The gavel is down: Everyone is SOLD! on Barrett-Jackson. The 38th annual Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction returns to the big white tent at WestWorld in north Scottsdale, Jan. 11–18, with a docket of collector cars for all budgets, hundreds of automobilia vendors as well as events for all family members. Bidders from the 50 states and a dozen countries are expected as well as some 300 credentialed media outlets and more than a quarter million paying guests. Leading the hundreds of vehicles scheduled to cross the famous B-J blocks is the 1947 Steyr-Allard racer owned and raced by Sydney Allard; […]
KEEP READING >January 14–18, 2009: Set your stopwatches to Russo and Steele time. For bidders, consignors and lovers of legendary cars: The Ninth Annual Russo and Steele Collector Automobile Auction returns to the Valley for its ninth year — just south of the Loop 101 at Mayo Boulevard and Scottsdale Road. For five days in January, more than 500 European sports cars, American muscle cars, hot rods and customs will appear in the boutique all-reserve auction under 200,000 square feet of white tents. More than 1,500 bidders will vie for $20 million of the world’s great cars, including a one-of-a-kind 2007 Creative […]
KEEP READING >A $150,000-plus Porsche pulls up to your right at a quiet stoplight. You’re in your Griggs Racing GR40 ST and could extend a kowtow nod: After, all, you’ve been challenged by supposedly superior European automotive force. Instead, your custom Mustang smokes the classy Carrera. Next stop, the Porsche is ready with all six gears and hand-stitched leather upholstery. You deliver a smoke show again. Then, to show that your GR40 corners at the highest levels as well, you take a tight freeway onramp and kick Griggs’s g’s in his face as well. This is Bruce Griggs’s dream come true — […]
KEEP READING >The “gallant one” from Lamborghini just got gallanter. Revealed at the 2008 Geneva Auto Show, the 2009 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 charges even more fearlessly than its predecessor with a new 5.2L V10, which puts down 560 horsepower at 8000 rpm and 398 foot pounds of torque at 4250 rpm. The engine, with FSI direct injection, based on owner Audi AG’s potent RS6 V10, is not only slightly larger than the previous version but is mated to a new transmission and its four-wheel rear-biased drive system. Lamborghini also says the LP560-4 is 44 pounds lighter than the former edition, which should […]
KEEP READING >Only five fortunate drivers will own one. Only five 2009 Zonda Cinque cars will be built at Pagani Automobili in Modena, Italy — hence the “Cinque” (Italian, “cheen-kway”). You will need an armored car of American five spots, though, to own one of these carbon-fiber supercars, equal to the best of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. The ticket price for the svelte Italian mid-engine is $1.24 million. This street legal version of the race-only Zonda R carries a 7.3-liter V12, detuned, if you will, to 678 horsepower from that rocket ride’s explosive 750. Still, the Cinque accelerates, in equally galactic […]
KEEP READING >“The car has multiple personalities,” says a smiling Stan Briggs of the Aston Martin DBS. Stan is the brand manager at Scottsdale Aston Martin, a Penske Automotive Group dealership, which is awaiting delivery of the new luxury sports car from the Land of Bond. Excited AM-ers might want to rush down to 6825 E. McDowell Road as soon as the DBS lands. “For city driving, this is a very-easy-to drive coupe,” he explains. “Or, it’s a car that can be taken on a long trip with great comfort. On the track, due to the adjustable suspension, ceramic brakes, weight distribution, racing […]
KEEP READING >Michael Schumacher didn’t just drive the new Ferrari 430 Scuderia. The seven-time world champion honed it to Formula 1 excellence, adjusting gear-change timing, traction, suspension, stability. So, the 510-horsepower limited-edition supercar from the land of the Prancing Horse is directly connected to the racetrack, where it is as comfortable as it is on the freeway or a street in Scottsdale. Hence, the name that echoes that of Ferrari’s Formula 1 team: Scuderia Ferrari. Schumacher tested the V8-equipped mid-engine at Nürburgring, the great German track that sounds Wagnerian, mythic, a place for the gods. For sure, this car, with its extraordinary […]
KEEP READING >For sure, a 2008 Porsche 997 Twin Turbo is not a mild-mannered Clark Kent kind of ride. But after Evolution MotorSports smokes the tires of this great sports car into, and out of, its Tempe laboratory/ garage, it’s a super-car — prepared to mete out justice to bad street cars everywhere. Buckle up, grab your cape, and hold on for a trip across time and space. If you can catch up to him, ask Karim Mashouf of Beverly Hills, a 30-year-old entrepreneur. A former Bentley GT driver, he wanted a car that was more than its marque. Ferrari and Lamborghini? […]
