A little later, he adds his impression on first seeing Newman's name painted on the name of his race car in 1967: "Why would Cool Hand Luke want his name on what was probably the worst Can Am car ever designed?" That pretty much sums it up; Paul Newman came to racing somewhat late in life, but he was a racer. We get the entire story of Paul Newman's racing career, from the first time he took his Porsche-engined '53 Beetle out onto the Willow Springs racetrack, through catching the racing bug for real while filming "Winning," and on through his evolution from weekend Datsun 510 racer into Trans Am winner and team owner. Motor Trend executive editor Matt Stone and co-authors Preston Lerner and Mario Andretti interviewed a broad swath of Newman's instructors, competitors, and team members, and the reader comes away with a good sense of the kind of racer he was. According to Bob Sharp:

His first year was a struggle. He wasn't naturally fast. But he had a sensitive touch and was very easy on equipment. Even in the beginning, when he wasn't the fastest guy out there, he was always clean and disciplined. Never was he off the track. He improved very logically, systematically, and as he got more and more races under his belt, he got better and better and better. It was unbelievable. He became a very, very good professional driver.

Newman moved up to faster and faster cars, racing a Porsche 935 in the 1979 24 Hours Of Le Mans and winning his first Trans Am race in 1982. After that, he moved into CART team ownership and yet more racing. Though his acting gig occasionally got in the way of his real profession and his philanthropic ventures grew in importance, he more or less lived racing until his death at the age of 83 in 2008. Reading this book, you'll get all the twists and turns of this story, and Stone's hagiographic tone may be forgiven when referring a man who, by all accounts, really was the all-around good guy he appeared to be.

As a nice bonus at the end, we get a chapter devoted to Newman's street cars over the years. Not only was there the Porsche Super 90-powered '53 Beetle in the early days; Newman decided that wasn't enough, so in 1969 he commissioned a Ford 351-powered Beetle. In the 1980s and 1990s, Newman drove some hot engine-swapped Volvo wagons. How about an '88 740GLE with a 400-horse turbo Buick V6? Or a supercharged Ford small-block in a '96 Volvo 960 wagon?

This one gets a four-rod rating. Murilee says check it out!

[Motorbooks]

The CSRG charity challenge takes place every year and benefits various children's charities, but this year it definitely didn't benefit this car. Seems things got a little too hot during the action and the car burst into flames. Fortunately the driver was uninjured and emergency crews were able to put the fire out before the car was completely destroyed. Still, hate to see such awesome vintage racers go all en fuego. Making the fire even more dramatic was the fact that this was the exact car featured on this years tickets.

(Thanks to Cory O'Brien for the tip and great pictures)

The Canadian-American Challenge Cup series, aka Can Am, started out pretty wild… and then got even better! Active aerodynamics, four-figure horsepower numbers, the works. The Porsche 917. The Chapparal 2J "sucker car." General madness.



Can Am was pretty damn cool, that's for sure. But Can Am machines didn't bear much resemblance to street cars, and there was a distinct lack of dirt on Can Am race tracks. Not so with Group B Rally, which ran from 1982 to 1986 and featured utterly ridiculous race versions of everyday street cars- which actually had to be homologated, although in fairly small numbers- dodging drunken fans on zero-margin-for-error roads. No limits on turbocharging and/or supercharging boost! Group B cars were so awesome that we almost can't stand it (I'm going to wear out the italics tag here)… but it's pretty hard to out-awesome the 917 or 2J. What's your choice?

Wiggle your big toe. Wiggle it with enough determination and your feet, clad in racing boots, will pop into place. All snug? All buckled up? Palms not too sweaty on the balsa wood shifter knob? Good. Your toes will now serve as figureheads on a great German ship of aluminum and titanium. Now say hello to the twelve air-cooled cylinders set to turn your cabin into a furnace and blast you down the Mulsanne Straight at 246 MPH.

When the Porsche 917 debuted at the Geneva Motor Show on this day forty years ago, nobody knew it would come to define the very spirit of Porsche. The 917 gave the company its first of 15 victories at Le Mans. In four years, it morphed into the most powerful racing car ever made. Steve McQueen turned it into a movie star in his 1971 film Le Mans. But on that March day, all Porsche had was an unsorted prototype with abysmal aerodynamics. It would have died a quick death if not for the willpower of Ferdinand Piëch, who would go through similar misery to produce a car with similar perfomance thirty years later in the Bugatti Veyron.

