6 Speed-Hungry Vehicles That Debuted at The Quail, 2024

The annual festivities of Monterey Car Week include auctions, vintage races, car shows, and parties, and a lot of car shows that are also parties. The Quail, A Motorsport Gathering, is perhaps the most exclusive. Tickets cost four figures and grant access to multiple tents with luscious buffets and open bars that are scattered across the greens. Think brass bands and champagne served as early as 9 a.m.

If you’re a fan of lavish performance cars—from America, Croatia, Sweden, France, Germany, or Italy—the list of Quail attendees reads like a who’s who: Cadillac, Rimac, Koenigsegg, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Pagani. You’ll also find displays from boutique shops like RUF, Touring Superleggera, and Singer Vehicle Design.

Here’s why you should care about The Quail, even if that description either leaves you cold or is entirely out of your budget. Held at the Quail Lodge & Golf Club in Carmel, this show serves as a focal point for high-end manufacturers that, five or ten years ago, would have chosen to debut their concepts, one-off customer builds, or new models at international auto shows like the one in Geneva, Switzerland. The prestige of the event makes The Quail a great place to show off a new car, sure, but another reason is practical: The people who attend The Quail are the sort that, after watching the reveal of a $750,000 car, walk up to the company reps and ask to buy one.

A lot of news-worthy debuts happen here, most of them with the performance slant suggested by the “Motorsport” in the name’s event. We’ve covered the biggest news in separate pieces: Lamborghini’s new V-8 plug-in hybrid and successor to the V-10 Huracán, the Temerario; Porsche’s one-off and very yellow speedster; a badass Integra that is also very yellow; and Cadillac’s highly futuristic 2+2 concept, Opulent Velocity. Here are a handful of other debuts worth discussing from The Quail this year.

Maserati GT2 Stradale

Maserati is back racing, with a twin-turbo V-6 of its own design, and the company wants to get people excited about that. Meet the GT2 Stradale, billed as a barely legal version of the race car, which was publically unveiled at Spa in June of last year.

The GT2 Stradale made its debut sandwiched between a special edition (the Icona) of the grand tourer on which it is based—the MC20—and the MCXtrema, a track-only special based on the same vehicle. Weight is down (by 132 pounds) and power is up (by 10 hp). That giant rear wing adds 800 pounds of downforce, and the carbon-ceramic brake rotors are larger than before, cooled by extra vents on the hood and dedicated ducts in the front fascia. Top speed and acceleration are both improvements upon the regular MC20: 0–62 mph in 2.8 seconds and a top speed of nearly 200 mph (320 km/h).

We spoke to Maserati Brand Manager Alvin Bond during Monterey Car Week and he pointed out some of the changes that make the GT Stradale special. “You have vented louvers getting air out of the wheel wells and cooling the brakes. It also has larger air intakes in the rear. It’s up ten horsepower over the coupe, 631hp vs 621.” Opening up the car reveals lightweight carbon fiber bucket seats. Oh, and that color, it’s a beautiful metallic called Digital Aurora Matte.

For those who want to know more about the Trident’s involvement in motorsports, Maserati is racing in GT2, a series focused on amateur drivers (those who don’t earn a living by racing) and sanctioned by SRO.

Rimac Nevera R

Maté Rimac, the CEO of Bugatti-Rimac (the product of a merger in 2021), surprised the world in June when he unveiled a new Bugatti. It wasn’t a pure-electric, like the Nevera that bore Rimac’s name before he took the helm of the French company. No, the Tourbillion had a jewel of an engine—a V-16, in fact.

This jade-green car, the Nevera R, proves that Rimac isn’t picking favorites between his brands, or between the types of powertrains he’s willing to invest in. (The Tourbillion, for the record, was also on the lawn at The Quail this year.) Though the Nevera, revealed in 2021, was conceived as a wildly powerful grand tourer, Maté says that customers kept asking him for a more aggressive version. The Nevera R is his answer, with 2107 hp, a fixed rear wing, larger rear wheels, and a new tire package. The new aero kit includes a large diffuser and improves downforce by 15 percent and aero efficiency by 10. The rear wheels measure 21 inches in diameter, rather than 20, and all four wheels are wrapped in Michelin Cup 2 rubber (the regular Nevera uses the Pilot Sport 4S). Thanks to all that kit, the Nevera R can hit 186 miles per hour in an eye-bulging 8.66 seconds. Only 40 will be made.

