Lamborghini reveals Aventador LP 700-4 Pirelli Edition

Lamborghini announced a special Pirelli Edition of its Aventador LP 700-4 to celebrate the ongoing partnership between the two brands, which began in 1963 when the company was established.

Since the Aventador does just fine with its 690-hp, 509 lb-ft V12, seven-speed automatic, pushrod suspension and permanent all-wheel drive, the changes come on the exterior, which gets a two-tone color scheme in two options: One has a matte black roof, pillars, rearview mirrors, engine hood and air intakes with glossy finishes for the rest of the car. The second option is glossy black for the upper parts and your choice of four matte finishes for the rest.

The Pirelli Edition is on sale now, deliveries will start next year.

The Lamborghini Aventador Pirelli Edition also comes with a thin red stripe around the roof and engine hood, mirrors and the outlets of the air intakes. The red design is meant to evoke Pirelli branding; the tire logo also is in red. Buyers also get the transparent engine hood, carbon engine compartment trim and glossy black rims shod with Pirelli tires, of course.

Inside, the Pirelli Edition has black Alcantara with red contrast stitching as well as another red stripe that runs along the headliner. Door panels and seat sides get leather trim while each car will get a Pirelli special series plaque.

Pirelli and Lamborghini have been together since the founding of Ferruccio’s company, when it first put Pirelli Cinturato HS tires on its 350 GTV for the 1963 Turin Motor Show. Later, the Miura, the Espada and Countach all sported rubber from the tiremaker. It even made the Scorpion line, examples of which were installed on the LM002 off-road vehicle. Today it supplies all the tires for the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo series.

Pirelli Aventador Coupe and roadster versions are available now from dealers, for delivery in early summer of 2015.

Watch Droneworks film the Lamborghini Huracan reveal

Droneworks is an aerial photography company that specializes in shooting video from its house-built, eight-rotor camera drones. It also does custom video packages and post production services. The company was chosen to film one of Lamborghini’s invitation-only events for the reveal of the 2015 Huracan LP 610-4.

The 5.2-liter V10-equipped, 610-hp Huracan has already been a strong seller in North America, moving 1,000 units on the continent alone. About 3,000 have been sold globally.

2015 Lamborghini Huracán drive review

What Is It? While the Ferrari 458 has been the alpha dog in the sports-car class for many years, Lamborghini may now be ready to eat at least some of Ferrari’s lunch — maybe a veggie side dish. It …

“In the Americas we worked together with our dealer partners to outline their launch outreach strategy from a new perspective. How to make their events and communications bold yet welcoming,” said Alessandro Farmeschi, COO of Lamborghini. “As a result, we are watching a success story unfold.”

Check out the hangar party video, complete with private jets, old Lambos and guests that can probably afford the $243,000 Huracan. And go to Droneworks for more info on their camera work.

Lamborghini surprises at Paris motor show with 910-hp hybrid Asterion

Revealed at the Paris motor show, the Lamborghini Asterion LPI 910-4 — don’t call it the “Asteroid” — is a significant departure for the Raging Bull brand. Not in the least because it’s a (gasp!) plug-in hybrid. Not because it finally skims the vaunted 1,000-hp figure. Not because that for the first time, its interior was actually designed with roominess and ergonomics in mind. But this is possibly the first non-insane Lamborghini since the Jarama, the first Lamborghini since the Miura that hasn’t been styled in an exploding knife factory.

Lamborghini calls the color “Blue Elektra,” a name also shared with the many establishments its owners are known to frequent. Photo by Lamborghini

“LPI” isn’t the name of a midlevel insurance company but actually Longitudinale Posteriore Ibrido, or “hybrid” in Italian. The Huracan’s 5.2-liter V10 snuggles up against three electric motors, weighing just 485 pounds in total: two at the front wheels and an integrated starter and generator between the V10 and the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. These three motors provide 300 hp. The Huracan’s engine produces 610 hp.

So, that’s the Lamborghini Asterion, then — a mid-engined, AWD hybrid terror, pumping out 910 total hp, right in the middle of the Porsche 918 Spyder (875 hp), McLaren P1 (903 hp), and Ferrari LaFerrari by Ferrari (950 hp). Like those cars, the Asterion is a manifestation of the hybrid drivetrain as a go-fast tool — two powertrains, need we remind, will almost always be faster than one.

