The Toyota Celica has been dead in America since the 2005 model year, but it looks like it’s time for a comeback! MotorTrend is now calling the expected car a 2028 Toyota Celica, and Car and Driver is expecting it no earlier than the 2028 model year. Toyota hasn’t officially announced a launch date, but at this point the return looks like more than just internet rumor.

Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda started publicly stirring the pot back in 2023, telling Toyota Times that the Celica was a car he would like to have again. Things took a serious turn at Rally Japan in November 2024, with Toyota Vice President Yuki Nakajima telling an interviewer, “We’re doing the Celica!” Toyota Times documented the exchange, making the closest thing to an official confirmation we’re going to get until some kind of official announcement.

Reporting from Autocar suggest the eighth-generation car is referred to as the Celica Sport. They expect it to use a front-mounted turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder combined with some form of hybrid system and, fingers crossed, all-wheel drive.

But, there are still plenty of unknowns. Toyota hasn’t teased the production car, announced drivetrain, pricing, or a transmission for that matter. But we’re well beyond enthusiast wishful thinking. It’s clear Toyota executives are talking about the Celica, the engine appears to exist, AWD and hybrid development are being reported by multiple outlets, and Toyota is suddenly spending a lot of time reminding everyone about the Celica’s rally history.

The Celica sure looks like it’s coming back. Now we have to hope Toyota builds the one we want.

But for me, the Oxia is on another level. And there’s also something deeply inspiring about a sensible company that can occasionally lose its mind.

Peugeot, after all, spent the 1980s making precisely the kinds of automobiles you expected Peugeot to make in the 1980s. Hatchbacks. Sedans. Practical family cars. Some were excellent, some were memorable, and a few were quite entertaining, but nobody wandered into a Peugeot showroom expecting to find a French alternative to a Ferrari F40.

Then, in 1988, Peugeot built the Oxia.

It had a mid-mounted twin-turbocharged V6 producing roughly 670 horsepower, a six-speed manual transmission, four-wheel drive, four-wheel steering, limited-slip differentials at both ends, carbon fiber and Kevlar bodywork, an aluminum structure, magnesium wheels and an electronically adjustable rear spoiler.

And it supposedly reached 217 mph.

This wasn’t a sketch, a clay model or one of those concept cars that needed to be pushed onto the motor-show stand by six embarrassed men wearing Peugeot jackets. The Oxia worked. Two were built. One was taken to the Nardo test track, where Michelin test driver Jean-Philippe Vittecocq reportedly reached approximately 217 mph.

One wonders what sort of meeting takes place inside a company when 186 mph is regarded as the cautious number.

A Peugeot From Another Planet?

The name was appropriate.

Oxia came from Oxia Palus, a region of Mars, and the car really did possess the slightly unsettling quality of an object that had arrived from outer space.

Its shape was recognizably late Eighties, all low nose, steeply raked glass and broad surfaces, but it avoided much of the decorative crap that dates some concept cars. The proportions did most of the work. It was very wide, very low and tightly wrapped around its mechanical components, with the wheels pushed toward the corners and a great sweep of glass occupying much of the upper body.

There was still a Peugeot face at the front, although it looked as though somebody had grafted the family identity onto a machine that had already decided it wanted nothing to do with the family business.

And that tension is part of what makes the Oxia interesting, fascinating even.

It was unmistakably an exotic car, yet it was created by people accustomed to designing Peugeots.

Exotic car manufacturers are expected to behave, well, exotically. Ferrari putting a large engine behind two seats is rather like a bakery producing bread. Porsche engineering some implausibly complicated system to make a car travel faster is simply Porsche being Porsche.

Peugeot doing it is different. The Oxia demonstrated what could happen when the engineering resources of a large mainstream manufacturer were directed toward a problem with almost no requirement for common sense.

The results were extraordinary.

At its center sat the familiar PRV V6, the engine jointly associated with Peugeot, Renault and Volvo and used in forms ranging from luxury cars to decidedly less glamorous machinery. In ordinary service it wasn’t the sort of engine around which high school boys tended to hang bedroom posters.

The V6 was enlarged to roughly 2.8 liters, fitted with 24 valves and subjected to twin turbocharging until output reached somewhere around 670 to 680 horsepower, depending upon the source.

That figure deserves context. The Ferrari F40, introduced only a year earlier, produced 478 horsepower. Porsche’s technologically formidable 959? About 450.

Horsepower figures alone don’t establish superiority, and comparing a prototype to fully developed production cars might not be fair, but the numbers reveal the seriousness of Peugeot’s intent. The Oxia wasn’t designed merely to look as though it could compete with the great supercars of the period. Its engineers had apparently decided it ought to be able to frighten them.

Power went through a six-speed manual gearbox to all four wheels. There were limited-slip differentials front and rear. The rear wheels steered as well as the fronts. Double-wishbone suspension was employed, and enormous Michelin tires attempted to translate all of this French enthusiasm into useful motion.

The body combined carbon fiber and Kevlar over a lightweight aluminum structure at a time when such materials still sounded properly exotic. Depending upon the figure accepted, the complete car weighed somewhere around 3,000 pounds.

The Future, According to 1988

The performance figures are what make the Oxia famous, but the interior may be what makes it charming.

Remember the year.

This was 1988! A mobile telephone was still impressive enough to announce one’s arrival before one had actually entered the restaurant. Compact discs were relatively novel. Satellite navigation belonged considerably more to the imagination than to the average dashboard.

The Oxia had a telephone. It had a computer with a color display. It had an early navigation system that reportedly used a floppy disk.

And beneath the windshield sat 18 photovoltaic cells that collected enough energy to keep air circulating through the cabin while the engine was switched off.

Not everything inside was similarly extraterrestrial. Some of the instrumentation retained a distinctly ordinary Peugeot quality, which is perhaps even better. There is something delightful about building a car capable of more than 200 mph, filling it with computer technology and then including switches and gauges that remind you that somewhere in the building there was still a parts department. That mixture of the extraordinary and the familiar is fundamental to the Oxia.

Modern manufacturers frequently demonstrate technological ambition by producing an electric concept with a featureless interior, three acres of touchscreen and doors that open in a manner incompatible with most parking spaces.

The Oxia belonged to another philosophy of the future.

Its technology was complicated, but its purpose was easy to understand. Make the engine more powerful. Make the chassis lighter. Give the tires more help. Drive all four wheels. Steer all four wheels. Use advanced materials.

Then see how fast the thing will go.

Even its more futuristic equipment did not replace the business of driving. The driver still had a steering wheel, pedals and a six-speed manual gearbox. Technology was used to extend the automobile rather than replace the driver.

That makes the Oxia seem strangely modern and old-fashioned at the same time.

Yet Peugeot’s enthusiasm did not emerge from nowhere. The company had already produced the extraordinary Quasar concept in 1984, and its competition programs gave its engineers considerable experience with extremely fast machinery. Sources also draw connections between the Oxia and Peugeot’s developing Group C sports-car work.

One should be careful not to turn resemblance into genealogy. The Oxia was not simply a racing car with license plates, nor was it created as a homologation special.

The Oxia carried the intellectual fingerprints of people who had been spending considerable time thinking about what happened to automobiles at velocities normally associated with light airplanes.

And this is where the car becomes more interesting than its specification sheet.

Concept cars are supposedly opportunities for manufacturers to explore ideas. Yet many concepts explore ideas only cosmetically. They present an exaggerated grille, an impossible interior or a new arrangement of headlights, after which the production version appears two years later looking suspiciously like everything else in the parking lot.

The Oxia explored engineering. Peugeot built the idea far enough to discover whether it actually worked. And that required considerably more commitment than drawing it.

The Supercar Peugeot Did Not Build

It is tempting to treat the Oxia as a great missed opportunity. Had Peugeot put it into production, the argument goes, it might have joined the Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959 among the defining supercars of its era and later competed with machines such as the Jaguar XJ220 and Bugatti EB110.

Perhaps.

But production would have required solving a very different set of problems.

A prototype need only prove that something can be done. A production automobile must prove that it can be done repeatedly, legally, profitably and by customers who possess neither a test track nor Peugeot engineers living in their garage.

The Oxia’s enormous power, unusual structure, complicated four-wheel-drive system, rear steering and advanced electronics would all have become rather more troublesome once warranties, crash regulations, emissions requirements, dealer servicing and manufacturing tolerances entered the conversation.

Then there was Peugeot itself.

Selling a Peugeot at supercar money would have required buyers to ignore one of the most powerful forces in the automobile business: the badge on the nose. (Didn’t Volkswagen try that?)

A Ferrari buyer was purchasing far more than horsepower. So was a Porsche buyer. Peugeot could match their engineering figures more easily than it could manufacture their mythology.

Production has a habit of forcing wonderful ideas to become responsible adults.

The Oxia never had to grow up.

The Oxia was created by a manufacturer whose ordinary business depended upon restraint, cost control, repeatability and practicality. Yet somewhere inside Peugeot there remained enough curiosity to ask what might happen if those restrictions were temporarily removed.

The answer was not a styling exercise. It was a 217-mph automobile.

That is why the Oxia deserves to be remembered. Automotive history needs those moments.

I will confess at the outset that the Bitter SC is one of my favorite cars. And it has been for many years. Not because I believe it to be the finest grand tourer of its age, nor because its mechanical specifications can be arranged into a convincing gearhead argument. It is a favorite because it represents a nearly extinct form of automotive ambition: the personal car conceived by one determined man, and produced in quantities too small to trouble either the history books or the accountants.

My love here is often difficult to explain to anyone who has never seen one.

Tell them it is based on an Opel Senator and some of the magic immediately evaporates. Tell them it resembles a Ferrari 400 and they may conclude that it is merely a copy; or even, God forbid, a kit car! Explain that its body was made in Italy, that assembly eventually took place in Austria, that its automatic transmission came from General Motors, and that a handful were once sold through Buick dealers, and the whole story begins to sound less like an automobile and more like a European trade negotiation that somehow need to appease some Commie number crunchers.

And yet the Bitter SC is coherent. More coherent, in many respects, than cars born beneath the enormous roofs of established elite manufacturers. It possesses the mystique that comes from having one man at the center of it, a man who knew precisely what sort of car he wanted to drive and was stubborn enough to build it when nobody else did. Or would.

Erich Bitter had raced, tuned cars, sold racing equipment, and imported exotic Italian machinery into Germany. Experience with those endeavors appears to have taught him two enduring lessons. The first was that Italian designers understood desire. The second was that desire could be severely tested by workmanship, electrical systems, corrosion, and the availability of replacement parts.

I imagine he wanted the glamor, without the pretense.

His first answer was the Bitter CD, a low, graceful fastback built on shortened Opel Diplomat underpinnings and powered by Chevy’s 327-cubic-inch V8. Its origins lay in an Opel design exercise that General Motors had declined to produce, reportedly out of concern that such a car could trespass too close to the Corvette’s carefully guarded territory. Bitter took the abandoned idea, refined it, and persuaded Baur of Stuttgart to manufacture it.

The result looked like the offspring of an Iso Grifo and a Maserati Ghibli raised in an orderly German household. It was muscular, beautifully finished, and serviceable through Opel’s considerable European dealer network. At the 1973 Frankfurt Motor Show, Bitter reportedly collected 176 orders.

This was excellent timing in every respect except the one governed by geopolitics.

The oil crisis arrived almost immediately, bringing with it long lines, higher fuel prices, and a sudden absence of enthusiasm for large American V8 engines. Most of the orders disappeared. Bitter nevertheless continued, building 395 CDs before the Diplomat platform itself vanished in 1979.

Three hundred and ninety-five cars would be a rounding error to a major manufacturer. For a small company selling an expensive, hand-finished German grand tourer during an energy crisis, it was an act of survival.

The CD established Bitter’s method. He would not design an engine, gearbox, suspension, and electrical system from first principles. That way lay bankruptcy, unreliability, or both. Instead, he would begin with thoroughly developed Opel machinery and clothe it in a body capable of stirring emotions that no standard Opel could ever do.

When the Diplomat disappeared, the new Opel Senator became the foundation for Bitter’s next car. Thus the SC, meaning Senator Coupé, although the abbreviation possessed a pleasingly exotic ambiguity that the full translation spoiled.

