Tuners

With governments worldwide moving to eliminate gas-guzzling V8 engines in favor of smaller engines, hybrids, and fully electric vehicles, it appears the days of the V8 are coming to an end. German tuning firm Manhart is celebrating the final run of the Mercedes-AMG 4.0-liter Biturbo V8 with an extremely attractive and powerful C63 Wagon conversion called the Manhart CR 700.

When it comes to BMW M cars, the most powerful the automaker has ever produced is the current generation BMW M5 CS. That car came from the factory with a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 engine producing 626 horsepower and 553 lb-ft.

Queue up the classic Berlin song from Top Gun and check out the latest vehicle from Prior Design. The gorgeous Porsche Taycan Turbo S by Prior Design will undoubtedly take your breath away. The most notable feature of the modified Taycan is the very racy looking widebody kit.

The guys at Hennessey Performance recently started producing the first of their Maximus 1000 Jeep Gladiators, and to celebrate the launch, they released a little bit of video footage of the beastly custom truck taking to the desert.

Straight from Lamborghini, the Urus is a damned impressive vehicle, cranking out roughly 650 horsepower from its twin-turbo V8 engine, and sending power to all four wheels for incredible launch times and great handling. But when it comes to high-end performance cars, stock is never enough for some people.

The tuning experts at Hennessey Performance have unveiled what it calls the ultimate Gladiator, and it sure seems like an accurate description. The 2020 Hennessey Maximus 1000 is a 2020 Jeep Gladiator with the puny V6 pulled out, and a 6.2L Supercharged Hellcat V8 put inside.

After losing his previous Audi RS 6 wagon to theft and arson, Swedish pro skier Jon Olsson teamed up with the crew over at ABT to build an awesome custom Audi wagon with loads of style and power.

I am very happy to see more and more wagons rolling out to the market. While not all of them are available in the US, it’s nice that they are out there as an alternative to SUVs and crossovers.

The Mazda MX-5 (Miata) might not be a high-powered sports car in stock form, but it has the handling, balance, and fun to drive nature that make it fantastic on the track. The ND MX-5 is already all kinds of awesome, but if you want more, the guys at North Carolina outfit Long Road Racing can turn the MX-5 into the track car of your dreams.

Most of the concept cars we see from Hyundai and its SEMA partners have turbos or superchargers. The Rockstar Santa Fe Concept is different from these other cars; it uses nitrous oxide to boost the power.

The owner of this slick little Black Porsche Cayman took the car and decided to remove the stock flat six. I can only assume that reason was that the Porsche engine broke and it cost too much to fix.

I really, reaaaally want this awesome GT86 known as the WTF86. The car started life as a Toyota 86 (aka Scion FR-S aka Subaru BR-Z) with a Subaru sourced flat four Boxer engine. With the significant help of Australian tuner StreetFX, the car has given up that puny little four in favor of a massive 4.1L HKS GT1000 R35 GTR engine from Nissan.

What happens when you take an already fast and lightweight sports car with a V10 engine and strap a pair of turbos on it? You get the Underground Racing Audi R8, packing 1100 rwhp. That is a load of power, and the car can rocket down the quarter mile as a result.

I imagine that the way the engine swap first came about was when some dude racing his car blew the engine and couldn’t afford to put the engine meant for it back under the hood. He found what he could afford, crammed it inside, then hot rodders heard about it and boom.

My parents had a Volvo station wagon when I was in high school. Battleship gray, with a manual transmission. I drove that thing like it was a sports car. Or as I imagined it, like the heavily modified S60 T5 that Matt Farah takes for a spin on Encinal Canyon Road above Malibu in this video from The Smoking Tire.