Lamborghini claims that the Asterion can hit 60 mph in exactly three seconds, on its way to 199 mph.

The Asterion’s steering wheel has three modes: “Zero,” for fully electric driving; “Ibrido,” for hybrid mode; and “Termico,” for full power. Photo by Lamborghini

Come on — that’s to be expected from Lamborghini. What’s not expected is a Lamborghini that can do 57 miles per gallon, (consuming 4.12 liters/100 km), while emitting just 98 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer, a figure more valued by the Europeans than us. The Asterion can operate in electric-only mode up to 50 kilometers, or 32 miles. At this point only the front wheels are driven, rendering this Lamborghini the closest it’ll ever be to a Toyota Prius. Let that sink in for a moment.

Lamborghini’s “hyper cruiser,” as it calls the Asterion, could be realistically produced today, “using technologies available and drawing on Lamborghini’s own expertise.”

Asterion, if you’re wondering, is an obscure name for the Minotaur — with its bull head and human body, it’s a hybrid unto itself, further proof that Lamborghini remains the world’s foremost employer of recent English majors. Borges, meanwhile, remains unimpressed.

About the Paris Motor Show

The Paris motor show — or as it is officially known, Mondial de l’Automobile — occurs every two years, alternating with the Frankfurt motor show in Germany. It’s a spotlight for the latest in design, but automakers will also show off their latest concept cars, green cars and supercars. Check out all the action from the 2014 Paris motor show right here.

The Lamborghini Asterion debuted at the Paris Motor Show. Photo by Lamborghini

Gold Lamborghini Aventador joins Paris fashion week

If you’ve ever seen a Lamborghini and thought, “it’s just not wild enough for me,” this car is for you.

French car enthusiasts and the Daily Mail newspaper spotted this gold-wrapped Aventador in France on upscale Avenue Montaigne. Predictably, it was sporting a license plate from Saudi Arabia.

That makes sense, considering each year rich Saudis, Emiratis and Qataris ditch the Middle Eastern heat for a few months in cooler Western Europe. Like any well-to-do enthusiasts would, they bring their cars with them, European complaints be damned.

This 690-hp Aventador wears a 666 license plate, which we hope is some sort of comment on greed, sin and the devil, though we doubt it. We also know how much people pay for these special plates, and we’re sure this one wasn’t cheap. The Aventador costs about $400,000 when new, but the Daily Mail estimates that this car could be worth upwards of $6 million if it was real gold plating. Actually, the Daily Mail thinks it is gold plating, but a few of the shots of the car clearly show the characteristics of a vinyl wrap.

You can’t buy taste, as they say. Head over to the Daily Mail for a gallery of the gold Aventador, complete with neighborhood kids shooting pictures and a gouged-up wheel from parking on narrow European streets.

The Eighties icon comes alive at RM Auctions

The dream of the Eighties is alive and well in London — well, OK, 1990, which still counts as the Eighties. The end of a decade never stops after 10 years, it drags on for just a few more after that — as far as anyone’s concerned, the Eighties stopped being the Eighties in 1993, sometime between the cancellation of the McDLT and the premiere of Legends of the Hidden Temple.

That’s right — the Eighties revival is well under way! We’re reopening the Jazzercise centers. We’re raiding our closets for pixie boots and paneled leggings. Irony is in the air, can you smell it? Overpriced, stone-washed, Obama-style Dad jeans are back in (some sort of) style, according to Urban Outfitters! We’re paying entirely too much money for pristine E30 BMWs, the dream of the yuppie class, and we’re going to drive around listening to Chromeo and Daft Punk from our cassette adapter that craps out at every stoplight from here to the Roxy. Giorgio Moroder, flush off revived royalties, can afford to fill up his kidney-shaped pool with the white stuff for the first time since the Max Headroom incident. Jerry Wiegert enjoys a second life on Twitter. We’re still trying to build that Robocop statue. We can make a gritty Ninja Turtles movie. Again. I believe in this, America.

Too old for Farah Fawcett, too young for the Porsche 959. For a generation of enthusiasts, the Countach came at exactly the right time. Photo by RM Auctions

And I believe that this 25th Anniversary Lamborghini Countach, in poster-worthy red, is the ultimate display of a future gone horribly wrong, but also horribly right — a wedge of the future from 1974, a world of Syd Mead optimism and concept-supercar exotica, sullied into cheesiness by wings and gold wheels and assorted filigree — yet, somehow, becoming great in its own right.

