Lazareth Auto Moto: The craziest vehicle company on planet Earth

Ever heard of the Lazareth motor company?  No?  Well then, this post is for you.  Lazareth is a low-volume French vehicle manufacturer that makes vehicles that are just out of this world.  Here is a look at some of them.

1.  Lazareth LM 847

You want crazy?  I'll show you crazy!  This is the Lazareth LM 847, a four-wheeled superbike equipped with a  Maserati V8 that produces 470hp!  It reminds me a bit of the Dodge Tomahawk concept that was released in 2003.  The best description of it comes from DigitalTrends, which described it as 'a Maserati V8 on wheels'.

2.  Lazareth Wazuma GT

The Wazuma is a purely crazy vehicle, powered either by a Maserati V8 or a V12, depending on which version you're talking about.  There are five different versions of it, these being the V8F, V8M, GT, R1, and BIO V12.  Driving one of these must be stupidly fun!  It's unclear how exactly to classify it, due to its unique wheel layout.  It's not a car, or a motorbike, or a three-wheeler.  Lazareth calls it a superquad, which is more fitting than names I could think up for it.

Wazuma GT

Wazuma V8F

Wazuma V8M

Wazuma R1

Wazuma BIO V12

3.  Lazareth LMV 496

You thought the last two were crazy enough?  Get a load of this!  It's a hovering superbike!  Yep, you heard me right.  The LMV 496 can fly.  When the four wheels are folded in, it looks like a 'normal' four-wheeled superbike (if there is such a thing), but when you fold them out, it is transformed into a 1,300hp jet-engined drone.  It can hover using its four 69,000rpm jet engines for approximately 10 minutes at a time, before needing a fuel refill.  But because of all the space taken up with the fuel tank, jets, and other equipment needed to make it hover, when on the ground, it can only drive for 60 miles max using a small 60hp electric motor.  The price when new was $500,000, and I suspect prices on the used market, if any ever hit the used market, will rise a great deal, especially because only 5 of them will be made.

4.  Lazareth Maserati Mini Moke

Yes, that ugly little thing is a Mini Moke, and it is powered by -- Can you guess?  A Maserati V8 engine!  Are you noticing a pattern here?  Said V8 engine produces 454hp and 338 lb-ft of torque, in a car that weighs only 1,870 pounds!  Even though that must result in some pretty incredible acceleration figures, Lazareth has not unfortunately provided any more of the juicy details.  This cute little monster is still in production, should you happen to want one, but you will have to fork out $130K in order to have one.

5.  Lazareth Amphibie

While on the subject of outrageously modified Mini Mokes, we should touch on this one, called the Amphibie.  A very good name, as it really looks like a frog from the front, does it not?  Joking aside, the specs are as follows; Using a tiny 400cc four-cylinder, it makes 19hp powering the wheels on land, and 6hp to power the propeller when in the water.  Top speed on land is a respectable 55mph, while its top speed in the water is a snail-like 3mph.

 What do you think of the Lazareth company?  Is in really cool, or ridiculously stupid?  Let me know in the comments, and thanks for reading!  Please check out the rest of the site too!

The De Tomaso hot hatch you never knew existed: 1974-1982 Innocenti Mini

De Tomaso is one of those carmakers that is legendary, but doesn't get talked about much (but that has changed thanks to the P72).  But did you know De Tomaso actually made a hot hatch once?  Yes indeed, it did.  That hot hatch was the Innocenti Mini, made from 1974 to 1982.  Thing was, though, it wasn't all De Tomaso's doing.  Bertone helped out with the styling, naturally.  The finished product was quite good looking, too....But before we get into the little details, lets take a moment to learn some history about the Innocenti company.

       Innocenti was founded in 1947, originally making motor scooters, but then moving on to produce cars in 1961, mostly Minis and Austin Healeys, but all with slightly different styling from the original car thanks to Italian coach-building firm Bertone.  The British Motor Corporation bought out Innocenti in 1972, but went bankrupt three years later, and the Innocenti company was sold to Alejandro De Tomaso. 

De Tomaso was impressed with the performance of the Innocenti Mini, but he wanted more.  So he bumped the power up from 65hp to 71hp, gave the Mini new custom parts, let Bertone slightly tweak the design of the car, and gave it new wheels.  In 1976, the car was revealed to the public, and in 1977 production began.  Production of the Mini kept on until 1982, and in 1983 it was overhauled with Daihatsu parts and less power, due to the expiration of the license from British Leyland.

Well, the Mini wasn't made in large numbers, and wasn't extremely powerful either, but we need cars like this.  Small, obscure, and sometime even cute cars like this that pop up at random on the web is what makes our day.