The first coupe was shown in 1979, but production cars didn’t reach customers until 1981. The styling has always invited comparison with the Ferrari 365 GT4 2+2 and its later 400 and 412 descendants. This is neither unfair nor especially damaging. Both cars share the same aristocratic geometry: a long hood, low nose, large greenhouse, formal roof, and a tail drawn with a ruler rather than modeled by the wind.

But where the Ferrari looks dramatic even when standing still, the Bitter is more reserved. Its proportions don’t announce themselves. They reveal themselves. The flanks are clean, the roof is thin, the pillars are remarkably delicate by modern standards, and the body has none of the false vents, tortured creases, black plastic ornaments, or oversized grills by which contemporary designers attempt to communicate excitement to people sitting in traffic.

The SC does not demand admiration. It merely assumes that the informed observer will eventually provide it.

Bitter made the initial sketches, while Giovanni Michelotti and Opel’s designers helped bring order and manufacturability to the idea. The shape has aged well because it was never desperately fashionable. It was modern in 1979 without being enslaved to 1979.

Underneath was considerably more Opel than many owners might have wished to mention at dinner. The SC used the Senator’s floor structure, firewall, suspension components, and fuel-injected straight-six. This was not a compromise forced upon Bitter after the design was completed. It was the point of the entire undertaking.

A mass-produced executive car from Opel offered robust mechanical engineering, parts availability, and a level of development that a tiny manufacturer could never afford to duplicate. Bitter’s contribution was not to replace what already worked. It was to elevate it. And elevate it he did.

The original 3.0-liter six produced approximately 180 horsepower. This was adequate in the strict sense that it caused the car to move whenever the gas pedal was pressed, but an automobile with Ferrari-adjacent styling and a considerable price ought to offer more than adequacy. The SC was a heavy, luxurious coupe, and 180 horsepower gave it the performance of an underpowered sporting saloon wearing a much more expensive suit.

Bitter knew it.

A V8 had been considered. The 2.5-liter unit from the Lamborghini Urraco was tested, as was a Holden V8, but cost, emissions, fuel consumption, and practicality defeated both. Turbocharging the Opel six raised concerns about heat. The most civilized answer was displacement.

Opel specialist Mantzel lengthened the stroke dramatically, increasing capacity to 3.9 liters. Power rose to around 210 horsepower in European form, although federalized American cars were rated at around 200. More significant was the increase in torque. The larger engine gave the SC the low-speed authority it had always deserved.

It didn’t turn the car into a supercar. A 3.9-liter SC still required roughly eight or nine seconds to reach 60 mph, depending on gearbox, specification, and the optimism of the driver. Even in its day, that was tolerable rather than startling.

But grand tourers shouldn’t be understood solely through acceleration figures.

Most SC buyers chose the three-speed Turbo Hydra-Matic automatic, although a five-speed manual was available. That preference tells us something about the car and the people who bought it. They were not seeking the most intimate possible relationship with every ratio. They wanted to travel quickly, comfortably, and with dignity.

The Opel six delivered its power smoothly. The automatic changed gears without interruption. The steering was relatively heavy, working through recirculating-ball hardware rather than the quick rack-and-pinion arrangement one might expect in a smaller sporting car. The tires had proper sidewalls. The suspension permitted noticeable body movement.

To the modern driver, conditioned to equate stiffness with ability and immediate response with quality, the SC may initially seem unsatisfactory. It rolls. It takes a moment to settle. A corner is not dispatched with one clean movement of the wrists. One turns, observes, and makes the small correction invited by the chassis.

But this isn’t necessarily a defect.

There is a difference between a car that is imprecise and one that is progressive. The Bitter communicates its intentions gradually. Its suspension was designed with generous travel, allowing it to absorb imperfect roads without surrendering control. The steering required effort but returned information. The car moved as a whole rather than attempting to conceal its mass behind aggressive dampers and electronic intervention.

You can imagine it on a fast two-lane road, the straight-six murmuring, the body leaning gently into a long bend, adding a fraction more steering as the tires accept the road.

The SC was a car for going somewhere. In style.

Its interior reinforced the point. The seats were broad and more like carefully upholstered furniture than the narrow buckets now fitted to cars whose owners have no intention of visiting a circuit. Leather covered the dashboard, center console, glovebox, and surfaces normally surrendered to plastic. Even decades later, surviving interiors often retain an atmosphere of restrained extravagance, not to mention the patina.

There were eccentricities, which I happen to love.

The seats were manually adjusted because Bitter believed the car would have one principal driver who would set the position once and thereafter leave it alone. The heating and ventilation controls were divided on either side of the steering wheel. The passenger door had a power-lock control, while the driver’s door relied upon the key.

This wasn’t ergonomic development as practiced by a multinational company. It was one man arranging a car according to his own logic. Such logic can be inconvenient, but it is rarely anonymous.

The rear seats were also more useful than those found in many contemporary 2+2 coupes. The SC wasn’t merely a sports car stretched until luggage and occasional passengers could be squeezed inside. It was conceived from the beginning as luxurious transport for adults, albeit adults willing to negotiate among themselves about legroom.

Manufacturing the car proved more way more troublesome than imagining it.

Baur had built the CD, but by the time the SC was ready, the company was occupied with other work, including the BMW M1. Bitter looked elsewhere. Lamborghini was considered too unstable, Bertone too expensive, and so body production eventually went to OCRA near Turin.

This did not go well.

The early bodies were reportedly made from poor recycled steel and inadequately protected. Corrosion began appearing with alarming speed, thereby combining Italian-style beauty with a very traditional Italian-car ownership concern. After approximately 79 examples, depending upon the account, Bitter transferred the work to Maggiora.

As production increased, assembly moved to Steyr-Daimler-Puch in Graz. Finished cars still returned to Bitter’s headquarters in Schwelm for inspection and testing. The route from raw steel to completed automobile was neither simple nor cheap, but simplicity and economy are not qualities often associated with hand-built grand tourers.

The United States added another layer of improbability.

In 1984, Bitter arranged to sell the SC through selected Buick dealers. General Motors hoped a sophisticated European coupe could help recover buyers being drawn toward BMW. Importing Opel-branded cars was considered less attractive because Opel lacked the necessary prestige in the American market.

This produced the unusual sight of Bitter signage appearing beside Buick showrooms, mainly around New York. One could arrive intending to inspect a Riviera and discover, a few steps away, a hand-finished German coupe assembled in Austria from Italian bodywork and powered by an enlarged Opel engine.

America has hosted stranger automotive experiments, but not many.

The federalized 1984 cars suffered from emissions equipment that reduced performance and generated excessive heat. Components reportedly melted beneath the hood. For 1985, Porsche helped develop a more satisfactory arrangement using an oxygen sensor and catalytic converter.

There is something delightful about Porsche being called upon to help make an Opel-powered, Italian-bodied boutique grand tourer legal for sale through American Buick dealerships. It’s difficult to imagine a modern corporate planning department allowing such a story to occur.

Bitter also offered other versions of the SC. A convertible appeared, elegant and exceptionally rare. Only around two dozen were built. A four-door model followed, its wheelbase stretched and roof raised to create a luxury saloon intended to challenge the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, Jaguar XJ, and Maserati Quattroporte. Just five were made.

There was even a four-wheel-drive system developed by Ferguson Research (Jensen Interceptor ring a bell?), although only a handful of equipped cars emerged.

Each variation was appealing. None was likely to improve the company’s finances.

By 1986, Bitter had entered receivership and meaningful SC production had ended. Depending upon the source and counting method, roughly 450 to 488 coupes were built. The differences between those figures matter to registrars and historians, but not to me. Whichever total you accept, there were very few to be found.

It is tempting to call the car a failure because so few were sold and the business ultimately faltered. This is the accounting interpretation of history, and accountants are entitled to it.

But cars aren’t remembered through balance sheets alone.

The Bitter SC succeeded in creating a distinct kind of automobile. It offered Italian visual drama without an Italian engine, German reliability without German austerity, and luxury without the pompousness of a Mercedes-Benz. It was exotic without becoming theatrical or dramatic.

The Ferrari 400 possessed a V12 and a more celebrated name. The Porsche 928 was faster and far more sophisticated. The BMW 6 Series enjoyed greater recognition and support. Mercedes-Benz built its coupes with a depth of engineering and manufacturing resources Bitter could only dream of.

The SC remains desirable precisely because it wasn’t the obvious choice.

Its owner had knowingly rejected the establishment. He had selected a car that required explanation, and there is a particular pleasure in owning something that can’t be summarized by its badge.

Today, it seems like a crap shoot. Rust can become a serious and expensive problem, particularly on early cars. Bitter-specific glass, trim, and body panels are extremely difficult to find. A neglected example will no doubt consume far more money than its eventual value will ever justify.

But financial justification is a dreary standard by which to judge the preservation of fascinating cars.

The fact is, Erich Bitter didn’t build the car after consulting market research about customer expectations. He built the automobile he believed ought to exist. It was refined without being conventional, glamorous without being pretentious, and sporting enough without becoming exhausting.

The Bitter SC is not great because it overcame its Opel foundations. It is great because it understood the value of them. Bitter knew that reliability, ride quality, serviceability, and mechanical familiarity weren’t enemies of exoticism. They were what allowed exoticism to become usable.

That was his real achievement.

He took the dependable skeleton of an Opel Senator, covered it with one of the most elegant bodies of the era, filled it with leather, tuned it for distance, and gave it his name.

For that, I admire him greatly.

Ferrari has revealed the Luce, its first fully electric production car and one of the most consequential departures in the company’s modern history. It is a four-door, five-seat Ferrari built on a dedicated electric platform, powered by four electric motors, one for each wheel.

The company says the Luce produces 1,050 cv, reaches 0–100 km/h in 2.5 seconds, 0–200 km/h in 6.8 seconds, and exceeds 310 km/h, or roughly 190 mph. It uses a 122 kWh battery, an 800-volt electrical architecture, and offers a claimed range of more than 530 km, or about 330 miles.

It is also not cheap, even by Ferrari standards. The reported starting price is roughly €550,000 in Italy, or about $640,000.

But does any of this matter?

Well, the Luce matters because Ferrari has chosen the hardest possible way to enter the electric age: Ferrari has made something strange and revealing: a glass-heavy, five-seat, four-motor electric machine that asks whether the essential Ferrari experience can survive without the thing most people think defines it, the engine.

That’s the wholly uncomfortable brilliance of the Luce. It attacks Ferrari’s own mythology.

For decades, Maranello has traded not only on speed, but on combustion as theater: induction, revs, exhaust, heat, vibration, the slight sense that expensive machinery is conducting a private argument just behind the firewall. The Luce has none of that in the old sense. So Ferrari has had to answer a brutal question: what remains when the noise is no longer there to do the emotional heavy lifting?

The answer, at least on paper, is control. Four motors. Four-wheel steering. Active suspension. Torque vectoring. Regenerative braking calibrated as a driving tool. A sound system that does not fake a V12, but amplifies the natural mechanical vibration of the electric axles.

That is the real story. The Luce is not Ferrari surrendering to the EV market. It is Ferrari trying to civilize electricity without letting it become anonymous.

On paper, the Luce should be absurdly quick. That part is easy. Plenty of electric cars can now launch like they have been fired from a railgun. The more interesting question is whether it can make speed feel earned.

Ferrari appears to understand the danger. The great flaw of many performance EVs is not that they are slow, but that they are too simple. Press pedal. Receive violence. Repeat until the novelty wears off.

The Luce tries to restore some authorship to the driver. Its Torque Shift Engagement system uses steering-wheel paddles not to simulate gears, but to let the driver choose levels of available torque and regenerative braking. That may sound like software theater, but it is potentially important. A great driver’s car is not merely one that obeys; it is one that asks for decisions.

The right paddle increases available torque. The left paddle adjusts energy recovery and deceleration. In theory, that gives the driver a way to shape corner entry and exit, rather than simply managing a giant on/off switch disguised as an accelerator.

If Ferrari gets this right, the Luce could feel less like an EV with a Ferrari badge and more like a new dialect of Ferrari. Not Italian opera, perhaps. More like a Stradivarius plugged into an amplifier: still string, still vibration, still intent; but altered.

The open question is weight. At a claimed 2,260 kg, the Luce is not light. Ferrari says its low center of gravity, lower yaw inertia compared with the Purosangue, active systems, and torque control help make it feel more agile than the number suggests. That may be true. Modern chassis systems can perform witchcraft. But physics is not dead; it has merely hired a software engineer.

