Since retiring from competition, Finnish ex-rally driver Kari Mäkelä has been busy building badass Michelotto rally-car replicas out of classic Ferrari 308s. Let's take a look at what goes into a typical build. Strap in; you may be here a while.

For her wedding day, British bride Megan Ashton wanted to arrive in a Porsche 356. Unable to afford one, she did something better — she spent six years hand-building this replica from a thrashed Volkswagen Beetle donor car.

Frank Stephenson ranks among the most accomplished living auto designers with a portfolio that includes the revived Mini Cooper, Fiat 500 and the McLaren MP4-12C. How does such a talented man spend his free time? By trolling for fights on an Internet forum.

Welcome to another episode of "Because Swedecar [UPDATE: Make that Because Finncar.] Today we're examining a take on the 1930s roadster aesthetic, whose engine has eight spark plugs. (Of course, it also only has four cylinders.) Without further ado, here's the, er, Alfa Romeo hot rod.

Of all the cars in the world to take racing, the tiny, '70s-era Fiat 126 might be the least likely choice. Which is what makes the transformation by a British shop of a 126 into a 330-hp beast so impressive.

Is there anything a Dodge Viper V10 engine can't be wedged into? If so, would someone please tell this guy from Sweden, who installed a 10-pot snakelump into a Saab 9-3 Combi. Sweden should just change its national motto to "Yes."

Ever started a little project that just kept snowballing until you woke up one day and realized you'd replaced every single part? That's kind of how this Jaguar V12-powered MGB-GT came about. Mark Sawatsky of Winnipeg is the culprit.

What's purple, costs less than $500 and has box flares like a Renault 5 Turbo 2? Yes, it's a trick question because you haven't yet seen how this 24 Hours of LeMons racecar went from Geo Metro to SHO-powered sicko.

What happens when technology meets enthusiasts' basement carbuilding? You get stuff like this Bentley Speed 8 replica, which a mad Swedish genius has been scheming, programming and constructing under cover of a Northern European winter. Now it's in the daylight.

Chef Grant Achatz built one of America's best restaurants on his talents with molecular gastronomy. After battling back from tongue cancer, his friends decided to give him a special gift: the 1970 Pontiac GTO he'd restored as a teenager.

By day, Tim Neil oversees software development tools for Research In Motion, the company behind the Blackberry. By night, he transforms into a guy building a Tim Burton-era Batmobile that he'll be able to control via Blackberry.

Say what now? The headline may contain words unlikely to share each others' company, but the build is real. It's from Sweden's SVK Customs, and by "it," I mean a Ferrari 550 GTR: carbon-fiber body, BMW heart, drift-car steering angle.

He and his mates were out hooning in a borrowed MK4 R32, when they hit a 30-mph corner at 100 mph. They survived, the R32 did not. But the 4Motion lives on in a MK4 Jetta coupe. You heard right.

It's been a long, arduous three years since V8 Archie kicked off his Pontiac Fiero-based Lamborghini Miura replica project, and hell if he's not all done with it. Risking cries of vehicular blasphemy, we say this thing looks damn good.

It's one thing to customize your mass-produced ride for which there are thousands of parts available. It's quite another to breathe life into someone else's insanity, like mating two rare post-war German microcars. Here's the story of the Frankenschmitt.

Porsche's factory restoration unit bought a gutted 1973 911 T Coupe off eBay, with plans to rebuild the vehicle over the next year. How obsessively precise could they be? They're employing the factory workers who assembled it 37 years ago.