Crazy Vehicle

BMW Designs A 42-Wheel, 19-Engine Car To Fulfill One Child's Fantasy the email by ELI uncle is  Last night my 4-year-old Jalop of a nephew Eli and I had a serious conversation about the car he wants to build. I know there are a lot of talented artists out there in the Jalopnik commentariat, and I would like to ask them all if they would consider drawing up their "Artist's Conception" of the car according to the carefully considered specifications he came up with. I would just love to give him a tangible expression of what his awesome imagination came up with. If anyone is particularly ambitious, I have access to a 3D printer so if someone puts together a solid .stl I could even print it for him (and a copy for whoever puts it together). So here are the specs he came up with, with surprisingly little input from myself: - It's a BMW - 42 wheels, and of course 42-wheel drive - It is powered by 19 Porsche engines, each producing 459 horsepower. I think they...

When the car was first featured at General Motors’ “Highways and Horizons” pavilion, it was a massive hit. Most people wouldn’t have seen Plexiglas before, so a transparent material with that many curves was almost unheard of.   Here you could look through the body of the car to see all its internal workings exposed. For aesthetic purposes all structural metal was given a copper wash, while the hardware and even the dashboard were covered in chrome. All the rubber elements in the car were made in white, including the tires. The final price for the car? In the days when a new Pontiac was just about $700, this beauty cost $25000 to build.  When this car was auctioned by  RM Auctions  in 2011, it went for just a little more than its original price. The one-of-a-kind car sold for $308,000. The Pontiac “Ghost” is equipped with a 2.2 liter six-cylinder engine, developing 85 horsepower and connected to a three-speed manual transmission. The transparent car is fitted with...

A private British  super vehicle  collector has the bike for the past 17 years, during which he has displayed it as a work of art in the drawing room of his opulence  home. Finally, he has now taken the decision to put his Ferrari 900 under the hammer. David Kay wrote to Enzo Ferrari’s son Piero, requesting to have permission to build a one-off motorbike sporting the famous Ferrari prancing horse logos, and in May 1990 Kay got the reply he wanted:  the approval to place the Ferrari logo on your motorbike.  It was finished in 1995. The bike, a  Ferrari 900,  which took Kay approximately 75 weeks  to complete, has a 900cc engine producing 105hp, and is capable of 0-60mph in less than 3 second with a top speed of  257kmph . It was built from scratch and features a  scratch built  900cc, transverse, double overhead camshaft, 4 cylinder, 8 valve unit with magnesium and alloy casings, driven through a 5-speed gearbox. The two double ...

10 years ago, Ferrari launched the FXX, an Enzo-based, track-only monstrosity that you couldn’t bring home to mother. No, literally, you couldn’t. Maranello retained custody of the unholy beasts, hauling them to events for owners to race against each other. Hailed as a pinnacle of Ferrari tech, of sorts—a crowdfunded R&D program, one might say—the XX program continued with a 599 variant. Ferrari has now unveiled the third car in the program’s history, the LaFerrari-based FXX K. €2.5 million (roughly $3 million) buys you the car and two years of Ferrari’s stewardship. It’s also perhaps the most mind-bending thing to roll out of Maranello since the F40 set us on our ears more than a quarter-century ago. We went to Abu Dhabi to see the latest, craziest horse prance around the Yas Marina Circuit. Here’s what we learned. Ferrari claims the FXX K laps its 1.862-mile Fiorano test circuit in 1 minute, 14 seconds. That’s five seconds quicker than a LaFerrari. We asked what a LaFerrari on ...

The 1968 Marcos Mantis XP looked quite out-of-place at its debut during the Spa 24 Hours race in Belgium.  Flanked by the curvy Fords, Porsches and Ferraris of the late 60s, this odd and angular beast represented the hopes of a British boutique manufacturer who was fighting for footing in the performance car market.  The Mantis XP failed the Spa race due to electrical problems, and has been shelved since then until its recent resurrection by a careful restoration in California.  The 1968 Marcos Mantis XP is truly one-of-a-kind, and its strange styling makes it one of the most visually striking automobiles we’ve seen in 2010  The late 1960s represented a special time in the world of automobiles.  This was the time of Ford GT40, the time of the Speed Racer saga, when a dual focus on futurism and muscle were prevalent in performance vehicles.  The Marcos Mantis XP fit this formula well, as its future-forward design and muscle-heavy heartbeat earned it...

Manufacturer                                  Royal Enfield Also called                                 Flying Flea Production                                 1939–1941 Predecessor                                 DKW RT100 Successor                                 RE125 Class                                         Military Engine                                        126 c...

The Lamborghini Egoista is a one-of-a-kind concept car... really. There's only one in the entire world. The car was unveiled for Lamborghini's 50th anniversary and its name—Egoista—literally translates to "selfish." This one-seater has a cockpit that's modeled after a modern fighter jet, and that steering wheel? It needs to be removed every time you enter and exit the vehicle. It's all made of carbon fiber, aluminum, and aeronautical-spec anti-radar material. Design chief Walter De Silva says, "It represents hedonism taken to the extreme. It is a car without compromises.” It costs in the millions to produce... But you'll never get to feel the adrenaline of driving this one-of-a-kind vehicle. It's currently housed in the Lamborghini Museum in Italy. Though if you do visit the museum to see the Egoista, you may just get a whiff of this 600 hp car. That alone may satisfy the motorhead in you!

The Lamborghini Sesto Elemento ("Sixth Element" in English) is a two-door, two-seater, V10 high-performance lightweight limited edition car produced by Italians', which debuted at the 2010 Paris Motor Show. The Sesto Elemento's name is a reference to the atomic number of carbon, in recognition of the car's extensive use of carbon fibre. The Sesto Elemento is equipped with a 6-speed semi-automatic transmission with paddle shift and all wheel drive system, he has    borrowed the same  5.2 litre V10 engine from his sibling  Gallardo  that can , generate 578 PS and 540 N·m of torque. The chassis, body, drive shaft and suspension components are made of carbon fiber, reducing the overall weight to a mere 999 kilograms, a weight comparable to subcompact cars such as a Honda Fit. It is the lightest car Lamborghini has ever produced.   Air is released through 10 distinctive hexagonal holes in the engine cover, while two intakes funnel cool air into the mid-mounted...