For buyers, the real test will be whether the Luce feels alive at 45 mph, not merely astonishing at 145.

The Market Context

The timing is a bit awkward.

The broader EV market has cooled, especially in the United States. Several luxury and performance brands have slowed their electric ambitions. Porsche has had to wrestle with softer demand for electric sports cars. Lamborghini and McLaren have been cautious about whether their customers are truly ready for battery-only exotica. (I am not, and never will be.)

Ferrari, meanwhile, has gone ahead and built a $640,000 electric object with glass everywhere, five seats, Jony Ive design involvement, and no internal combustion engine.

That sounds mad until you remember Ferrari’s business model. Ferrari does not need to win a mass-market EV war. It needs to make a small number of very wealthy people believe that this car belongs in the same emotional universe as the rest of their collection.

The harder question is secondhand value.

Ferrari’s mythology is built on permanence. The company often notes that the vast majority of its cars are still on the road. But EV technology ages differently from combustion hardware. Batteries, software, displays, charging standards, and electronics can date a car faster than leather, aluminum, and a naturally aspirated V12 ever did.

Ferrari knows this, which is why its long-term support for the Luce’s battery and electronics may prove nearly as important as its acceleration figures. If a Ferrari is supposed to be “forever,” then an electric Ferrari must be engineered not only to perform, but to age with dignity.

That may be the true luxury challenge here.

The Ferrari Luce is exciting, but not in the same way a new mid-engine Ferrari is exciting.

It’s not the car you buy because you want the purest expression of Maranello noise and mechanical fury. It is the car you consider because Ferrari has decided to stop pretending the electric future can be ignored.

There is plenty to be skeptical about. The weight is enormous. The design will divide people. The price is mountainous. The glass-heavy aesthetic could age brilliantly or badly.

In the end, the Luce may not be the Ferrari traditionalists asked for. But it may be the one Ferrari needed to build first: not a replacement for combustion, but a declaration that electric performance does not have to mean emotional sterilization.

Time will tell. The Luce is Ferrari asking whether electricity can have a soul. Sadly, that answer won’t be found in a spec sheet.

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Ferrari’s latest one-off is a privately commissioned roadster from the company’s Special Projects program, based on the F8 Spider and revealed at Ferrari Racing Days at Circuit of the Americas in Texas. Underneath its newly sculpted bodywork sits familiar hardware: the F8 Spider’s mid-mounted, non-hybrid, twin-turbocharged 3.9-liter V8, producing about 710 horsepower and sending power to the rear wheels through a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. Ferrari claims the HC25 will reach 62 mph in 2.9 seconds, with the broader performance envelope essentially unchanged from the donor car.

The HC25 is not a new series-production Ferrari. It is a one-off, which means it belongs to the very small universe of customers who can ask Maranello not merely for a car, but for a personal interpretation of Ferrari itself.

The platform is the F8 Spider, the last open-top, mid-engined Ferrari powered by a non-hybrid V8. The body, however, is entirely reimagined. Ferrari’s Design Studio, led by Flavio Manzoni, worked with the client over roughly two years to create a car that bridges the F8 era with the current Ferrari design language seen on cars like the F80 and 12Cilindri.

That bridge is the point. The HC25 is old wine in a new glass.

And the HC25 matters because it freezes a disappearing Ferrari formula at exactly the moment the brand is moving away from it.

The standard F8 Spider already occupies an interesting place in Ferrari history. It was the closing chapter for the mid-engined, non-hybrid V8 Spider before the 296 brought electrification into the heart of Ferrari’s junior supercar line. The HC25 takes that mechanical ending and gives it a future-facing body. It is not nostalgic in the obvious sense. There are no retro vents, no1960s gestures, no “remember when” costume drama.

Instead, Ferrari has done something more interesting: it has dressed the last of one era in the language of the next.

That makes the HC25 less a tribute car than a transitional object. It says the V8 past still has emotional power, but Ferrari’s design future is sharper, cleaner, flatter, and less openly mechanical in appearance. The car is significant precisely because it is not a production model. It shows what one extremely well-funded enthusiast wanted preserved: not just speed, but a particular kind of Ferrari sensation before hybrid assistance became part of the recipe.

On paper, the HC25 should drive very much like an F8 Spider, which is hardly a criticism. The F8 was already violently fast, light on its feet, and theatrically responsive for a turbocharged car. The engine is not naturally aspirated opera in the old Ferrari tradition, but it is still a proper internal-combustion centerpiece: immediate, hard-charging, and mounted close enough to make the car feel alive behind your shoulders.

That restraint matters. In an age when every supercar seems desperate to add motors, modes, screens, active systems, and launch-control theater, this one-off keeps the F8’s essential mechanical character intact. The likely compromise is also obvious: this is more design statement than dynamic reinvention.

The HC25 exists above the normal market, but it still tells us something about the market.

For collectors, non-hybrid Ferraris are becoming more emotionally charged. The move toward hybrid systems and eventual electric models may improve performance, but it also changes the story owners tell themselves. A 296 GTB may be quicker, cleverer, and more efficient. But for a certain buyer, the F8 Spider represents the last clean line before the hybrid chapter fully arrived.

The HC25 is exciting, but not because it is faster. It is exciting because it shows a customer using Ferrari’s most exclusive machinery to preserve a kind of purity the regular product line has already moved beyond.

That does not make the HC25 better than a 296, or more important than the F80, or more beautiful than the 12Cilindri. But it does make it fascinating. It is a car built from a moment of tension: between combustion and electrification, old Ferrari sensuality and new Ferrari geometry, private indulgence and public design signal.

The result is a little strange, very expensive, and deeply Ferrari. Which is to say, it is exactly the sort of machine that makes no practical sense and still manages to feel necessary.

Of course, the HC25 is not the future of Ferrari, but it is a beautifully tailored reminder of what Ferrari is leaving behind.

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The F80, a limited-production hybrid supercar that sits among the company’s highest bloodlines: the lineage of the 288 GTO, F40, F50, Enzo, and LaFerrari.

Only 799 examples will be built. The headline figure is suitably theatrical: 1,200 hp from a hybrid system built around a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6, three electric motors, all-wheel drive, active aerodynamics, active suspension, and a carbon-fiber-intensive structure. According to Ferrari’s launch announcement, the F80 is the most powerful road car the company has ever produced.

On paper, the numbers are nearly absurd:

• 1,200 hp total system output

• 900 hp from the V6 alone

• 0–100 km/h in 2.15 seconds

• 0–200 km/h in 5.75 seconds

• 350 km/h top speed

• 1,000 kg of downforce at 250 km/h

• 1,525 kg dry weight

• 8-speed dual-clutch gearbox

• No full-electric driving mode

This is not a plug-in hybrid trying to look virtuous. It is a racing-derived performance system wearing number plates.

And It Matters

The F80 matters because it shows where Ferrari believes the ultimate road car goes next: not backward into nostalgia, and NOT fully forward into silence!

For years, the romantic Ferrari formula was fairly simple: engine, noise, shape, danger, beauty. The F80 keeps the danger and the theater, but the formula has become more complex. It borrows from Formula 1 and the 499P Le Mans prototype, uses a V6 hybrid architecture, and treats electricity not as an environmental apology, but as a high-tech performance weapon.

That is the great distinction here. The F80 is not electrified to make Ferrari seem responsible. It is electrified to make the car faster, sharper, and more controllable. And better.

The open question is whether that makes it more exciting.

Because for enthusiasts, this is where modern Ferrari now lives: between romance and computation. The F80 appears to be a car where software, energy recovery, active suspension, torque vectoring, aero management, and electric boost all conspire to make the driver feel heroic. One can only imagine.

Up to Speed

The F80 promises something different from the old Ferrari supercar myth.

The F40 was raw. The F50 was strange and operatic. The Enzo was brutal. LaFerrari felt like the first great hybrid Ferrari thunderclap. The F80, by contrast, appears to be more like a road-legal Formula 1 car with manners.

The claimed performance is savage, but the more interesting promise is usability. Ferrari says the F80 was engineered to deliver track-level performance while remaining manageable on the road. That is always the impossible sentence with hypercars. They must be terrifying enough to justify the poster, yet civil enough to survive a Sunday breakfast run.

The “1+” cockpit is one of the more revealing details. Yes, the F80 technically seats two, but the cabin is clearly built around the driver. The passenger is accommodated, not celebrated. That tells you what sort of car this wants to be. It is not a grand tourer. It is not a luxury object with horsepower. It is a machine designed to make the person behind the wheel feel like the center of a very expensive storm. The devil said Ferrari couldn’t handle the storm in the modern era. The F80 whispered back and said, “I am the storm!”

The absence of a full-electric mode is also telling. Ferrari could have added one. It chose not to. That decision gives the F80 a clearer mission: this is not a quiet city car for Monaco hotel ramps. This is a combustion car using electricity as ammunition.

The Design and Engineering Notes

The F80’s engineering story is dense, but the essential points are clear.

At its core is a 120-degree 3.0-liter V6 producing 900 hp, supported by two electric motors on the front axle and one at the rear. The front motors give the car electric all-wheel drive and torque vectoring. The rear motor assists the combustion engine and recovers energy.

The V6 is the controversial part, at least emotionally. A V12 would have been the old-money choice. A V8 would have been easier to romanticize. But Ferrari is making a motorsport argument: today’s racing technology points toward compact, turbocharged, hybridized six-cylinder engines. The F80 follows that path.

The car also introduces electric turbo technology for Ferrari road cars, using electric motors in the turbochargers to improve response. Translation: Ferrari wants the big-power benefits of turbocharging without the old waiting period between throttle and consequence.

Aerodynamics dominate the car’s shape. There is an active rear wing, a large diffuser, an S-Duct, a front triplane wing, a flat underbody, and active suspension designed to keep the aero working properly. The claimed 1,000 kg of downforce at 250 km/h is not decorative engineering. It suggests a car whose body is less styled than weaponized.

The interior may be the most encouraging detail for real drivers: Ferrari has brought back physical buttons on the steering wheel after criticism of its more touch-sensitive interfaces. That is a small but important admission. In a car this fast, the driver should not need to negotiate with a glossy surface to operate basic controls.

The Market Context

The F80 enters a world where the hypercar has become almost impossibly crowded at the top and strangely confused everywhere else.

Its natural rivals are not ordinary supercars. They are machines like the McLaren W1, Mercedes-AMG One, Aston Martin Valkyrie, Porsche 918 Spyder’s spiritual successors, and whatever Lamborghini does next in the hybrid era. These cars are no longer just about horsepower. They are national technology projects, brand manifestos, and collectible financial instruments disguised as automobiles.

That is why the car leans so heavily into racing credibility. The Le Mans connection matters. The F1-derived hybrid thinking matters. The carbon tub, active aero, active suspension, and track optimization systems matter. Ferrari is not just selling speed. It is selling legitimacy.

And, frankly, exclusivity. With only 799 examples, the F80 will likely be effectively unavailable to anyone not already deep inside Ferrari’s client universe. For most enthusiasts, this will be a car to study, argue about, watch, and maybe see once at a concours lawn or behind a velvet rope.

The Everyday Driven Take

The F80 is exciting, but not in the simple way an F40 is exciting.

Maybe it isn’t the purist expression of Ferrari passion, but it’s the most technologically intense one. That distinction matters.

The romance here is not just in the engine note or the shape of the haunches. It is in the engineering obsession: the tiny battery built for power rather than range, the aero surfaces constantly adjusting the car’s attitude, the V6 pushed to a level that would once have sounded fictional, and the cockpit arranged as though the passenger were an optional witness.

There is also a note of caution. Modern hypercars risk becoming so competent, so software-managed, and so numerically outrageous that the driver becomes less pilot than authorized user. The F80’s greatest challenge will not be acceleration. It will be sensation. Does it feel alive? Does it breathe through the wheel, pedals, and seat? Or does it merely calculate magnificently?

For buyers, the real test will be whether the F80 delivers not just speed, but memory.

Closing Line

The Ferrari F80 is not a love letter to the past; it is Maranello’s answer to a difficult future, written in carbon fiber, electricity, downforce, and just enough combustion fury to keep the old religion alive.

