Cars

2010 Dodge Viper ACR rebuildable

Dodge’s Viper has always been a crude car. Some say its the evolution of the American Muscle car, a two-seater V10-powered American built supercar. That being the case, the Viper ACR is the ultimate Viper, evolution and revolution. American Club Racing’s nearly homologization model focuses on maximizing performance for the weekend track members of road racing and auto-crossing environments, though the Viper ACR is still street legal. Horsepower from the V10 engine is increased over the regular street model to 600 All-American-HP and its 80 lbs. lighter when the “Hardcore Package” option is ticked.

Today’s eBay find is a 2009 Dodge Viper ACR with a slightly damaged front-end classified as “rebuildable.” Items needed to be replaced include both front fenders, the hood, both headlight buckets, most of the cooling system, left tail light (front end damage?) and some simple frame repairs. This green Viper ACR “lot drives” (but not for long with no cooling!) quite quickly with 600HP on tap and no headlights. For a Buy-It-Now price of $53,900 this Viper ACR from New York City and a claimed replacement value of over $100,000 this salvage-titled green monster sounds like a steal!

[wordbay]dodge (rebuildable, salvage)[/wordbay]

2011 Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera

The Lamborghini Gallardo has had no shortage of variants over its 8-year production life, it was introduced as the ‘affordable’ Lamborghini for the “new money” types. The Gallardo quickly proved a popular seller and 5 years after its introduction the first Superleggera was introduced as the track-day version of the popular sports car. For the 2007-08 model year, the first Gallardo Superleggera came standard with the base models E-gear automated-manual transmission, was lighter by 150 lbs and offered a 10 hp gain over the base model.

For 2011, the fine folks of Sant’Agata Bolognese have topped their (previously) top-of-the-line LP-560-4 by 10 hp “added lightness” by 158 lbs, besting the original Gallardo Superleggera. Surprisingly, according to those who reviewed it, ride quality has not been sacrificed. For the die-hard enthusiasts or those looking to track the Superleggera 570-4 can opt for the radio to be deleted. However, for comfort’s sake, air-conditioning and power windows remain standard and cannot be removed from the window-sticker.

Car and Driver (First Drive, Second Drive)
Inside Line (First Drive)
Automobile Magazine (Review)
Motor Trend (First Drive)
Popular Mechanics (Test Drive)
Road and Track (Review)

2010 Porsche 911 997 GT3 RS

Ah, the Porsche 911. Jeremy Clarkson, host of BBC’s Top Gear, once described the engineers and designers the laziest in the industry because they never actually restyled the car, only refreshed it. And why should they? For almost 50 years now the Porsche 911 has graced streets the world-over with its svelt rear-engined body. Emphasizing Jeremy’s point that the engineers are lazy they’ve “refreshed” the entire line-up with the Type 997.5 iteration halfway through the life cycle of the Type 997 body style, awaiting the Type 998 lineup in late 2011. The refresh took almost 2 years and is now complete with the release of the 997.5 GT3 RS.

The Porsche 911 GT3 is essentially the street-legal version of the 911 race car (originally for homological purposes) but quickly proved popular as sales figures show. Air conditioning, Sat/Nav, cruise control, and heated leather seats can all be had (actually, with the exception of Sat/Nav, they’re standard equipment) on this street-legal “race-car,” giving the driving enthusiast modern comforts and amenities without sacrificing much track performance. In fact, the suspension, gearing, ECU, some engine internals and a less aerodynamic body (producing more down force) are all that separates the GT3 from a “regular” 911.

The GT3 RS takes it one step furthur with some rather extreme weight reducing practices, taller gearing for a better bottom end and a slightly remapped ECU for better performance. For 2010, the GT3 RS receives a new 3.8L boxer flat-six producing close to 450HP (a 35HP increase over the outgoing 997 GT3 RS) and with a curb weight of just over 3,000 lbs the power-to-weight ratio works out to be close to 300HP/ton. Some examples of the extreme weight savings are a smaller fuel tank, the body emblems have been replaced with stickers and the wheel nuts have been replaced by a single titanium central-locking nut.

Today’s GT3 RS is the first one posted on eBay and is located nowhere else but in Beverly Hills, CA. Described by the seller as “barely street legal”  it comes in Carrera white with black alcantara and leather interior. Unique styling cues to the GT3 RS are the asymettrical GT3 RS badging (only on the port side of the car) and featuring (the signaturely random Porsche) seat belts in red. So if you’re looking for the ultimate streetable track-car, this car has just 16 miles on the clock and an opening bid of $170,000.

[wordbay](2010, 2011) 911 gt3[/wordbay]

BMW, Packard, Rolls-Royce, SAAB, and Spyker all have what in common? The Packard and Rolls-Royce clues should have given it away but if you haven’t guessed yet they all are car manufacturers who once worked in aviation. (Interestingly, Spyker recently publicized purchase of SAAB from GM maybe a signal to come back for Spyker and/or SAAB to their aeronautical roots?) Apart from some Spyker model names and various aesthetic pieces (mostly interior trim) nothing similar about Spyker planes and the C8 Laviolette LM85 we have today.

The wonderfully beautiful Spyker C8 Laviolette LM85 features Audi’s wonderfully sonourous 4.2L V8, found in various Audi’s but most notably in the 2008 Audi RS4, pressing out 400HP in Laviolette trim. But what sets the Laviolette apart from a “standard” Spyker C8 is the fixed roof and GT2 series inspired livery and there were only 24 built to honor the Spyker teams attempt at competing in the 24 hours of Le Mans in 2006 (the “85,” from LM85, was their car number).

Located in Houston, TX, today’ car is a #6 of those 24 cars with a claimed 3 miles on the odometer (wouldn’t that be something?). Apart from the Audi steering wheel, the bespoke interior has quilted leather and alcantara and brushed, billet, polished and turned aluminum and stainless throughout (part of the “Quilted Leather Package” and “Turned Aluminum Package” respectively). Bidding starts at $252,490 from expo_motorcars for this mint-condition piece of Spyker history.