After the 2008 Geneva Motor Show, we needed a little recoup time, but yesterday we were back on the beat at the 2008 Detroit Autorama. We're just going to lay the smack down right away, the winner of the 2008 Detroit Autorama Ridler Award was a car we saw last year in the building stages - a Ferrari-engined Nash Rambler dubbed "Ferrambo". The bright red lightning rod of holy-shit-that's-crazy stood out pretty strong amidst this years Great 8 as the hands down, batshit craziest entry and we love the Autorama judges for giving it the nod.
The Ferrambo may not be the greatest name ever, but it serves up a stout 280 points on the Jalopnik scale, and for good reason. How many other tiny, bright red, two door station wagons with a mid-mounted 3.6 L V8 mill out of a Ferrari 360 Modena have you seen lately? Of Course it's stupidly well built, but the details are really what puts this car over the top. The builders at Divers Street Rods went so far as to swipe the Ferrari text and use it to call out the car's name everywhere it was tastefully necessary. Under hood there is custom fitted leather luggage instead of the original wimpy inline 6. The the seats are custom covered buckets and the rear seats... there are no rear seats, only engine. Here's something really cool, the rear windows rotate about 5 degrees open with the turn of the ignition to provide a little venting for that beastly engine. Yes indeed, Troy Trepanier may have had a cool car with last years winner, First Love, but this year's winner is a hell of a lot more Jalopnik in our book. Divers Street Rods