Autoblog

Click image to view more shots of the street-legal Indy car

The DuPont Registry is the car shopping guide many of us use for that mission-critical research on what to buy when the good ship Powerball sails into our lives. After all, you can never be too prepared for that sort of thing. The August issue has a real gem nestled among the countless Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, and Lamborghinis you'd normally expect to see in the Registry's glossy pages.

It's even less practical than the most cramped exotic, too. It seats one, and that seat belonged to Eddie Cheever back in 2000. It's a Dallara Indy Car, and yes, it's 100% street legal. Back in its day, a 3.5L methanol-fueled Infiniti V8 sat behind the driver, and while the Infiniti decals still adorn the bodywork, a small-block Chevy provides motivation today. Wearing its original livery, the car's outfitted with all the required lighting, runs on pump gas, has electric start, a carbon fiber and leather-surrounded cockpit, 5 gauges and launches like a sportbike with its 2.5-second 0-60 time. In an era where the phrase "racer for the street" has become become cliché, this bad boy lives up to the description in every sense.

The car was put up for auction on eBay back in December but didn't meet reserve. The old listing's still up, where you can find additional pics, info and video.

Gallery Note: Some pictures appear distorted when first viewed because the gallery sets the preview size automatically, and the images are actually smaller than that default size. To see them in undistorted form, just click them again, and they'll reduce down to their correct original size. Apologies for the inconvenience.

[Source: DuPont Registry, August 2007 issue]

Video of what may be the world's fastest street legal car made its rounds around the blogosphere last night, and we have to say the Red Victor One, a 1971 Vauxhall Victor powered by a 2,200 bhp, twin-turbo 9.8-liter V8, is a rather impressive beast, if not incredibly limited in its abilities. Built by Andy Frost, a 45-year-old Brit who estimates he's pumped about $187,000USD into the car, the Victor One is basically a street legal drag car capable of reaching 60 mph in 1 second and running the quarter in 7.8 seconds at 183.07 mph. Surely the Red Victor One is an impressive machine, able to embarass Veyrons and Enzos all day long in a straight line. Turning, however, is a different story, as this street legal drag racer probably handles like the QE2.

The car, however, actually isn't in a class by itself, it just benefits from a rather sensationally titled YouTube video. We thought for sure someone had built a street legal Supra that could match the Red Victor One, but couldn't locate one on the internets. A quick survey of the tubes, however, revealed a 1966 Chevelle that back in 1994 did the quarter in 7.85 seconds at 172.41 mph using a 632ci big-block and many liters of nitrous. Of course, one thing the YouTube video doesn't specify is whether Red Victor One takes its passes on street tires or slicks, which would make a significant difference. Still, props must be given to Andy Frost and the Victor; both are truly insane.

[Sourcce: Engadget]