Monterey Car Week: 8 Things You Might Have Missed

Now that the initial flurry of car reveals from Monterey Car Week has subsided, its attendees can get back to consuming their own body weight in oysters and Champagne and keeping California’s linen suppliers afloat for another year.

We, meanwhile, can finally sit back and take a proper look through everything that’s been revealed. There’s been some particularly big hitters this year, with the Lamborghini Temerario, BMW M5 Touring and Maserati GT2 Stradale getting plenty of attention.

Elsewhere, there’s been a rather inevitable focus on restomods, with an even more inevitable emphasis on those powered by flat-six engines from Stuttgart, like the Tuthill GT One and Kalmar 9X9.

There’s been plenty more going on, though, from electric hypercars to poshed-up Mercedes roadsters to restomods with a more Italian flavour. Here’s everything that might have slipped by you over the last few days.

1. Rimac Nevera R

Mate Rimac may have previously hinted that future Rimacs might not be all-electric, but the Nevera R – a more powerful, track-honed version of the standard car – very much is.

It’s lighter, gets more aggressive aero, and even more power – 2078bhp means it’ll hit 62mph in a quite frankly ridiculous 1.8 seconds. We hope you don’t try that after a big lunch. 40 will be made, and they’ll be part of the originally-planned run of 150 Neveras.

2. Mercedes-Maybach SL680

In its ongoing quest to see just how much sumptuous quilted leather it can throw at a car, Mercedes has unveiled the most surprising car yet from its luxury Maybach sub-brand: the SL.

Yep, Merc’s roadster is now available in super-posh Maybach form. It gets a 577bhp, 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, but gets a quieter exhaust and retuned suspension compared to the equivalent AMG SL63. And yes, you have to have the black bonnet.

3. Touring Superleggera Veloce12

We can’t imagine anyone looking at the Ferrari 550 and thinking, ‘yep, I can do better than that’. That’s just the attitude Italian coachbuilder Touring Supeleggera has taken with this restomod, though.

30 550s will be transformed into this overhauled, restyled ‘improvement’ on the original car, which also liberates an extra 25bhp from the 550’s 5.5-litre V12 for a total of 496bhp. Is it successful? We’ll let you be the judges of that…

4. Ruf Rodeo

Porsche tuner* Ruf – a name you’ll be familiar with if you played basically any racing game besides Need for Speed in the 2000s – threw its hat into the very crowded, reworked 911-shaped ring with this, the Rodeo.

A safari-style off-road interpretation, it sends a healthy 610bhp from a 3.6-litre flat-six to all four wheels, with each axle getting a limited-slip diff for maximum doughnut potential. Our favourite bit, though, might be the interior, which looks like it’s been trimmed using a really cosy, battered old fleece.

*Pedants: yes, we know it’s technically a distinct manufacturer and not a tuner, but nobody’s going to look at this and think it’s anything other than a modified 911.

5. Porsche 993 Speedster

Porsche itself didn’t want to miss out on all the classic 911 fun, debuting this, the ‘new’ 993 Speedster. The 993 is one of only a handful of 911 generations to never get a chopped-windscreen, open-top Speedster version – until now.

A one-of-one car built for designer and Porsche collector Luca Trazzi, it’s also a demonstration of the work that the modern-day revival of the company’s ‘Sonderwunsch’ (special order) programme can do in creating factory one-offs.

6. Cadillac Opulent Velocity

Winning this year’s Monterey award for ‘Most Self-Explanatory Name’, the Opulent Velocity concept is Cadillac’s idea of a luxury performance car of the future.

A big, electric 2+2 coupe with butterfly doors, it has two modes – Opulent, which hides all the controls away and lets the car do the driving, and Velocity, which gives the driver full control. All very fanciful and concept car-ish, but it is said to give us a hint at the future design of Caddy’s V-badged performance cars.

7. Acura Performance EV Concept

Another vision of electric performance, and another contender for ‘Pointlessly Self-Evident Name of The Year’, is the Acura Performance EV Concept, which is, erm, a concept for a performance EV. From Acura. Where do they get this stuff?

Yep, alongside confirming that an electric NSX successor is on the way, and showing us the rather excellent Integra HRC Prototype, Acura debuted this design for a strange lifted electric coupe-SUV thing. We’re sure it’s of interest to someone, somewhere.

8. Hennessey Venom F5 Stealth Series

Personalisation is a huge deal in the high-end car world these days, which is why Hennessey’s debuted the Stealth Series, a special edition of its 1817bhp Venom F5 hypercar.

It has a unique, hand-applied paintjob, and just three will be made, each incorporating various ‘Easter eggs’ that link them to their owners.