KEEP READING >The Lady: Scottsdale’s Lynn Smith. The Beast: A Shelby Daytona Coupe from John Panfil’s Anthem Motors. Smith and husband Barry accepted delivery last October of the super-car from Panfils’s north Phoenix company. The continuation car is a natural for a woman who has loved horsepower since she was a child in North Carolina. A horse rider, she had her pilot’s license by the time she was 25. She’s also parachuted 99 times out of airplanes — two jumps with malfunctions. “My love for cars began when I was 16,” she recalls. “My dad used to take me on obstacle courses […]
KEEP READING >A purpose-built go-cart for the street. That’s the 2008 Exige S 240 — Lotus’ quickest, most powerful street-legal production car to date — as described by one man who knows. Road and Track also recently salivated: “There’s absolutely nothing else remotely like it,” its writer noted. “This Lotus is special in a lot of ways when comparing it to anything else that is offered from other manufacturers for the street,” says Chad Wilkens, sales associate at Scottsdale Lotus, 7652 E. Acoma Drive in the Scottsdale Airpark. The family-run, no-pressure agency will also put you into a new Elise SC or […]
KEEP READING >Tony Blair has driven the new Jaguar XF. Sometime in March, you can, too, at Scottsdale Jaguar Land Rover, 6725 E. McDowell Road. The former British Labour prime minister couldn’t comment, but he’d no doubt be joined by Conservatives across the aisle in acclaiming the new sports sedan’s convergence of luxury and performance. Almost 8,000 of his very proper countrymen have pre-ordered the vehicle which represents a new styling language for the Coventry-based luxury carmaker. “This exciting new vehicle will put Jaguar back on people’s shopping list,” says Michael Famileti, general manager of Premium Luxury Brands for Penske Automotive, which […]
KEEP READING >A Yenko, a Jag, a Cobra, and a Spyder. Scottsdale Photo Radar Alert: Drew and Josephine Alcazar have these sizzling-hot cars and 500 other collectibles revving up and rolling into town again. Their eighth Russo and Steele “Sports and Muscle in Scottsdale” auction-in-the-round returns to north Scottsdale Jan. 16 through the 20. Among their 500-plus consigned cars — most with reserve — will be a 1950 Jaguar XK120 Alloy; a 1971 Plymouth Hemi Cuda; an original, numbers-matching 1965 Shelby Cobra; a rare 1969 Chevrolet Corvette L-88; a 1966 Lamborghini 350 GT; a 1969 Yenko Chevelle; a 1973 Ferrari 365 Daytona […]
KEEP READING >A one-off Italianized ’63 Vette, a ’35 very English Rolls originally delivered to très French Montreal, and a fire-breathing California-built Robosaurus: Where else but Barrett-Jackson? These two collectibles as well as 1,000 other muscle cars, classics, hotrods, and customs will be offered at the 37th annual “Worlds Greatest Collector Car EventTM” Jan. 12–20, 2008, at WestWorld in north Scottsdale. Last year’s Barrett-Jackson auction spun out record sales of $112 million for 1,270 cars sold at no reserve during the week, including the world-record gavel price for an American car: $5.5 million for Carroll Shelby’s “Super Snake” 1966 Cobra. Attended by […]
KEEP READING >One day John Panfil may arrive as one of America’s car legends. To get there, he sells them. American Legends, 21242 N. Black Canyon Highway, specializes in home-grown race car classics you can park in your garage. If names such as Shelby AC Cobra, Shelby Daytona, and Ford GT40 excite you, as they have excited racetracks for almost 50 years, then pit stop at John’s place — and let everyone know you’ve arrived. At American Legends, you can purchase a variety of 21st-century versions of American supercars — classic lines with the finest contemporary components. His showroom and shop is […]
KEEP READING >Three tons, 12 cylinders, two coach doors, four seats and a base of just over $400,000: one superlative automobile. The long-awaited Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé, which began as the 100 EX concept vehicle at the 2004 Geneva Auto Show, has arrived, but if you want it to arrive soon in your garage, motor on down — now — to Rolls-Royce Motorcars Scottsdale, 6725 E. McDowell Road. Only 300 of these mega-convertibles will be delivered in the United States, and the waiting list will put you in with kings and queens and business royalty, but you’ll have to have the patience […]
KEEP READING >The Trident has made its points, again. Meet the Maserati GranTurismo. Grand touring cars combine power with roadability, strength with elegance, assurance with grace. They meet the road with the panache of a race car and the dependability of the family car. They’re long distance and short-trip to the market, regal as well as every day. They can show it off on the track, the autobahn — or to the in-laws, due in on the 5:15 at the airport with all of their baggage. The new four-seater from the great Italian automaker delivers all of these qualities: 405 horsepower from […]
