What you see here is a Ferrari F430 that has been covered in cowhide and then tattooed by French artist Phillipe Pasqua.

It sounds ridiculous, but the end result is rather impressive, so I’m sure this isn’t the last time we see a leather covered supercar prowling the streets.

[Via: Jalopnik]

Hennessey is a well-known tuner of all things domestic, but recently he set his sights on a supercar of his own, and created what just might be the new high-water mark in hypercar performance.

Called the Venom GT, it’s loosely based on a Lotus Elise, though with a tweaked and twin-turbo’ed Corvette ZR1 engine behind the driver making 1,200hp and propelling a 2,548-pound, carbon fiber body, it’s probably closer to a UFO in the book of automotive taxonomy than any four-wheeled vehicle.

Add it all up, and you’ve got a $1million Bugatti Veyron beater that will go to 62mph in 2.9 seconds on its way to a top speed of 260mph.

Put me down for two.

[Hennessey - Venom GT]

The Streets of Long Beach hosted the first event of the 2010 Formula DRIFT season, and with all teams arriving fresh from a few months of R&R (that’s Rebuild and Replace) it was a chance to see some new drivers, new rides, and a few old favorites.

The new ride category included Samuel Hubinette’s new Dodge Challenger, which was finally finished after being teased all of last year, and is making north of 800 horsepower thanks to a methanol burning V8:

Another new body style making its Formula Drift debut was Conrad Grunewald’s 2010 Camaro, which was looking good in a custom body kit with a supercharged LSA pushing upwards of 600 horsepower to the wheels. Conrad didn’t manage to make the top 16, so it looks like he’s still getting a feel for the car, but when he finally gets this thing dialed, it’s going to be a beast:

Lastly, Vaughn Gittin Jr. took the wraps off his 2011 Ford Mustang RTR-C, which is easily my new favorite car, thanks to a full carbon fiber body kit, a 5.0 liter, supercharged V8 making 680 horsepower, and an awesome Monster Energy themed paint job:

Making his driving debut in the States was Fredric Aasbo, who was looking super impressive in his Toyota Supra, and managed to snag fourth place after upsetting quite a few seasoned drivers in their head-to-head battles:

Old favorites included Rhys Millen’s Hyundai Genesis Coupe, which features a turbocharged 6-cylinder engine making 500+ horsepower, a carbon fiber body, and the hottest umbrella girl ever:

Kyle Mohan and his Mazda RX-8, which was sporting a new paint job, new carbon fiber body panels, and the ability to spit fire out of the rotary engine:

Tony Brakohiapa’s Mustang with new Tuskegee Airmen “Red Tail” livery, which was easily one of the best looking cars out there, and will hopefully return to looking that way after they fix the new spoiler design (thanks to a minor run-in with the wall):

Last year’s champion Chris Forsberg and his V8 powered Nissan 350Z:

And Tanner Foust’s NASCAR V8 powered Scion tC, which was fresh from a scenic tour of Mulholland Drive:

In the end, it was Vaughn Gittin Jr. and his RTR-C Mustang that would take top spot over Rhys Millen and his Hyundai Genesis Coupe, with Tanner Foust rounding out the all energy drink podium. (Vaughn Gittin Jr. drives for Monster Energy Drink, Rhys Millen for Red Bull, and Tanner Foust for Rockstar Energy Drink.)

With just one of seven rounds on the boards, it’s still anyone’s championship to win, and they’ll head to Road Atlanta next on May 7-8 for the Road to the Championship event, where the competition should be as fierce as ever.

As always, DYH will be here to bring you the latest, so until then, be sure to check out the Flickr Gallery for more shots of the action, and stay tuned for more Formula DRIFT updates.

Formula DRIFT Professional Championship 2010 Point Standings

1. Vaughn Gittin – Monster Energy / Falken Tire Ford Mustang – 108 Points
2. Rhys Millen – RMR / Red Bull Hyundai Genesis Coupe – 100 Points
3. Tanner Foust – Rockstar Energy Scion TC – 82 Points
4. Fredric Aasbo – Japan Auto / FSR Toyota Supra – 72 Points
5. Ryan Tuerck – Mobil 1 / Maxxis Tire / Gardella Racing Pontiac Solstice – 65 Points
6. Samuel Hubinette – SHR-Dodge / BF Goodrich Dodge Challenger – 64 Points
7. Patrick Mordaunt – Brian Crower / PM Racing Nissan 350Z – 62 Points
8. Jame Deane – Falken Tire Nissan S15 – 61.50 Points
9. Darren McNamara – Falken Tire Saturn Sky – 60 Points
10. Chris Forsberg – NOS Energy Drink / CFR Nissan 350Z – 56 Points
11. Ryuji Miki – APEXi / Hankook Tire Mazda RX-7 – 56 Points
12. Daijiro Yoshihara – America’s Tire / Falken Tire Nissan S13 – 56 Points
13. Tony Brakohiapa – Cooper Tire / Sam’s Autoboy Ford Mustang – 54.50 Points
14. Stephan Verdier – Royal Purple / Crawford Performace Subaru STI – 54.50 Points
15. Forrest Wang – BF Goodrich / K&N Infiniti G35 – 54.50 Points
16. Michihiro Takatori – BF Goodrich / Exedy Nissan S15 – 54.25 Points

[Formula DRIFT]

The Singer 911 is “the love child of a 1967 911S, a 1973 911 Carrera RS and a 1996 993 RS”.

