If you have enough money, you can tell a carmaker to build you just about anything you want. Jalopnik readers picked ten unhinged one-offs of the car-styles of the rich and famous.
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Photo Credit: Colani/CarStyling.ru
10.) Blastolene Tank Car
Suggested By: ForzaFanatic3
Why it's deranged: Legendary builder Randy Grubb took an M47 Patton engine, twin-turbocharged it to 1,600 horsepower and 3,000 lb-ft of torque and built a hot rod around it. The whole thing weighs around 9,500 pounds.
Photo Credit: Steve Corey
9.) Pininfarina P4/5
Suggested By: waveridin1959
Why it's deranged: Any car enthusiast should be happy with an Enzo. It's stunning to look at, fantastic to drive, and has one of the greatest reputations in the industry.
James Glickenhaus was not happy with an Enzo, and instead got Pininfarina to rebuild one into the lighter, faster retro-futuristic P4/5. He did build a sister car, but it was based on an F430 for road racing.
Photo Credit: Derk Photography
8.) Maybach Excelero
Suggested By: McLarry
Why it's deranged: Maybach is dead, but the Excelero will never die. It was built to test tires at high speed, show off how much that Benz V12 can do, and generally look like the most badass thing on wheels.
Birdman tried to buy it, but since that didn't work out, it remains in the Jalopnik Fantasy Garage.
Photo Credit: Maybach
7.) The Basement Lamborghini
Suggested By: SarDeliac
Why it's deranged: Most of the cars on this list were thought up by gentleman wealthy enough to get a car company or coachbuilder to design them a car. Ken Imhoff saw Cannonball Run and wanted a Countach of his own, but he didn't have the money to go out and buy one. So he built a Countach. In his basement.
We consider it a greater car than anything ever built for the Sultan of Brunei, who leaves his cars to rot like a dirtbag.
Photo Credit: Ken Imhoff
6.) Colani Corvette Charisma
Suggested By: TwiceAroundTheClock
Why it's deranged: Most of Luigi Colani's insane one-offs are non-functioning design studies, like his twin-hull Miura prototype. In 1989, however, took a very functional Corvette and turned it into this, the Corvette Charisma. It's like the world's fastest guppy.
It toured the US explaining Colani's organic design style, and with a 1995 re-bodying, it hit 230 miles an hour at Bonneville.
Photo Credit: Dolani/CarStyling.ru
5.) Phantom Corsair
Suggested By: CrzRsn
Why it's deranged: The Phantom Corsair was supposed to be a production vehicle. The man behind the project, Rust Heinz of the Heinz family, was going to make a ton of these 190 horsepower streamliners, but only one got built in 1938.
Perhaps people were frightened by the fact that it looked like a death machine from the future.
Photo Credit: Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance
4.) Presidential Cadillac Limousine
Suggested By: ForzaFanatic3
Why it's deranged: Take one industrial-grade GMC TopKick. Stretch an armor-plated Cadillac body over it and you have Obama's Cadillac One, or as it is affectionately known The Beast.
Photo Credit: Ben Murray
3.) Brooke Swan Car
Suggested By: Richard Bartrop
Why it's deranged: It's the star of the show at this year's Pebble Beach, it was built by an eccentric British colonialist in India, 1909-1910, and yes, it craps whitewash.
Photo Credit: Alden Jewell
2.) GM EcoJet
Suggested By: OMG, TTA!
Why it's deranged: Jay Leno, rich gearhead that he is, asked GM to build him a ecological supercar.
GM gave him a Corvette with a 650-horsepower helicopter turbine in the middle. It runs biofuel and is bodied in carbon fiber. We wish we had money for a project like this.
Photo Credit: GM
1.) Cadillac TAG Function Car
Suggested By: Jordan Hewlett
Why it's deranged: Nobody builds customer cars with quite the same panache as Switzerland's Franco Sbarro, who topped himself back in 1978 with this 23-foot Cadillac shooting break.
It was commissioned by Joseph E. Adjadj, the owner of the brand TAG, as a sort of rolling office. It has four chairs, two phones, and was designed to have two secretaries onboard. Sbarro bought the car back and it hasn't been sold since.
Photo Credit: Sbarro/CarStyling.ru