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BOOSTED LIBERTY WALK HURACAN: HURRICANE LAUGHTER

Lamborghinis are meant to be insane, that’s always been their modus operandi. So don’t let anyone tell you the Huracán is a sensible Lambo; at the hands of Floridian tuners 3:16 Speed, this boosted Liberty Walk Huracan can be downright hysterical…

Feature taken from Fast Car magazine. Words: Dan Bevis. Photos: Larry Chen

There aren’t a lot of road cars running V10s, in the grand scheme of things. You can pretty much count the models on your fingers – there’s the Porsche Carrera GT, Lexus LFA, E60-generation BMW M5, Dodge Viper, and a handful of others. But the car that really took this obscure engine format mainstream was the Lamborghini Gallardo. Alright, perhaps ‘mainstream’ isn’t quite the correct term, but the baby Lambo certainly proved that a high-revving ten-banger could be a reliable daily-driven entity as well as a hair-raising performance showcase. This was Lamborghini’s biggest-selling model by far, shifting over 14,000 units in its 11-year production run – unprecedented numbers for the Sant’Agatese firm and proof positive that the VAG money was doing the business.

So when it came time to replace the Gallardo, the approach was one of evolution rather than revolution: the Huracán, arriving for the 2014 model-year, boasted a 5.2-litre V10 which could kick out the jams to the tune of 212mph and a 2.5-second 0-62mph time. Hedonistic stuff, and it’s all thanks to a lengthy period of gestation, research-and-development, and a methodical nature hitherto alien to the most unhinged of the supercar brands.

Of course, for every yin there is a yang. The universe must be kept in balance. And while no-one could ever really call a Huracán ‘sensible’ as such, it’s certainly true that it’s the least mental model in the line-up. Which is where 3:16 Speed steps into the frame. Based in Clearwater, Florida, their mantra is ‘Burn rubber for Christ’, and that’s the name you hear everybody inadvertently yelling when this brutalised Lambo rolls by, licking out foot-long flames and making unholy noises. While the development process of the Huracán as a model has a distinctly long tail, 3:16 Speed aren’t the types to muck about. When they decided that they wanted to build this car and show it at SEMA, they had to knuckle down and get busy… because the world’s biggest automotive aftermarket show was only a week away. That’s right: whereas the bulk of the world-class rides you see at SEMA are the product of an entire year’s work or more for the companies in question, this merry band of Floridian bon viveurs turned around a stock Huracán into a show-stopper over the course of just seven days. It’s a frankly unbelievable achievement, and when we saw the finished product we simply couldn’t stop gawping at it. It’s unreal. The sort of thing you’d expect to see in a render by The Kyza, not an actual real-life car that can be driven on the street.

“The time frame was definitely the main hurdle,” says company boss-man RG, with the slightly maniacal grin of a person who’s been substituting sleep with caffeine for some time. “It had to be just one week from start to finish, and the final touches were being put on the car at 5am on the first day of the show.”

Not a second to waste, it seems, and this is clearly a team which thrives on the pressure of deadlines. You’ve got to be dedicated to run a business this way, and have a very clear idea of what you want to achieve as an end result, as well as what’s realistically achievable with each of your team members’ respective skillsets. Naturally you need to have a sense of fun too, because you don’t build a car like this for strictly rational reasons; as with so much in the modified car scene, there was a strong element of horseplay woven throughout the process. “We wanted to flex to Sheepey Race,” reasons RG, “and that’s just what we did. Mission accomplished.” For the uninitiated, Sheepey Race is a tuning shop based in Southern California; a company run by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts. Otherwise known as Sheepey Built and renowned for their tuning expertise and innovation with Hondas, Mitsubishis and other fast-road Japanese fare, the team has been dipping a toe in the vibrant waters of supercars and motorsport in recent years – with, it has to be said, some fairly startling results. Their favourite trick is to develop twin-turbo conversions for cars like the Ferrari 458 and the Audi R8, with the aim of boosting horsepower up way into four-figures, and they sell these as full kits to customers. And yes, as you’ve no doubt deduced, there’s a customisable setup available for the Huracán.

The notion of a making a wide thing wider is very much on-trend, and if you want to pack some serious girth you’ve really got to be talking to Wataru Kato and the squad at Liberty Walk. Helpfully, around the time that 3:16 Speed was embarking upon this project, the Liberty Walk Silhouette widebody kit had just arrived on the market, and with Kato-san’s help RG was able to draft in the parts to build one of the world’s first Silhouette Huracáns.

