mark Ticehurst noticed smoke from the engine bay. Ticehurst escaped unscathed, thankfully, but the entirety of the Furai went up in flames in a matter of minutes before crews could extinguish it.

After learning of the incident, Mazda brought the charred remains of the concept back to its Advanced Design Studio in Irvine, California where the company created it, but never went back to the project again. In a 2013 interview with Road & Track, then senior designer, Carlos Salaff, had this to say about the accident:

“It was sad for me. I poured my heart and soul into that car. When you pour your heart and soul into something, it becomes your baby. And then I saw it destroyed like that and it really hurt. It hurt.”

Name: Kode 0
Debut: 2017
Engine: 6.5-Liter V12
Specs: 690 Horsepower / 507 pound-feet
Price: $1,500,000+

Before we talk about the car, we first have to talk about the man behind the car: Ken Okuyama. If that name sounds familiar, Okuyma is a career automotive design pro who spent much of his career at Pininfarina. He’s credited in helping create vehicles like the original Acura NSX, Ferrari 599 GTB, Ferrari Enzo, Maserati Birdcage 75th Concept, and even the fourth-generation Chevrolet Camaro. Yes, that Camaro. 

But in 2006, Ken Okuyama left Pininfarina. And after a quick stint starting his own eyewear collection (dubbed Ken Okuyama Eyes collection), he created his first self-titled concept car: the K.O 7 Spider. He debuted the slinky, open-top two-seater in Geneva in 2008, kickstarting a lineage of impressive concepts and one-offs, including the one pictured here.

Code To Success

The Kode 0 debuted at Pebble Beach in 2017. The fixed-roof successor to the equally stunning Kode57 Enji uses “dream car proportions” from classics like the the Lancia Stratos Zero in its design. Okuyama implemented a “one motion” technique to create the Kode0’s svelte profile. But aggressive details like the edgy front splitter, sharp LED headlights, triangular-shaped exhaust, and 21-inch wheels embody a stark contrast to the otherwise streamlined silhouette.

Hiding under that sleek contour is a 6.5-liter V12 good for 690 horsepower (515 kilowatts) and 507 pound-feet (690 Newton-meters) of torque. With it, the Kode0 sprints to 62 miles per hour (0-100 kilometers per hour) in just 2.9 seconds. The Kode 0 also weighs in at just 3,417 pounds (1,550 kilograms), making it much lighter than the vehicle on which it’s based (4,085 pounds / 1,852 kilograms).

One And Done

The Kode 0 was a hit at Pebble Beach. And it got even more attention visiting Jay Leno’s Garage just a few months later; the video has garnered nearly 1.2 million views on YouTube. But Okuyama never intended to produce the Kode 0 on a mass scale. The lone Pebble Beach example cost its owner $1.5 million atop the cost of a donor car (about $400,000), and surprisingly, hit the classifieds soon after in 2018 with just 1,368 miles (2,201 kilometers) on the odometer. Though its retailer never revealed the final selling price, our best guess is that it went for more well over one million dollars considering the original allocation cost. It is an Okuyama design, after all.

Name: Acura NSX (US) / Honda NSX (rest of the world)
Debut: 1989 Chicago Auto Show
Engine: 3.0-Liter V6
Specs: 270 Horsepower / 210 Pound-Feet
Price: $60,000 ($110,000 in 2019)

By the mid 1980s Honda, already the owner of a fine pedigree in motorcycle racing, was making a name for itself as a supplier of F1 engines and wanted some of that magic in its showrooms. The mid-engine 1984 Honda HP-X concept car designed by Pininfarina was its first effort to that end, but it wasn’t until the arrival of the Honda NSX in 1990, that the company fulfilled its wishes. 

Meanwhile in the United States, the Japanese manufactures had already made clear that they were not a temporary fad. Honda and Toyota were kings among them, with their economy sedans Accord and Camry climbing fast through the best sellers’ ranks. There were still plenty of lucrative spaces to explore, like premium automobiles and pickup trucks. Honda, Nissan and Toyota decided simultaneously to address the former first, establishing each their own luxury channel. Honda`s Acura was the first to arrive in 1986, followed by Lexus and Infiniti, from Toyota and Nissan respectively, in 1989.  

Honda saw Acura as the ideal channel to distribute their new supercar in America. The mid-engine NSX, considered a legitimate competitor of Porsches and Ferraris, would have felt out of place in a showroom full of Civics and Accords, and thus the decision was made to rename the car Acura NSX for the American public. 

The NSX was powered by a 3.0-liter VTEC V6, capable of 270 horsepower and 210 lbs.-ft of torque, placed behind its only two seats. The power was transferred to the rear wheels by a 6-speed manual gear box. The development of its chassis and suspension was heavily influenced by the input given by Ayrton Senna, who had won the F1 drivers world championship in 1988 on McLaren cars powered by Honda, and would also win the title in 1990 and 1991 for the same team, before his untimely death in 1994 on board of a non-Honda product. The NSX owners would also enjoy the benefits of revolutionary safety technologies like ABS brakes and traction control, which would make them feel and appear better drivers that they would have a legitimate right to claim to be. 

Although the NSX was shown to the world for the first time in the Chicago Auto Show in February 1989, its sales started first in Japan in January of 1990, and wouldn’t being in America until November that year. The car was well received by the public and specialized media alike. Road & Track recorded a 0 to 60 miles per hour sprint of 5.7 seconds, reaching the quarter mile in 14 seconds, prompting them to say that the Acura NSX “deserves a place in the stratospheric performance league of sports/GT cars.” They weren’t kidding, with also 270 hp on tap, the Ferrari 328 GTB that Honda benchmarked for the NSX development, ran from 0 to 60 mph only two tenth of a second faster. 

