Awesome Rides

One of those rare cases where a concept car goes into production almost unchanged, Aston’s awesome looking coachbuilt, carbon fiber Vanquish is heading to the garages of 99 of lucky (and wealthy) customers, complete with a 600hp 6.0L V12, and a 3.5s 0-to-60 time.

We spent a few days behind the wheel of Alfa Romeo’s out-of-this-world 2-seat droptop, a beast of a sports car in a tiny package. Its 1.7L turbo 4 makes 237 hp, launching the lightweight car to 60 mph in 4.1 seconds, and it sounds great doing it. Read our review on 95octane.

Celebrating 50 years since their GT40’s Le Mans victories, Ford Performance just took 1st, 3rd and 4th finishes in the LM GTE Pro class at the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans with their new GT. To celebrate, let’s ride along for a 360º lap of the famed circuit.

Automotive innovators Local Motors latest creation is an autonomous 12-passenger electric bus that’s designed to offer door-to-door rides, smartphone-based ride hailing and payment, and remote monitoring from a control center. Initial prototypes start road tests in DC soon.

We’ve already seen skiing on sand dunes, so why shouldn’t sand snowboarding be a thing. Snowboarder Wojtek “Gniazdo” Pawlusiak took to the desert to shred some slopes with a little help from rally driver Kuba Przygoński and his Dakar-outfitted MINI. Photos by Marcin Kin.

Jay Leno checks out Untitled Motorcycles’ barebones variant of Ducati’s entry-level bike. The UMC-038 has been stripped down to its bare essentials, along with a custom tank, seat, rear subframe, a Ducati Monster swingarm and a modded QD box exhaust. Test drive at 11:10.

Iron Pirate Garage turned the top-heavy Ducati Supersport 750 into a visually balanced post-apocalyptic bobber. The Kraken’s custom made rear subframe, tank, horizontal exhausts and more. The yellow stripe is a nice visual break and homage to the 750 Imola.

Currently available in Europe as the G500 4×4², this beastly off-roader is heading to the US in 2017. The $200K+ SUV has 17.2″ of ground clearance, 39″ fording depth, articulating axles,a 416 hp biturbo V8, and the sort of luxury interior we’d expect from Mercedes.

Pennzoil continues its series of awesome videos for gearheads, this time leaving the pavement behind and ripping up sand and crawling over rocks in extreme heat with a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. Bonus 360º video here.

Hagerty shares this time-lapse of an old Ford Flathead V8 engine being stripped down to its block, then painstakingly rebuilt to like-new by Thirlby Automotive with the help of Edelbrock. It’s amazing how good something this old can look with enough time and effort.

Petrolicious recently shot a great documentary about a race-winning Porsche 718 RS 60, and its driver Derek Bell. Now, they’ve posted what is possibly the best bit – a five minute reel of Bell driving the classic Porsche at speed that makes us feel like we’re riding in the car with him.

A very special edition of the already very special 675 hp sports coupe. This lightweight model from McLaren Special Operations gets 40% more of its body panels made from gloss-coated carbon fiber, and looks fantastic. Want one? Too bad. They’re already sold out.

Jay Leno shows off one of the more interesting cars in his cavernous garage – the Shotwell. Single-handedly built in 1931 by then 17-year-old Bob Shotwell, this three-wheeled vehicle had well over 150,000 mi on it before Jay had it restored. Test drive at 13:52.

Like the Ruckus, Lithium Cycles’ Super 73 is based on the style of kids’ mini-bikes from the ’70s. It has a low frame and a long cushioned seat, a 1000W motor, a removable battery, drink holder, 20″ wheels and disc brakes. It goes up to 27mph for 20mi per charge.

Jay Leno shows off his custom made replica of Mercedes-Benz’ one-off workhorse from 1950, a single vehicle Grand Prix race car transporter. Based on the 300 SL gullwing’s 6-cylinder engine, the unique vehicle could originally go up to 108mph.

In honor of #NationalDonutDay, Nissan decided to decorate some donuts in the best way possible, by using the tires of a Nissan 370Z NISMO to send the sprinkles flying through the air and onto more than 300 freshy-glazed donuts. Mmmm. Burnt rubber and fried dough.

Dirt Every Day made a four-wheel drive vehicle in the dumbest way possible. They welded together the front halves of a Range Rover and a Ford Ranger to create a 12-cylinder monster that can take on any terrain. Or not. Skip to 13:27 for the test drive.

Bentley updates its premiere sports coupe with a W12 engine than now makes a whopping 642hp and 619 lb-ft. of torque. Despite packing serious amounts of luxury – and the weight that comes with it, the car still launches like a rocketship, doing 0-to-60 in just 3.9 seconds.

(PG-13: Language) The hosts of Mighty Car Mods previously challenged each other to find a turbocharged manual car for $3000. In a classic case of less is more, they ended up doing the decent thing and freed one of the cars they bought from its gaudy trappings.

To celebrate 30 years of its vaunted M3, BMW is making 500 of this special 2016 M3 sports sedan. Based on the Competition package, its engine has been boosted to 450 hp, a sport-tuned adaptive suspension, exclusive Macao Blue metallic paint, and 30 year badging.

Jalopnik takes a look at three classic rally cars to illustrate the differences between automotive drivetrains, and how rally racing serves as a proving ground for tech in production vehicles. We don’t care if it’s only front-wheel drive – we want that SAAB 96.

Godzilla’s top-of-the-line edition gets the same visual updates as the base GT-R, but has more horses – 600 of them to be exact, along with a stiffened carbon fiber front bumper, downforce enhancements, NISMO-tuned shocks, Recaro leather sport seats, Alcantara trim, and more.

We recently got to speed around the famed Road America circuit in the new 2016 Dodge Viper ACR with pro driver Chris Winkler. Thanks to its amazing aerodynamics, grippy tires, and insane 645 hp 8.4L V10, this street-legal Viper can go around a track faster than any other.