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This blog post comes from my day job, but it’s cars, so I figured a few Everyday Driven readers might find it interesting:

According to Ryan Felton’s reporting in The Wall Street Journal, China’s automakers may be largely absent from U.S. roads, but Chinese-owned suppliers are already woven into America’s vehicle supply chain.

The Big Picture

Washington is debating how to keep Chinese vehicles and safety components out of the U.S. market, but the harder problem is already inside the system: American cars often depend on Chinese-linked parts, suppliers, capital, or manufacturing capacity.

Where Things Stand

• More than 60 U.S.-based auto suppliers are owned by companies headquartered in China.

• Chinese firms also hold ownership interests across thousands of American supplier businesses, including smaller minority stakes.

• These suppliers touch critical vehicle categories, including glass, airbags, steering systems, transmissions, batteries, and other components.

The Policy Push

• U.S. lawmakers have renewed efforts to restrict Chinese-made cars and safety-related vehicle parts.

• A group of House Republicans has urged the Trump administration to prevent Chinese automotive and battery firms from building manufacturing operations in the U.S.

• The concern is not just trade competition; it is industrial dependence, supply-chain leverage, and national-security exposure.

The Industry Reality

• Some automakers publicly support restrictions on Chinese vehicles.

• Yet many vehicles sold in the U.S. already include Chinese-sourced parts.

• Examples cited include components in Ford, Toyota, GM, and Chevrolet models.

• Tesla and GM have both taken steps to reduce reliance on Chinese-made parts in U.S.-built vehicles.

A Deeper Look

• Chinese suppliers have moved rapidly up the global auto-supply ladder.

• In 2012, only one Chinese firm ranked among the world’s top 100 auto suppliers.

• By 2024, that number had risen to 13, with further growth expected.

• Industry consultants now describe Chinese suppliers not as low-cost outsiders, but as serious competitors winning major business.

Looking Ahead

• The U.S. can try to block Chinese-branded cars at the border.

• But removing Chinese-linked parts from American vehicles would be much harder.

• Carmakers would need to rebuild supplier relationships, shift production, absorb higher costs, and manage potential shortages.

The bottom line: The fight over Chinese cars is really a fight over the hidden architecture of the auto industry. And China is already inside the machine.

Supply chain risk: Supply-chain power is quiet power: if critical parts, materials, or subcomponents flow through Chinese-owned or China-linked suppliers, U.S. automakers face hidden exposure to political pressure, export controls, quality disruptions, cyber risk, forced sourcing changes, or even sudden production stoppages. The risk is not whether China may sell cars in America; it is that America’s cars are already depend on Chinese-controlled nodes buried deep inside the manufacturing chain.

About the Author

Pete Weishaupt is the co-founder of Weishaupt Strategic Group, LLC, an AI-native corporate intelligence and investigation firm. He brings more than three decades of U.S. Intelligence Community experience in collection, analysis, and operations to complex private-sector matters. WSG advises executives, boards, and investors on due diligence, transaction intelligence, and risk analysis. Learn more at weishaupt.ai

Project Nightingale is the latter.

With this new Coachbuild Collection, Rolls-Royce has something that feels less like a product launch and more like aristocratic confidence: a vast, open two-seat electric grand tourer, shaped by Streamline Moderne, haunted by the marque’s 1920s experimental cars, and aimed squarely at the kind of client for whom “limited production” is the entire point of buying one.

Only 100 will be made. Access is by invitation. Deliveries begin in 2028.

Named after Le Rossignol, the house near Henry Royce’s winter home on the Côte d’Azur where designers and engineers once flocked, Project Nightingale is the opening chapter in a new Coachbuild Collection story. Rolls-Royce calls it a production concept, which in practice means the vision is already nearly complete, but a few details still require manufacturing methods that do not yet quite exist. A small inconvenience. But the company seems intent on solving it.

Not a convertible. A statement.

Project Nightingale is almost exactly the length of a Phantom, which tells you nearly everything you need to know about Rolls-Royce’s priorities. This is not a neat little roadster or some dainty Riviera toy. It is a full-scale motor car, devoted entirely to two people and their sense of occasion.

The proportions are gloriously excessive. Long hood. Tight cabin. Sweeping rear deck. The kind of silhouette that suggests speed, ceremony, and inherited money, all in equal measure.

Underneath sits Rolls-Royce’s aluminum Architecture of Luxury spaceframe and a fully electric drivetrain, a choice that is doing more here than merely keeping regulators happy. Electric propulsion is central to the car’s whole character. Without the cooling demands of a combustion engine, the designers were freed to create huge, uninterrupted surfaces across the front of the car. Without exhaust, the rear could be sculpted with extraordinary cleanliness. And without engine noise, open-top motoring becomes something close to serenity.

Rolls-Royce is not pitching Project Nightingale as some loud, extroverted hyper-EV for hedge fund adolescents. It is selling silence, poise, and presence. Or rather, silence, poise, and presence for people wealthy enough to be bored by everything else. Perhaps the only thing you’ll hear at 60 miles per hour is the ticking of the clock.

The ghosts of 16EX and 17EX

The design inspiration comes partly from Streamline Moderne, that late Art Deco discipline in which clean volume and controlled surfaces matter more than ornament. But Nightingale is also looking further back, to the company’s experimental “EX” cars of the late 1920s.

Those cars, especially 16EX and 17EX, were built at the height of the Jazz Age and wore lightweight aluminum bodies over powerful Phantom chassis in pursuit of greater speed. They were torpedo-shaped, ambitious, and a bit outrageous. Exactly the sort of thing a serious car company does when it wants to prove it still has a pulse.

Rolls-Royce has borrowed three key ideas from them.

First: upright to flowing: the formal verticality of the Pantheon grill melting into a long, tapering rear.

Second: central fuselage: one unbroken visual line running from front to back, like the hull of a yacht.

Third: flying wings: sculptural volumes that build tension into the body and draw the eye rearward.

The result is a car that carries Rolls-Royce DNA without looking trapped by it.

A front end with no need to shout

The front elevation is maybe the clearest sign that this is not merely another Rolls with the roof chopped off. Because there is no internal combustion engine to feed, the usual visual clutter of intakes and cooling apertures has been mostly erased. What remains is expanse. Discipline. Surface.

The Pantheon grill, almost a meter wide, looks as though it has been machined from a single block of stainless steel. Twenty-four deep-set vanes sit within it, while the Spirit of Ecstasy is integrated into the upper section in a way that makes the metal seem to flow backward around her, like water parting at speed. It is a theatrical touch that works.

Below, the lower structure widens and drops with geometric precision, supporting a projecting carbon-fiber apron edged in chrome. Rolls-Royce likens it to the structural base beneath the decorative crown of an Art Deco skyscraper, which is exactly the sort of comparison one expects from a company that understands its clients would rather hear about architecture than airflow.

At the outer edges sit perhaps the boldest detail of all: slim, vertically oriented headlamps, bracketed by polished stainless-steel bands that run the full length of the car to the tail lamps. It is a strong move. Maybe even the strongest on the car.

In profile, it becomes clear what the whole thing is about

Seen from the side, Project Nightingale stops pretending to be practical and becomes something more interesting.

The hood stretches on. The windshield is dramatically raked. The cabin is compact, intimate, almost tucked into the bodywork rather than placed on top of it. Behind the seats, the body rises in a protective sweep before the rear deck tapers away to an improbably low trailing edge.

It is, in effect, a giant electric torpedo with a leather-lined cockpit.

A single hull line begins at the sculpted front-wing “Pinnacles” and runs uninterrupted to the rear, deliberately set high to make those inside feel enveloped. Beneath it, the lower body is carved away to reinforce the sense of a central fuselage, balanced by a carbon-fiber sill that quietly nods to the running boards of Rolls-Royce’s older cars.

The details have been handled quite remarkably. Door handles incorporate hidden lock mechanisms and discreet indicator lamps. The usual Rolls-Royce badging is reduced to a polished stainless-steel Double R. Even the 24-inch wheels, the largest ever fitted to a Rolls-Royce, have been shaped with spirit of yacht propellers and wire wheels in motion.

This is not minimalism in the traditional sense. It is minimalism with private aviation money behind it.

The rear is where the confidence shows

Many luxury cars lose their nerve at the back. Designers become busy. Surfaces get messy. Features multiply.

Project Nightingale does not suffer from that problem.

The rear haunches swell with muscular intent, but the deck remains clean and horizontal. The taillamps are slim and sharply resolved, dropping from the upper surface almost at a right angle. A single longitudinal brake light runs down the centerline, a small but effective nod to the speed stripes of Streamline Moderne design.

Then there is the “Piano Boot,” which opens sideways on a cantilever. Rolls-Royce, being Rolls-Royce, cannot simply let the trunk open like an ordinary trunk. It must instead transform luggage access into a ceremonial event.

The rear diffuser, called the Aero Afterdeck, is formed as a single carbon-fiber piece. Because the electric drivetrain eliminates the need for exhaust, the company has been able to achieve high-speed stability without resorting to some vulgar spoiler that would interrupt the silhouette.

That matters. On a car like this, preserving the line is the whole game.

With the roof down, the silence becomes the feature

Most convertibles sell you noise. Wind. Engine. Exhaust. The sensory overload of being in something expensive and visible.

Project Nightingale goes in the opposite direction.

With the roof lowered, Rolls-Royce says the experience is closer to sailing than driving. With virtually no mechanical noise from the electric drivetrain and very little wind disturbance, what remains is not absence but environment. Ocean waves. Air moving through trees. The hush of countryside at speed.

That last detail became important.

During early prototype drives, Rolls-Royce designers noticed they could hear birds with unusual clarity. They began studying recordings of nightingales and analyzing the waveforms of their songs. This could, in less careful hands, have become unbearable nonsense. Instead, it led to one of the car’s most distinctive interior ideas.

Inside: a world for two, lit by birdsong

The interior’s centerpiece is called the Starlight Breeze suite, which sounds like a fragrance sold in Monaco but is actually a constellation of 10,500 tiny illuminated points arranged in patterns derived from nightingale song waves.

These lights wrap around the occupants from the doors and behind the seats, turning melody into ambient architecture. The effect is housed within what Rolls-Royce calls the “Horseshoe,” a sculptural form that rises behind the seats and frames the cabin in a protective embrace.

Yes, it all sounds impossibly mannered. Yes, it is probably magnificent in person.

Elsewhere, the cabin continues the same theme of tactile restraint. The door card leather is raised like a saddle. The center console carries a leather-covered saddle armrest split delicately into two sections. When the coach door opens, the armrest glides rearward to reveal the Spirit of Ecstasy rotary controller, finished in stainless steel with grooves inspired by haute joaillerie. The same jewelled treatment appears on the gear selector and the few remaining controls.

There are only five rotary controls in total, which is perhaps the most convincing evidence yet that true luxury lies in not having to look at too many buttons.

A concealed compartment appears at the touch of a button. Cupholders are machined from billet aluminum. There is even a hidden shelf behind the seats for hand luggage, because this is, we are repeatedly reminded, a motor car for long and unhurried journeys.

In other words, Riviera weekends, not school runs.

The car shown today is just one interpretation

The example revealed by Rolls-Royce is finished in Côte d’Azur Blue, a pale solid blue inspired by the 1928 17EX, though not directly copied from it. Subtle red flakes in the paint reference the red badges worn by the historic EX cars and now used on Project Nightingale to mark its status.

The interior takes its cues from the Côte d’Azur as well, blending Charles Blue, Grace White, Deep Navy, and small flashes of Peony Pink. Openpore Blackwood veneer is laid in an upward-opening V pattern to draw the eye skyward.

Which is all very elegant, very French Riviera, and exactly what one would hope from a car named after a songbird and a house on the Côte d’Azur.

The real point

Project Nightingale is not merely a new Rolls-Royce. It is Rolls-Royce making a broader argument about what its future clients want.

Not more horsepower figures. Not another oversized SUV. Not techno-brutalist gimmickry. Something rarer: a motor car in which design is the main event.

That is why entry is by invitation only. That is why the car is limited to 100 examples. That is why clients are already being drawn into a multi-year program of private events and curated experiences, not simply handed an order form and a paint chart.

This is less a sales process and more courtship.

And perhaps that is fitting. Project Nightingale is named for a bird, shaped like a yacht, inspired by 1920s speed machines, powered by electricity, and intended for people who believe beauty is not just something to own but something to drive.

Which, when you put it that way, sounds exactly like the kind of thing Rolls-Royce should be building.