“Stripping the car down to install the widebody kit required serious commitment,” RG explains, his teeth gritting at the memory. “The rear quarter panels needed fully cutting out in order to start the conversion.” And obviously once you’ve cut something out, you can’t exactly un-cut it. But the team were elbows-deep by this point, fully committed to the endeavour, and things got more exciting the further in they went. You see, with massively wider wings comes the necessity for massively wider wheels, and this gave them all the excuses they needed to commission a set of bespoke rims. The end result is a quartet of fat forged 20-inchers from LD97, a design drawn up specifically with Liberty Walk applications in mind; the fronts measure 10-inches across, with a full foot of width apiece out back. And with the rear panel omitted and the Lambo’s innards exposed, you can see the brooding drama of that contact patch. Indeed, the massive amount of rubber on display is a helpful by-product of Toyo Tires USA’s involvement in the build – a relationship which led to the car starring on the best-of-the-best Toyo Treadpass line-up at SEMA. The finishing touch is added with a tasty suspension upgrade – because it’d be a bit crazy to dial in so much extra width and leave the car wallowing up there at stock ride height: a full Air Lift Performance setup gets the Lamborghini hard-parking like a boss.

Now, there’s a further reason for leaving the rear end exposed, and it’s to do with those aforementioned flame-outs. The Sheepey Race influence is most evident as you gaze within the Huracán’s guts, as you can’t exactly miss those mighty turbos with their sublimely crafted titanium pipes. The Stage 2 setup has brought in a pair of mirror-image Precision 6266 Gen-2 ball-bearing turbos, operating with twin Turbosmart 45mm Hypergate wastegates and Raceport BOVs. The air-to-water intercoolers are fully custom with CSF cores; as opposed to the usual air-to-air system you’d find in a traditional front-mount intercooler, these units employ a water reservoir for cooling, and the filler cap at the top can be used to stuff it with ice water if the fancy takes you. Liquid-to-air coolers are technically more efficient in their operation, with a pair of custom CSF heat exchangers completing the cycle, and Sheepey’s execution has packaged it all with panache. It’s just the kind of quality hardware 3:16 Speed needed, given their tight timeline – proven gear that’ll fit with OE quality and not throw up any unexpected hurdles. Oh yes, and with the V10 engine boosted and running standalone management, it now packs a brutal 1,050hp.

One thing you can be totally sure of is that, while this Huracán was built specifically for a show stand, it’s certainly no show queen. In fact, it’s hard to get RG out of the driver’s seat. “We drive everything that we own, nothing sits inside and collects dust,” he assures us.

Every element of this unique and ballistic Lamborghini exists to shock and amaze: the seam-bustingly wide bodywork, the retina-searing paint, the hunkered-down stance – it’s essentially a Hot Wheels toy brought to life. But the pièce de résistance, displayed so fabulously at the rear end, is that cunning remix of the revered V10 format. With a pair of shiny snails, foot-long flames on demand and Veyron-prodding power, this is a fresh snapshot take on Lamborghini’s established formula. The ‘sensible’ Lambo, entirely reimagined for dropped jaws and joyous laughter.

Tech Spec: Boosted Liberty Walk Huracan

Styling:

Liberty Walk Silhouette GT widebody kit, custom yellow paint

Tuning:

5.2-litre V10, Sheepey Race Stage 2 twin-turbo kit inc. Precision 6266 Gen-2 ball-bearing mirror-image turbos, twin Turbosmart 45mm Hypergate wastegates, twin Turbosmart Raceport BOVs, custom air-to-water intercoolers with CSF cores, custom heat exchangers, back-purged titanium exhaust system, standalone management, 8-plate Dodson Sportsman clutch, 1,050hp

Chassis:

10x20in (front) and 12x20in (rear) forged LD97 LD12 wheels, Toyo T1-R tyres, carbon-ceramic brakes, Air Lift Performance air-ride suspension

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March 16, 2021
AUDI RS5 SPORTBACK (2020) REVIEW

0-62mph in 3.9-seconds is insane for a car this big and practical. But hard launches aren’t the whole story. We check out the 2020 Audi RS5 Sportback.

Words & Photos: Dan Bevis

What is the essence of the Audi RS5 Sportback, the five-door version of what is otherwise a two-door coupe? Well, what it all comes down to is your mum’s favourite aphorism: if you want to make a pearl, you’ve got to get a little sand in your clam. The A5 upon which this car is based is a sensible thing, and this spec level naturally fills it with all sorts of fancy equipment… but the essential vitality of it all is really about what the iconic RS badge represents. It gives the Sportback a dirty mind, filthy ideas, despicable intentions. And it does it all with a veneer of respectability, pretending to be all grown-up and practical while all the time being an absolute hellion underneath.

