Race Cars

Dodge’s Viper, arguably Lee Iaccoca’s biggest gift to gearheads ever, has been seen racing on the world’s race tracks for almost three decades and, although the last road-legal Viper rolled off the production line in 2017, its race-bred namesake is still homologated for racing in the GT3 category which is why famed German tuner and race entrant Zakspeed decided to give the Viper one more shot of proving itself in a 24-hour race next January as it will contest the annual 24 Hours of Dubai.

Lockdowns the world over have re-shaped the calendar of the 2020 Formula 1 season thus bringing to the fore tracks that either had never featured in the championship before or had been absent for a number of years. We’ve had races at Imola, Mugello, and Portimao and the F1 circus simply couldn’t leave Europe without staging a race at arguably one of the best Tilke-era tracks, Turkey’s Istanbul Park. However, track conditions have caused a myriad of problems for teams and drivers in the days leading up to the first Turkish GP in nearly a decade and one of the solutions found was ingenious to say the least.

Nowadays, thanks to the awesome possibilities that are within reach for most next-gen racing titles, our list of demands is continuously expanding and, almost always, a large selection of cars is at the top of the list with the prerequisite that the cars have to look good and sound amazing. But the job of getting a car, any car, into a modern video game isn’t easy because, well, stuff like 3D-scanning and an ultra-realistic physics engine are both complicated to do and expensive.

We’ve seen our fair share of tuned Nissan 350Z over the sports car’s long career. Some are good examples of what a tweaked Z should be while other are festivals of tasteless work. Mountainpass Performance’s 350Z falls in the first category. Even more, it’s built with racing in mind (not street racing, though) and it even packs an electric motor.

Has there ever been a more famous sports car than the Jaguar D-Type? Following in the footsteps of the C-Type, Jaguar’s first purpose-built racer, the D-Type defined an entire era of sports car racing and did so with a combination of charm and power that has arguably never been matched.

From its howling inline-six engine, its emblematic curves culminating with that tail-fin, to the myriad of race wins it achieved throughout the ’50s, the D-Type stands tall across the ages as perhaps the embodiment of Jaguar’s finest hour. And you can now own an example made during the original production run some 64 years ago.

BMW’s Motorsport division has been building race cars for nearly five decades and the current M4 GT4 is undoubtedly one of the all-time stars. Bagging titles all over the world including in Europe, North-America, and Asia, the M4 GT4 is now approaching the end of its third full season of active competition and BMW has decided to mark the occasion by creating a raft of new liveries for the 450-horsepower race car based on the F82-generation M4 Coupe.

If you’re fed up with the bore-fest that is Formula 1 and are looking for another racing series to devote your attention to, may we suggest an entire formula that sees action across the globe in a variety of championships? That formula is known as GT3 and now, 14 years since its launch, is the most popular GT category in the world with as many as 70 cars lining up in its marquee events. The Mercedes-AMG GT3 is one of the most popular GT3 cars and we think its soundtrack plays a part ints massive appeal as well.

Back in the 1980s when every kid could be spotted in an arcade parlor during weekends, Sega’s OutRun was one of the most popular go-to machines. Whether it was the stand-up cabinet versions of the more elaborate sit-down versions, OutRun had plenty of fans.

That’s important to note because while arcade parlors are no longer around, the game is making a comeback courtesy of Arcade1Up. The direct-to-consumer arcade builder is offering a limited number of OutRun sit-down arcade cabinets — in all their 8-bit glory — that you can order for just $499. We don’t need to tell you that it’s a great Christmas gift for your beloved, especially if he/she grew up chugging cans of Tab, using hair spray on their hair, and running through a piggy bank’s worth of quarters in these arcade parlors.

The KTM X-Bow has been under constant evolution since its inception back in 2008. The Austrian motorcycle manufacturer has been working closely with a handful of suppliers that helped turn the X-Bow into a better and better track machine as years went by.

Today, we’re having a look at the GTX, the latest and most hardcore version of the KTM X-Bow. And yeah, it’s a full carbon-fiber affair this one.

The 1977 F1 World Championship wasn’t even over when news came that Ferrari’s top man and new World Drivers’ Champion Niki Lauda would leave the Scuderia. In the Austrian Ferrari had found a leader it had lacked since the days of John Surtees but now the team was seemingly back in the doldrums.

The rescuer was like fire to Lauda’s ice in every way conceivable and, arguably, there has never been another one quite like him since. He was the ’Piccolo Canadese’ and he should’ve been the 1980 F1 World Champion but 14th in the standings is all he got. This car is the reason.

