Awesome Rides

The sporty new variant of the Elantra inherits the compact sedan’s great new design, but also gets 53 extra horses, with a 200hp 1.6L turbocharged engine, independent multi-link rear suspension, dual exhaust, a D-shaped steering wheel, sport seats, and more.

Carfection spoke with employees of both the original and the current DeLorean Motor Company about their founder, the car maker’s troubled and storied history, and their flawed yet futuristic creation.

Jay Leno visits the secret vault of “a small company” called Aston Martin to check out a prototype of its flagship GT, the DB 11. Then he takes it on an ever so tame test drive against stunt driver and former Stig Ben Collins and the new V12 Vantage S.

A futuristic bicycle that takes its inspiration from TRON’s lightcycles. It has hubless wheels, airless tires, a carbon fiber frame, integrated LED illumination, a wealth of sensors, and an optional electronic gearbox. And yes, the bike shown in the video is a real, working prototype.

“The best way to see a car is coming sideways through a chicane.” Petrolicious introduces us to William Medcalf, a Bentley boy through and through, from his childhood memories to his passion for racing and his career as a restorer and seller of vintage Bentleys.

ECCE bikes borrow from streamlined art deco style, built with modern methods. Its frame is made from carbon fiber, and has a custom fork, Shimano brakes and shifters, a Brooks leather saddle and grips. We love the cantilevered seat design. Also available in wood.

A road legal car that’s faster than a 2015 F1 car. That’s the AM-RB 001’s threat – er, promise. Its 100% carbon fiber body and wheels, and custom V12 give the car a 1bhp:1kg ratio, and a unique underbody helps generate massive downforce. Aston will produce just 124 cars.

The Sahara Force India Formula One team had their driver Nico Hülkenberg wear a Tobii head-mounted camera with eye-tracking sensors while practicing. The resulting video points out where Nico spends most of his time looking as well as his incredible focus and reflexes.

After winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans just one week earlier, driver Romain Dumas headed to Pikes Peak Colorado and flew through the course in just 8:51.445 in his Norma M20 RD Limited Spec racer. The footage is shaky as hell, but still completely amazing.

Bosch powers some of the best electric bikes with their integrated crank-based drive unit that offers a more natural and balanced feel than wheel-mounted motors. Assistive drive makes you feel like you have bionic legs with speeds up to 28 mph, and from 30 to 100mi range.

Jay Leno tries his hand at sidecar racing with the help of his shop foreman Bernard Juchu and Bernard’s trusty swinger Kevin Kautzky. If you ever wanted to poop in your pants in the most uncomfortable manner, try this sport.

Jeff Brock’s modded 1952 Buick Super Riviera aka Bombshell Betty. Designed specifically to break land speed records at Bonneville Speedway, it managed to hit over 165mph in 2013 before it was retired. What a car. What a lovely car.

An all-electric track day car, the Swiss-made eRod packs a 200hp equivalent electric motor and 258 lb-ft. of torque, while weighing in at just 1433 lb. When equipped with the available 39 kWh battery pack, range is 136 mi. We’d love to see these come stateside.

In 1947, a group of young men founded a hot rod club called the Oilers. In 2008, the club was revived as The Race of Gentlemen – a beach race and car show featuring early to mid 20th century American cars and motorcycles.

These amazing wheels allow a car to not only move in the typical directions, but to turn on a dime or move sideways. Their inventor says they’re driven using 24,000 pounds of torque directly on the tires, and are more precise and durable than prior omni-directional wheels.

The new Panamera gets a serious makeover from its previous gen’s ugly duckling looks. Not only does the car look like a proper Porsche, but it can go around the Nürburgring in 7:38 in its V8 twin-turbo variant, cranking out 550hp. Its clean, high-tech interior is stunning too.

We reconnected with pro racer Ryan Millen to take a ride inside his Toyota Rally RAV4. Incredibly, it’s mostly stock other than the tires, shocks, exhaust, and rollcage. We still can’t believe this front-wheel drive SUV with an automatic can go around a dirt track like this.

AMG takes its already amazing GT car and turns it into a green monster. Spending much of its development time on the Nürburgring, its 4.0L biturbo V8 now has 577hp, 516 lb-ft. of torque, and track-ready suspension and aerodynamics. We simply love those new side air vents.

Watch Mark Higgins’ record-smashing run around the 37-mile Isle of Man TT road course in his track spec 2016 Subaru WRX STI. He zipped around the deadly course in just 17m 35s at an average speed of 128.73mph, besting his own 2014 record by nearly 2m and 12 mph.

While it’s not exactly the most practical of conveyances, we’re still impressed with the engineering behind CARV’s walking bicycle, inspired by Theo Jansen’s amazing Strandbeest kinetic sculptures. We like to call it the Strandcycle. Build details here.

You’d think that a quadcopter would be no match for Godzilla, but its power-to-weight ratio lets Tornado XBlades Racing’s custom drone outaccelerate the GT-R off the line, doing 0-to-62 in just 1.3 seconds. Still, the GT-R tops out at almost twice the speed of the drone.

Back in the day, Jake Glazier had a beater of a car. So he did what any young enterprising person would do, and turned it over to Xzibit and West Coast Customs to upgrade his wheels. Jake recently released this hilariously condensed version of his episode.

Creating commercials for new cars can be challenging because the cars aren’t always yet in production. The Mill’s amazing contraption acts a stand-in for virtually any car, simulating its length, width, wheels, and driving dynamics. CG artists can then wrap it in any virtual body.