The difference between the two is that anybody can drive the Veyron—as proven by Top Gear’s James May—but when the 917 debuted, racing drivers would’t touch it with a stick. And just consider the titanic amounts of chutzpah one needed to get into any death trap of a 60s racing car, which killed drivers with greater precision than earlier examples of German engineering killed GI’s.

The 917 wouldn’t stay on the road. Its lightweight aluminum spaceframe was barely enough to contain the immense power of the engine, an air-cooled flat twelve which began life with 580 naturally aspirated HP. Before that could happen, an engineer by the name of John Horsmann had to figure out a new tail configuration to make the car handle. These days, we have computers and wind tunnels to help, but back then, aerodynamics was Formula 1 guys sticking random wings on tall struts and Jim Hall hacking away at his Chaparrals in Texas. Horsmann’s version increased downforce at the expense of drag and the 917 Kurzheck—German for “short tail”— was born. This was the car that won the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans, the stage for McQueen’s car nerd epic.

The 917 repeated its performance the next year before it was outlawed for 1972. Derek Bell, who would claim five victories with the 917’s successors, remembers in an article he wrote for the October 2008 issue of Octane:

Testing for the 1971 Le Mans, [Porsche chief race engineer Norbert] Singer asked me what revs I was pulling in the 917 down the Mulsanne Straight. I told him 8100rpm, which he said was a good thing because the engine would blow up at 8200rpm! That equated to 246 mph and we have never been quicker since.

The car would then cross the Atlantic to race in CanAm. With the addition of turbocharging it morphed into Moon rocket lunacy and became the Turbopanzer, also known as the 917/30, which made 1100 HP in race trim and won every race but one in the 1973 CanAm season. It retired at Talladega Superspeedway in 1975 with driver Mark Donohue—who had a week to live—taking it around the tri-oval in a 225 MPH blitz.

Yet ask people about the 917 on any side of the Atlantic and nobody remembers it anymore. Racing regulations and drivers have come and gone and Porsche has been away from Le Mans for a decade now. So why it the 917 still worth remembering? It was the last in a line of sports racers which were out to kill you, which pushed the performance envelope at the expense of safety and sanity, and when you swap your eyes with those of its driver, it still gives you a queasy, insane ride around Le Mans:

And remember: your toes, vulnerable little antennae, are in front of the front axle all the time. They get stuck in the aluminum bodywork as you wiggle for the brake pedal at the end of the Mulsanne at Mach 0.32.

Happy birthday, now, you big bad savage thing.

Photo Credit: Frank van de Velde, Porsche, edvvc

We first heard of the Hulme F1, as it was called way back in 2005, when it was unveiled in concept form. Now it's been revealed as a completed tester, ready to be beaten within an inch of it's life to test all of the systems. And about those systems; The CanAm is an all carbon fiber monocoque with a 7.0L LS7 V8 from the Corvette Z06 and nestled into the center of the chassis. The 600 HP mill is hooked to a custom built Quaife six-speed manual gearbox and powers wide rear wheels. the whole lot tips the scales at a somewhat porky 2,645 lbs but 0-62 MPH times are targeted at less than three seconds with a top speed edging 198 MPH.

The test car got its day in the sun at the track-day reveal at Pukekohe Racetrack during the Taupo stage of the A1GP in New Zealand. With test driver Kenny Smith at the helm, Mr. Freemantle settled into the passenger seat and cooley stated "We're ready, Mr Smith." During the first shakedown run the car managed 123 MPH with no major failures, a good omen for a car destined for sale across Europe and the Middle East with a price tag of $700,000 in this open top form. No idea what kind of prices would be involved if the coupe concept version were to ever hit the road.
[Hulme Supercars, MotorAuthority, Stuff.co.nz]

Rumors suggest that the first shoot next week will take place in Bethlehem, Penn., and the set is outfitted to look like a Chinese city. It will feature a new concept car not seen in the first movie as well as two Blackhawk helicopters. A car hauler was also seen around the set with two Saturns and five unidentified Chinese cop cars.

[TFW2005; Transformers Live]

...the car was built on top of a VW chassis, which I always use for my cars, it was fitted with disc brakes, 18 inch Breyton rims and sits on Vredestein Sessanta tyres (designed by Giugiaro), they were sponsors of the project.Wheelbase is 240cm , the car is appr. 175cm wide and 426cm long hence the name CM426.