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And you know what would look good on your wall? Rolls-Royce Wall Art from Limited100!

Let’s call it an Argentinian’s grudge, wrapped in Italian steel, powered by an American beast.

And it just might be the most dramatic car ever built.

Like many good stories, this one too, begins in failure. In Late 1964, Alejandro de Tomaso - the Argentine aristocrat, former racing driver, and industrialist - struck a deal with Carrol Shelby to build five P70 race cars for the Can-Am series. Shelby funds it, Pete (great name btw) Brock designs it. De Tomaso promises it, but doesn’t quite deliver.

It didn’t go well.

Ideas collided. Schedules slipped. No cars arrived. Shelby, fuming, packed up his shit and walked straight to the Ford GT40 program. Alejandro, as reports at the time politely put it, was “quite upset.

In less polite terms, he was super fucking pissed. And so, he did what any proud Latin racing driver would do.

He built a car. He named it “Mangusta.” Italian for mongoose.

I.e. the only animal that can kill a Cobra.

Yes. It was that kind of car.

Even in vengeance, Alejandro knew what he didn’t know. He needed beauty. The kind that sells posters and magazines.

So he went to the greatest stylist in Italy at the time: Giorgetto Giugiaro. Freshly escaped from Bertone, now sketching futures at Carrozzeria Ghia, Giugiaro spoke the language of architectural aggression.

What he created was a thing of beauty. Ultra-low, glassy, wedged. The haunches tense with American horsepower. And the rear, with its famous twin gull-wing panels lifting like a mechanical scorpion tail to reveal a Ford V8.

But was it truly beautiful, or dangerous looking, which is a different thing entirely.

The Mangusta was exotic in layout, shape, and temperament.

Mid-engine, rear-drive, American heart. A Ford 289 or 302 V8, routed through a ZF five-speed transaxle. Four-wheel Girling discs. Rack-and-pinion steering. Fully independent suspension. All on a steel backbone chassis borrowed from the abandoned P70 race car.

A top speed of 155 mph in 1967? Oh yes. It was fast.

Unfortunately the Mangusta wasn’t engineered to work. It was engineered to exist. And to exist solely out of spite.

And so, the flaws arrived early and often: Handling? Numb at low speed, evil at high speed. A 44/56 weight split meant tail-first enthusiasm in corners. Ergonomics? Claustrophobic. Off-center pedals. Steering column exactly where your knees wanted to be. Chassis? About as rigid as a French onion. The torque of the Ford V8 twisted it like linguine.

But many buyers didn’t care. They hadn’t bought a car. They’d bought a piece of rolling art.

Only 401 Mangustas were built. Most went to the U.S. under a federal waiver that said, in essence, “We don’t know what it is, but it seems important.”

When the waiver expired in 1969, De Tomaso simply did what Italian manufacturers always do when confronted by American federal law:

He gave the car pop-up headlights, shrugged, and kept building them by hand.

Only one Mangusta ever left the factory with a Chevrolet engine. It was built for GM Design Chief Bill Mitchell, because Mitchell insisted on not driving anything powered by Ford. A custom spacer was machined to mate the Chevy small-block to the ZF transmission. Mitchell drove it briefly, then handed it to designer Dick Ruzzin, who still owns it, 55 years later.

In a world of prototypes and show-cars, this one became a legend simply by surviving.

Ford was watching. Not because the Mangusta was fast, or good, or reliable. But because it made noise. Cultural noise.

This Argentine upstart was building American-powered Italian exotics that people actually wanted.

Ford took the bait.

They invested. They partnered. And from that unholy union came something better engineered, better built, and better selling:

The De Tomaso Pantera.

Think of it like a wild idea getting a second draft.

In the end, the Mangusta was never meant to be perfect. It was meant to provoke, meant to make Alejandro de Tomaso impossible to ignore.

And it worked.

It’s a reminder that sometimes, greatness doesn’t come from precision engineering.

Sometimes, it comes from spite.

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Economically, it is indefensible. Mechanically, it borders on heresy. Theologically, and Porsche ownership is largely a theological exercise, it is outright blasphemy. A classic 1980s 911, stripped of its air-cooled flat-six and G50 gearbox, and reborn as an electric car. That’s the burn in hell kind of blasphemy.

And yet, in August of 2024, after two years, six figures, and multiple moments that could be described as “character building,” legendary Wall Street asset manager Barry Ritholtz took delivery of a Lagoon Green Metallic 1987 Carrera that is now a 400+ horsepower, rear-motor, battery-fed, one-off electric 911.

This is the story of how it went down.

THE IDEA

Like most terrible financial decisions, this one began innocently.

Ritholtz had spent the pandemic doing what every enthusiast with means and a flexible definition of “need” did: finding unloved machines and making them right. A flood-salvage Wrangler Rubicon. An Audi R8 turned back to its Teutonic self after someone slathered it in orange stripes and fake carbon. A Colombian-restored 1978 Toyota FJ40 that required a tango with Miami customs.. Then a tired but rare factory M491 Porsche Cabriolet, brought sympathetically back to stock.

This wasn’t novelty. It was a pattern. He’d grown up around loud, front-engined American V8s — Mustangs, Camaros, Corvettes developing, over decades, the kind of dangerous confidence that comes from having endured enough mechanical pain to think the next one will be simple.

Then the itch changed.

Electrification of classics had crept from home garage science project to cottage industry. The pitch is seductively modern: take an older car with beautiful bones and questionable internals, and give it instant torque, reliability, and daily-driver usability. Keep the charm, lose the headaches. Purists clutched pearls. Engineers grinned. Investors did the mental math: classic looks plus EV drivability equals future money. Or money pit? Maybe the jury is still out?

Ritholtz wanted to build something that shouldn’t exist.

The target was obvious in retrospect: a Porsche 911, specifically something from 1973–1989. Those cars are now modern classics. They still have the slim hips and bright eyes of early 911s but the later ones carry just enough ‘80s menace.

That was the aesthetic he wanted. That, but electric.

There was, of course, the small matter of reality.

THE SHOP

The center of American resto-mod electrification right now isn’t Stuttgart or Silicon Valley. It’s Austin, Texas. Yee-haw!

Moment Motors, a boutique EV conversion outfit based there, had been quietly building a reputation for thoughtful, deeply engineered swaps. Not just “jam a forklift motor in a Beetle and pray,” but proper, integrated conversions. Battery management. Thermal management. Usability. Elegance.

Ritholtz spoke with them, looked at timelines, looked at cost, and did the only logical thing he could do: he sent them money. A deposit, June of 2022. That bought him something you cannot order from Porsche Classic. The wait? Twelve months before they even touch your car.

This lag was not a bug. It was oxygen. It meant he now had a year to a) choose the right 911, b) learn that 911’s ecosystem enough to be dangerous, and c) actually find a donor worth hacking apart.

Because here’s the dirty truth of EV-swapping a classic 911: you don’t start with a nice car.

A low-mileage, numbers-matching G50 Carrera is now a financial instrument. You don’t pull a healthy flat-six out of a museum-grade example. That’s vandalism, and wasteful, because you’re throwing away tens of thousands of dollars of engine and gearbox someone else will happily pay you for.

No, the perfect donor is cosmetically attractive, structurally honest, mechanically… negotiable. You want great paint, straight metal, decent interior bones, intact brakes and steering. Something that the concours crowd will sneer at, so you can violate it guilt-free.

That car eventually revealed itself. But first, there were false starts.

THE HUNT

In late 2022 and early 2023, he started searching inventory across the country. California. The Northeast. Dealer listings, private listings, Bring a Trailer, Cars & Bids, PCar Market. He’d fly in early for a work trip, detour to see a “clean, well-sorted” 911SC in person, and discover it was a rattle-can respray over rust and regret. The owner probably huffing the spray paint while doing the respray.

Photos lie. Mileage lies. Sellers lie to themselves. And to potential buyers.

He looked at a 1978 911SC and a 1983 car with a tolerable asking price but an uninspiring color combo. He was briefly smitten by a Cassis Red over Ivory 1987 G50, but that auction failed to meet reserve. He lusted after an RSR-style backdated ’73 and a surgically clean 1976 911S with a 3.2 swapped in, but both were too nice to butcher. If Barry is anything, he’s not a heathen.

The economics were clarifying. The right donor 911 was going to cost somewhere in the $50–60K range. The EV hardware; electric motor, controller, inverter, battery modules, chargers, thermal systems would cost nearly as much again. Add labor and custom engineering, and you were in the neighborhood of a well-optioned new 911 Carrera.

Why not just buy the new 911? Because Porsche builds about ten thousand internal-combustion 911s a year. An electrified, battery-fed G50 from the Reagan era? There is only one of those, and you will be sitting in it. “There can be only one!”

Still, “unique” doesn’t mean “available.” He bid on dozens of cars. Came in second. Came in first but missed reserve. Watched good cars spike out of budget. Watched bad cars get bid up by people with more optimism than brains.

Finally, one stuck.

THE DONOR

The car that would become the electric 911 began life in 1987 as a Carrera coupe with a five-speed G50 gearbox. By the time Ritholtz found it, it had lived.

It wore Lagoon Green Metallic. An unusual Porsche color that reads like a pale blue under most light. It was a “slicktop,” meaning factory sunroof delete, the holy grail for people who value chassis rigidity and hate leaks. It had a rear wiper, another odd but desirable option. It had clearly been loved, but also clearly been “personalized” in the way that screamed JC Whitney.

The odometer read 276,000 kilometers. The driver’s seat and steering wheel were ‘90s-era upgrades, not original. The mirrors were later teardrops, not period. The bumpers had been tweaked toward Turbo look. Carfax showed an impact to the right front in 2003. The doors had been refinished; their hue didn’t quite match the rest of the shell. Underneath, there were hints of rust in the usual 911 spots.

In other words: perfect. At least for this project.

This wasn’t a concours queen. This was a survivor. A frankencar. Valuable enough to respect but not so precious you’d feel bad about going all Dr. Frankenstein on it.

He negotiated. The seller was motivated. They split the difference at $59,000.

When the car arrived at his shop, it turned out to be better than the photos. Werks1, a Porsche specialist, went through it: brake lines, tires, basic electrical gremlins, a small rust bloom behind the battery tray. They handled the stuff you want sorted before you ship a car across the country.

Then came cosmetics. The car was detailed, paint-corrected, ceramic-coated. The shabby floor mats came out, the carpets were shampooed, and in a move equal parts SoCal outlaw and Martini Racing cosplay, went bold “Carrera” script and a pair of soft white racing stripes straight over the hood, roof, and decklid. The look wasn’t subtle. It also wasn’t apologizing.

The plan was now real. The donor existed. The slot in Austin was coming due.

The 911 was about to lose its soul but gain immortality.

THE SURGERY

August 2023: the Carrera, now affectionately “the little striped monster,” was loaded on a transporter bound for Texas. An AirTag in the glovebox tracked it as it crossed the country.

Moment Motors received the car, rolled it into the operating theater, and did the unthinkable: they pulled the heart.

Engine and gearbox out. Gone.

In their place would eventually live a Fellten electric drive unit and enough lithium to start a small fire. But first, there was metalwork.

Classic 911 people know about the battery tray. Porsche, in its wisdom, stuffed a 12-volt battery up against the inner fender at the left front corner of the “frunk,” just above the road. Thirty-plus years of moisture, acid, and indifferent maintenance can turn that area into swiss cheese.

On this car, it was worse than anyone expected. The corrosion had eaten its way into structural metal. And that mattered. Because the new EV battery modules, roughly 200 pounds of them, were meant to sit up front. Hanging a hundred kilos of chemistry off a compromised corner is how you end up on YouTube for the wrong reasons.

So the Austin crew cut. Fabricated. Welded. Refinished. Nine thousand dollars later, the nose of the car was stronger than when it had left Stuttgart.

Only then did the real fun begin.

The original plan, back when Ritholtz first wired his deposit in 2022, called for a Fellten Series I drive unit. That package would have given the car around 350 horsepower.

But technology moves. Fellten sunset the Series I and replaced it with the Series II. The newer motor/inverter package made 440 horsepower.

Four hundred and forty.

In a ~ 2,800 pound 911.