Say what you will about the rose-tinted past of 30-something Gen-X “youth” who hung these over their walls — but the bodywork, gently evolved from the 5000 QV by a certain Mr. Horacio Pagani, certainly inspired a generation. To do what? To appreciate cars as sculpture, to dream faster, to go faster, to watch the opening from Cannonball Run until Adrienne Barbeau‘s cleavage is burned into the Zenith CRT. Half our Autoweek staff had the Countach poster, possibly the one with the babe on it. (Born a decade too late, my poster options were of a Pontiac Banshee and a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, so my opinions don’t count for anything.) If this 25th Anniversary Countach is an affront to an initial purity, then don’t tell the children.

Countach values have been buoyed by the success of the “Periscopica” Countach that broke the vaunted $1 million mark earlier this year, it would be no surprise to see that rising tide lift all cigarette boats. This red Countach above, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, has just 2,700 kilometers on it — just 1,600 or so miles, and is one of just 657 examples built in 1990. The last cassingle, indeed. To finally make good on the dreams of your middle-school self will cost an estimated $230,000 to $300,000, when it goes up for auction at RM Auctions’ London event on Sept. 8. Greed is good, right? Let’s go jam out to Lazerhawk.

Mirrors like semaphore flags, bumper intakes like bull nostrils…the Lamborghini Countach is still a dream of an era. Today’s era. Photo by RM Auctions

Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo is anything but feo

Lamborghini unveiled its newest road-based race car at PebbleBeach this past weekend, and now we have some statistics to pair with that angular body. The all-new Huracán LP 620-2 Super Trofeo will compete in the Europe, Asian, and North American Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo race series.

The Huracán Super Trofeo is 45percent stiffer than the outgoing racing model, thanks in part to a roll cage that weighs in at only 43 kg. Also adding stiffness is a carbon/aluminum frame that has been adjusted to accommodate things like a larger front radiator and a racing gearbox at the rear of the vehicle. All of this weight saving means the Super Trofeo weighs in at just 1,270 kg (dry) or about 2,800 lbs.

Powering the Huracán Super Trofeo is the same direct-injection V10 that moves the Huracán road car, making 620 hp and providing a power-to weight ratio of just 4.5 lbs per horsepower. Unlike the Huracán road car however, power will delivered to the rear wheels only. Additional improvements to the drivetrain include a new three-disc clutch, and sequential gearbox developed specifically for the Super Trofeo.

2015 Lamborghini Huracán drive review

What Is It? While the Ferrari 458 has been the alpha dog in the sports-car class for many years, Lamborghini may now be ready to eat at least some of Ferrari’s lunch — maybe a veggie side dish. It …

Adding to the Trofeo’s stealth fighter looks is an adjustable (10 settings) rear wing, along with front and rear diffusers as well as adjustable front air intakes.

Rubber for the all new Trofeo comes exclusively from Pirelli, who has had input from the very first phases of development in order to create a tire that works perfectly with the Trofeo’s driving manner.

Inside, the Huracán Super Trofeo receives the same Alcantara trim as some of Lamborghini’s road cars, covering surfaces that include the steering wheel and the gear selector.

The Lamborghini Huracán LP 620-2 Super Trofeo made its track debut last month during developmental testing, and its public debut this past weekend at Pebble Beach.

Lamborghini Jarama heads to Pebble Beach auction

Lamborghini Countachs may get all the attention and all the money when it comes to high-profile auctions — especially the Periscopica variety — but there is a whole other range of Lamborghini models out there that are not variations on the Countach theme. Before the wedge-like shape became a trademark of the automakers, to be remixed ad infinitum into the company’s most recent cars (not that anyone’s complaining), Lamborghini explored a wide range of designs. Sant’Agata’s very first model, if you’ll recall, gave little clue as to what would follow in terms of exterior design, and during its early years Lamborghini fielded a variety of shapes.

One such sports car from Sant’Agata Bolognese is the Jarama, which was first unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March of 1970. And this weekend Gooding & Co. will be offering a very sharp example of this rare model.