“It’s designed more for improving the handling and track performance,” said Maté upon revealing the car at The Quail, “but it’s actually even faster than the Nevera.” His next project? A single-seat, track-focused car. “We didn’t bring it with us,” he said, because “we still have some work to do on the race tracks around the world before we show it here to you at Quail.” Consider our calendars marked!

Pagani Zonda Arrivederci

Draped in black silk in front of the Pagani booth was a bewinged, open-top monster with the profile of a Zonda. Those keeping their finger on the pulse of supercar news already knew what it was: The 140th Zonda, “the final original example.” Unveiled online a few days earlier, the Zonda Arrivederci wears a bespoke body made of Alutex, a composite cousin to fiberglass and Kevlar produced by aluminizing glass cloth. Alutex is used for the rudders of sail boats, shin guards, and even in furniture. For this Zonda, it is accented in blue and red stripes, coordinating with a candy red leather interior—the upholstery matches the Huayra “La Monza Lisa,” because the same person commissioned both cars from Pagani.

Touring Superleggera Veloce 12

We’re all familiar with modernized versions of classics from the ’60s, ’70s, or even the ’80s, but Touring Superleggera’s Veloce 12 is based on a car from the late ’90s: The 550 Maranello, a grand tourer that marked Ferrari’s return to a two-seat, front-engine V-12 layout for the first time since the Daytona.

The Italian design firm treats the 5.5-liter, dry-sump heart of a 550 to ” a comprehensive refreshment during conversion,” revising the exhaust and cooling systems to improve output to 503 hp. While they’re also reinforcing the chassis, Touring yanks the body off the donor car and replaces it with one executed in carbon fiber, with subtle nips and tucks and sharpenings compared to the original. The head- and taillights are similar to those of the original but squintier and filled with more modern elements. Brakes are by Brembo, exhaust by Supersprint, cooling system by PWR, and adaptive suspension by TracTive.

Only 30 will be made, available in right- or left-hand drive, with a starting price of around $760,000—and, of course, you’ll need to set money aside for a donor car. From conversations overheard on the Touring stand, at least one sounds like it’s already spoken for …

RUF Rodeo

We deeply admire Ruf on the digital pages of this site, and were delighted to see a top-shelf example of the shop’s modified 911 at auction this year in Monterey. This is something entirely different than what we’re used to from the company—and it caught us a bit by surprise, though the RUF-labeled cowboy hats at The Quail should have tipped us off.

Foreshadowed by a concept of the same name in 2020, the 2025 Ruf Rodeo is “the only off-road sports car with a carbon-monocoque platform.” It capitalizes on Porsche’s rich rally history and the current fascination with “safari” builds. As far as the off-road bits go, ride height has been increased to 9.5 inches, and the forged center-lock wheels are shod with custom Goodyear all-terrain rubber. The suspension system—double wishbones all around, with pushrod-actuated coilovers and electronically adjustable dampers—is tuned for off-road use. The driveline is an in-house affair: a 3.6-liter turbocharged flat-six pumping out 610 hp and 516 lb-ft of torque paired with a six-speed manual also developed by the shop.

You’ll want to be rather careful on the trail, because the body is carbon fiber, and the interior, with its fine leather and geometric-pattern fabrics, isn’t something you’ll want to muddy. But it does look just as Alois Ruf Jr. described it—fun!

Gunther Werks GW R

Gunther Werks specializes in extensively modified—”remastered”—Porsche 911s of the 993 generation, otherwise known as the last air-cooled cars. Unlike fellow California shop Singer Vehicle Design, which concentrates on the 964 generation and generally plays things rather subtly, Gunther Werks is known for prominent modern touches, like circular LED driving lights in the headlamps and pronounced wide-body kits.

Like the first car shown by Gunther Werks, the 2017 400R, the GW R is a carbon-bodied 993 with a hot-rodded, 4.0-liter flat-six. However, the GW R revs higher, punches harder, and weighs less than that earlier car. The 400 R had 431 hp, a redline of 7800 rpm, and a curb weight of 2670 pounds. The flat-six in the GW R boasts a new cylinder head design with dual overhead camshafts, individual throttle bodies, a titanium valvetrain, and a new intake manifold, which help the 4.0 to produce over 500 hp and spin all the way to 9000 rpm. The car weighs just 2400 pounds, and only 60 will be made.