It Came From eBay Hell: 2012 Faresi Concept Car

Grab onto to something before you read this, but if the eBay seller of this car is to be believed, Edson Faresi is a name soon to be held in the same high regard as Ettore Bugatti and Enzo Ferrari.

What makes this all the more funny is when one looks at his 2007 Pontiac Solstice-based Faresi Concept Car that’s currently advertised on eBay. The seller expects this Frankenstein monster of a car to “be very collectable in the future, maybe even worth millions.”

Mr. Faresi, who’s unknown to the internet except in this ad, has been designing cars for donkey’s years and is such an automotive heavyweight that his, “first cars are very collectable and are in Museums and have auction off [sic] for over $12,000,000.”

So collectable and rare are these first cars, it seems, that no pictures of them exist online. No doubt, Arab sheiks and Texas oilmen privately own these museums. This Solstice-based creation takes, “ideas from the most beautiful super sports cars in the world”.

Among these beautiful cars are the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione, Koenigsegg Agera, BMW Z8 and 1950s Corvette. Sadly, the Faresi Concept Car is not in the same class. Heck, it could very well be in a class of its own.

With less than 2,000 miles on the clock the Faresi features a rebuilt engine (always a good sign), turbo intercooler, custom headers, competition shocks, custom exhaust, factory alarm and “James Bond style Alarm” (whatever that is – maybe it fires missiles?).

The mighty 2.0L 4cyl gives the Faresi Concept Car a 0 to 60 mph time of 5.9 (0 to 100 km/h) seconds, which is on par with many modern sedans.

“This car gets more attention than many $300K+ super sport cars,” though probably not for the reasons the seller imagines.

If you have the stomach for it, you can check out our complete gallery of images below.

By Tristan Hankins

 

PHOTO GALLERY

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Beauty and a Beast: New Lancia Stratos runs 0-62 in 3.3 seconds

n a perfect world, the fastest cars would be the best looking ones. And to some extent, that’s often the case. But not always. For instance the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione is one of the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous automotive creations ever devised, but by most accounts, its performance fails to live up to its styling. Conversely, cars like the Nissan GT-R and Porsche 911 GT2 RS are some of the most devastatingly fast vehicles ever to grace tarmac, but not everyone’s enamored of their sheetmetal.

The New Stratos is here to suggest that you may be able to have your cake and eat it to, as full technical specifications and performance stats have been released on the one-off retro creation. The aluminum chassis from the Ferrari 430 Scuderia is a good starting point, giving the New Stratos a compact, lightweight frame, a 44/56 front/rear weight distribution ratio and a 4.3-liter V8 tuned from the 508 horsepower delivered in the Scud to 540 in the nuovo Lancia.

That’s enough to rocket the coachbuilt custom from a standstill to 100 km/h (62 mph) in just 3.3 seconds, past 200 km/h (124 mph) in 9.7 and on to a top speed of 170 mph. (That last figure may not be the most impressive, but the original Stratos was never geared for top-speed runs, but for rapid acceleration and nimble handling, and its successor appears to have followed the same route.)

Not ready to cry “uncle” just yet? The full specifications – from gearbox to dimensions – can be found after the jump, so click on to feast your eyes.

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Is the next Dodge Viper really just a reskinned Alfa 8C?

Snakes are known to regularly shed their skin to reveal a shimmering new coat underneath. Doing it the other way around would be a unique trick, but if the latest reports are to be believed, that might be what we’re looking at.

Last week at a dealers’ conference, Fiat/Chrysler chief Sergio Marchionne reportedly pulled the covers off a new-generation Dodge Viper. With the current model having already been axed, our interest was, to say the least, piqued by this development. New reports emanating from the exclusive preview have given us cause for a little more consternation, however.

According to AutoWeek, the new Viper – expected to arrive sometime late next year as a 2012 model – looked eerily like an Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione with a more Dodge-like front end. That would be a shame, since the Alfa’s styling is its biggest asset; its chassis and performance dynamics, less so. Giving the 8C – based, as it is, on age-old Maserati architecture – a new shell and calling it a Viper strikes us as all kinds of wrong. Then again, like a great many rumors in the autosphere, this could all be mere conjecture.

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