The Million Dollar Benz

After Mercedes-Benz had their GT1 racecar approved for competition by producing a single road-going coupe, they dug in and comissioned HWA to build 25 more machines. The exterior on these cars looked just like the racecar, but the suspension was softer, the engine in a mild state of tune, and the interior was spruced up to Mercedes-Benz luxury car standards.

The race editions of the CLK GTR did awesome in 1997 when Klaus Ludwig and Bernd Schneider earned loads of wins and finally won the FIA championship piloting one of these beauties. While the front end of their racecar slightly resembled the CLK sedan, the GTR was an entirely new product.

The GTR sported a midship mounted 6.9-litre V12 producing 600bhp, which was based off of the 6.0L V12 found in the SL600 2 door coupes and convertibiles.

In '98 and '99, Mercedes-Benz built 25 CLK GTR road versions, which were detuned from race spec, rated at 550bhp and they made use of an integral spolier. Most of these GTRs utilized the 5.9 liter Mercedes-Benz M120 engine from the S600 sedan. One was delivered equipped with the massive 7.3 litre AMG V12. This was car was labeled the Super Sport, and there are one or two more GTRs in existence that have been upgraded to this more potent powerplant.

After all 25 of coupe versions were spoken for, HWA produced 5 limited edition roadsters. These few examples of the GTR became one of the most costly production cars in the world running about $1,500,000.

The Devil Incarnate - The TVR Cerbera Speed 12

This car is the Devil. There's only one of these left and it's way too powerful for nearly any track or road.

In '98 the gearheads over at TVR had a huge amibition. They wanted to unseat the McLaren F1 as the worlds fastest supercar. While they didn't reach this goal, they created a monster, one that looks as if it can eat Toyota Corolla's for lunch.

The Cerbera Speed 12 was a huge departure from any other car TVR had ever produced. It didn't have much in common with their existing stable, and it didn't resemble the other models much either.

The car got its namesake from the conceptual engine, whose production was pure lunacy. The nuts over at TVR decided it would be a great idea to join two of their already ridiculously powerful Speed Six engines to a single crank and modify the engine to full race spec. The massive resulting 7.7 liter, 1000+ bhp V12 was so strong, that the TVR in-house dyno broke when they where trying to tune it. This awesome power, and the ridiculous costs associated with keeping it running, were the primary reason why very few cars were built. As little as five engines were created!

The original purpose of the Cerbera was to enter the GT1 class of FIA GT motor sport and eventually end up competing in LeMans. Sadly, new regulations made the Speed 12 race cars obsolete before they were even fully completed. Instead, they raced in the British GT championship with huge rectrictors that kept power down around 700 bhp. Even with this, the drivers still had a hard time keeping the power on the ground and any unrestricted car would have been even worse.

The Sleek Cat - The Jaguar XJ220

I'm sure many of you guys have heard of this awesome automobile. This was Jaguar's most recent offering to the supercar arena. Recent being somewhat of misnomer because this car went on sale in 1989!!!

The XJ220 makes good use of a 3.5L V6 equipped with Garret T3 Twin Turbos. The car produced approximately 549 brake horsepower at 7000 rpm and 473 foot pounds of torque. Which is quite an impressive figure considering the low amount of displacement the car had to work with. This V6 engine was the first in Jaguar's history, it was also the first Jaguar engine to make use of forced induction technology.

The Jaguar XJ220 held the title of the fastest production car for the entire year of 1993. Clocked at 217.1 mph at the Nardo Ring racetrack in Italy, it stole the title from the from the previous record holder the Bugatti EB110. The record stood until 1994, when the Mclaren F1 shattered the record at a blazing 231 mph!!

There were only 281 examples of this awesome machine ever made, today it is considered one of the most collectible super cars in existence.

Welcome To The Auto Exotica Blog

Thanks for stopping by! I'd like to introduce myself, I'm the Obsessed Tuner, and I love absolutely everything there is to love about cars! I dream of cars day and night. I'm here to share my passion for exotic automobiles with you! So I hope you enjoy the blog!!