The company, Singer Vehicle Design, starts with an ‘80s-era 911 donor car, and then strips it down to just a bare shell to begin building their creation from the ground up.

New bits and pieces include chassis stiffening, aerodynamics, a roll cage, and full carbon fiber bodywork.

The heart of the monster is a 3.82-liter flat-six making 425 horsepower and spinning to 8,000 RPM on its way to powering the 2,400-pound car to 60mph in just 3.9 seconds.

Suspension upgrades include Moton shock absorbers, Eibach coil-overs, and Smart Racing Products adjustable sway bars, with four-piston brakes from a Porsche 930 bringing the whole thing to a stop in a hurry.

All told, it’s an excellent package that will appeal to any classic Porsche fan that wants top of the line performance in an old school wrapper.

[Singer Vehicle Design]

You’ve seen the sketches, but now Hennessey has released the first official pictures of its Venom GT (in matte black!) and they’re as mean as you’d expect a thousand horsepower supercar to be!

The Lotus Elise based car, which features the same 6.2 liter LS9 V8 as found in the Corvette ZR1, propels just 2,400 lbs of carbon fiber down the road, which should pretty much guarantee neck snapping performance.

Also guaranteed to snap necks is the rarity, as Hennessey plans to build just ten examples per year, making this not just one of the fastest vehicles you’ll never own, but also one of the fastest vehicles you’ll probably never even get to see.

[Hennessey - Venom GT]

Dear Porsche: If this is the future of ‘green’ automobiles, then the world is going to be just fine…

The Porsche 918 Spyder concept does zero to sixty in just 3.2 seconds, tops out at 198 mph, and will lap the Nurburgring in just 7:30. Oh, and it will do all that and get 78.4 mpg if you keep your foot out of it.

That’s because the 718 horsepower monster features a 500 horsepower, mid-engine V-8 that’s assisted by TWO electric motors (one at each end) that add an additional 218 horsepower when needed.

Picking up the groceries? Just keep things sane, and the electric motors will do all the work, giving you up to 16 miles of emission-free green driving.

Picking up laps on the racetrack? Just drive it like any other Porsche, and the electric motors will assist the V-8 as it does its best to lower that mpg figure.

Plus, it doesn’t look half bad either!

[Via: Porsche]

It’s not pretty, but this 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco, nicknamed the “Car-puccino”, runs entirely on coffee grounds, and goes to show that with enough determination, you can get a car to run off of just about anything.

The car is more proof of concept than actual gas alternative, since it only gets about three miles out of a kilo of ground coffee (56 espressos per mile), but it will manage up to 60mph on the freeway, and is expected to take the makers from Manchester to London on a few tanks of beans. (Though the 210 mile trip will take the equivalent of 11,760 espressos…)

If they can get the science down though, Starbucks just might have a new means of bean transportation.

[Via: Daily Mail]

Porsche’s latest 911 GT3 R is technically a hybrid, but don’t let that fool you into thinking they’re giving up speed and going green. Instead, this track monster features a system that’s similar to the KERS system that was developed for F1 racing, and which is designed to give the car a speed boost during acceleration through the use of small electric motors that assist the main engine.

If the technical terms don’t get you all hot and bothered, then maybe you should just let Porsche explain the car in their own unique way:

[Porsche Intelligent Performance]

A typical Renault Twingo makes 75 horsepower. A typical Renault Twingo V8 Trophy that has gone through the Lazareth shop makes 180 horsepower. If that formula doesn’t spell success, then nothing will!

The added power comes from a 3.5-liter Range Rover V8, which gets stuffed between the rear subframe and turns the French tuner into a terror. Along with the extra engine, the Twingo Trophy gets a fully custom widebody kit, new rims and tires, and a heaping helping of flat matte paint.

The result is supercar performance in a package that’s just larger than a go-kart, proving once again that you should never judge a book by it’s teeny tiny cover.

[Lazareth]

I LOVE carbon fiber, so when you take an already beautiful car like the Aston Martin DB9 and cover the entire thing in space fabric, my mind struggles to process the level of awesome.

Called the Mansory Cyrus, it’s from the shop that never fears to improve on a supercar, regardless of how rare, and will tack on a few $100k to the sticker; though I’d argue that beauty like this can quickly approach priceless.

[Mansory]

If Darth Vader had a supercar, it would probably be this Gemballa tuned Ferrari Enzo, called the MIG-UI.

Though no official details have been released, it’s not hard to tell that this is no ordinary Enzo. For starters, there’s a custom widebody kit, a new roof scoop, and a whole collection of extra vents. Looking closer, you’ll see Porsche Carrera GT inspired exhaust tips, a custom quilted red interior, and a menacing black and white satin paint scheme that was pulled directly from the dark side.

