Los Angeles is home to a vast array of renowned personalities, landmarks, and industries – none more celebrated than the business of film. It was in this industry that J and Nicole Ryan first planted their professional roots as a producer and publicist, respectively. Although working in the film industry is an ambition of creative…
This unusual off-road racer started life as a 1969 Porsche 911, its early life is largely lost to history but what we do know is that the well-known classic car hunter Michael Lightbourn discovered it, bought it, then set to work turning it into a one of a kind Baja racer. Michael Lightbourn – The…
The one-of-one “RUF RSR” as it’s become known over the past 30+ years was lauded in the book The World’s Fastest Cars in 1989. Since that time the horsepower has been increased from 400 bhp to over 700 bhp thanks to an ever increasing series of upgrades that, we hope, will continue far into the…
We can unreservedly say that the Shelby GT350 H is the most desirable ex-rental car in history. They were created for a partnership between Ford and Hertz Car Rentals to promote the automaker and their still-new Mustang model – particularly the high-performance Shelby variant. The 1966 Shelby GT350 H The original Shelby GT350 Mustang was…
The So-Cal Speed Shop Special Belly Tank Racer, also known as a “Lakester”, was developed in the late 1940s using relatively primitive hot rod techniques to create a car that would break five records using three different engines on the Bonneville Salt Flats. The So-Cal Speed Shop Alex Xydias famously founded the So-Cal Speed Shop…
Germany and Austria Join Forces to Create a Better 4×4 – The G-Wagen (G-Wagon / G-Class) The story of the beginning of the Mercedes G-Wagen (also known as the G-Wagon and the G-Class) brings together one of the world’s greatest makers of automobiles, with one of the world’s greatest makers of classic sporting rifles, and…
The Ferrari 156 F1 “Sharknose” is remembered today as one of the most famous Formula 1 cars of its era, if not the most famous outright. The great tragedy of the Sharknose is that all of the original cars were scrapped – though in more recent years there have been a number of exact replicas…
The Serenissima Ghia GT is a one-off design penned by the great Tom Tjaarda, and conceived by Count Giovanni Volpi di Misurata and Alejandro de Tomaso. The truth of the matter is that de Tomaso had just bought the storied Italian coachbuilder Ghia in 1967, and he wanted the Count to leverage the name of…
The Mazda RX-7 is an immensely popular Japanese sports car that’s entirely unique among its contemporaries due to one key fact – it was only ever offered with a rotary engine. Rotaries have fallen out of favor in more recent years due to tightening emissions regulations, the Wankel rotary needs a small amount of oil…
This is the Touring version of the Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7, a car that still to this day is regarded by many as the ultimate iteration of the worlds longest-running sports car. Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 Touring Porsche developed the 911 RS 2.7 as the homologation version of the 911 RSR, the company…
This Ferrari F50 V12 engine was built to F50 GT specifications along with three chassis and another three or four race-specification engines. The F50 GT (also known as the Ferrari F50 GT1) was built by Ferrari in collaboration with Michelotto and Dallara to compete in the BPR Global GT Series against the likes of the…
The Fiat Dino coupé is the far more attainable sibling of the peerless Ferrari Dino, both cars shared the same engine and the same basic mission – to sell in high enough numbers to homologate the Ferrari-designed 2.0 litre V6 for Formula 2 racing. Fiat, Ferrari, Formula 2, and the Dino V6 In 1965 the…