The Fellten kit didn’t just bring power. It brought integration. Cooling circuits. High-voltage routing. A proper vehicle control unit (VCU) to manage temperatures, protect the battery, and talk politely to the rest of the car. Moment Motors grafted in a new HVAC system, because if you’re going to daily an ‘80s 911 in the modern world, you want actual defrost and the possibility of not sweating through your shirt. They even fitted a period-correct Blaupunkt Bremen head unit. Bluetooth, yes, but with the upright, knurled-button vibe of proper Reagan-era German audio.

One of the small tragedies of most EV swaps is the death of the manual. The physics just don’t require a five-speed. Electric motors make torque everywhere, all at once. You could, in theory, bolt the motor directly to the axle and call it done.

But engagement matters. Memory matters.

So the Moment Motors team retained the 911’s floor-mounted stick. The pattern now selects Drive, Neutral, and Reverse rather than five forward gears, but from the driver’s hand, in motion, you are still doing the old 911 thing: right arm resting on the tunnel, wrist flicks, mechanical clicks. The form is the function. And in this case, the form is also the nostalgia.

They also repurposed the original fuel filler door as the charge port, because of course they did. Anything else would be uncivilized.

By April of 2024, the car was about 90 percent complete. The batteries were in. The motor was in. The wiring looms were routed and secured. The software was talking to the hardware. The car drove, and drove quickly at that.

But power is only half the equation. The other half is balance.

THE BALANCE

A stock Carrera of this era carries roughly 39 percent of its weight on the front and 61 percent on the rear. That is part of the 911’s charm and also part of its reputation for spinning into hedgerows.

The electrified car is different. Shifting heavy battery mass forward, reinforcing the nose, and hanging an electric drive unit out back with less reciprocating mass than the original flat-six changes the physics. The Moment Motors build ended up much closer to 50/50 weight distribution, and with that weight also sitting lower in the chassis.

Anyone who has ever trail-braked a 911 into a fast sweeper just sat up a little straighter. Never lift your foot off the gas. Ask me how I know?

Of course, perfection has a price to pay. You don’t add roughly 300 pounds of battery to a classic 911 without asking the suspension to carry that load. So the Austin crew upgraded the dampers and springs to keep the body controlled and the steering alive. The brakes, still essentially 1987-spec apart from regenerative assistance, now have to cope with a 400-horsepower car that weighs about ~ 2,800 pounds and arrives at corner entries with unholy urgency. Mild regen helps, but a future upgrade to later, larger Porsche calipers and rotors is already on the to-do list.

Then there’s traction. When you more than double output, the rear tires become suggestions rather than guarantees. Ritholtz is already thinking about “fatter rubber, especially out back,” which is the genteel way of saying, “I would prefer not to die.”

THE RESULT

August 2024. The converted 911 comes home.

It arrives in the middle of tropical storm chaos, rain blown sidelong. The car survives shipping, humidity, bureaucracy. It rolls into the garage under its own power. Silent except for fan whirr and tire noise. No idle burble. No oil smell. No mechanical shiver through the rear decklid. Just a hum, a glow of gauges, and a faint sense that the future has crawled into a past decade and made camp.

Something inside me died as I wrote that. I had an ‘88 3.2. Nothing was sweeter than the sound of the flat six creaking and cracking as it cooled down in your garage. But I get it. And I respect it.

On the road, the car is shockingly quick. In “Chill” mode, output is dialed back to around 300 horsepower, and range stretches into the 150-plus mile range. Toggle to “Sport,” and you’re looking at something like 400+ horsepower available more or less instantly. The shove is linear, relentless, deceptively calm. There is no torque hole, no cam changeover, no boost threshold. You press the go-peddle and it goes!

Steering feel survives. In fact, with the suspension sorted to account for the new mass, front-end bite is described as “surprisingly precise and lively.” There is a hint of understeer if you hamfist the throttle mid-corner. The old snap-oversteer demon seems to have been exorcised by lithium and geometry.

Not everything is perfect. The air conditioning is “not bad,” which is loosely translated as “better than stock but not German executive-sedan cold.” Cooling the motor and battery under full load needed more capacity than Fellten originally spec’d, so Moment Motors added a second cooling loop. Packaging that much heat management into a 40-year-old shell is not trivial. It works, but you can sense the effort.

The interior is, in Ritholtz’s words, “dowdy.” The light beige seats and carpets have all the excitement of a Boca Raton waiting room. That will change. The plan is to backdate the cabin visually: ‘70s-style tartan inserts in blues, greens, and blacks on the seat centers, door cards, and dash stripe. Think gentleman hooligan.

And the economics? By his rough math, all-in cost over two years lands somewhere around “walk into a Porsche dealer and buy yourself a nice new 911.” That sentence will make some people scoff and others nod. Both miss the point.

Because here’s what you cannot buy at a Porsche dealer, at any price: a factory-sunroof-delete, rear-wiper, Lagoon Green Metallic G50 911 with Carrera script and racing stripes, original shifter selecting DNR, custom analog EV gauges, ~50/50 weight balance, 440 electric horsepower, and provenance that includes a rust resurrection, a cross-country transplant, and a shop in Austin that had to invent parts of the process as it went.

There isn’t another one. You can’t option this car. You have to build it.

In 2022, this was a thought experiment. In 2023, it was a shell on a trailer. In April 2024, it was a mostly wired prototype on jack stands. In August 2024, it drove.

Call it sacrilege. Call it inevitable. Call it, if you like, the first EV 911 in New York. Eat your heart out Jerry Seinfeld.

Read more on Barry’s adventure here: https://ritholtz.com/2025/06/911-ev-update-10-months-in/

If you liked this story, you might like my book. Available on Amazon - Kindle or Paperback.

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It was also a requiem.

Origins Forged in Obsession

The story begins long before the 112i’s dramatic unveiling at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1993. It starts in 1971, when a young Eberhard Schulz, armed with little more than stubborn ambition and a home-built sports car called the Erator GTE, presented himself to the gates of Porsche and Mercedes-Benz. His engineering credentials were negligible; his balls, giant. Eventually, Porsche relented—not because of his résumé, but because of the Erator itself. It was "a declaration of ability wrought in steel and fiberglass."

Working in Porsche’s design department, Schulz continued to sketch his dreams after hours. One such dream—the CW311—was envisioned as a spiritual successor to the Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing. With the support of tuning house B+B, a prototype was unveiled at the 1978 Frankfurt Motor Show, cheekily brandishing a Mercedes star on its snout, to which Mercedes turned a blind eye. After parting ways with B+B, Schulz founded his own shop in 1982—Isdera, short for Ingenieurbüro für Styling, DEsign und RAcing—with the goal of bringing the CW311 to life.

The resulting machine was the Imperator 108i, a low-volume, hand-built supercar powered by a Mercedes M117 5.0-litre V8. It was impressive for its time, boasting gullwing doors and an aerodynamic silhouette. But Schulz was not yet finished.

The world, however, was almost finished with him.

Birth of a Thoroughbred

In 1989, as the Imperator’s production was drawing to a close, Schulz began sketching a successor. By 1993, it emerged in the form of the Commendatore 112i—a machine he hoped would race at Le Mans, conquer autobahns, and shame Italy’s finest. At first glance, the 112i appeared otherworldly: a low, elongated shape with dramatic gullwing doors, matching engine cover, and the striking omission of traditional side mirrors. In their place sat a periscope—yes, a periscope—borrowed from its predecessor. Function followed form; Schulz had wind tunnel data to prove it.

Under its handcrafted fiberglass skin lay a Mercedes-Benz M120 6.0-litre V12, a twin-cam, all-aluminum jewel that, in other applications, powered dignified saloons and svelte supercars like the SL600 and Pagani Zonda. Yet Mercedes had never intended it for a manual gearbox. That didn’t deter Schulz. He commissioned a custom flywheel and bolted it to a modified 6-speed transaxle derived from a 5-speed unit by Ruf, Porsche’s “mad cousin”. The gearbox itself was a delicate fusion of ingenuity and desperation, its sixth gear added to help the car reach its target top speed of 340 km/h (211 mph).

The Commendatore’s chassis was a spaceframe construction, as serious as racing regulations would demand. The suspension was sourced from the Porsche 928 but heavily modified, with active height control developed with Bilstein and BBS. At speed, the car would hunker down by 76mm, slicing through the air with purpose. Its drag coefficient, verified in Mercedes-Benz’s wind tunnel, stood at Cd 0.306—a remarkable figure for the time and testimony to Schulz’s monastic devotion to aerodynamic cleanliness.

Despite its racing ambitions, the Commendatore was never merely a racer. It was a grand tourer in disguise, boasting a 120-litre fuel tank, an actively managed chassis, and even an electronically controlled airbrake that would rise vertically under deceleration like a mechanized parachute. It had no less drama than a McLaren F1, but more Germanic restraint.

Inside, the cabin was two-tone black and blue, upholstered in leather and fitted with RECARO sports seats. Mercedes gauges and switchgear provided familiarity, although the speedometer reaching 400 km/h hinted at untapped fury. The door sills, absurdly wide, housed dual fuel tanks—a decision born of both necessity and lunacy.

Collapse and Resurrection

Isdera’s plans for limited production—each car taking six months to handcraft—were ambitious but sincere. A second model was even promised, with a 6.9-litre V12 producing 548 bhp, according to Autocar. But the early 1990s proved unkind to idealists. The Japanese economic bubble burst in 1993, vaporizing Isdera’s primary investors and pushing the company into bankruptcy. The Commendatore, its creator’s magnum opus, remained a non-functional prototype.

Enter salvation: a Swiss consortium acquired Isdera’s remains and rescued the 112i, bringing it back to the 1999 Frankfurt show under a new moniker—the Silver Arrow. The periscope mirror was replaced with CLK GTR-style side mirrors, the BBS racing wheels swapped for more conventional five-spoke alloys. Purists frowned. Videogame fans, however, rejoiced: the car appeared in Need for Speed II, forever immortalizing it in pixelated glory.

Years later, Isdera re-acquired the original Commendatore and painstakingly restored it to 1993 specification. The process involved commissioning new BBS wheels, restoring the original Arctic Silver paint, and reinstalling the periscope mirror. Now wearing fewer than 10,500 kilometers, it is registered for road use in Germany—a unicorn not confined to museums but meant to roam.

A Second Shadow

Curiously, whispers tell of a second 112i. According to factory insiders, a spare subframe and the original moulds were sold to a private enthusiast. Over six years, with sporadic involvement from Schulz, the second car took shape—finished in Light Ivory with a light grey interior. It features side-exit exhausts, Porsche-sourced switchgear, and minor aesthetic changes that would later prompt Isdera to disown the car. It exists, but like a bastard heir, it remains outside the company’s official canon.

The Last Romantic

The Isdera Commendatore 112i stands today as a monument to what might have been—a one-off machine sculpted by a man whose ambition routinely outpaced his resources. It belongs in the rarefied air of 1990s boutique hypercars like the Koenigsegg CC8S or Pagani Zonda C12, but with none of their commercial backing or mass production. Unlike them, it was never about finding buyers. It was about proving something.

To drive the Commendatore is to commune with Schulz’s ideals: purity of purpose, reverence for mechanical craft, and a romanticism that borders on madness. It is not a car made by committee. It is not a car that bends to convention. It is, instead, a knight’s charge into a world no longer chivalrous.

And like all good myths, there was only ever one.

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Engineering and Design: A Formula 1 Connection

The Ferrari Enzo’s genesis was rooted in Formula 1 technology. Its carbon-fiber body, automated manual transmission, and ceramic composite disc brakes bore the DNA of Ferrari’s racing pedigree. Yet, the Enzo pushed beyond the confines of motorsport, incorporating technologies prohibited in Formula 1, such as active aerodynamics. The car generated astounding levels of downforce—343 kilograms at 200 km/h, rising to 775 kilograms at 300 km/h—thanks to its front underbody flaps, adjustable rear spoiler, and diffuser. These elements epitomized the interplay between engineering precision and aesthetic elegance.

Designed by Ken Okuyama, then head of Pininfarina, the Enzo’s bodywork resembled an open-wheel race car enveloped in a futuristic shell. Each panel, crafted from carbon fiber and Kevlar, was a testament to aerodynamic perfection. The chassis, a carbon-fiber and Nomex honeycomb tub weighing a mere 200 pounds, was paired with aluminum subframes to form a structure both rigid and lightweight.