The interior is simple with just the minimum of dials. The retro digital speedometer/rpm/tripmeter is from a german company who designed them for motorcycles.It uses a sensor mounted on the rear disk and takes the RPM from the coil. All the edges of the car are in fact sheets welded onto a 6mm stainless steel tube, which were then grinded down to form te edges, true craftsmanship which led me top leave the car bare. The anti rollbar is more of an aesthetic element, I wanted to give the car some height, suggesting a roof structure without it was formed by shaping tubes by hand and welding one sheet on top and two sheets at an angle at the bottom creating a rounded triangular shape that casts beautiful shadows. The project is now finished and so the car is for sale.

After receiving an invitation at the beginning of the year to participate in a niche vehicle design project I designed and built the 'CM426 merlin'.The car was inspired by the Canadian American Challenge Cup racers of the early seventies.The CM426 merlin is a contemporary study of what still is the least regulated race series ever to have existed.The Can Am series lasted for just a few years producing iconic cars like the Porsche 917.Half car, half sculpture, the CM426 merlin is both a piece of design and old fashioned craftsmanship.The car was built on top of a self-supporting chassis powered by a rear mounted flat four engine.The body was constructed out of stainless steel sheets which were laser cut and welded to a steel subframe.It stems from a time of bold advertising, saturated colour TV and before we turned to sms games and micro-casting to get a message across.

Marijn van der Poll:" It's hard to compare the design and building of a car to my other design work.It is the combination of moments of pure joy and shear frustration trying to dist ance myself from all that has come before. This is an illusion because it is driving in its most broad meaning that provides a context for all of my automotive designs and is a continuous source of inspiration, from muscle cars to vintage monoposto's.The CM426 merlin is a pilot oriented automobile, connected to its driver. A mass produced product reduced to one hand made object".

It goes perhaps without saying that our favorite racing series of all time is Group B. And why not? Family hatchbacks tuned to within an inch of their steroidal jackrabbit lives was and will always be good, dirty fun. Relatively lax rules meant manufacturers were free to employ A-league trickery to make their cars faster (both turbo and supercharging with unlimited boost), lighter (exotic materials) and nimbler (AWD, baby) than the competition. And we're not the only ones with B-lust. When put to a vote this past June, you crowned the Audi quattro S1 the King of the "Killer Bees." Interestingly, the man behind that machine is the same man behind today's Fantasy Garage nominee: Dr. Ferdinand Piëch (for those keeping score, the good doctor is also responsible for the VW Phaeton and Bugatti Veyron). No surprise then that Piëch's single-mindedness turned the nearly stillborn 917 into perhaps the greatest racing car of all time. And without question the most powerful.

Piëch's Porsche 917 came to life only because the FIA changed the rules to prevent cars like it from existing. Ford's GT40 (and the Lola T70) proved to be so totally dominant at events like Le Mans that in 1968 the homologation numbers for Group 4 (5.0-liter sports car class) were lowered from 50 to 25, opening the door to other manufacturers. Porsche's racing arm had already been building close to 25 prototype cars a year under Piëch's stewardship, dating back to 1965. This seemed like a no brainer. Furthermore, they could sell the surplus cars to privateers, recouping some of the development costs. With only 10 months to go before the start of the season, Piëch set out to develop a car that could take on and defeat the world's best. Hey, why not?

Piëch and company started with the already worthy Porsche 908 racer. The tubular steel frame was scrapped in favor of a slightly weaker but much lighter aluminum job that weighed only 101 pounds. Like the 908, four independent wishbones suspended the 917, only the coils were honed from titanium. Low weight was the top priority — the shift knob was made from balsa wood. The still air-cooled engine (rumor has it that VW put up two-thirds of the development cash simply to promote air-cooling) was essentially the 908's straight-eight with four more cylinders slapped on, creating a very slick 4.5-liter flat-12 that was good for 580 horsepower. Unlike the 908's boxer crankshaft, the 917's engine used a shorter crank similar to those used in "V" engines in order to reduce the motor's footprint. The 917's were finished with a detachable tail, allowing teams to choose between high downforce or low drag.