The 1990 Acura NSX in the 1989 Chicago Auto Show

Members of the automotive press corps looking for the engine in the wrong end of the Acura NSX.

The NSX was an outstanding beauty. Harmoniously flowing lines enhanced its low profile rising toward its rear into a magnificent built in spoiler, that would not only keep the car firmly planted in the pavement, but also made sure that none of the drivers left behind would confuse it for anything else. Hidden pop-up headlight gave it a very European stance, while side vents kept the brakes, engine and looks super cool. 

Honda gave the NSX a Targa top in 1995 and upgraded the engine with a 3.2-liter VTEC V6 good for 290 hp and 294 lb.-ft of torque in 1997. 2002 brought about a significant facelift that made all NSXs sold in America targa models and replaced the pop-up headlights with open bi-xenon units, that sacrificed some if the flair of the original design in the altar of pedestrian safety and better road illumination. 

The first-generation Acura NSX bowed after the 2005 model year, and wasn’t replaced until 2016, when the much-awaited new generation of the supercar finally arrived. But that’s a supercar for another Sunday. 

26 Photos

The ‘Ford V Ferrari’ motion picture is almost here. We all know that the movie centers on the people behind Ford Total Performance, as well as how and why it became one of the most historic wins in automotive history. However, there is more to know about the actual car that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time – for Ford and for America itself.

In a video produced by Motorius (embedded above), watch a brief look back at the history behind the 1966 Ford GT40 Mk. II, particularly Chassis P/1046, and its journey after its historic win at the Le Mans.

It was in 1966 when Ford had a feud with Ferrari after a failed attempt to buy the Italian racing empire. With a team consisting of Carroll Shelby, Ken Miles, Bruce Mclaren, and Chris Amon, Ford Total Performance was born and its lovechild was the Ford GT40 Mk. II. 

Entered by Shelby-American, the Ford GT40 Mk. II Chassis P/1046 entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans and was piloted by ‘Kiwis’ Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon. Together, the team won the race for the first time and Chassis P/1046 was retired from the race shortly after.

Chassis P/1046 was passed through multiple owners who restored the vehicle, but the most notable was when it was bought by Rob Kauffman, owner of RK Motors, in 2014. After an extensive 4,000+ hours of restoration with Rare Drive in New Hampshire, the original winning GT40 was restored back to its race-ready state.

The restored GT40 Chassis P/1046 was in attendance in 2016 Le Mans when Ford won the title again. It also made a red-carpet appearance together with the stars of ‘Ford v Ferrari’, celebrating the iconic race car’s glory.

Name: Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale
Debut: September 1967; Monza, Italy
Engine: 2.0-Liter V8
Specs: 227 Horsepower / 152 Pound-Feet
Price: $17,000 ($118,000 In 2019)

At some point in the mid 1960s, Alfa Romeo decided to pack all the might of their glorious (although eventually unsuccessful) new racer, the 1966 Alfa Romeo Tipo 33, into a car that should be street legal and relatively comfortable to drive in the autostrada. The result was the 1967 Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale, a gorgeous two seater that is regarded today as the first modern supercars and one of the most beautiful designs of all time.

Race Car For The Road

Italians use the word stradale to signify a ‘street legal’ car, and technically this was the case for the 33 Stradale. But you wouldn’t guess it at first sight. Its powerful bodywork, designed by Franco Scaglione, looked as ready to race as the car it was based on. However, looking it upclose there are details that reveal the 33 Stradale’s more civilized purpose. 

Among its many distinctions, the 33 Stradale was the first production car to use butterfly doors, which opened upwards with its hinges located on the A Pillar. From the beltline upwards the doors were all glass and curved into the roof of the vehicle creating a T-Top of sorts, very much like its contemporary GT40, but with the top panels being all glass.

The Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale is smaller than what its stylized silhouette suggest, with a total length of 156.3 inches, a wheelbase of 92.5 inches, and an impossibly low total height of 39.0 inches. Its cabin was sumptuous for a 1967 sports car, with leather everywhere and polished metal handles and switchgear. The bolstered seats are very low as Alfa Romeo didn’t want the open portion of the doors hitting the passengers head as they closed down.

Behind those seats, sits a 2.0-liter displacement V8 producing 227 horsepower (169 kilowatts) and 152 pound-feet (206 Newton-meters) of torque send to the rear wheels through a six-speed transaxle by Colotti.

Rare And Unique

The 18 units produced differ from one another, not because yearly updates, but because as their bodies were handmade by Carrozzeria Marazzi, decisions were made in order to improve the car and its tedious production process. This is the reason why we can find cars with either one of two windshield wipers, or with different mountings for the windshield. The first two prototypes built had a dual headlight configuration that wasn’t compliant with the light height requirements for street legal cars, for which Scaglione had to redo the lights design with single headlight configuration that while looking great didn’t look as good as the first two cars.

Five 33 Stradales were made into concept cars by the top three Italian coachbuilders, resulting in Italdesign’s Alfa Romeo Iguana designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, Pininfarina’s 1968 Alfa Romeo P33 Roadster, 1969 Alfa Romeo 33.2 Coupe Speciale, and 1971 Alfa Romeo Cuneo (built in the same chassis as the P33 Roadster), and Bertone’s 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo and 1976 Alfa Romeo Navajo.

The most sharp-eyed among you have probably realized the great influence that the 33 Stradale had on the design of the Alfa Romeo 4C. However, the realities of production of the 21st century automobile as well as today’s the safety regulations and requirements make designs such as the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale completely impossible.