Outrageous minivans are oddities of the train wreck variety. You don't want to, but you just gotta look. And we're suckers for them. Not that long ago we had the ridiculously fast, jet-powered Dodge Caravan, and then there was the show but stock slow Mugen Honda Odyssey.
But what do you think of a Saleen-built Ford Windstar? And, no, it's not a soccer mom special that someone slapped a Saleen windshield header on. This is the real deal. It's got custom-made carbon fiber mirrors, valve covers and steering wheel. The double-nostril hood is custom-made as is the gauge cluster and the fender flares over the Z-rated 18-inch Rikens. Underhood is a Saleen supercharger atop the Ford V6. The eBay auction says more than $100,000 was spent on the monster minivan's production.
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Factory Five currently sells the most popular Shelby Cobra kit by far. One of the reasons that more people build the FFR Cobra than all other Shelby kits combined is that it's the easiest one to finish, as it comes with everything needed minus a donor Mustang. That same philosophy is behind the new '33 Hot Rod kit from FFR. Any small block Ford V8 engine will fit, along with the buyers choice of transmission and a Ford rear end. The benefits to starting with a completely new foundation rather than an existing Ford product from the '30s are apparent when you take a look at that triangulated tube chassis and its in-board coil-over front suspension. Plus, with just 2110 pounds. to push around with its fiberglass body, this is one '33 that will have no problem getting out of its own way. Want one? The kits are currently priced at just under $20K and are shipping now. A short wait 'till December will ensure that no parts are on back-order. That should give you plenty of time to source an appropriate engine, transmission and rear axle and rolling stock. Now, all you need to do is pick a color.
Cruising amongst the various cars down Woodward this weekend were quite a few machines that fit into the Hot Rod genre. Starting with a classic old-school vehicle platform, adding power and lowering it to the ground, the Hot Rod ethos still manages to attract its fair share of gawkers, including those of us wielding cameras.
Sadly, just a few days after the passing of Boyd Coddington, the world has lost another veteran hot rod builder. Former Coddington colleague, John Buttera, lost his battle with brain cancer on March 2nd. He was 67. 'Lil John Buttera was one of the pioneers of the Southern California performance scene. He initially moved to the West Coast from Wisconsin in order to work with Mickey Thompson on his famed Land Speed Record streamliner. Buttera then moved onto producing legendary dragsters and Funny Cars out of his own chassis shop in Cerritos, California. He even entered his own creation into the 1987 Indianapolis 500, which qualified eighth and earned him the Clint Brawner Mechanical Excellence Award.
Our sincere condolences go out to his friends and family.
You may remember Lief Tufvesson as the ex-Volvo employee turned SEMA regular who arrives in Las Vegas nearly every year with another new custom Volvo hot rod of some sort. The T6 Roadster and V8 Speedster are his most noteworthy creations, but he's arrived early this year with the Hot Rod Jakob, so named because it's design has been modeled after the first run of Volvos produced back in 1927 that also carried the nickname "Jakob". Tufvesson's company Caresto is behind the project, which began all the way back in 2005.
This new age Jakob is powered by a modern turbocharged inline five-cylinder engine that puts out 265 horsepower and 273 pound feet of torque. While that's three cylinders short of what you'd expect to find powering a traditional hot rod, the Volvo T5 unit doesn't have much weight to move thanks to a chassis made entirely of carbon fiber except for the engine's steel subframe, and a body skinned in hand-beaten aluminum that hides from view the suspension and exhaust hardware. Those wheels are 10x22" AEZ Forge rims up front, 8x19" versions in back and are supposed to mimic the look of the original wooden-spoked ones. They're also wrapped in custom-milled Pirelli rubber that feature Volvo's iron symbol.
It's a gorgeous rod of hotness, for sure, and you may get to see it when Volvo takes the Hot Rod Jakob on a tour of its homeland and the USA later this year. Until then it will sit at the Volvo Museum in Göteborg where the company first got its start.
While the little green angel on our right shoulder prompts us to applaud cars that get good fuel economy, the Italian-racing-red devil on the left whispers how cool it is to waste gallons of irreplaceable fossil fuels on things like supercharged Land Rovers. Truth be told, we like giving in to the red one. We just feel guilty about it the next morning. And just in case the force-fed Range Rover Sport from the factory wasn't enough, along comes something that makes us forget all about the letters HSE.
What you see here is a circa-1950's Defender Series I, the original Land Rover that has crossed continents countless times. But in case it didn't get from coast to coast quite fast enough, some blessed soul has dropped in a supercharged Ford V8 kicking out around 800 horsepower. In its current state, though, we doubt it'll be fording any rivers – unless they've already dried up.
Monster motors were the order of the day in the late 1960s, and GM's 427 was a part of that class. The drawback to a big-block's burly output was, and still is, the increased weight of the engine. While big blocks are a hoot for straight line shenanigans, a small block car is often a better all-around performer. That goes out the window for most of us upon tapping that vast well of torque, and there was a solution direct from GM. The ZL1 was a 427 rendered in aluminum to save weight and carried a 430 horsepower rating. The ZL1 is the stuff of legend, commanding the sharp intake of breath when mentioned with the Corvette, and reverent silence should the COPO Camaro be cited.
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