All of this traces back to the original Audi A5, which launched in 2007 as a range of coupes and cabriolets based on the A4; the Sportback variant reworked it into a five-door hatchback, so essentially this was a five-door version of a two-door version of a four-door saloon – such is the confusing niche-filling nature of modern motoring. Don’t worry, everyone’s at it. The second-generation (8W6) A5 range debuted in 2016, based on the Volkswagen Group’s MLB platform, with the Audi RS5 Sportback being unveiled in mid-2019, a gentle facelift followed in 2020. The car shares its engine with the Porsche Panamera 4S – a 2.9-litre twin-turbo TFSI V6, which is good for 444bhp and 443lb.ft. Big numbers for a practical family car! It also packs an 8-speed auto transmission, quattro all-wheel-drive, and five-linked front and rear suspension with Audi Sport Dynamic Ride Control. 0-62mph is despatched in a frankly ludicrous 3.9-seconds. Yep, it’s exactly as entertaining as it sounds…

The drive

Crikey. I don’t think I’d ever get bored of the way this thing accelerates. It’s relentless. I mean, obviously this car is more nuanced and multi-faceted than sheer acceleration, it’s agile and poised and luxurious and… bloody hell though, the way it gets from here to way over there is just demented. Physics shouldn’t allow it, but somehow Audi isn’t listening.

But before we get into all that, let’s look over the spec. This particular Audi RS5 Sportback has enjoyed a thorough ticking of the options list, with the black nappa leather interior featuring heated seats front and rear, along with the extended LED lighting package, panoramic glass sunroof, carbon fibre inlays, and the utterly superb Bang & Olufsen audio upgrade. It’s a properly big car inside too, the generous dimensions swiftly making most SUVs seem a bit pointless.

Settling into the driver’s spot is an immediately satisfying affair, not just because the chunkily bolstered seat holds you in a tender caress, but because you’re then confronted by a completely excellent dash layout – the whacking great touchscreen in the centre controls all of the major things you’d expect (audio, nav, customisable chassis settings and so on), and thankfully there are proper physical controls for the climate setup rather than having to jab at the screen to turn the fan up – which is always annoying – and the real party piece is the Virtual Cockpit. The dials ahead of the driver aren’t actually dials in the traditional sense, but a single-piece TFT screen; it can show you the dial readouts in the traditional way, but you can also throw a sat-nav screen up there, or your music information, or all sorts of swappable settings. It’s all controlled by the buttons on the steering wheel, and the nav screens (front and centre) are particularly cool, as they use real-world graphics to make it all look more lifelike; it’s less A-Z, more illustrated atlas.

But anyway, you’re not reading this mag because you’re interested in noting down relative spec levels, or you want to learn how spacious the boot is (although the answer to that, if you’re bothered, is ‘very spacious indeed’). No, you want to know how quick it is. And that’s pretty much where we came in. What it all comes down to is that this car is rapid enough to peel the enamel from your teeth; way faster than a practical family car would ever need to be, but we’re long past worrying about the concept of ‘need’. Sure, it can potter happily to the shops like an A5 diesel, but whack it in RS mode and the suspension stiffens itself in readiness, waiting for you to bury the throttle. And when you do, you can almost feel the sparks crackling off the roof and flanks like Doc Brown’s DeLorean.

This car is equipped with the optional RS Sport exhaust system, which is amusingly shouty when you’re on it – and that’s a good thing because as characterful as this Porsche-tweaked V6 is, it’s not the most tuneful or sonorous unit. Stealthy, almost. But in RS mode and with the revs approaching stratospheric levels, the sound from the tail is more than enough to chase the birds from the trees, with the amusing pops and burbles you’d expect from a sporty-edge VAG product. The box has also been ticked to up the speed limiter from 155mph to 174mph, but you’ll have to take Audi’s word for that. We didn’t test that on the A3, we’re not mental. But while it may seem that they’ve shoved a ludicrous amount of grunt into this plus-sized hatchback, you can be damn sure that the chassis can cope: combining the quattro system (the full-fat Audi Sport one, rather than the slightly less hardcore Haldex arrangement) with the Dynamic Ride Control allows the car to pull off an impressive magical feat, and shrink itself on country lanes. It may be quite big, but it feels like a TT when you wind it through the curves. That’s the ace up its sleeve – yes, it’s insanely quick, but the RS5 has also been engineered from day one to be able to deploy all the power effectively. That’s what makes it fun.