Things got off to a rocky start when the FIA visited the Porsche factory to find only three completed 917s, 18 assembled, and seven literally in pieces. No chance, said the inspectors; the rules mandated 25 completed cars. Three weeks later, in a feat of automotive heroism that should make your spine tingle, Piëch presented the inspectors with 25 working 917s all parked in a row in front of the Porsche factory. He even offered them a test drive, which was politely (and wisely) turned down. Regardless, these new über Porches would be allowed to compete. Funny side note: Ferrari was able to bring its 512 to the races a year later with only 17 cars built. C'est la Enzo.

Much rockier however, was the car itself. It's a running joke among car cognoscenti to refer to the 996 GT2 as the widowmaker. Oops, wrong Porsche. In the 917, wheel spin at over 200 mph was commonplace. Drivers would not only pray for their cars to break down, but openly celebrate when one did. So bad was the 917's handling that several top pros simply refused to climb inside. Porsche asked BMW to supply two drivers for the 1969 1000 km Nürburgring. The drivers found the Porsches to be both insanely fast and dangerous, and BMW ultimately refused to take the risk. The Bavarians were sadly proved right a few weeks later when driver John Woolfe was killed in a 917 during the first lap of Le Mans. Two 917s did lead the pack for a while, but much to the delight of their drivers, broke down during the night, allowing Jacky Ickx to win the big race in a GT40, beating a Porsche 908 by a football field.

The 917/20 "Pink Pig" aka "The Truffelhunter of Zuffenhausen"

Something had to be done; the most powerful Porsche racecar ever built succeeded in winning just a single race (Zeltweg) in its first season. Partnering with John Wyer and the Gulf team, Porsche's engineers were free to concentrate on refining the 917 while others had the chore of actually racing it. A breakthrough came when a Wyer engineer named John Horsmann decided downforce was more important than low drag. Taping aluminum sheets together to form a short dual set of tails, the 917 almost instantly went from being an undrivable monster to a fairly well sorted racer. Later that year a 917K (the short-tailed 917s were referred to as "Kurzheck") won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as well as Daytona, Brands Hatch, Spa, Monza, Watkins Glenn, and the Austria Ring — bringing home the much coveted "World Championship for Makes" title. A 917K with a bigger 4.9-liter mill and a highly flammable magnesium frame would win Le Mans again in 1971. Not bad for a car once feared and loathed by its drivers.

Then the FIA banned it. Normally the story would stop here. Porsche built a can of whoop ass on wheels, won some races and then their class got canned. Happens every year, and we can't just keep filling the Fantasy Garage with Le Mans winners now can we? (Wait, can we?) Lucky for those of us for the whom the appellation "hoon" might be apropos, somebody hipped Porsche to the Can-Am series taking place in North America. Specifically, Group 7. Why Group 7? Because it didn't have any fricking rules, that's why! Seriously, there were no restrictions on engine size, induction or power. There was no minimum or maximum vehicle weight. You could do whatever you wanted in terms of aerodynamics. Cars had only to have two seats, enclosed wheels and meet 1972 safety requirements. Group 7 was essentially Smokey Yunick turned loose in Australia, metaphorically speaking of course. When you dangle meat like that in front of a man like Piëch, the results are usually both predictable and astonishing.

1500 HP Porsche 917/30, The Most Powerful Racecar Ever

Porsche's first inclination was to develop a 750 hp straight-16. However, they decided to go with a bored out 5.4-liter twin-turbo 12-cylinder that was good for 1,100 horsepower — in engine-saving racing trim. For the qualifiers, boost was cranked up to 39 psi and the 917/30s were developing 1500 horses, making them the most powerful racecars ever. Performance was double stupid, with 0-60 happening in 1.9 seconds, 0-200 in 10.9 seconds and top speeds in the 250 mph neighborhood. In 1973, with Mark Donahue behind the wheel, the 917/30 lost exactly one race. It won all the rest. Forced to act, Can-Am implemented the only rule it could to slow down the ultimate 917: for 1974 Group 7 cars had to achieve better than three miles per gallon, which effectively killed both the 917 and Cam-Am. Also, didn't Steve McQueen make a movie about the 917? Happy voting.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

[The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage appears every Tuesday. Though, because of Monday Night Football, this will be switching shortly to every Wednesday. Readers vote the cars in or out. The idea is that we'll have 50 cars in our Fantasy Garage, the world's greatest mechanic and endless wads of cash. Would you like to nominate a car for the Fantasy Garage? Write tips@jalopnik.com with the subject line "Fantasy."]