The Heart of the Beast: The F140B V12 Engine

At the core of the Enzo was the F140B V12 engine, a marvel of engineering. This 65-degree naturally aspirated powerhouse displaced nearly six liters, producing 660 PS (651 hp) at 7,800 rpm and 657 Nm (485 lb-ft) of torque at 5,500 rpm. The engine was a masterclass in advanced materials and racing technology, featuring Nikasil-lined cylinders, titanium connecting rods, and a telescoping intake manifold designed to optimize torque. The result was a redline of 8,200 rpm and an unmistakable symphony of mechanical brilliance.

This engine was not merely a one-off triumph but a progenitor of future Ferrari icons. Variants of the F140 would power models such as the 599 GTB Fiorano, the F12 Berlinetta, and the hybrid LaFerrari, solidifying its legacy as one of Maranello’s greatest powerplants.

Performance Beyond Measure

The Enzo’s performance metrics were staggering. Accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in just 3.14 seconds and reaching a top speed of 355 km/h (221 mph), it set new benchmarks for production cars. A six-speed automated manual transmission with paddle shifters, developed by Graziano Trasmissioni, enabled lightning-fast gear changes in just 150 milliseconds. The advanced suspension, with push-rod-actuated shock absorbers adjustable from the cabin, and massive 15-inch Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes ensured that the Enzo’s power was matched by its control.

Limited Production, Unlimited Legacy

Initially limited to 399 units, the Enzo was offered exclusively to Ferrari’s most loyal clientele, particularly owners of the F40 and F50. Overwhelming demand led to the production of 498 cars, including a unit donated to the Vatican for charity. This exclusivity enshrined the Enzo’s status as both a collector’s wet dream and a technological marvel.

A Hypercar for the Ages

The Ferrari Enzo’s place in automotive history is unassailable. It bridged the gap between the raw performance of the F40 and the hybrid sophistication of the LaFerrari, embodying the essence of a millennial hypercar. With its cutting-edge engineering, breathtaking design, and unparalleled performance, the Enzo remains a defining achievement in Ferrari’s storied lineage, a car that continues to captivate enthusiasts and collectors alike.

The 2003 Ferrari Enzo in the photos will be crossing the block at RM Sotheby’s Miami 2025 auction on the 27th of February.

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A Legacy of Development

The 212 Export was not born in isolation but evolved from the earlier Ferrari 195 S. With an increased engine capacity and a reimagined chassis, it represented the cutting edge of racing technology for its time. The 212 Export carried the torch of Ferrari's dual-purpose philosophy—machines equally adept at competing on Sunday and thrilling the gentleman driver on Monday.

The "Export" moniker first appeared on the 166 Export Vignale Spyder, yet it was the 212 that cemented the term's association with Ferrari's racing pedigree. A mere 27 examples were constructed, each with a purpose as singular as the craftsmanship bestowed upon it.

Bodywork: A Coachbuilder’s Canvas

The 212 Export was, in essence, a work of art. The majority of the cars were clothed by Carrozzeria Touring, whose Barchetta and Berlinetta designs remain timeless icons. Yet diversity was a hallmark of the model—Vignale, Motto, and Fontana each contributed unique interpretations, with designs ranging from the aerodynamic to the eccentric.

Consider, for instance, Touring Barchetta s/n 0102E, whose journey took it from Hollywood's silver screen in The Racers to the hairpin bends of the Mille Miglia. Or Fontana's "carretto siciliano" creation, a study in audacity with its cycle fenders and utility-inspired silhouette. Each coachbuilder brought their own flair, ensuring no two Exports were alike, save for their shared lineage of excellence.

Engineering Excellence

At the heart of the 212 Export lay the Colombo V12 engine, a masterpiece of compact engineering; it was a testament to Ferrari's ability to balance power with reliability. The triple Weber carburetors fed the engine with precision, while a non-synchronized 5-speed gearbox allowed the driver to wrestle every ounce of performance from the car.

The chassis, a steel-tube construction later refined with a Tuboscocca trellis frame, provided both rigidity and a platform for innovation. Suspension systems were equally advanced, with independent front wishbones and a live rear axle supported by semi-elliptic springs.

A Collector’s Dream

The Ferrari 212 Export occupies a rarified space in the annals of automotive history, revered as much for its racing pedigree as for its exclusivity. Auction records tell a tale of ever-rising values, with the most exquisite examples fetching millions. From the CHF 3.8 million estimate of a Motto Spyder to the €6.72 million sale of Touring Barchetta s/n 0158ED, these machines are coveted not merely as cars but as rolling pieces of history.

To own a 212 Export is to hold a ticket to the most exclusive rallies and races. It is an opportunity to live vicariously through the exploits of legends who once held the same wooden-rimmed steering wheel. And above all, it is to possess a fragment of Ferrari's soul—a soul forged in the heat of competition and cooled only by the wind of victory.

In the Ferrari 212 Export, past, present, and future converged. It was not merely a car; it was a promise of what was to come, a harbinger of Ferrari's dominance, and a reminder that sometimes, the most fleeting creations leave the deepest impressions.

This 1951 Ferrari 212/225 Export by Vignale is coming to RM Sotheby’s Paris 2025 auction and will cross the block on Wednesday, 5 February 2025:

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Challenge accepted. An incensed Lamborghini went about building his own 'supercar.'

Former Ferrari man, Giotto Bizzarrini, built the V12 and Bertone designer Franco Scaglione styled the body, which was built by Carrozzeria Sargiotto in Turin.

Ferruccio Lamborghini's 350 GTV was released to the world at the 1963 Turin Auto Show. Rumor has it the car attended the show without the engine. Mr. Lamborghini simply explained the hood couldn't be opened because he forgot the key.

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At its heart lay the venerable Buick 3800 V6 engine, a transverse arrangement that channeled its modest 165–170 horsepower to the front wheels—a configuration that said pragmatism more than passion. Nevertheless, with its fully independent suspension and four-wheel disc brakes (with ABS), the Reatta offered a driving experience that was as competent as it was uninspired, achieving its electronically limited 125 mph with a businesslike demeanor.

A Halo Car Built by Hand, Sort Of

Manufactured in what Buick grandly termed the "Reatta Craft Center" in Lansing, Michigan, the car's assembly process eschewed the traditional conveyor belt in favor of robotic choreography. Teams of artisans—though the term stretches credulity—labored over their assigned stations, a nod to the boutique craftsmanship associated with finer European marques. PPG Industries performed the paintwork under contract, ensuring that the Reatta gleamed with the promise of sophistication, even if eventually failed to deliver.

Features: Luxurious Details Amid the Mundane

The Reatta's interior presented an earnest, if not slightly confused attempt at opulence. Twin bucket seats offered more lumbar support than lateral bolstering, while the lockable bins and access hatch behind them betrayed a whiff of practicality. Early models included an avant-garde touchscreen, the Electronic Control Center (ECC), which ambitiously controlled everything from the radio to diagnostic systems—a bold innovation that proved too clever by half. Later iterations reverted to tactile buttons, tacitly acknowledging that the future had arrived prematurely.

Optional 16-way power seats and keyless entry rounded out a spec sheet that straddled the line between luxury and necessity. And for those nostalgic for idiosyncrasy, the Reatta held the distinction of being Buick's only car with pop-up headlamps—a curious choice that lent an otherwise subdued design a faint glimmer of intrigue.

Convertible and Special Editions: Limited Aspirations

The convertible variant, introduced belatedly in 1990, added a touch of romance to the Reatta's restrained ethos. Crafted by ASC, its manually operated top—later upgraded with power pull-down assistance—hid beneath a rigid tonneau cover when stowed. Though elegant in concept, the convertible's execution highlighted the Reatta's perennial struggle with identity: neither fully luxurious nor sporty.

Special editions, such as the "Select Sixties" models, attempted to inject exclusivity into the lineup. These cars, produced in limited numbers, featured unique color schemes and emblems—trinkets that attempted to elevate the Reatta into collectible territory. Yet, like many such exercises, these efforts felt more like gilding the lily than burnishing a masterpiece.

A Noble Failure

The Reatta’s production—just over 21,000 units in its four-year run—speaks less to exclusivity and more to tepid market reception. Intended as a halo car for Buick, it instead became a footnote, overshadowed by more cohesive offerings such as the Cadillac Allanté. Its demise in 1991 was both inevitable and unremarkable, though its brief existence remains a testament to the peculiar optimism of American automaking in the late 20th century.

Legacy: An Anomaly Worth Remembering

In hindsight, the Buick Reatta occupies a curious niche. It is neither a monument to engineering nor a cautionary tale of hubris, but rather a quiet example of ambition constrained by pragmatism. Its innovations—the touchscreen ECC, the boutique assembly process—hinted at a more daring future that never quite materialized. Today, the Reatta stands as a relic of what might have been: a symphonic divergence, albeit played in a minor key.

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Engineering Prowess

At the heart of the Speedtail lies a profoundly reimagined iteration of the M840T twin-turbocharged V8, an engine that already commanded reverence in the 720S. Here, however, it is elevated to new heights, delivering an awe-inspiring 746 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque. This mechanical opus is joined by an electric hybrid system contributing an additional 308 horsepower, summoning a combined force of 1,036 horsepower and 848 lb-ft of torque. The result is nothing short of apocalyptic: a machine capable of 250 mph (403 km/h), accelerating from 0 to 186 mph (299 km/h) in a mere 12.8 seconds. Such figures are not merely numbers; they are declarations of intent.

The chassis, a monocoque hewn from carbon fiber, integrates the seats into its very structure, a testament to McLaren’s pursuit of absolute coherence between form and function. The dihedral doors, a hallmark of the marque, open not merely to permit entry but to evoke ceremony, even pageantry.

Aesthetic and Aerodynamic Mastery

The Speedtail’s silhouette evokes the teardrop, nature’s own symbol of aerodynamic perfection. McLaren’s engineers have sculpted this shape with meticulous care, foregoing conventional rear spoilers for flexible carbon fiber active surfaces seamlessly integrated into the rear clamshell. Static wheel covers on the front further minimize turbulence, while electrochromic glass eliminates the need for sun visors, an elegant solution to a mundane problem.

One might pause to admire the retractable HD cameras that supplant traditional mirrors. These are not gimmicks but functional elements that retract in "Velocity mode," where every aspect of the car is honed for peak performance. The Speedtail is not content to reduce drag; it is determined to obliterate it.

The Interior: A Study in Purpose and Luxury

Inside, the Speedtail reimagines the iconic three-seat layout of the McLaren F1, positioning the driver at the epicenter of control. This is more than just homage; it is ergonomic enlightenment. The seats are cloaked in "directional leather," a material as tactile as it is innovative, designed to facilitate entry while anchoring the drive during spirited driving.

Here, McLaren’s obsession with detail reaches its zenith. Titanium deposition carbon fiber and Thin-Ply Technology Carbon Fiber (TPT) demonstrate a mastery of materials science, blending strength with aesthetic purity. Even the bespoke luggage—echoing the tradition set by the F1—becomes a statement of exclusivity.

Production: Precision Meets Exclusivity

Testing of the Speedtail was conducted at the Kennedy Space Center’s shuttle landing runway, a stage worthy of its aspirations. With prototypes repeatedly attaining their terminal velocity of 250 mph, McLaren proved not only the car’s capability but its endurance.

Production, limited to 106 units, commenced in late 2019. At a price of £2.1 million, ownership is clearly reserved for those who can afford it. However, due to its non-compliance with U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, many of the Speedtails destined for American buyers must navigate the labyrinthine “Show or Display” law, a fitting challenge for such an extraordinary machine. Sad, if I’m honest.

The McLaren Speedtail is not merely a car; it is a statement. It rejects the notion that speed must sacrifice elegance, that luxury cannot coexist with uncompromising performance.

The 2020 McLaren Speedtail pictured here sold at RM Sotheby’s in 2023 for $2,315,000 USD

• The 72nd of 106 individually specified examples produced

• Finished in the stunning and unique color combination of Athera Grey over Rich Brown and Tan Semi-Aniline leather upholstery

• Original MSRP of £1.836 million (~$2.326 million); £86,000 (~$107,363) in bespoke, optional equipment from McLaren Special Operations

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A More Democratic Bull

Conceived as a successor to the Silhouette, the Jalpa aimed to democratize Lamborghini ownership. It was an "entry-level" alternative to the Countach, a description that belies its innate sophistication. The design, penned by the maestros at Bertone, retained the wedge-shaped bravado characteristic of the era but softened its edges for broader appeal. Under the guidance of Giulio Alfieri, Lamborghini’s chief engineer, the Jalpa was crafted to offer civility alongside its visceral thrills. Compared to the Countach, it was eminently drivable—an exotic car suited not just for the open road but for urban environments as well. Yet, this accessibility came with trade-offs: the Jalpa’s steering was weighty, and its acceleration, while respectable, lacked the ferocity of its V12 sibling.

