The best thing about the BTCC Volvos was the cheating performed by Tom Walkinshaw Racing, the company that ran them. There were allegations that amongst many other rule violations some of TWR's cars (I can't remember if the 850s were amongst them) were built to 7/8ths scale, a fact only discovered when a secondhand…

I agree; once you've seen something like their Tornado or Avalanche this begins to look positively restrained. I wouldn't have one over a regular MP4-12C, but it's a long way from 'ruined' - I also kinda like the wheels.

So make one, they're cheap enough! I prefer this Speedster myself (comprehensive build thread here):

+1 for the big Benz. With those boxy flares it's like a LWB E30 M3 - paint the gold trim black and call it done.

The best part is that this is a sensible, comfortable, affordable, economical and above all safe consumer vehicle that just happens to be capable of this sort of thing by virtue of being well-designed. I love me some V70 - the V70R in particular, but the D5 and XC70 too.

The idea for a vehicle came from Sir Torquil Norman, founder of the Norman Trust who is most known for saving the Roundhouse, a great venue in London's Camden Town by raising £30 million for a complete makeover. As a former Camden resident myself, I must say I owe him a beer for that.

You're talking about something rated at 0.3GBq of output, less than 0.0004% of the rated output of the Goiânia source. I like sensationalism as much as the next tabloid reader, but this is absurd.

A friend of a friend (he's 19) is restoring a silver one of these. Typical Fifties engineering, it is absolutely agricultural underneath. I still want one, though.

The big problem with that design is scaled up to real size those wheels are something like 20", which is pretty impractical for the kind of drag they'd create in the air. It's still in development - Parajet's core business is powered paragliders, or PPGs - but progress continues last I heard. It'll come out…

What do us Yurpeeans get that you don't? I assure you the really bloated bits of BMW's range (X1, X3, X5) are in evidence in London, where I live - they're called Chelsea tractors. I've only spotted a couple of X6s, for which I am very thankful, but I did once pass a Five-series GT, one of the most misshapen,…

I worked for Parajet about two years ago for a summer. Seriously awesome place to work.

Thankyou! After close examination... I'd rather have an Elise.

Link to some sort of build thread? The Solstice seemed like a great-looking little car that needed a ton of work to make it perform acceptably.

The M3 CSL's SMG was widely considered the weakpoint of the car.

Like others have said, SMG stands for Semi Manual Gearbox. It still has a clutch but it ain't your foot controlling it. All manuals have a clutch, but not all clutched gearboxes are manuals.

Completely agree. That intro pissed me off before the end of the second stupid fade in/out line. The sentence structure was stupid, the music/oh-so-dramatic-text combo is almost comically clichéd, and the music/video combo is full retard. I'm watching a car drive down an embankment, not Ingmar Bergman's home sex tape.

Wow - I thought the CVT was the only model offered. Not sure how that slipped by me! The 918 uses a 'similar' (I think) set-up for electrically assisted drive to the rear wheels as the Insight does to its front wheels, but also has a separate system electrically driving the front wheels. That might be a disincentive…

The sad thing is, the Carrera GT was the highest rated of the early 2000s supercar crop for sheer ability. evo magazine's recommended supercar entry used to start something like "Since the Carrera GT is no longer available, we recommend..."

I don't think a conventional transmission would be able to juggle the hybrid system. Are there any manual gearbox-equipped hybrids?

Bdum-tsch!