Audi RS5 Verdict

We found the best approach is not to drive it at ten-tenths like a maniac – although with the way this thing accelerates, that’s always a temptation – but instead to wind it back and treat it like a Bentley. Which is to say, driving in the knowledge that there’s all sorts of power, without the obligation to use all of it all the time. With this approach, you’re saved from overwhelming the brakes (because, let’s face it, even the best chassis in the world would eventually struggle to mask a 1,720kg kerb weight), and instead just let the RS5 flow across country in its own rhythm. RS mode is great for exploiting the full drama of the drivetrain, although the stiffest suspension setting might shake the fillings from your teeth on the average pot-holed B-road. Even in ‘soft’ standard guise, the weaponised performance is exhilarating, and the more you find a rhythm with it, the more it rewards you – and the more you’re able to enjoy the performance with the whole family on board, without your spouse telling you off and your kids throwing up. It’s a properly capable parent-wagon, this. It may have been conceived to appease the US market when they realised they wouldn’t be getting an RS4 Avant, but it’s arguably best suited to British daily life. The way it launches and surges is astounding, and the manner in which it controls itself through challenging twists and turns is downright stupendous – but what’s most impressive about the Audi RS5 Sportback is that it’s basically really good at everything. If you won a modest amount on the lottery (and for a lot of us, that’d be the only way in – RS5 Sportback prices start at £67,505; this one with all the options weighs in at £85,360) and only had one parking space, this is a car that could fulfil every brief on your wish list: family car, sports car, grand tourer, hot hatch, Ikea hack, track toy… it can do all of these things. And it does all of them bloody brilliantly.

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March 16, 2021
5 classic Chrysler letter cars heading to auction

Five primo examples of Chrysler’s performance legends, the 300 series “letter cars” from the 1950s and ‘60s, will be offered from a single collection when Mecum Auctions returns to Glendale, Arizona, for its third annual collector car auction March 18-20 at State Farm Stadium.

The super-sized Chrysler 300s are called letter cars because each model year received an ascending letter designation, with the cars in this group including a 1957 300C convertible, a 1958 300D hardtop, a 1959 300E hardtop, a 1960 300F convertible and a 1962 300H hardtop.

1957 Chrysler 300C convertible

A 1963 300 Pacesetter convertible rounds out the collection, although it is not a factory letter car but an official pace car used in the 1963 Indianapolis 500.

Chrysler chief designer Virgil Exner’s Forward Look styling was in full bloom in the gaping grilles and, on the earlier models, prodigious tail fins. The 1957 model was the first to break out with that extravagant look under Exner, and a whole new design direction for Chrysler and its divisions.

1958 Chrysler 300D hardtop

What set the letter cars apart were their high-performance V8 engines, which produced impressive acceleration despite the massive size and weight of the full-size cars. There was a full-on horsepower war going on in Detroit starting with 1955, as Chrysler rolled out its first 300C to compete with GM and Ford powerhouses that also arrived that model year.

For the 1957 300C and 1958 300D models, the engine was a FirePower Hemi V8 displacing 392cid and generating 375 or 390 horsepower, depending on the setup, for the ’57 car, and 380 horsepower for the ’58.

1960 Chrysler 300F wedge-head 413cid V8 with cross-flow intake

For 1959, the Hemi was replaced by the Golden Lion wedge-head V8 with 413cid (6.8 liters) and 380 horsepower, and a resounding 525 pound-feet of torque. A new 413cid wedge design was produced for 1960, initiating a unique “cross-ram intake,” with 375 horsepower and similar torque.

For the 1962 300H, the tail fins had gone away but the letter-car power remained, with a slightly smaller profile and lighter weight. For this year, the 413cid V8 was called the Max Wedge, fed by a pair of 4-barrel carbs on a normal intake and boasting 380 horsepower and that same muscular 525 pound-feet of torque.

For whatever reason, Chrysler did not use a 300J for its 1963 300 Pacesetter featured at Indy but a standard non-letter model, which was still a powerful car with its factory 383cid V8.

1963 Chrysler 300 Pacesetter

Mecum says it expects 1,200 collector cars, trucks and motorcycles to cross the block during the 3-day Glendale auction, held in the NFL stadium where the Arizona Cardinals play their home games. The collection of Chrysler 300s is set for bidding on March 19.

1962 Chrysler 300H hardtop

For more information, visit the Mecum Auctions website.

This article, written by Bob Golfen, was originally published on ClassicCars.com, an editorial partner of Motor Authority.

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March 15, 2021