Here’s what the Real Car Granddaddy wants for Christmas: A mobility scooter powered by a supercharged 140 cubic centimeter gasoline engine. Granddads Unser, Andretti, Allison or Waltrip would all be jealous.

I figure it’s gotta make 20 horsepower. Maybe 30. Unless it’s Granddad Force’s or Kalitta’s and they’re mixing in some nitromethane. Then it should be around 60 hp—but only for five seconds.

According to bbc.co.uk, this scooter was built in the U.K. and includes kart tires for extra grip. Good thing it has four wheels so Granddaddy doesn’t tip it over and break a hip. I’d like a rollcage, a six-point harness and a helmet with a HANS device. Brits have always been a bit eccentric—but they call us “cowboys.”

Local residents resent the noise and says it “scares wildlife.” I wonder how many wild animals they interviewed to determine their level of fear. And are tame animals okay with it?

An aside: Know what’s a chick-magnet in an assisted living facility? Same thing it was in high school: A driver’s license and a car. Some of those blue pills that match your girl’s hair and you’re ready.

If you haven’t made plans yet to attend the SEMA show in Las Vegas beginning November 1, you might want to clear your calendar. Among the tasty cars, trucks, and accessories on display will be a 2012 Honda Civic Coupe built by Fox Marketing. But this isn’t your average tuner car, with flared fenders and fat wheels and not much else. The Fox Civic’s payoff is under the hood––a turbocharged engine that puts out 500 horsepower.

Some skeptics are already pointing out that putting a 500-horsepower engine in a front-wheel-drive car isn’t likely to do much more than reduce the front tires to rubber dust every few thousand miles. But while that might be true, it’s also fair to point out that who cares?! We’re talking supercar power here, folks! In a Civic!

The Fox Civic will also be getting upgraded suspension and brakes to handle the kind of cornering forces that much power will help generate. After all, with great power comes great responsibility, including the responsibility to keep from wrapping your car around a tree. More...

One of the most satisfying things about working on cars is making them better by increasing power, improving the ride, and tuning the suspension. But there are some people out there who are spoiling the fun for everyone. We’re not talking about safetycrats or greenies, but automotive engineers like the ones responsible for the 2012 ZL1 Camaro, a car that’s not only the most powerful production Camaro ever made, but is crammed with so many high-tech features that just about the only thing left for a hot-rodder to tune is the radio.

Start with the engine, a supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 that churns out 580 horsepower––at least 150 more than the advertised power of the legendary 1969 Camaro ZL1’s 427-cubic-inch big block––while still meeting modern emissions requirements.

Then there’s the transmission. With the ZL1 you can specify either a six-speed Tremec TR-6060 MG9 manual or a Hydra-Matic 6L90 automatic transmission. The 6L90 has three drive modes: Drive, calibrated for optimal fuel economy; Sport, for more aggressive driving; and Manual, with no automatic up shifts, and staged upshifts for incredibly fast shifts and maximum performance.

Fancy yourself a good suspension tuner? Okay, beat this: The Camaro ZL1 will feature the third-generation of Magnetic Ride Control, which employs valve-less damping and Magneto-Rheological (MR) fluid technology. MR fluid is a suspension of iron particles in a synthetic fluid. When the system is activated, the particles are magnetized and aligned into fibrous structures, changing flow resistance. By controlling the current to an electromagnetic coil inside the piston of the damper, the system varies the suspension firmness to match the road and driving conditions. There are three settings for MRC in the ZL1: Tour, Sport, and Track. More...

Corvettes did better than any other single type of car on this year’s Spectre 341 Hillclimb to Virginia City. Given the potential for full-throttle thrills, it’s no surprise that several participants were Corvette owners. This year, four in particular took on the Geiger Grade leading up to Virginia City: winner Lou Gigliotti, Randy Harris (Sixth place), Ryan Tauchen (14th place), and Frank Vanson (19th place). This quad of Vettes all had exhilarating experiences to relate. We’ve already covered Gigliotti of Wylie, Texas, who drove his winning LG Motorsports 2010 ZR1 to blistering elapsed time of 3:14 (averaging 96.27 mph), a full 7.3 seconds faster than his race-winning run last year.

Besides Gigliotti, seasoned 341 contender Randy Harris manned the wheel of a tricked-out black 2000 C5 for the first time, having run a ’91 ZR1 and Porsche 911 Turbo in the previous two decades. Even though his 650-hp, twin-turbo Lingenfelter mill has less torque than Gigliotti’s grinding machine, he still maintained a speed 88.58 mph over the five-mile sprint, finishing a scant 15 seconds behind the fastest time. Even so, he was not to be consoled:

“That’s a long 15 seconds,” he winced. “What Lou did in the last two years—it’s incredible!”

Harris compensated for having comparatively less power by adding bigger Baer brakes, wider wheels, Fox shocks and fatter swaybars, along with a weight reduction by stripping out the interior.

“I feel I went way overboard with gutting it, but then you turn the key and press the accelerator, and you forget about what’s missing as your senses overtake you,” he points out. “At the Virginia City hill climb, it’s all adrenaline, with your mind and the dangers keeping that adrenaline in check.”

Confirming Gagliotti’s observations, he admits that the most challenging aspect of the 341 is staying focused and, “Not messing up … It’s not a 10/10ths course. I’ve had two wrecks on it over the years, and that kinda slows you down a bit.” Even so, he went home happy: “It was a good year,” he summed up.

Spectre Performance: (909) 673-9800, 1720 South Carlos Ave., Ontario, CA 91761, www.spectreperformance.com.

It’s hard to imagine a sand-encrusted off-roader or admirer of VW Beetles who hasn’t heard of Bruce Meyers, the Mac Daddy of all dune buggies. The Meyers Manx is arguably one of the most significant vehicles of the last century, not only for its record-breaking achievements in the 1967 Baja 1000, but also for capturing the imagination of countless dune-chasing off-roaders (and several hundred copycat manufacturers to boot). It’s far more than just a VW-based sandrail; it’s iconic, a cultural waypoint of the Sixties that captures the feel and look of a generation, a vehicular version of Beatles music and Peter Max art.

Now in his eighties, Meyers is hardly the type to sit on the porch in a rocking chair. His fertile imagination has spawned a neo/retro variant of the Manx. Instead of using a shortened VW pan, the Manxter has a full-length Beetle chassis, allowing for four seats instead of two. More significantly, the air-cooled Type 1 engine is gone (or rather, used only on the base 2+2 Manxter now). Instead, a modern, water-cooled, turbocharged Subaru WRX engine hangs off the back end.

Meyers is not content to simply rehash an old idea. The Manxter takes the Manx to a new level of performance, using modern mechanicals, such as the long-arm off-road suspension (on the DualSport, shown here) to the 250-hp Subbie boxster engine. The latter is typically mated to an upgraded VW Type 1 transaxle or a stock Type II with a Kennedy adaptor. More...