The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage, So Far:
RUF RT12 | 1978 Aston Martin V8 Vantage | Honda 1300 Coupe 9 | 1931 Daimler Double Six 50 Corsica Drophead Coupe | Ferrari 288 GTO | Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 | 1970 Buick GSX 455 | First Generation BMW M Coupe | Bugatti Veyron 16.4 | Ford GT | Citroen SM | Porsche 928 | Jensen FF | DeTomaso Vallelunga | Audi Quattro S1 | Buick GNX | Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R | Honorary Fantasy Garager: The LS1 Powered Rotus | Lamborghini LM002 | Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe | Ferrari 250 GTO | Bentley Speed Six | Talbot-Lago T150C SS Figoni et Falaschi Raindrop/Teardrop Coupe

A while back, the boys over at Winding Road got to spend some time around the Chaparral 2E Can-Am car at GM's spread across the street from the Ham Center in Warren, MI. Somebody suggested earlier today that Ed Welburn deserves a raise. We'd forgo a raise for some seat time in a 2E, which still stands as one of the manliest, most forward-looking racing cars of all time. – Davey G. Johnson

Related:
Because Overgrown Boys Still Love Drawing Can-Am Cars: Future Chaparral [Internal]

Upon approach, the Spyder is smaller in all dimensions than it looks in pictures. It's surprisingly low to the ground; the saddle is only a little higher than a Harley Fatboy, but nothing close to a BMW GS. From a styling point of view it's either love it or hate it. The bodywork is nicely sculpted, with fancy ducting around the front wheels and a carefully styled seat section. The headlight and windshield "pod" is the only part that looks a bit off, but in operation it makes sense. One thing I wasn't expecting was a Corvair-like trunk up front. There's enough room for your helmet and jacket or a bag of groceries or (shudder) a briefcase. Neat-o!

On the nuts and bolts side of things, the engine is a 998cc twin Rotax affair which also powers an assortment of Aprila models to great effect. The fat rear wheel is hooked up to a dual sided monoshock swingarm and is driven by is a carbon-fiber reinforced belt . The vehicle features linked brakes and an all-wheel ABS system. This bike/car also has stability control in the form of ignition cutout when you start doing something stupid. More on this later. Now things get weird. The double A-arm suspension up front is designed for Ackerman steering, self centering, and a pretty neutral kingpin offset. This means it's basically a car suspension up front and doesn't allow for leaning the vehicle into corners like a motorcycle. As a result, motorcycle purists think it's the work of Satan, while we're a little more pragmatic about it.

Hopping onto the Spyder is no different than onto a bike, except you can get on from either side without looking like a moran [sic]. The seating position is quite comfy and sort of like a cross between a rocket bike and touring setup. Your body is fairly upright while your feet are underneath. From a motorcycle rider's point of view, when driving the Spyder, there are a couple of things that are unsettling at first. The linked brake system is at the top of the list. The front brake normally offers 80% of total stopping power and is the first line of defense at your right hand. Here there isn't even a handle, just the twist throttle. All braking is done with the right foot, normally reserved for the weaksauce rear tire. This only causes temporary unease because after the first full panic stop, you can't help but praise your deity. On a motorcycle if you lock the front wheel you will go down unless you're very lucky. It's called low siding. I've done it and it's not fun.

Acceleration is smooth and controllable and the transmission is very fluid. Despite the displacement, the engine feels a little bogged down with an extra couple hundred pounds. So it's only about as fast as a modern 600cc rocket bike, which is to say still very fast. The engine note is delightful — a grunty howl with a dash of gear whine, however, I'm pretty sure a slip on can would really make it sound cool. Now the big question, cornering. If you've ever ridden a quad before you'll note cornering mechanics of the CanAm are almost identical. Hold onto both grips, keep your torso high, move your body around with your legs and use it like a lever against chassis roll. My first high-speed corner had me lifting the inside wheel and squealing the outer one. This machine is very predictable. The long wheelbase and well sorted suspension work together to soak up bumps that would unseat you on a motorcycle.

This all sounds like the makings of an ideal hooncycle, and in an ideal world it would be. However, I have one complaint. The traction control nanny is a bit of a killjoy. They need to dial it back from 11 to about 7. Half the fun of riding a quad, snowmobile or jetski is to let things hang out a bit —oversteer, play in the dirt, get squirrelly and in general have some fun. It seems that with the Spyder, just when things get fun (read: dangerous) the engine ignition cuts out the power and what you think is going to be a powerslide through the gravel turns out to be a sputtering plod through the gravel. Or when you really lean into a corner and get on the gas, the rear tire slips a little and that perfect apex you were aiming for disappears. Oh well. Lawyers.

