One-Off Pininfarina Hyperion Found for Sale

As impossible as it may seem for us mere mortals, even one-off special creations can quickly become mundane for extremely wealthy individuals. Rolls-Royce collector Roland Hall from Britain, custom ordered the Hyperion from Pininfarina back in 2008 only to put the car up for sale a year later for €4.5 million (roughly US$6 million at today's exchange rates).
We're not aware if the car was actually sold at the time, but we re-discovered the Rolls Royce Hyperion listed for sale for an undisclosed price at an Abu Dhabi dealership.
Named after Hyperion, one of the Titans of Greek mythology, the convertible model was designed by Jason Castriota of former Saab fame and built by the Special Projects division of Pininfarina.
It is based on the running gear of the Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe with power coming from the British model's 6.75-liter V12 engine.
Among other changes, the rear seats were removed and the driving position was pushed back 400mm back. With the exception of the doors that were crafted out of solid wood, the rest of the body is made of carbon fiber.

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Aston Martin V12 Zagato Final Production

Aston Martin has released the first official images of the final production version of its new limited run V12 Zagato that we first laid eyes on as a concept in both road going and racing flavors at last year's Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Italy. The new V12 Zagato will make its world premiere at the 2012 Kuwait Concours d’ Elegance next week with its European debut to take place at the Geneva Salon in early March.
As the name suggest, it was designed as the ultimate Vantage by Italian coachbuilder Zagato to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its first partnership with Aston Martin, the 1962 DB4GT Zagato.
“Our relationship with Zagato stretches back more than 50 years. Together in that time we have created a series of very special cars," said Aston Martin CEO Ulrich Bez. "The first – the DB4GT Zagato – is a true icon: fast, beautiful and incredibly desirable. In the V12 Zagato I believe we have captured the spirit of that car and combined it with a confident twist of modernity to give it a character all of its own.”
Using the running gear of the V12 Vantage, Zagato penned a unique body and interior for the limited run special.
The bonnet along with the ‘double-bubble’ roof and doors are hand-crafted aluminium, while the front and rear fenders, door sills and boot lid surround are made from carbon fibre. Customers will be able to choose from four bespoke exterior colors including Scintilla Silver, Alloro Green, Alba Blue and Diavolo Red.
We only get a peak of the interior for now, but the pictures reveal that Zagato dressed the cabin in a combination of black leather and alcantara with patterned red stitching along with carbon fiber trims.
Power comes from the regular Vantage's normally aspirated 6.0-litre V12 producing 517PS (510bhp) at 6,500rpm and 570Nm (420lb ft) of torque at 5,750rpm, linked to a six-speed manual gearbox.
Production of the V12 Zagato will commence in the third quarter of the year with first deliveries to take place in the fourth quarter.
Aston Martin said it will build only 150 cars, all of which are available for pre-order with a starting price of £330,000 (plus local taxes), which comes to about US$519,700 or €398,500 at today's exchange rates.

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Chuck Norris Approved: Rider Tames Wild Racing Motorcycle

If there happens to be an opening for a professional bull rider over at CBR, then the man that tamed motorcycle number 73 at the United Arab Emirates national race series on the Dubai Auto Drome needs only to show this clip to be accepted. Check out the video and you'll see what we mean.

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Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport "Bumblebee" at the Qatar Motor Show

General Motors isn't the only company pushing out a black and yellow themed edition of one of its cars as Bugatti is doing the same - fortunately without the toy-ish / kitsch Transformers decals... Whether you like the color combo or not, Bugatti has presented another one-off edition of its Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport, which is the open-top variant of the series, ahead of its world premiere at this week's 2012 Qatar Motor Show that runs from January 25 to 28.
The one-off Grand Sport has a horizontal color split with a bright yellow body encased in visible black carbon, including black-tinted wheels.
The same theme continues inside with the seats and the upper and lower sections of the door panels and dashboard finished in yellow-colored leather with black stitching. The center console comes in black carbon, while the middle sections of the dashboard, door panels, steering wheel and gearshift are made of black leather with yellow stitching.
This particular Grand Sport model carries a price of €1.58 million (about US$2.05 million) compared to the standard version that costs €1.4 million (~US$1.8 million), with both prices excluding taxes and delivery.
Bugatti says that production of the Grand Sport is limited to 150 units of which 45 have already been spoken for.

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Watch the Nissan Juke-R Pawn a Ferrari 458, a Mercedes SLS AMG and a Lamborghini Gallardo

There's no question that the Nissan Juke-R is wickedly fast, but is it actually fast enough to give a lesson to exotic supercars like the Ferrari 458 Italia, the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4, for example? Well, there's a lot to take into consideration including the place and the person driving (let's not forget that any car is as fast as its driver is), but for whatever reasons, this time the Juke-R came out as the winner.

In the video clip from Carsandspeed that follows, we see the 485HP-strong Juke-R winning a race against the three aforementioned supercars on a tightly designed makeshift track in Dubai as part of a promotional event on the sidelines of the local 24hrs Endurance Race, in which it took part as the official pace car.
We managed to find out that the man behind the wheel of the Juke-R was 26-year old Lucas Ordoñez from Spain who was the winner of the 2008 PlayStation GT Academy competition.
Professional race-car driver Christian Vann from New Zealand sat in the Lamborghini, which finished in second place, while professional race driver Michael Mallock from Britain drove the Mercedes that came out last. We haven’t managed to find out who was driving the Ferrari model yet, but we'll post an update if/when we do.

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