Taxonomy
Mid-engined
6 entries
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Book II
Mitsuoka Orochi
Named for an eight-headed serpent that had to be made drunk before it could be killed
A small Japanese coachbuilder named its supercar after the eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent of the Kojiki — a creature so large that moss and…
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Book III
Hennessey Venom GT
A Texan twin-turbo V8 wearing a Lotus like a stolen skin
Take a Lotus Exige, lengthen it, remove its engine, insert seven litres of twin-turbocharged American V8, and give the result a name that refers not…
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Book III
Hennessey Venom F5
Named twice for things that cannot be survived
The F5 refers to the top of the old Fujita tornado scale — winds above 261 miles per hour, damage described in the literature as “incredible”. The…
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Book V
De Tomaso Mangusta
The mongoose. Named, allegedly, as an insult, and shaped like an apology for it.
Mangusta is Italian for mongoose: the small, fast, faintly rabid carnivore famous for one thing, which is killing cobras. Alejandro de Tomaso built…
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Book VI
De Tomaso Pantera
The mongoose gave up and became a cat
Having named one car after the cobra’s natural predator, Alejandro de Tomaso named the next one after a big cat and sold it through Lincoln-Mercury…
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Book VI
Monteverdi Hai 450 SS
Swiss, Hemi-powered, and named “shark” in German
Peter Monteverdi built a mid-engined supercar in Basel with a 426 Hemi behind the driver and called it the Shark. Almost nobody has ever seen one.