$5.6M Aston Martin trio for sale, Murray’s V-12 at 12,100 rpm, and a Power Wagon worth prizing

Welcome to The Manifold, our fresh daily digest of news and what’s happening in the car world.

The holy trinity of Aston Martin DB5s is up for grabs

Intake: An Aston Martin DB5 Vantage coupe, convertible, and shooting brake are being offered for sale by British specialist Nicholas Mee. Of the 1000 DB5s built by Aston Martin, just 70 were the more powerful four-liter Vantage editions. Only 11 were built as shooting brakes, and five as convertibles, making this collection like a little herd of unicorns. The coupe is finished in Silver Birch, the convertible is Caribbean Pearl Blue and the shooting brake’s hand-built aluminum body was painted in California Sage by renowned coachbuilders Harold Radford & Sons. All have been restored to as-new condition. It took the current owner 12 years to gather this collection, and now it could be yours. If you have $5.6M to spare.

Exhaust: The Hagerty Price Guide reveals that a concours-quality DB5 Vantage coupe would fetch $1.3M, while a drophead in the same condition is worth $2.45M. The shooting brake, meanwhile comes in at $1.45M, which would bring the total to $5.2M. Consider the extra $400,000 as saving you 12 years of searching.

Put your headphones on and just listen to this Gordon Murray V-12 sing

Intake: The astonishing Cosworth-developed V-12 engine from Gordon Murray Automotive’s T.50 has run at maximum revs on the dyno. The car’s test driver Dario Franchitti has been documenting the car’s development on YouTube and in this latest episode he persuades engineers to hit the redline. “Can we go full noise?” asks Franchitti, and the car runs up to an ear-piercing 12,100 rpm.

Exhaust: “Driving this car is like playing a musical instrument,” says Franchitti. He’s not wrong. We can’t wait to see the finished car run flat-out on track and hear it sing—especially as this normally-aspirated engine may well be the last of its kind.

Pro Golfer Jason Kokrak sinks putts, wins Power Wagon

Intake: Professional golfer Jason Kokrak became a two-time PGA Tour winner last Sunday after shooting a final-round 70 to clinch first at the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Forth Worth, Texas. To the victor went the spoils: A hefty $1.35M paycheck, a bright red tartan jacket (standard attire for the club’s members since 1952 and a tribute to the tartans of Scotland, the home of golf), and a restomodded powder-blue 1946 Dodge Power Wagon. The truck was restored by Legacy Classic Trucks, located just outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It features monstrous 40-inch tires, a 12,000-pound winch, and a 430-horse, 6.2-liter LS3 engine.

Exhaust: As far as prizes go, this one ranks high on our list—just behind a tartan dinner jacket. We had the chance to drive one of Legacy’s Power wagons a few years back; to read our thoughts, click here.

Bugatti has finally finished the $12.44M La Voiture Noire

Intake: An eye-wateringly expensive one-off, “The Black Car” is Bugatti’s 21st-century ode to a Type 57 SC Atlantic owned by Jean Bugatti and lost shortly before WWII. The underpinnings are Chiron—including the eight-liter, 1578-hp W-16—but the body is unique, a handmade carbon-fiber skin designed to evoke the detached fenders and riveted dorsal spine of the Type 57 SC Atlantic. After two years, Bugatti has finally finished the modern-day La Voiture Noire. After thorough testing, Bugatti will deliver this “piece of automotive haute couture” to someone identified only as “a Bugatti enthusiast.”

Exhaust: It’s extravagant beyond belief, but La Voiture Noire captures Bugatti’s dual nature—art plus performance—in a nostalgic, elegant way that the top-speed-hunting Chiron never did. Can you imagine being its test driver? The late Ferdinand Piëch certainly could.

Ford Maverick will make its debut on June 8

Intake: After all the spy photos and speculation, Ford’s compact pickup is finally set for its official reveal on June 8. Actress Gabrielle Union will host the reveal on various social media channels, including her personal Instagram and Ford’s TikTok.

Exhaust: The mid-size Ridgeline and compact Santa Cruz get some company in the crossover-based pickup market. Priced properly, the Maverick could be a big winner for Ford, which is already on a roll in the truck market.

Bentley’s Continental GT3 gets high (horsepower and sustainability) for Pikes Peak climb

Intake: Though the car and the customer-backed effort was announced back in April, Bentley’s waited to reveal the power specs for its Continental GT3 Pikes Peak racer. Thank to new pistons and connecting rods, plus a reinforced carbon-fiber intake and custom exhaust manifolds, the 4.0-liter V-8 now makes 750 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque at sea level. That mill drinks 98RON biofuel—not the fully sustainable e-fuel the industry is pursuing, but a step in that direction. Pikes Peak veteran Rhys Millen will be placing an experienced hand on the tiller of a six-speed sequential gearbox as he wrestles with a soft suspension setup tailored to low-speed performance around the mountain’s many corners.

Exhaust: Bentley’s already cinched two class records at Pikes Peak, both with Millen: Production SUV and Time Attack 2. Should Millen and the Continental GT3 beat the 9:36 time set in 2019 by David Donner and his 2019 Porsche GT2 RS Clubsport, it would be Crewe’s first Time Attack 1 record and Bentley’s first record on the mountain with a customer-backed team (Fastr).

1876: Transcontinental Express train crosses U.S. in 83 hours

Intake: On June 4, 1876, the new Transcontinental Express train arrived in San Francisco a mere 83 hours after leaving New York City. Needing less than four days to complete its coast-to-coast journey—which would have taken months using horses—must have seemed miraculous to previous generations of Americans.

Exhaust: We may laugh at the notion that a cross-country trip could be accomplished in “only 83 hours,” but the success of the Transcontinental Express made the world a whole lot smaller. “The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam will make a great change in the situation of man,” Thomas Jefferson predicted in 1802. Indeed, it sparked a technological revolution that included automobiles and airplanes. Today, a flight from New York to San Francisco takes less than seven hours.