Monterey Car Week has been and gone for another year, which means the affluent Californian coastal town will be less full of stridently coloured chinos and straw boaters for the next 12 months. Only slightly less, though.
Anyway, it turns out that among all the alarmingly-hued trousers, champagne guzzling and oyster shucking, some cars were unveiled. Here are our favourites, plus the ones we really struggled to get interested in, and the ones that made us go ‘wait, what?’.
The good
Gordon Murray Special Vehicles cars
GMSV Le Mans GTR
We’ve been waiting a while to see what the new Special Vehicles offshoot of Gordon Murray Automotive has been cooking up, and safe to say we’re not disappointed. The one-two punch of the McLaren F1 GTR tribute S1 LM and the Le Mans GTR, a new supercar using the same screaming V12 and manual gearbox as the T50, stole the entire week. The only question is, which one would you take for a drive first?
Bugatti Brouillard
Bugatti Brouillard
Another extra-special division of an already special manufacturer was launched at Monterey with Bugatti’s Programme Solitaire, dedicated to building one-offs spun off existing Bugatti platforms. That’s kicked off with the Brouillard, a jaw-dropping coupe with Bugatti’s quad-turbo W16 in its ultimate 1578bhp form and a name that comes from a horse.
Read more about it here.
Lamborghini Fenomeno
Lamborghini Fenomeno
Lamborghini stole the show at Monterey last year with the reveal of the Temerario, and it’s arguably done it again this year with the limited-run Fenomeno. This is quite simply the fastest, most powerful Lamborghini ever made, and one of the most spectacular to look at too, which is saying something. Based on the V12 hybrid Revuelto, it sees power turned up to a peak of 1065bhp, and gets extremely fancy new brakes and suspension. It’s also very yellow, and only 29 are going to be made.
Read more about it here.
Lexus Sport Concept
Lexus Sport Concept
We don’t know what this is, and whether it’s related to the front-engined sports car that Toyota’s been putting through its paces around the world for the last year or so, an evolution of the Electrified Sport Concept from a few years ago, or something else entirely. All Lexus says is that the Sport Concept ‘signals the way forward for Lexus design’. If this is what all future Lexi are going to look like, then quite frankly, sign us up.
Read more about it here.
Kimera Evo38
Kimera Evo38
Italian outfit Kimera’s Evo38 is a ‘what-if’ project that imagines a four-wheel drive Lancia 037. It packs a 592bhp turbo- and supercharged engine, adjustable all-wheel drive, a manual gearbox with exposed linkages, a glass transmission tunnel that lets you see the propshaft spinning around, and a special central valved exhaust system that lets you see the hot, glowing turbo when it’s open. That last thing made us need to go lie down in a dark room for a bit.
Read more about it here.
Ringbrothers Octavia
Ringbrothers Octavia
Wisconsin outfit Ringbrothers is best known for stuffing American muscle cars full of absolutely preposterous amounts of power, but now it’s done the same with a British muscle car. Octavia (definitely not to be confused with the Skoda) started life as a 1971 Aston Martin DBS, but gets a full carbon body, an 805bhp supercharged Ford V8, and all the on-the-nose James Bond references anyone could (or couldn’t) possibly want. We’ll forgive that last bit, though.
Gunther Werks F-26
Gunther Werks F-26
Rounding out a trio of slightly mad restomods, the Gunther Werks F-26 takes a 993-shape Porsche 911 and gives it a terrifying 1000bhp, courtesy of a twin-turbo 4.0-litre flat-six – still air-cooled, mind you. That new front end, meanwhile, is inspired by the 935 Group 5 racer. Just 26 are going to be made, so better get in quickly.
Tuthill/Meyers Manx LFG
We had no idea that just what we needed in our lives was a space-age beach buggy with a screaming Porsche engine in the back. Thankfully, we’ve been shown the light by British Porsche specialist Tuthill and reborn beach buggy builder Meyers Manx. The two have teamed up to give the classic Manx recipe a total overhaul, complete with the 11,000rpm flat-six from the 911K restomod. Goodness.
The bad
Acura RSX Prototype
Acura RSX Prototype
Look, if weird, jacked-up electric coupe SUV things are going to be the aspirational cars of the future, then we at least commend any company that tries to make them interesting to drive, as it sounds like Honda’s luxury North American brand is trying to with its new RSX. But did you have to name it after the US version of the DC5 Integra? Really? Did you?
Read more about it here.
Brabus 700 Rolls-Royce Cullinan
Brabus 700
We don’t really operate in the same circles as the sort of person that’s going to be shopping for a tuned, bodykitted Rolls-Royce Cullinan, so needless to say, what we look for in a car is going to differ wildly from what they do. That said, we really don’t understand the appeal of this overgrown, hopped-up leather-clad London taxi. Sorry Brabus.
Read more about it here.
BMW M850i Edition M Heritage
BMW M850i Edition M Heritage
The present-day BMW 8 Series has never really set us aflame with desire, and it looks like it’s soon going to be shuffled out of production without a direct successor. The M850i Edition M Heritage is a bit of a goodbye for it then, and waves it off with… some new colours. Granted, they’re all taken from the original (and much cooler) E31 8 Series, but for a farewell special, we’d like to have seen a few more tweaks. Oh, wait, it also has *checks notes* a glass gear selector. We take it all back.
Infiniti QX65 concept
Infiniti QX65 concept
We haven’t really thought much about Nissan’s luxury sub-brand Infiniti since its brief and largely disastrous dalliance with the European market. To be honest, we’ll continue not to think about it much if the QX65 concept is the sort of thing it’s coming up with. If there wasn’t a picture of it above, we’d have already forgotten what it looks like.
The weird
Infiniti QX80 concepts
Infiniti QX80 concepts
Perhaps realising just how forgettable the QX-whatever-it’s-called is, Infiniti also brought along a couple of concepts based on the QX80, a leather-filled, big-grilled version of the Nissan Patrol/Armada SUV. One is the Terrain Spec, geared for the very in-vogue activity of overlanding, and the other, rather hilariously, is the Track Spec, packing arch flares, lowered suspension and over 650bhp and 750lb ft from its 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6. Then again, Infiniti has a bit of previous here – remember the fever dream that was the FX Vettel?
Cadillac Elevated Velocity
Cadillac Elevated Velocity
The peak of Monterey concept car silliness, the Cadillac Elevated Velocity is basically a luxurious electric desert raid racer with gullwing doors. It features 24-inch wheels made of flax fibre, a bespoke set of polo equipment in the boot, and – we’re quoting the press release directly here – “Integrated red light therapy [that] helps occupants recover from vigorous pursuits.” We can’t think of any vigorous pursuits you’d get up to in a car, so we’re not sure what use this is.
Bentley ‘Ombre by Mulliner’ paint
Bentley Continental GT with ‘Ombre by Mulliner’ paint
Ever wanted a two-tone Bentley where one colour gradually blends into the other? No, us neither, but now you can have one anyway. That’s thanks to the new ‘Ombre’ process from the company’s Mulliner bespoke division, a fade effect that takes two paint technicians around 56 hours to hand-apply.
Lucid Gravity X
Lucid Gravity X
Though it’s yet to properly launch in Europe, Californian EV startup Lucid has had Tesla quaking in its boots in the US for a few years now. Its second model, the Gravity SUV, recently launched to rave reviews, although we’re not sure we’ll ever see a production version of this roof-boxed, knobbly-tyred off-road version.
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