1966 Lotus Cortina MkI

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Bentley. Aston Martin. Jaguar. Lotus.

They’re all British car companies, but more importanly, they all have factory-sponsored racing teams. For decades, these companies have battled it out on the racetrack in everything from Formula 1 racing to grand touring to group racing.

What these companies would typically do is take one of their production cars and modify it to compete in a specific class of racing. There is one catch, though. Auto manufacturers are required to build a minimum number of vehicles and sell them to the public in order to classify as a production car. This practice, known as homologation, means that a small number of factory-built race cars will make it out into the real world – completely road legal. This is exactly what happened in the 1960s with the Lotus Cortina.

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1984 Toyota Celica GT Rally Car

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There is a car show held once a month in Scottsdale where people gather to drink coffee and show off their high-end exotic cars. I skipped right past the rows of Ferraris and Porsches to go check out this 1984 Toyota Celica GT (yes, seriously).

I took one look at the car and could tell right away that something special was going on here. For one thing, it’s a lifted car! Aside from an AMC Eagle or a Subaru rally car, you don’t often see cars with this much ground clearance! I snapped some photos and looked around for the owner who was nowhere to be found.

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1969 Mercury Cougar Convertible ‘Cool Cat’

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As a seasoned attendee of SEMA, Barrett-Jackson and other car shows, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at resto-modded muscle cars. I can tell you that Mustangs, Camaros, Corvettes, Chevelles, Novas,  GTOs, Chargers, and similar cars are by far the most popular models that people restore. At these events, a car like a first-generation Mercury Cougar would be a real stand-out for the sheer novelty of being something different that you haven’t seen a hundred times before.

This 1969 Mercury Cougar convertible scores points for originality and hits a home run for being an extremely well done build. Nicknamed the “Cool Cat,” it was built by Hot Rod Express out of Blue Springs, Missouri.

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1963 Chevrolet Corvette Custom – The Condor

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The world of kustom kulture as we know it today began as an offshoot of the Southern California hot rodding scene. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, guys like George Barris, Big Daddy Roth, and Gene Winfield were coming up with wild new custom cars that had radically chopped roofs, slammed suspensions, shaved bodies, and custom pinstriping to show off their vehicles.

The allure of the kustom kar scene went out like a shockwave across the country, where it reverberated strongly with Jack Walker of Belton, Missouri. Jack was your typical hot rodding teenager, until he decided to start building cars for show. The first vehicle he displayed was in 1970, and it was called “The Condor.”

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1963 Corvette – World’s Fastest Street Legal Car

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1963 was a very special year for the Chevrolet Corvette because it was the one and only year the car came with a split rear window. This oddity makes 1963 model years highly desirable to collectors. However, this ’63 Corvette is special for another reason: it holds the official title of “World’s Fastest Street Legal Car.”

Looking at the car with its roll cage, huge Mickey Thompson tires, and the two gigantic turbochargers sticking out of the cowl hood, it certainly doesn’t look like a street legal car. However, it has opening doors, power windows, turn signals and a horn, and even a cupholder! In its “street trim,” this car ran the quarter mile in 6.75 seconds at an incredible 209.96 mph!

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