The Jarama has the distinction of being Lamborghini’s last front-engined GT, featuring a 3.9-liter V12 with six Weber carbs underhood. Delivering 350 hp to the rear wheels via a five-speed manual gearbox, the Jarama was just as modern mechanically as its styling suggests, with disc brakes all around and a four-wheel independent double-wishbone suspension.

This Jarama was sold new to the U.S., living in New York. Photo by Gooding & Co.

Styled by none other than Marcello Gandini at Bertone, the Jarama’s styling overlapped heavily with the Iso Rivolta Lele Coupe, perhaps to a degree that wouldn’t be tolerated in modern times. The wedge-like shape proved to be both contemporary and understated, offering 2+2 seating and a top speed of 160 mph, more than its admittedly small exterior suggests (the Jarama is not a big car in person).

This particular example, chassis no. 10348, was the vest last Jarama completed in bronze metallic (Luci del Bosco — it sounds far sexier in Italian, like just about everything else). The interior is finished in Senape leather which was special-ordered on this car. Perhaps the rarest option on this car is the twin-panel removable sunroof. Lamborghini historians believe that only 20 Jaramas had this option, and it is not something these cars are really famous for.

This example is estimated to bring between $175,000 and $225,000 at auction. Photo by Gooding & Co.

2014 RM Auctions Pebble Beach preview

Whether or not the Monterey car week auctions manage to touch nearly a half a billion dollars in sales this year, there are a lot of fascinating (and pricey) cars set to cross the block. Last year, RM …

This Jarama 400GT was supplied new to an owner in Oyster Bay, N.Y., who kept it for 37 years. The car comes with original tools and paperwork, and presents as very clean in the photos provided by Gooding. The auction house estimates that this example could fetch between $175,000 and $225,000 on auction day, and it’ll be offered at no reserve.

Click here to see the full list of lots from the upcoming Gooding & Co. auction at Pebble Beach.

Fast Toys Club offers 100 days of supercar ownership

Some would say that the only fun time to own an exotic car is when you’re behind the wheel. The rest of the time it’s either depreciating in your garage or getting maintenance done at the dealership. Fast Toys Club wants to ease the pain of ownership with a share-and-lease deal in Southern California. There’s also this quote, from owner Chris Carel.

“Every car enthusiast who has already owned an exotic or luxury car knows what we’re talking about. You realize your dream by acquiring a magnificent car, and then a few months later, you get bored of it. Then you see another car that hits your mind and your heart: you want it!”

That’s exactly how it happens to us! Kidding.

Fast Toys membership offers customers access to the cars, a certain amount of miles per year, 100 days of usage per year, pick-up and delivery, and a selection of track days. Gas is included in the membership. There are three levels of membership for HNWIs, (that’s high net-worth individuals): gold, platinum and corporate. Gold ($8,000 per quarter) gives you access to the first level of cars, 7,000 miles per year, 100 days of usage and one track day that can be traded for 17 days of normal use. Platinum ($13,500 per quarter) gives a bigger selection of cars, the same days and miles, but it only costs 10 days per track outing. Finally, corporate ($18,500 per quarter) gives you access to all of the cars, and track days again cost 10 usage days.

Gold and platinum memberships allow one driver at a time, corporate membership allows five.

Who is that behind the wheel of that Pescarolo 02 Le Mans prototype? It’s you! Photo by Fast Toys

Members can also bring their own cars to the club for a discount on their fee. Depending on what car they bring, it could get them free membership for up to two years, and maybe some cash back, depending on the vehicle.

For gold-level clients, the Fast Toys Club’s stable includes the Dodge Viper GTS, Audi R8 V10, Mercedes G63 AMG, 1969 Dodge Charger, Ferrari 360 Challenge and the Mustang Boss 302S. Platinum members get those plus the Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet, Aston Martin DBS Volante, Lamborghini Huracan, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Ferrari California T and a Pescarolo Le Mans prototype.

Yes, you read that right; you can drive a Le Mans prototype at the track, with an instructor in the passenger seat. It’ll cost you 10 usage days.

Fast Toys Club joins other supercar membership programs like Club Sportiva, also in California, and Gotham Dream Cars in New York.

Check out FastToysClub.com for more information.