KEEP READING >Ed Brace just helped many kids by helping out the kid in him. The owner of Scottsdale-based Diamond Back Automotive Group recently purchased the “Black Hornet,” a one-off 1968 Shelby EXP500CSS — Carroll Shelby’s personal car. Providing late-model foreign and domestic luxury and exotic automobiles for more than 20 years, Brace’s company sells highline cars in a retail showroom/warehouse at the Scottsdale Airpark, 15270 N. 83rd Place (phxcars.com). The proceeds of the undisclosed sale price benefit the Gardena, Calif.-based Carroll Shelby Children’s Foundation™, which the racing automotive manufacturing legend established in October 1991 following a heart transplant the preceding year. […]
KEEP READING >To move their high-profile wheels, Norman and AC Celik sometimes get high. So high, the cofounding brothers of Forgiato once booked an employee on Delta Airlines with a set of the company’s forged-aluminum wheels to deliver in time for a Texas car show. Based in Arleta, Calif., Forgiato (“forged” in Italian) manufactures luxury wheels for high-performance vehicles such as Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Porsche, Mercedes Benz and BMW. These luxury cars elicit admiring looks without Forgiato’s — and coveting stares with them. The Celiks’ American alloy wheels, built in their factory/warehouse to jewel-like specifications, are available in 17 styles, with […]
KEEP READING >The Trident has made its point — and points — again. The Maserati Quattroporte Automatic, the latest from the Maserati factory in Modena, Italy, slickly unites luxury with speed, functionality with the pleasure of the road, everyday four doors with weekend zoom. An authoritative mark of command on all of the vehicles, the company signature is the trident — symbol of the Roman god of the seas, Neptune. Roman gods these cars are — with a heritage in racing and the open road. While some await the arrival of the Sergio Pininfarina-designed Maserati GrandTurismo, scheduled for a late October U.S. […]
KEEP READING >“For the tenacious, no road is impassable.” For the lover of handcrafted performance cars, no Spyker is undesirable. The Dutch-designed and handbuilt sports car, bearing the Latin motto, “Nulla tenaci envia est via,” is now available at Motorsports of Scottsdale/ Lamborghini of Scottsdale, Raintree and Hayden roads. The Spyker C8 Spyder convertible starts at $269,995 and the C8 Laviolette coupe at $292,500. These are high-performance, low-production two-seater mid-engines very much at the Ferrari and Lamborghini pinnacle, with naturally aspirated all-aluminum Audi V8 engines, fueled through eight injection throttle bodies and four overhead camshafts and five valves per cylinder. The output […]
KEEP READING >Here’s a high-performance challenge: Start with the legendary 575 Maranello, unveiled by Ferrari in 2002, and create a front-engined V12 berlinetta that would exceed its extraordinary performance on the track and street. A challenge, indeed, as the Maranello had won both the attention of sportscar buyers as well as two FIA GT championships. The result from the people of the Prancing Horse: the 599 GTB Fiorano, let loose into the streets and into car lovers’ dreams last year. Indeed, this is a mid-front-engined two-seater that continues the great tradition of Ferrari, from the 250 MM more than a half century […]
KEEP READING >Top this: Top down, you accelerate from that irksome freeway red-light to 60 miles an hour in 3.4 seconds, and this graceful V12 will see green until around 205 miles per hour (photo cameras or police chasers excepted) — enough to get you from Phoenix to Flagstaff in a cool hour and 15 minutes. Could a beauty with a Pinnafarina body sunning on the Italian Riviera deliver that much excitement? The Lamborghini Murciélago Roadster, which debuted at the 2006 Los Angeles Auto Show, retains the many assets of the LP640 Coupe while adding drop top excitement as well as bodystyle […]
KEEP READING >Feel left out in the collector-car parking lot? Want to sell your two-door classic but can’t get in the proverbial front door of other auctions? Like car auctions but wish they were also vehicles for family fun, for everyone to enjoy? Nancy White, Joe Schott and Eric Jones of Peoria, Ariz.-based Classic Carriages LLC have heard your automotive angst. Their Collector Car Auction and Show, March 14–18, at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, responds directly to the needs of those consignors with great vehicles who have been denied the opportunity elsewhere. The triumvirate has also designed an event […]
KEEP READING >Dream of sandcastles and kick sand in the face of Ferrari, whose muscle-bound cars were already legends on the raceways, on the roads, in the motoring mags. This is how Ferruccio Lamborghini chose to begin his journey into sports-car history. A proud and driven Taurus, Lamborghini paved his own legendary road, creating his own roar in the Po Valley and in lands far beyond Emilia-Romagna. Today, his cars — with names as muscular and sensuous as their bodies and powerplants — pound roads and autobahns and superhighways from Africa to Asia and Arizona. His speedy Miura S, sculpted two decades-plus […]
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