#wiesmann for the Mondays
Thing of beauty that Wiesmann gt mf5
Wiesmann MF5 for #caseofmondays
FERRARI PHANTASIA
Looking at press images of the new ‘La Ferrari’ hypercar, we couldn’t help but notice the resemblance to the 250P5/6 Pinin/Ferrari concept from way back in 1968.
We’ve said before how the period of the late sixties and early seventies were so ridiculously groundbreaking in terms of car design – but now we can really see how the strides that were taken around 45 years ago in the Carrozzeria of northern Italy really were building up a supply of outlandish future truths.
The tech is ludicrously honed, but the format V12 in the rear and scissor/gullwing doors, with a plethora of scoops, wings, louvres and intakes – is the same as was dreamt up back in those psychedelic days.
Apparently this body was, however, developed in-house at Ferrari and was woven into the race programme and tempered by the engineering department too.
Good design last decades; and now the tech has caught up with the dreams of designers, of the summer of love and beyond.
HONDA NSX: THE FIRST TIME
You never forget your first time.
Since my first drive in a Honda NSX 15 years ago I’ve driven maybe half a dozen others: earlier 3.0-litre cars; the raw, empty, fabulous NSX-R; the post-2002 cars that lost the pop-up lights.
But that week in an early 3.2, black with the manual ‘box and the targa-top, will remain one of my seminal motoring experiences.
I remember every detail.
I remember the excitement every time I walked up to it, keys in hand, knowing this thing was mine to get into and drive. I remember the proper supercar looks; the pop-up lamps, the waist-high roofline, the wedgy, cab-forward stance and that lovely line where the tail sinks under the subtle spoiler.
But it didn’t scare like a supercar: Honda forgot to make it a pain in the ass to drive in town, or snappy and unpredictable at the limit or in the wet like other mid-engined supercars of the era, and particularly Ferraris.
Instead the visibility was great and the drivetrain about as challenging to drive smoothly as a Civic’s at town speeds.
It wouldn’t make you look stupid trying to park or nurse it through traffic. But when you were alone on an empty road: oh, dear Lord, it was just electrifying as it howled towards that 8000rpm redline, every gearchange snapping home with machined, oiled precision despite the forces at work, and your brain a little freer to enjoy it all because you knew that the car was working with you, and that if you made a slight misjudgement and had to back off mid-bend it wouldn’t throw you off.
And even though this wasn’t my car, there was a satisfaction in knowing that unlike its rivals, there was probably no limit to the number of times you could nail that redline: it felt as reliable and unburstable as a Civic too, and you never feared a shower of sparks from the back end and a pricey engine rebuild. Which makes a used one all the more appealing.
[via influx.co.uk]
JAGUAR XJR-15
The Jaguar XJR-15 was the world’s first fully carbon-fibre road car.
Conceived by Jaguar’s sporting division in collaboration with Tom Walkinshaw Racing, the production of the car was seen as a way to get a fully specced endurance racer into the hungry market for very wealthy revheads. Only 53 were made between 1990 and 1992, each selling for close to a million US dollars.
True exotica
Mechanically they were close to the Le Mans-winning Jaguar XJR-9, with a 450 HP V12 engine, and the bodies were styled by Peter Stevens – who later went on create the brutalist lines of the McLaren F1.
The Jaguar XJR-15 is one of those supercars destined for climate-conditioned hangers, out of the prying eyes of the great unwashed and the tax man – but thanks to the web we can enjoy its uncompromising purposefulness from a distance.
We wonder how much they would go for now.
The mind bogles
[Via influx magazine]
AUDI R8R LMP PROTOTYPE
If you’re the sort of person for whom the very words Le Mans makes you break out in a fantastic motorsport inspired sweat, then you’ll probably enjoy these images of a very special car.
It’s basically the 1998 design study upon which Audi’s unbelievably successful aspirations of success in the 24hrs was based.
Like all prototypes, it does, unfortunately, look even more beautiful and purely rendered than the cars that actually came to dominate in the first years of this century – but we think you’ll agree this ‘prototype of a prototype’ is worth savouring for its rakish lines alone.
This beauty also teases out the very real relationship between endurance racing success and that of Audi’s road cars – not just in the R8 supercars that are becoming almost as ubiquitous as 911s in certain postcodes – but in the more accessible everyman vehicles that rakishly ply our British byways.
Further justification, if it were needed, of the importance of a racing programme within an illustrious motor works…
DEL PORTO ROADSTER
BARE WHEELED BEAUTY
images Chris Sutton
Coming from a place where bare wheeled cars can still be driven on the road without fear of prosecution, we’re currently in love with the Del Porto Roadster.
This slick, black beauty was originally designed in 1951 as a racer on the Salt Lakes. In fact it apparently set a record there of 155MPH – and at the drag strip was clocked crossing the top end at a terminal velocity of 118 MPH. It was a star on the rod scene back then, made magazine covers and scored props at top shows too.
you have to be open-minded you have to she might find the guy at
In 2010, having been wrecked in 1953 and sitting in storage for over 50 years, it went through a 3000 hour restoration at Classic Craft Motorsports in Springfield, Ohio.
The car is powered by a 265 cubic inch Flathead V-8 Engine with four Stromberg carbs and there’s a competition 3-speed gearbox that deals with about 220 BHP.
The thing we’re loving the most is the attention to detail about the resto. You can feel the clunk of metal and the smell of leather from these very beautifully rendered images from photographer Chris Sutton.
There’s a real sense of drama and passion encoded in these sorts of machines. They come from a time when mechanical ingenuity was a passionate obsession – an enthusiasm that bled out and infected the world through the aesthetic of rock’n’roll. You won’t find one as clean and beautiful as this anywhere.
Loving it.
[via influx magazine]
You must be logged in to post a comment.