A Noble Name

True to tradition, the Jalpa bore a name steeped in bullfighting heritage—"Jalpa Kandachia" being a celebrated breed of fighting bulls. Lamborghini’s adherence to this convention lent the car an aura of untamed elegance, a nod to the primal forces that underpin it.

Heart of a Rebel

Beneath its angular hood lay a transverse 3.5-liter V8 engine, an evolution of the Silhouette's L353 unit. This compact powerhouse delivered 255 hp (190 kW) in European specification, alongside a robust 225 lb-ft of torque, making it a spirited performer by contemporary standards. U.S.-bound models, slightly detuned to 250 hp (186 kW), shared the same quartet of Weber 42 DCNF carburetors, ensuring a soundtrack as intoxicating as the performance.

Lamborghini’s official figures suggested a 0–100 km/h (62 mph) sprint in 6.0 seconds, with a top speed of 249 km/h (155 mph). Independent tests offered slightly varied results, with Classic & Sports Car recording 6.8 seconds to 97 km/h (60 mph), while Car and Driver managed a brisker 5.8 seconds. Regardless of the precise figures, the Jalpa was poised as a worthy rival to the Ferrari 328, embodying Lamborghini’s ethos in a smaller, more manageable package.

Evolution and Elegy

Early Jalpas featured black plastic accents—a utilitarian touch that contrasted with their flamboyant purpose. By 1984, these components were replaced with body-colored elements, and round taillights supplanted the angular remnants of the Silhouette. The optional rear wing, a nod to the Countach’s visual theatrics, completed the picture of a car at once refined and unapologetically bold.

The 1984 Jalpa pictured below crossed the block at RM Sotheby’s in 2020 for $99,000.00

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A Name Resurrected

The "Interceptor" moniker was not a novelty for Jensen Motors. It had graced a more modest offering from their Carters Green workshops in the 1950s. By the 1960s, however, the company sought to abandon its flirtation with glass-reinforced plastic—a material that had served them well in preceding decades—in favor of a robust steel body that promised substance to match its style. For the design, Jensen turned to Carrozzeria Touring of Milan, a gesture of aesthetic aspiration befitting an international stage.

Early examples of the Interceptor were coach-built in Italy by Vignale, imbuing the car with an unmistakable Mediterranean flair. But production soon moved to West Bromwich, where Jensen engineers began adding their own distinctive refinements, ensuring that the Interceptor was as much an artifact of British craftsmanship as a beneficiary of foreign inspiration.

Beneath the Bonnet: American Thunder

Power came courtesy of Chrysler V8 engines, with the initial offering being the venerable 383 cubic inch (6.3-litre) unit. By the 1970s, as horsepower wars raged across continents, Jensen upped the ante with the larger 440 cubic inch (7.2-litre) engine. This leviathan produced 305 SAE net horsepower in its four-barrel guise and an astonishing 330 SAE net horsepower in the mythical "Six Pack" configuration, the latter exclusive to the 1971 Jensen SP variant. With its Learjet 8-track stereo and vinyl roof, the SP was a high-performance concerto, equal parts rock and refinement.

Not content to rest on brute power alone, Jensen equipped the Interceptor with a host of then-modern luxuries: electric windows, reclining seats, power steering, and air conditioning. These were not mere indulgences but declarations of the Interceptor’s grand touring intent—a car meant not only to sprint but also to soothe.

A Rear Window to the Future

Arguably, the Interceptor’s pièce de résistance was its signature wrap-around rear window, a design flourish that doubled as a tailgate. This glass expanse was both elegant and practical, imbuing the car with a sense of lightness and innovation. While it drew comparisons to Brazil’s Brasinca Uirapuru, the Interceptor’s execution of this feature was uniquely Jensen—a distillation of sophistication and audacity.

Mark II, III, and Beyond: Evolution Under Pressure

The Interceptor evolved through three main iterations. The Mark II of 1969 introduced subtle aesthetic updates and greater compliance with American safety regulations, while the Mark III of 1971 refined the formula further, standardizing air conditioning and offering GKN alloy wheels. Yet, beneath the surface, the winds of change were growing ominously brisk.

Jensen Motors, buoyed by the ambition of producing the ill-fated Jensen-Healey, succumbed to financial strain by 1975. While production limped into 1976, the Interceptor was ultimately a victim of its time—an oil crisis, a global recession, and the tightening noose of emissions regulations left little room for such extravagant machinery.

The Phoenix Rises

Despite its demise, the Interceptor proved too charismatic to languish in obscurity. A brief revival in the 1980s under Jensen Cars Limited introduced the Series 4, an updated iteration with a downsized Chrysler 360 cubic inch (5.9-litre) engine and modernized appointments. Though admirable, this venture was short-lived.

The Interceptor's most compelling modern chapter emerged in the 21st century, courtesy of Jensen International Automotive (JIA). JIA reimagines original Interceptors with contemporary General Motors LS engines, advanced transmissions, and meticulous restorations. The result is a symphony of heritage and modernity—proof that the Interceptor's essence and appeal remains undiminished by the passage of time.

Legacy in Steel and Glass

The Jensen Interceptor is more than a car; it is an artifact of optimism and excess, a vehicle born of an age when style and performance were pursued with unrelenting fervor. Its blend of Italian artistry, American horsepower, and British craftsmanship places it among the pantheon of grand tourers—a machine as capable of thrilling the open road as it is of conjuring nostalgia for an era when the automobile was an unchallenged icon of freedom.

Today, the Interceptor stands not merely as a relic, but as an enduring testament to Jensen Motors' audacity, ambition, and occasional folly. In its steel curves and glass expanses, one can still hear the echo of a bygone symphony, played in the key of speed, luxury, and irrepressible charm.

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The Mexico owes its origins to an accident—a damaged 5000 GT chassis that was reborn as a stunning 2+2 coupé, draped in a prototype body by Virginio Vairo for Vignale's display at the 1965 Salone di Torino. The car’s commanding proportions, subtle chrome detailing, and balanced stance captured the imagination of onlookers and Maserati alike. Its subsequent sale to Mexican President Adolfo López Mateos lent the car its evocative name. By a stroke of serendipity, John Surtees's victory at the Mexican Grand Prix in a Cooper-Maserati T81 the following year cemented the model's nomenclature as more than a passing glance.

Design and Debut: A Vignale Vision Realized

The production Mexico, revealed at the 20°Concorso internazionale di eleganza per auto in Rimini in August 1966 and subsequently at the Paris Motor Show in October, was no less captivating. It borrowed the unibody chassis of the first-generation Quattroporte, shortened by 4.3 inches, to create a tauter and more dynamic profile. Styling cues included quad headlights framed in chrome shrouds, subtle fender vents, and round side markers, all offset by a flowing roofline and balanced proportions that exuded understated sophistication. Chrome rocker panel trim and bumper overriders added touches of 1960s glamor.

Inside, the Mexico set a new benchmark for opulence. Rich leather upholstery wrapped seating for four adults, while a wooden dashboard, iodine headlights, and air conditioning came as standard, embodying Maserati's ethos of luxury without compromise. Options like automatic transmission, power steering, and a radio catered to discerning clientele who demanded bespoke amenities.

Performance and Engineering: A Dual-Engine Offering

Under the hood, the Mexico delivered the choice of two V8 engines, both masterpieces of Maserati engineering. The 4.7-litre V8, fed by four twin-choke Weber 38 DCNL5 carburetors, produced 290 horsepower, propelling the car to a top speed of 240–250 km/h (149–155 mph). In a departure from Maserati tradition, a smaller 4.2-litre V8 engine became available in 1969, offering a slightly more accessible yet no less thrilling entry into Mexico ownership. Both versions came equipped with servo-assisted ventilated disc brakes—a first for a production Maserati.

Further underscoring its exclusivity, the Mexico left the factory fitted with Pirelli Cinturato 205VR15 CN72 tires, while 4.7-litre models sported Borrani chrome wire wheels and the 4.2-litre variants rolled on steel disc wheels.

Legacy: An Underappreciated Masterpiece

Over six years of production, Maserati built 485 Mexicos, with 175 powered by the 4.7-litre engine and 305 by the 4.2-litre. Despite its modest production numbers, the Mexico remains a pivotal chapter in Maserati's storied history—a car born of circumstance but refined into an icon. In the Mexico, Vignale's design, Maserati's engineering, and the era's unrelenting pursuit of beauty converged, leaving behind a legacy that, while understated, remains unmistakably grand.

Most recently, a 1970 Maserati Mexico 4.2 crossed the block on Bring a Trailer, bid up to $87,000, but unfortunately didn’t sell. And that’s a good thing. The right one, in the right condition, is easily a six figure car. 

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A Beast Tamed in Metal Skin

At the heart of the V600 lies an engine of such singular fury that it crowned the car as the world’s most powerful production model upon its release. Beneath its hood was a 5.3-liter V8—bolstered by twin Eaton superchargers, delivering an apocalyptic 600 horsepower and 605 lb-ft of torque. In the age of supercars, the V600 was capable of launching from 0 to 60 mph in a mere 3.9 seconds, with a top speed that breached the 200 mph mark. But to simply consider the V600 in terms of numbers would be to miss its more profound narrative—this was not just another hyper-powered machine, it was an automobile steeped in heritage and legacy..

The engineering behind the V600 was no mere academic exercise. Each bolt, each curve, was sculpted with intent. The side vents echoing the DBR1 that claimed victory at Le Mans, were not ornamental, but a homage to a racing lineage that demanded reverence.

Handmade, With Love

For all its firepower, the V600’s true value lay in its construction. Only 40 of these machines were hand-built at the Newport Pagnell factory. Each was a labor of exquisite precision. To see one today is to glimpse a disappearing world of automotive artisanship—bespoke, considered, and unburdened by the rush of mass production. The V600 was not simply made, it was conceived and birthed through sheer human tenacity.

Only 40 Vantage Le Mans V600s were hand-built between December 1999 and October 2000, making them one of the rarest models ever produced. Each car was meticulously assembled with attention to every detail, embodying the epitome of British craftsmanship. Of the 40 examples, only 18 were configured in right-hand drive, adding to their exclusivity.

Brutal, but Honest

To the uninitiated, the V600 may have seemed brutish, unwieldy—a behemoth ill-suited for any road but the straightest of highways. But therein lay the V600’s challenge: it was never a machine for the faint of heart. Its immense size and considerable weight demanded skill and patience. It was a mechanical wrestle with physics that separated drivers from occupants. Steve Waddingham, one of the stalwarts behind its creation, remembered a tiny engineering team, handcrafting the future with little more than grit and determination, an effort that made the V600 all the more exceptional, but also a touch raw. 

Its handling may have lacked the digital refinement of the era’s budding hypercars, but that was its charm. This was a car from a different time—a rolling anachronism of analogue power amidst a world rushing toward the digital future. The V600’s muscle was tethered to a chassis that would not flinch at speed but required care when navigating tight bends—some might say a feature, not a bug.

An End of an Era

By 2000, regulations were tightening and the V8 Vantage was to be no more. Yet, even as new rules threatened its existence, Aston Martin would not be cowed. Each V600 was recalled post-delivery, their engines massaged to a further 604 horsepower, with torque surging to 820 Nm. A sterling silver key holder and a map from Newport Pagnell to Le Mans accompanied each car. 

It was truly the last of a breed, a ‘brute in a suit,’ carrying with it both the ferocity of its power and the dignity of its lineage.

Rev up your passion for automotive art! Everyday Driven is an affiliate of Limited100, the brand turning British craftsmanship into stunning, must-have pieces of art for car lovers worldwide. 

Plus, by using our affiliate links, you’ll be supporting Everyday Driven without any ads or subscriptions. Every purchase helps keep our content free and rolling. Check out their site now and find your next favorite piece! Explore their collection and bring home art that speaks to your love for cars.

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