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.)
Fashion is transitory, and often cyclical. What is fashionable now may seem laughable in twenty years time; by the same token, trends of the past can seem misguided or just plain wrong when viewed through a modern filter. (Look at the 1990s enthusiasm for fibreglass bodykits [or the early-noughties penchant for the bolt-on aluminium wing] when viewed alongside today's 'stanced' hipsters...)
It's one thing to rouse a four-digit power figure from a dramatic, imposing supercar. It's quite another to squeeze it into an unassuming and subtle shape, such as this 1982 BMW 316.
The purpose of concept cars is to showcase forthcoming design ideas, innovative technology and materials, and to offer something outlandish and jarring to shock the crowds at motor shows. Today that means carbotitanium tubs, Raptor-style digital displays and interiors woven from hessian and the hair of Vietnamese wolves. In 1925, it meant the Rolls-Royce 10EX.
The Nissan Laurel was designed to fill the 'mid-size luxury saloon/coupe' slot in the marque's line-up; larger than a Bluebird, smaller than a Cedric, with styling cues shamelessly cribbed from Detroit.