90s Nostalgia at its Peak: 1998-2005 Shelby Series 1

Pretty much anyone who knows anything about cars has heard the Shelby name before.  Ever since Carroll Shelby joined up with Ford and AC to make the AC/Shelby Cobra, one of the greatest, maybe the greatest, American car of all time, his name has been treated with immense respect, and for good reason.  From the very start, Carroll was a car expert.  But even after having a hand building so many awesome cars, like the Shelby Cobra, Ford GT40, Shelby GT500, Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, and even more obscure cars, such as the Dodge Omni GLH-S by Shelby, he wanted to do more.  So, in 1998, he surprised the world by unveiling the Shelby Series 1 supercar.
         It was, and still is, the only car Shelby ever designed and built all by itself from the ground up.  It had a really, really strong and light chassis, due to an all-aluminum construction, a strength of 52 hertz in fact, to be exact.  It was equipped with cabin niceties such as an AM/FM/CD player, air conditioning, and power windows.  For all this though, it used a V8 engine from the humble Oldsmobile Aurora.    In the base specification, it was naturally aspirated and produced 320hp and 290 lb-ft of torque, resulting in a 0-60mph time of just 4.4 seconds, and a quarter-mile time of 12.8 seconds @ 112mph.  This was accomplished in part thanks to a low weight of 2,650lbs.  Top speed was capped at a respectable 170mph. The top-of-the-line spec is even more impressive, even by modern supercar standards.  The sprint from 0-60 is accomplished in just 3.2 seconds, due to excessive amounts of power, specifically 600hp and 530 lb-ft of torque.  It had its problems though, just like any car.
        First of all, Shelby promised 500 units to be made, but in the end, just around 250 units were manufactured, from 1998-2005.  This caused many customers and dealerships alike to be rather unhappy, causing Shelby to loose potential customers.  Then there were also a lot of lawsuits and hard feelings against it, at least according to what I can find.  And there was Series II planned, which was going to be an updated and more powerful version of the Series 1, but never made it beyond the prototype stage.  So, yeah, it had its share of troubles, just like all of us.
       But if you stop looking at details, and look at the car as a whole, you see that it was a brilliant supercar, and a future classic, just like everything else Carroll Shelby ever had a hand in.  Yes, even the Dodge Omni.  More on that later.  But yes, the Series 1 was, and still is, a great supercar, no matter what those hate-commenters on the web will tell you.  And so I say: Long live the Shelby Series 1!

CYNHO -- Salica GT

There are at least hundreds, if not thousands, of small, obscure companies that make fun, sporty cars for relatively cheap, and this company, called Salica, is no exception.  This car was unveiled back in 2008, based on a Noble M12, and using the same engine, a Ford Duratec V6.  Thanks to two turbochargers fitted to the engine, in made anywhere from 400hp (in the base version) to 550hp (the GTC version).  It would have done 0-60 in 3.2 seconds, making it one of the highest-performing V6-powered cars of the time, and the top speed was an estimated 190mph.  Weight would have been 2,255 pounds.  The GTC version, essentially a track version of the normal GT (funny, because it was actually 45 pounds heavier than the standard version), was also proposed in 2008, but didn't make it beyond the prototype stage.  Speaking of which, neither did the standard GT.  So, unless one of the two prototypes pops up for sale on eBay, then no, you can't buy one.  Sorry.

CYNHO -- 1969 Abarth 2000 Scorpione Concept

The 1970s were a time of low fuel mileage and high fuel costs, but some of the best concept cars were made then.  However, the car I am featuring today is not from the '70s.  It was made in 1969 but with that distinct wedge shape that is found only in '70s concept cars like the famed Alfa Romeo Carabo.  So, a little more about the Abarth 2000 Scorpione.
          It had a very unique design, though, unlike anything else.  From the trumpet-like exhaust pipe to the thin teardrop-shaped headlight scoops to the row of flip-up headlights in the very front, you can tell this thing means business.
          It is powered by an upgraded Fiat four-cylinder engine, producing a respectable 220hp, which, along with the car's dry weight of just 1,477 pounds, would result in some serious performance.  The car has a theoretical top speed of 175mph.  Only one prototype was made, which currently resides in the Abarth Gallery near Yamanaka Lake in Japan.

CYNHO -- ORA R1

The ORA R1 is a car that you will definitely not be familiar with unless you live in China.  It was unveiled just last year, but still, it's a CYNHO, so here it is.
          ORA is a new sub-brand under Great Wall in China, and this is the R1 is their second car, their first being the iQ.  It is an all-electric car, and advertised as 'the cheapest electric car', starting at just $8,566.  The previous cheapest car was the Tata Nano, at $2,000e, which was also in India.  It didn't have very good reliability, though, often bursting into flames at random times, or breaking down on steep hills, so hopefully the R1 will have better reliability.  The previous cheapest electric car was the Baojun E100, also in China and India, which started at $15,000e.  Its reliability was much better than the Nano's, needless to say.  The R1's closest rivals that I can think of are the Honda E and Fiat 500e.  The R1 has just 46hp and 96 lb-ft of torque, which allows it to do 0-30mph in 5.6 seconds.  0-60 times are not specified (probably because accelerating from 0-60mph would almost take it to its top speed, which is 62mph), but I'd guess around 11 seconds, which is expected with something this cheap and lacking in power.  The R1 has a claimed range of 218 miles, and you can charge the battery in approximately 10 hours on a standard house plug.  It is going on sale this summer, in China and India only, at least so far.