The fastest production car in the world is again a Bugatti Veyron. This time the new Super Sport version driven by Pierre Henri Raphanel (test driver for Bugatti) established a world record of 431km/h average speed during two opposite passes in the proving grounds of the Volkswagen Group at Ehra-Lessien (near Wolfsburg). The record is certified from the Guinness book of records representatives and the test runs were monitored by the TÜV authorities.

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The 2010 Pikes Peak hillclimb race was hard enough to keep the times over 10 minutes for yet another year. This year the race was even more special because it was the last time that the course was partially gravel. Next year most of the gravel part will be paved and the 2012 it will be an all-tarmac race. Nobuhiro 'Monster' Tajima a veteran of the race won again. Tajima has the all time best time from 2007 (10:01.408) but he was unable to break it this time and break the 10' barrier.

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Millona 16 is a very special bike made by Italian firm NCR. It is based on the already exotic and exclusive limited production Ducati Desmosedici RR but NCR went beyond the new smaller fairing and paintjob. M16 is a much more extreme bike than the Desmosedici.

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John Hennessey is a well-known (some say notorious) tuner, famous for its huge horsepower upgrades to already fast cars like the Dodge Viper or the Chevrolet Corvette. He is ambitious enough to attempt the step from tuner to manufacturer with his first bespoke (or nearly bespoke) car, the Venom GT. It looks like a caricature stretched Lotus Exige because it is basically that. The idea was to install a powerful tuned V10 from a Viper to the small and light Lotus chassis. However a V8 from GM was considered more suitable and after a lot of work the Venom is almost ready to be delivered to the first customer in UAW.

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This photo of a Group B Toyota Celica could have been taken on TTE in the 80's but it is actually a sample of the excellent work of Mäkelä Auto-Tuning from Finland. Founded by Kari Mäkelä in 1978 as a racing team, MAT has enjoyed success in local rallying championships and apart from preparing racing cars (mostly for rallying) it also does great restorations.

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Epsilon Euskadi could take the place of the bankrupted USF1 team for the 2011 Formula 1 championship. EE is a relatively new team from the Basque country in northern Spain. In the recent years it has progressively grow in order to be a substantial motorsport firm. It now has state of the art facilities and can provide Research and Development in automotive/motorsport fields, small-scale production, racing team services and also a very elaborate education program. Epsilon Euskadi has raced the ee1 LMP1 prototype in 2008 LeMans and tried to enter the 2010 F1 championship also. The fate of the USF1 team renders the FIA team selection quite unwise. FIA president Jean Todt will contact Spanish officials these days to discuss the subject.

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The image above may become reality in the F1 championship of 2011 if Michelin return as a tire supplier and if -most impressively- F1 regulations allow the rims to grow to 18" from 13" that is now the norm. This is all highly speculative at the moment but provokes interesting questions.

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This amazingly restored Toyota FJ is the work of the small company that Jonathan Ward founded in California. The company is called TLC and with its small staff restores old Toyota Land Cruisers (the FJ40 series) by hand with the best available techniques and after market materials. The result is the ICON FJ-series and it is a fully customized modern interpretation of the iconic off-road model.

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There is nothing new with a modified 911 but RGT-8 by RUF is very special. Instead of the usual flat-6 there is a longitudinally mounted V8 in the back and this isn't a simple engine swap from a Panamera or a Cayenne, RUF developed its own V8 which has very impressive specs and is specially suited to the special layout of 911.

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