What do you get when you combine the potent potential of the Corvette ZR1 with an Italian coachbuilder that gave shape to automotive legends like the Pininfarina P4/5?
You get the Mantide, an unfortunately named custom from Stile Bertone and head builder Jason Castriota. The Mantide is a carbon fiber creation that takes 220 lbs off the already svelte ZR1, giving the resulting car a 0-60 time of just 3.2 seconds on its way to a top speed of 217mph. Inside, outside, underneath and all around you’ll find custom touches that set the Mantide apart from just about any other car on the planet, and you better, considering they want $2 million from you if you’re going to be one of the lucky ten to own one.
But hey, look on the bright side: At least it won’t get confused for a Prius!
Sure, your Prius gets 45+ MPG when it’s rolling down the freeway doing 55 in the slow lane, but does it get looks from fellow motorists?
No, unless you’re head’s on fire and there’s a unicorn sitting next to you, then you probably don’t get looks like the Prius you see here does.
This Prius, customized by a crew from Classe’s Garage, is what happens when you dump over $180k into a car and film the process along the way. (The car was made for Sweden’s TV4, which wanted to do a show about ‘building a custom car’.)
Everything you see here (except for the chrome trim on the grill) has been smoothed, stretched, widened, waxed, painted, polished, and pampered to the limits of what most automotive enthusiasts, let along Prius owners, ever thought possible.
To get the body looking right, a wide-body kit from an XC90 Volvo was grafted on. The back doors were smoothed over, the fronts were given a scissor style opening, and the rear windows were reshaped, and the back window was scrapped all together.
A carbon fiber wind splitter sits under the front bumper, as do wind splitters under the doorsills, and a rear venturi made entirely from the stuff sits out back. Air suspension keeps all four corners planted, and the stock rims have been swapped out for 20-inch replacements, including an over-sized brake kit for extra stopping goodness.
Don’t think they stopped there though. The interior had to match the exterior, so a fully custom dashboard was crafted, along with a custom center console to house the 4,400-watt stereo (five subs, eight speakers, a 15 inch LCD, a tablet PC with internet access, and a quarter mile of cable). Racing seats keep anyone brave enough to get behind the wheel firmly in place, and everything was covered in orange, black and red so the colorblind won’t miss it.
Think you’ve got what it takes to roll around in the world’s most pimped green mobile?
Today is Blog Action Day, which means that fifteen thousand blogs with a combined total of twelve million readers are going to be publishing posts about the environment.
Since I’m always down to support a good cause, I’m going to participate by giving you DYH’s Simple Rule To Live By: Do Something.
Being green doesn’t have to be a life changing decision. You don’t need to sell your car and buy a Prius; you don’t need to sell your Prius and buy a bike; and you certainly don’t need to recycle your bike and start walking everywhere; you just need to do something.
That’s because I believe that if everyone did something, then everything would change.
Why?
Because even small changes can make a difference.
Change a few light bulbs. Take a shorter shower. Recycle more. Drive less.
There are a million different things that you can do, so you just need to start doing them.
The key is to start small.
Soon, that single bulb will turn into a home full of CFLs, that shorter shower will turn into thousands of gallons of saved water, and that parked car will turn into a healthier you.
So just remember: Don’t try to change the world by yourself; just do something, and the world will follow.
The Toyota Prius is without a doubt a very economical car, but it uses a variety of gas engine technologies to achieve its efficiency before you even consider the electric hybrid part of the equation. Autoblog took a very thorough look at the Prius to see if some of the technology that is used can be adapted to any car to achieve greater fuel efficiency, and the results are promising. It’s also a great look inside the technology inside the Prius, and shows that other car makers have a lot to learn.
Today is Blog Action Day, which means that fifteen thousand blogs with a combined total of twelve million readers are going to be publishing posts about the environment.