Expect the price and the exclusivity to be stratospheric, but you’ve gotta pay if you want to play, and especially when your toy of choice is an already hyper-exclusive prancing horse.

[Via: The Real JDM]

Just one year ago, Ken Block debuted what is still one of the most amazing pieces of automotive art ever created: Gymkhana Practice.

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the video, DC Shoes teamed up with YouTube sensation Marina from Hot For Words to explain Gymkhana, and while it lacks the tire smoke of the first video, it does make up for it with gratuitous eye candy:

You’ve already seen Ken Block do his thing a few times with Gymkhana 1 and Gymkhana 2, but now he’s teamed up with Rob Dyrdek from the Fantasy Factory to bring you Gymkhana 2.1, and it’s filled with the same great antics, just in a little less car:

[DC Auto]

I got a chance to check out the Roadster Shop’s C1-RS Corvette this past weekend at the Goodguys West Coast Nationals, and was AMAZED by the level of detail in this award winning street machine. (Street Machine of the Year to be exact.)

Under the hood lies a 618 horsepower LS7 with a T-56 transmission that does its best to transfer all 640ft lbs of torque, while Detroit Speed & Engineering suspension keeps the tires planted and 14” Brembos bring everything to a stop.

Outside, the ‘vette features carbon fiber side louvers, a front end that was entirely customized out of aluminum (including all grills, grille surrounds, front bumper and grille bar) and a rear end with enough carbon fiber to make an F1 team jealous.

Inside, it’s all luxury, with Italian leather, Alcantara suede, a hand-sculpted aluminum dash, and Classic Instruments carbon fiber gauges all around.

In sum, it’s a car that has been thought through, massaged over and customized to perfection, with few peers and no substitutes.

[Roadster Shop]

The Blastolene Brothers don’t do small, which is why their latest creation, called Piss’d Off Pete, is difficult to comprehend.

The ‘hot rod’ began life as a Peterbilt Model 351 cab, which was then chopped and mounted behind an 852 cubic-inch, two-stroke, V12 Detroit Diesel that is fed by two superchargers to the tune of 500 horsepower and 1000 lb-ft of torque at the redline of just 2,800 rpm. Power is then fed into an Allison 4-speed transmission out of a Greyhound bus, and then out through a customized rear end out of a semi truck.

Other details include seats that were built by a saddle maker, Baer brakes, and a custom built boat-tail gas tank.

If you happen to catch this thing in your rear view mirror, I suggest you get out of the way!

[Blastolene Brothers - Piss'd Off Pete]

[Via: Autoblog]

Will Roegge is the best of the best when it comes to documenting the automotive world on video, so it should come as no surprise that his latest work, called Climb Attack, which documents Rhys Millen’s record setting run up the Pike’s Peak International Hill Climb, is nothing short of spectacular:

[Will Roegge]

The Mansory Chopster is what happens when Mansory gets their hands on a Porsche Cayenne, and the carbon fiber factory has a sale.

Both the exterior and the interior have been thoroughly reworked to include carbon fiber on almost every surface, with the exterior getting a widebody kit and a roof chop in the process.

The engine also got reworked, and now has 710 hp and 900 Nm of torque thanks to a new engine management system, bigger turbos and reworked air intakes.

The Chopster is definitely not a car that will appeal to everybody, but if you want to stand out from the crowd, then this is definitely one way to do it.

[Mansory]

For Toyota’s new iQ, they wanted to do something a little different with the car, so they used it to create a font. (Yes, you read that right. A font.)

The process involved a lot of stunt driving and some interesting software to put it all together, but the end result is actually pretty good looking:

[iQ Font]

What’s the fastest way to give your 2005 Ford F-150 STX 2,700 extra horses?

Easy: Mount a $10,000 Motorlet M-701 turbojet engine in the bed and hold on!

The engine, which makes 2,700 HP and 1962 pounds of thrust at 15,500 rpm, weighs just 728 pounds and runs on kerosene. (Though to be fair, it would have to be going 516 mph to make all that power.)

Unaided, the Ford’s 231 HP V8 will get to 60 mph n 14.5 seconds, and the quarter passes by at just 73 mph. (Topping out at 85 mph.)

With the jet providing extra power in ‘hybrid’ mode however, 60 mph happens 6 seconds sooner, and the quarter mile speed jumps a full 30 mph. Plus, when you’re up to speed, you can actually GAIN extra speed by shifting into neutral and letting the jet do all the work.

It might not be the greenest vehicle around, but it sure is the most fun you can have in a hybrid!

[Via: Automobile Magazine]

The Goggomobil isn’t exactly an awesome car, and 360 horsepower is no longer an inspiring figure, but when that horsepower comes from a 10,220cc, 9-cylindar radial engine that was originally commissioned for 1930’s airplanes, and it’s rear mounted in a custom Goggomobil, the sum is much greater than the parts.

To put these two together, Uwe Wulf had to build almost everything from scratch, including a custom-built two-speed transmission and independent rear suspension.

It might not be the flashiest car in the world, but I challenge you to find one that’s more impressive.

[Radial Engine Goggomobil]

[Via: Jalopnik]