6 dream machines from the Pebble Beach Concours’ Concept Lawn
It’s old stuff all the way down at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Well, that’s at least true on the main drag of the showfield fairway; some of the automotive industry’s hottest new-new sits nice and pretty on the Concept Lawn just before you walk down to the main event.
That name is important—don’t expect to see many ready-for-production cars in the mix. This is a space reserved for the latest avant-garde design concepts from large and small automakers alike. The few dealership-bound cars that do land on the grass are almost exclusively freshly debuted supercars from a boutique marque.
There was some weird, wild, and wacky stuff in attendance this year, so we picked some of our favorites to highlight. Take a look:
Gunther Werks’ Project Tornado
At first sniff, this turbocharged orange bodybuilder appears to be distinctly tamer than the insane crop-top Speedster variant the boutique shop debuted at The Quail last year. Given that a standard GW build is about as visually aggro as the Porsche 993 profile can get, there are only subtle differences between this and the previous naturally aspirated builds.
Yes, this orange-you-glad-we-didn’t-say-Singer coupe is GW’s first turbocharged build, with twin snails boosting the 4.0-liter Rothsport Racing flat-six from 431 natural-breathing horses to a wild 700 hp. The rest of the hardware is the standard top-shelf stuff carried by the first run of cars, including adjustable JRZ coilovers and a swollen body hewn completely from carbon fiber.
At 2700 pounds, this rear-wheel-drive super not-a-Porsche should be one of the liveliest cars on the Concours Lawn to drive. Not sure we’ll ever get the chance, considering only 25 will be built and likely will be sold out before the car makes it on the trailer back to Southern California.
Polestar O2
Y’know, like the stuff we breathe. That’s how you’re supposed to read the concept name, anyway—”O2” is best read as the descriptor for molecular oxygen, a reference to the aire libre status of Polestar’s latest concept. It’s based on the same framework as the prior Precept Concept sedan, only down two doors and less a fixed roof.
We first got our peek at the O2 earlier this spring, then presented as merely a stylistic preview of Polestar’s design direction. Once the board of directors saw the exuberant response, it was decided that the O2 will move to into production as the forthcoming Polestar 6. Just don’t expect the concept’s self-deploying drone to go with it.
The specs should be enticing, provided you like EVs; 844 hp and 663 lb-ft is on tap from twin electric motors that a return a predicted 3.2-second 0-62 mph sprint and a top speed of 155 mph. Bring enough scarves or sunblock for you, your beau, and two little ones, because the O2 can carry four.
Hennessey Venom F5 Roadster
If you add the power outputs of the two prior cars together, you’ll get 1544 hp. Hennessey Performance thinks that’s a good start, but those are rookie numbers. The famed Texas tuner proves it with its new Venom F5 Roadster and its bananas 1817-hp 6.6-liter twin-turbo V-8.
You’ve probably already seen the fixed-roof Venom F5 coupe—this is simply the open-air variant we all knew was coming. What we did not expect was Hennessey’s claim that this long, lean speed-shard is designed for breaking the 300-mph barrier, should you keep the top on.
Can the Venom F5 do it? Hennessey’s says so. If you just can’t wait for the speed-shops’ official verification, it only takes one of the thirty $3-million build slots, (and a whole lot of empty, closed road) to find out for yourself.
DeLorean Alpha5
Bearing no relation to the dearly departed John Z. DeLorean and his namesake company won’t slow down the newly minted DeLorean Reimagined. The first (potential) fruit of the new venture is the Alpha5 sedan, a four-seat electric rocket wearing clothes from ItalDesign and packing a 100-kWh-plus battery with 300 miles of range and a 0-88 mph (har, har) run in 4.4 seconds.
That’s the concept, anyway. Both the company and its planned progeny are still in incubation. Look for more news of this latest gullwing EV as DeLorean Reimagined attempts to set up its HQ in San Antonio.
Delage D-12
We admit it—this Gundam-tastic weapon is being included here purely based on the deliciously historic name. The link between the D-12 and the Delage marque that snuffed out in the mid-1950s is more tenuous than the new DeLorean, but hey—we’re a sucker for that spec sheet. Delage purports a 7.6-liter V-12 working in tandem with an electric motor for a wicked 990 combined hp. If everything goes according to plan, 30 will be built for around $2 million each.
Koenigsegg CC850
Leave it to Koenigsegg to make a Ferrari—no, a Bugatti—seem boring. The new CC850 is one in a long line of Koenigsegg hypercars to bring sci-fi technology to limited production. This new ‘Segg pays homage to the distinctly analog CC8S from 2002, and the insane engineering feat du jour is that the Swedish madhouse modified—or, more like re-engineered—its nine-speed multi-clutch Light-Speed Transmission to offer the driver both the option of a manual transmission and a fully automatic transmission.
No joke. The multi-clutch nine-speed automatic transmission offers both two- and three-pedal driving depending on the driver’s mood. For the old-school, a six-speed gated manual with clutch-by-wire and shift-by-wire operation lets you drive the 1385 hp hypercar like the old CC8S. Stuck in Rodeo Drive traffic? Leave the third pedal alone and the transmission switches back to a standard version of the automaker’s nine-speed auto.
Slick stuff. Fifty units will be built for $3 million a pop.
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