To sum up: Not a motorcycle, not a car, something different. Maybe better. I'd love to have it for a week to test it as a daily driver. As effete as it may seem, the locking trunk is a huge selling point. Carrying a backpack full of stuff is a hassle and sweaty in the summer. Throwing the boat anchor out without worrying about locking up is really nice. Is it $15k nice? Nope, but once the other manufacturers jump into the market (Honda, Kawasaki, BMW... are you listening?) I suspect competition will have a nice effect on that problem. I can hardly wait to see what generation two looks like. – Ben Wojdyla

Related:
Can-Am Spyder Website Goes Live, Trike Fanatics Hearts Aflutter [internal]

Our pals at the road that tends to have little to do with straightaways posted this video of a car designed for adjustable drag/downforce given the state of said roads. Oh, and it also happens to be wicked-awesome. Yes, it's the Chaparral 2E. Yes, we will buy one as soon as our number comes up. And no, we won't think less of you if your girlfriend leaves you for it. – Davey G. Johnson

Related:
You Wish You Were This Cool [Internal]

So the Can-Am Spyder is a bit of an oddity, and it was pretty much off everyone's radar, but we're on it like crazy on Congress now. The real deal grown up website is going live at 11:00pm which is like now and that means specs, new pics, maybe some vids, certainly some wacky marketing pitches. I can't promise I'll be posting the wacky goodness instantly since it's SaturdayFriday night and I'm lazy/half drunk, but I WILL be checking it out when it goes live, as all of you should too. Everyone should be a little bit psyched by tthe rollout of an all new niche, the motorcycle-automotive hybrid. Oh yeah, the possibilities for hyphenated hybridization are so exciting. – Ben Wojdyla

Can-Am Spyder [Can-Am (flash required)]

Related:
So That's What That Was: The Can-Am Spyder [internal]

When pics of that unidentified trike — shot during a burn through Tail of the Dragon — hit earlier this year, the kids were abuzz. Had BMW taken over Volkswagen's GX3 mantle and built a three-wheeler for the sporting set? Turns out, as the New York Times reported yesterday, the mystery bike was called the Spyder, a product of the Sea/Ski Doo people, Bombardier Recreational Products of Canada. That company relaunched the Can-Am brand this year as a maker of ATVs and this thing. It's powered by a 106-hp V-Twin and comes with traction and stability control and antilock brakes, all for around $15,000. We'll know more when the trike launches officially later this week. – Mike Spinelli

A Tricycle for Adult Situations [The New York TImes]

[Can-Am Spyder Roadster]

Related:
Spy Photos: Was Ist Dis Trike? [internal]

The Canadian-American Challenge Cup. Just thinking about those halcyon days of death-defying hypermotorsport makes our bowels begin to rumble and our head a bit light. When men were men and racing cars that did more than go in a straight line were propelled by big block Chevy mills. And while Jim Hall's clandestinely-supported team never dominated the series like Porsche did, there's no question that the Texas racer was the most innovative of the bunch. Plus, those white cars just looked ridiculously cool. GM Design Director Ed Wellburn slipped the Winding Road kids some sketches done by his team of what a modern Chaparral might look like. After all, is one really ever too old to doodle Can-Am racers? – Davey G. Johnson

GM Designer Sketches Chaparral of the Future [Winding Road]

Related:
Chaparral to Produce Limited-Edition 2E Racer [Internal]

Loveseat, indeed. It's one thing to watch your DVDs of LeMans or CanAm race footage while sitting in a Barcalounger or some other glorified tree stump. It's entrely another to curl up in your own Porsche 917. Sure this model is lacking around 1,100 horsepower or so (from CanAm setup), but the company that makes it will paint it in your choice of livery. We'd of course stick with the Gulf-Wyer trimming. Just 3995.00 (~$7500) takes one home. Click through to see (and hear) a less living-room-friendly version. – Mike Spinelli

Le Mans Lounger? UK Firm Builds Porsche 917 Sofa [Winding Road]

Related:
Vasek Polak's Porsche Engines Recovered, Auctioned For Charity [internal]