Michelotti Dolomite mkII

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The Triumph Dolomite will always have a special place in my heart. My parents had one (Sandglow Yellow, vinyl roof) when I was a kid, and I remember it being thoroughly exciting, even when I was four.
It's surprising that the model doesn't have more of an enthusiastic following today. Sure, it has its fans, but a Michelotti-styled, rear-wheel drive, British-built car with genuine sporting heritage should be pretty hot property, right? But no, for a lot of people it's mired in the quagmire of British Leyland's decline - something that many find too large a hurdle to overcome.
Perhaps if the mkII Dolomite had come into being, things might have been different. It's basically the same underneath, but the fresher face and TR6 tail-lights would have seemed rather modern for the 1980s, while the double-wishbone front suspension and Sprint-spec lower stance would have been a competent package. OK, it's basically just a facelift, but it's interesting nonetheless - BL commissioned Michelotti to revamp the Dolomite in the late seventies to gauge potential, but sadly it fell victim to the conglomerate's iffy finances. What could have been...


Pics from various sources, aggregated here.

SoCal GT40

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SuckSqueezeBangBlow spends a fair amount of time banging on about Enzo Ferrari's sixties nemesis, the Ford GT40. It was a car built out of pure spite, designed to teach the prissy Italians that passion and flair could be combatted with muscle and brute force, and it proved its point very effectively by winning the 24 Heures du Mans four times in a row.
The example you see here, oozing race provenance as all genuine '40s do, now lives out in southern California, occasionally surfacing at Cars & Coffee meets. You can see more photos here.

Group A Works Mercedes 190E

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Mercedes 190Es don't get a lot more kickass than this: a 2.3-16 Cosworth in works-prepared, Group A spec. Built by the official Mercedes France Snobeck Racing Team, this is an ex-Monte Carlo rally car featuring the 285 CV engine (with AMG throttle-bodies, carbon-fibre airbox & stainless steel exhaust) and Getrag gearbox. As you can see, it bristles with Kevlar buckets, Stack dash, hydraulic handbrake and everything else you'd expect of a fully-fledged rally car - full FIA 'cage, fuel cell, vast brakes, the works. And, brilliantly, if you removed the decals it'd look pretty much like a standard road car - from a distance, at least. A sensational period piece with true provenance, ready to race.
Click here and buy it, go on...

Silvera's Countach

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The Lamborghini Countach was on sale for a surprisingly long time - sixteen years in all - and it's easy to forget that the earlier examples were simple, elegant things. We tend to focus on the later cars, built toward the end of the production run in 1990, all muscular arch extensions and huge wings, but the original cars were lithe and delicate.
The Countach you see here, chassis number 1120056, was the 28th car off the production line, built to order for Ferruccio Lamborghini's Haitian friend Albert Silvera. Given the nature of the various custom touches the car received, it was finished by Bertone rather than Lamborghini themselves; particularly striking are the antelope suede dash, silver bumper and periscope rear-view mirror. The engine was breathed on to unleash an extra 60bhp or so, while the coachwork was finished in eye-watering Rosso Dino.
With its slender hips and signature Gandini arch line, it's a world apart from the brutality of the later QV or Anniversary models. You can read the full story here.

Java Green '67

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Patina: you can fake or force it, but it's better if you don't.
Courtesy of Slam Media, here we have a Dutch import '67 1300 Beetle in a beautifully old-school shade of Java Green. Having spent an overly long period abandoned in a British field, it was rescued by a compassionate soul and treated to a full mechanical overhaul; the entire floorpan was replaced, and every nut, bolt and component under the skin has been renewed. Engine, suspension, gearbox and brakes are now all top-notch, with a few choice upgrades to weave a little uniqueness in - narrowed front beam, dropped spindles, adjustable spring plates, and a very shiny set of US Radar wheels. The bodywork, however... that bears the wear and scars of all of its forty-five years. And it looks all the better for it.
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In the sixes & on the 'Bay

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Up for sale on everybody's favourite auction site is the world's fastest street-legal car: a '63 split-window Stingray with 2,600bhp.
Of course, 'world's fastest street-legal car' is a subjective concept, and one that's also claimed by the UK's Andy Frost with Red Victor 3; you can get bogged down in fiddly details over country-specific road regulations, competition regs and so forth, or just enjoy the fact that any car making such a claim is going to be a) usable on a day-to-day basis (to a degree), and b) really bloody fast.
You might have noticed that this Corvette has cup-holders within its beautifully detailed interior. But you probably first noticed the vast turbos poking out of the bonnet and the cartoonishly large rear tyres, or the Lenco gearbox with one shifter for each gear. As the licence plate suggests, this car runs in the sixes, and the full spec list is nothing short of staggering - click here to see. And if you've got $675,000 burning a hole in your Swiss bank account, you could have this astonishing machine sitting in your garage. (Careful, though - it might melt the garage doors off, and it'll probably eat your cat.)