Forza-Galorza

We spent the morning driving the new Lotus F1 car around the Nurburgring. Let that sink in for a minute. We crashed repeatedly, too, like every 10 or 15 feet, sometimes at great speed. Normally, in the real world, that would be a problem. Sponsors would drop you, your mechanics would beat you on the helmet with wrenches when you got back to the pits and your skinny supermodel girlfriend would leave you for a Russian oligarch without any hesitation whatsoever. But this wasn’t the real world, this was a video game version of the real world, and all we had to do was keep our right index finger flattened on the fake video gas pedal and go.

Waaaaaa! Bang! Screech! Waaaa! Bang! Screeech!

Turn 10 Studio’s Dan Greenwalt, who watched the ugliness from behind us, only laughed.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have started with the Formula One car,” he offered.

Maybe not, but how were we going to get noticed by Frank Williams or Ron Dennis or even Flavio Briatore for that matter in a Fiat Panda, another car Forza offers? Doesn’t Lewis Hamilton do this? Albeit maybe better than we were doing it?

The Nurburgring with frickin’ lasers.

Such conundrums were all part of the business the day before E3, the massive and all-important Electronic Entertainment Expo, which opens today in Los Angeles. Every big game-maker in the world is here, offering zombie chainsaws and anime girlfriends to a world of hopelessly socially inept gamers (OK, they’re not all hopelessly socially inept, but we sure are — we’re also video game inept; we’re such losers).

First on the media sleigh ride was Microsoft’s Turn 10 Studios, which introduced cool new features for its “Forza Motorsport 5” sim, including new paint-sharing capabilities, new cars including the McLaren P1 and LaFerrari, and new versions of Road America, Long Beach and, after a year’s work measuring the real one with frickin’ laser beams, the Nurburgring.

It was on the Nurburgring that we were thrashing. But it could have been on any of the hundreds of tracks in “Forza Motorsport 5.” Turn 10 was particularly proud of this new Nurburgring. It had offered one before, but that one was 10 years old. So it sent those guys with the laser beams to measure the current ‘Ring “to millimeter accuracy” and come back with this. The new Forza ‘Ring then took 30 artists one year to complete. And the cool thing about it is it’s free if you buy “FM5,” which, like seemingly every game on the planet, costs $59.99.

But “Forza Motorsport 5” was introduced last year. Turn 10 also showed its new “Forza Horizon 2.”

That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

“’Forza Motorsport 5′ is all about track driving,” said Greenwalt. “In ‘Horizon 2’ it’s an open road.”

And more. While there is a track in “Forza Horizon 2,” there is also a bunch of land near the track, three times more land than is on “FM5.” And you can really let loose on it.

“You can get yourself a Ford Raptor and drive through a vineyard,” suggested Greenwalt.

Really? Cool.

But instead of a Raptor, since this was a game and all and what did it matter, we got ourselves a Lamborghini Huracan and crashed through a field of what looked like cabernet sauvignon. Grape stakes and vines flew through the air as we powerslid off the road and through a nice future vintage. Somewhere up ahead we would rejoin the track. Or maybe not.

“For a while there you looked like a real gamer,” said Turn 10’s Phil Frazier, encouragingly.

Yeah, well, we quickly erased that impression with some more grape stomping. Then there were the hay bales, which bounced over the Lambo’s hood like giant rubber balls.

All this was accomplished in 1080p.

“It’s full HD,” said Greenwalt. “The cars look faultless — the doors open, you can look at the engines, you can notice orange peel on the paint finish.”

Orange peel? I can’t even see that on my own Volkswagen.

So take your pick, Xbox One owners: “Forza Motorsport 5” offers sims — the most sophisticated form of video gaming — so precise that Greenwalt says aftermarket tuners use it to test out new setups for their real cars; or you could just get “Forza Horizon 2” and crash through incredibly realistic wine vineyards.

Did they program in the resistance offered by different grapes, say pinot noir versus petite sirah? The otherwise confident and executive-level competent Greenwalt seemed taken aback. But only for a moment.

“No,” he said. “But maybe we should …”

Lamborghini Huracán LP610-4 joins the ranks of the Italian State Police

Lamborghini handed over the keys to a very special Huracán LP610-4 outfitted with police gear to the Italian State Police a couple days ago. The President and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini, Stephan Winkelmann, delivered the Polizia-liveried Huracán to Prefect Alessandro Pansa in a ceremony at the “Museo delle Auto Storiche della Polizia di Stato,” or in English, the Museum of Automotive History of the State Police. The museum is in Rome.