The 2021 BMW M2 CS Racing is a motorsport version of the company’s M2 CS road-going coupe. A replacement for the BMW M240i Racing, the 2021 M2 CS Racing, comes with significant upgrades for track use and slots under the BMW M4 GT4 as the firm’s entry-level race car. What makes the 2021 M2 CS Racing an authentic race car? Where can you race this vehicle? Find out in the review below.

We’ve been hearing all sorts of rumors about Bugatti recently, including that it’s working on a new supercar and that it could be sold to Rimac. News about the new hypercar was also unclear. Some claimed it will be all-electric, while others forwarded the idea that it will be just another Chiron-based thing. Well, the new supercar is here, and it’s neither of them. It’s called Bolide, and it’s actually a brand-new idea. It’s a track-only vehicle with a new carbon monocoque and a brand-new design, but how extreme is it? Let’s find out!

Ford has entered the electric SUV realm with the Mustang Mach-E, a sporty hauler capable of up to 459 horsepower and up to 300 miles of range. But FoMoCo didn’t stop here and also created a monstrous race-spec Mach-E. Fitted with no fewer than seven electric motors that deliver a combined 1,400 horsepower, the Mustang Mach-E 1400 is downright spectacular when it comes to performance, but it also looks cool in its race-inspired suit. The SUV was recently showcased at Goodwood Speed Week, where master drifter Vaughn Gittin Jr. proved that you don’t need gasoline power to do donuts.

If you’re a fan of the early days of Formula One racing and have around $2 million to spare, we have news for you: Vanwall is building six continuation cars of its championship-winning VW5. If you’re not familiar with the name, Vanwall built and raced Formula One cars from 1954 to 1960, winning nine races and the world championship in 1958. Vanwall was run by Tony Vandervell and his team included famed engineers Colin Chapman and Frank Costin. Vanwall Group, the successor to the British racing team, will build six new continuation cars.

You don’t often see a 3,600-pound 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 participating in any kind of sanctioned race. Even rare is the sight of a Galaxie 500 destroying the competition in a sanctioned race at the 2020 Goodwood SpeedWeek. Driven by 2016 BTCC Championship runner-up Sam Tordoff, the mountain of a Ford tore through a field of classic race cars that included Lotus Cortinas and Mini Coopers as if those cars were battery-operated. It was an incredible display of nostalgic might for a car that, back in its time, was considered too fast for track racing and too heavy for drag racing. More than 50 years after it was launched, the Galaxie 500 finally had its day at the 2020 Goodwood SpeedWeek, and it was glorious to see.

Some people acquire retro cars and turn them into glorified garage queens in the wake of a thorough restoration process. Some people acquire retro cars and turn them into hillclimb monsters. Care to guess which way Javi Graña went with his Alpine A110?

Jenson Button has started 306 Formula 1 Grand Prix races and won 15 of them while also bagging the 2009 Drivers’ World Title driving for Ross Brawn’s team but he’s never raced a GT3 race car. All that is about to change with Button set to compete in the Silverstone 500 in November behind the wheel of a McLaren 720S GT3 entered by the squad he co-owns, Jenson Team Rocket RJN.

Saab, the now-defunct Swedish automaker known for its quirky models and its original parent company, also known as Saab, that made fighter jets among other things was never big on racing. While the company took pride in the myriad of technical innovations that saw the light of day in Saab’s cars, the track was never Saab’s main development lab. That’s why this brutal-looking Saab 900 Turbo is the stuff of dreams as it takes us to an alternate reality where Saab not only had a proper presence in the U.S. in the ’80s but also decided to spend money developing a race car for the popular GTO/Trans-Am rules that brought together American sedans and coupes as well as Porsches, Ferraris, and Audis.

Travis Pastrana will be taking the reins from Ken Block in Gymkhana 11, Subaru sniffed out the opportunity and that’s how the one-off, bare-carbon Gymkhana STI was born.

Subaru and Gymkhana are no strangers to each other, as the first two instalments saw Ken Block smoke the living rubber out of a WRX STI. After a long collabo with Ford, the Gymkhana franchise is back to its roots and we absolutely love what we’re seeing.

Volkswagen only recently introduced its first I.D. all-electric production model, but it’s been toying with the concept since the Dieselgate emissions scandal in 2015. Following its withdrawal from motorsport, Volkswagen developed the I.D. R, an all-electric race car with 671 horsepower.

The German brand first raced the I.D. R at Pikes Peak in 2018, setting a new record for electric cars. It also set records at the Nurburgring Nordschleife, Good Festival of Speed Hillclimb, Tianmen Mountain, and Bilster Berg. More recently Volkswagen gave the EV to F1 driver Nico Rosberg for a hot lap around the Nurburgring F1 track and the I.D. R sounds like a space ship under full throttle.