The Huracán LP 610-4 will replace two Lamborghini Gallardos which have been in use by the Italian state police since 2004 and 2008. The cars which were similarly outfitted by the factory before being handed over to the state police. Among the modifications made to the Huracán are a small LED lightbar on the roof, chosen for its slim profile and the fact that it doesn’t need mounting brackets to attach to the door frames, two LED strobes located in the front bumper, and two LED strobes built into the tail light assembly. The Huracán has also received a siren system, and police communications gear.

The car sports an LED lightbar, LED strobes front and back, a siren system, and police communications gear. No space for the perp though. Photo by Lamborghini

The Lamborghini Huracán LP610-4 was unveiled at the Geneva Auto Show just a couple months ago, in March. It replaces the Gallardo as the smallest offering from Sant’Agata. While it may be the smallest offering on the outside, what’s under the hood (hatch?) packs a mean punch, with the 5.2-liter V10 making 610-hp and 413 lb-ft of torque. Capable of a 3.2 second sprint to 60 mph, the Huracán will top out at more than 202 mph. All wheel drive is standard on the Huracán, which is a good thing, and all that power is sent to the four wheels via a new seven-speed dual-clutch transmission called the Lamborghini Doppa Frizione. Yes, everything sounds better in Italian. Even the names of their dual-clutch gearboxes.

Even with the recent handover of the Huracán, Italy is still leagues behind the Dubai, United Arab Emirates police and their fleet consisting of… nearly every supercar and tuner vehicle imaginable. A few months ago Dubai received a Brabus-tuned G-class, the B63S – 700 Widestar, which was almost a yawn-worthy event since a lot of European countries’ police forces have G-wagens. Still, it may be a while before the Dubai police receive their Huracán. Perhaps they don’t need one; they have a Bugatti Veyron.

Bonhams’ Greenwich auction will show Italian rarities

The biggest star of Bonhams’ seventh annual Greenwich auction will be the 1975 Lamborghini Countach LP400 Periscopica shown above, a pristine early example of the legendary wedge with a single owner and less than 10,500 miles — its roof carried a groove cut into the sheetmetal that allowed light to hit the rearview mirror, providing a still-laughable semblance of rearward visibility. Of course, the door is always preferable. Just 158 LP400 Countachs were ever produced, before the firm moved on in 1978 to the outrageously styled LP400S. Last year, an LP400 of similar vintage and condition set a Countach record when it sold for $836,000 at a Bonhams auction at the Quail Lodge. This one is expected to bring a not insignificant amount itself — estimated at $450,000 to $550,000.

Similar in Italian-ness is the 1959 Fiat Abarth 750 Record Monza Zagato Bialbero, a designation that takes three deep breaths to spit out. It’s simple, really. On the Fiat Abarth 750, Carlo Abarth wrung out the power, Zagato designed the curvaceous body and Fiat supplied the 600 chassis, the engine and the cash. “Bialbero” means twin-cam in Italian, and Abarth designed a double-overhead cam head for the little 747cc engine. Zagato’s rare, lightweight Record Monza bodywork allowed the car to clock in at just over 1,190 pounds.

Team Roosevelt campaigned it at the 1959 12 Hours of Sebring before the car was lost for the next 30 years. In the ’80s, the car saw a full restoration; since then, it has continued to race in vintage events, including at nearby Lime Rock Park. The number crunchers at Bonhams figure it will fetch a minimum of $175,000.

The Fiat 750 Abarth retired from racing last decade for a full mechanical restoration. Photo by Bonham’s

Among the rest of the lineup are a mix of the eclectic and the accessible. Volvo, true New England as it is, makes a showing with an 1800ES — if anything, you could pick one up for what a BMW 3-series went for five years ago. There’s a Jaguar E-type, a Series I from 1964 with a matching hardtop. A Chrysler Town & Country convertible in minty green with wood paneling is no match for our LeBaron. Rounding out the selection are a Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser and a 1952 Mercedes-Benz 300 known as the “Adenauer,” as the preferred ride of Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of postwar Germany. The latter two may pique the interest of a certain Jonathan Ward.

The Bonhams Greenwich auction will take place on Sunday, June 1, during the second day of the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance in Connecticut. Our man Jay Ramey will be covering the concours, as well as the auction proceedings, as he did last year and “literally sleeping in the auction tent.” Dedication knows no tax bracket.