This Week’s Weird and Wonderful—December 12, 2025: A Practical Look
Welcome to the Weekly Weird & Wonderful—our bi-fortnightly collection of the coolest, strangest, and most interesting cars currently on BaT. Today’s edition is bursting at the seams, and we dare say that it only captures a sliver of the noteworthy vehicles up for auction right now (you know it’s a big week when a Mitsuoka Viewt and a hangar full of warbirds are left on the cutting room floor). If you’re curious about what else is on the site—and we hope you are—please head over to our Live Auctions page and tell us what else catches your eye.
Now, without further ado, please enjoy this installment of the Weekly Weird & Wonderful!
In the years right before the OPEC crisis, sports car racing was flourishing and new classes proliferated. Group 6 was initially formulated for open-cockpit prototypes with engines under 2.0 liters, and gave constructors like Lola, Chevron, and others the opportunity to build affordable but advanced race cars for privateers who wanted to rub wheels with the big-bore, factory-backed teams. This T210 is a little Cosworth-powered ripper that put its drivers on the podium back in its day, and has since been prepped for vintage racing duty. Head to any Masters Historic Racing event, and you’ll see cars like this devouring more carefully-driven Can-Am racers, GT40s, and the like.
The Super Five is unique among Sbarro creations in that it isn’t a one-off—because they made two. Unlike the Ferrari-based Super Eight of the same vintage that appeared here last year, it began life as a hatchback, namely a Renault 5 Alpine Turbo (a conventional front-driver not to be confused with the R5 Turbo). The car was displayed at the Geneva Auto Show in 1985, likely as the only entry in the under-represented “luxury hatchback” segment. This listing is another from midcenturymotoring, who seems to have an Indiana Jones-like knack for locating forgotten treasures.
The design is somewhat tame by Sbarro standards, and even though the interior has a show car look, it’s kitted out practically with features like fitted leather booster seats and a rear TV with ersatz parental controls in the form of a VCR mounted up front away from the kiddos.
Ex-Don Yenko 1983 Chevrolet Camaro Berlinetta IMSA GTO
IMSA in the 1980s featured a burgeoning contingent of tube-frame silhouette racers dicing it up among the sleeker prototypes. Outfits like Dillon Enterprises of North Liberty, Indiana, became a go-to builder of these tube-framed road racers, and one of the more successful was this IMSA Camaro. It was campaigned by Jerry Thompson, Chris Thompson, and Don Yenko in the GTO class during the 1983 IMSA Kelly American (Kellygirl) Challenge series. It would also become the last car that King Yenko himself ever ran in competition.
Driver Gene Felton, who had previously raced against this car, purchased it in 1984. It was tucked away from 1987 to 2005. The selling dealer purchased the car just this year after two decades in the Robert Richardson collection, and while it starts, moves, and stops under its own power, it needs a thorough going-through to be ready for track duty once again.
1967 Ford Thunderbird Apollo Edition
There was once a time when Abercrombie & Fitch was the outfitter of choice for polar explorers and adventurers. As a result, their goods were prized by wealthy men (well, mostly men) of leisure, and in 1967 they attempted to cater to this audience by commissioning five “Apollo Edition” Thunderbirds. These were trimmed out with all of the latest mobile tech an upper-echelon executive could want, much like the contemporary Crown Imperial Mobile Director from Chrysler. The Apollo name brazenly capitalized on the public fascination with the NASA missions of the same name, though the astronauts themselves were strongly allied with Chevrolet.
Inside were luxuries that put any space-going vehicle to shame—blue leather seats and shag carpeting, a television and lunch trays for the rear passengers, a rotary-dial telephone, gold trim, and a fascinating “Icelert” ice detector made by Rover with a large sensor sensor in the front bumper.
c. 1950 Stammer Roadster Project
According to the contemporary Road & Track article accompanying this home-built roadster, its maker, one Fred Stammer, built it from scratch because “he couldn’t afford an MG.” It appears that Stammer was a metalworker by trade, so he wasn’t exactly an amateur—but even among professionals, the quality of the workmanship here looks astounding. The streamlined bodywork has few seams, and flush rivets abound. Stammer was also an avid motorcycle rider, and the car wears fenders cribbed from a Harley-Davidson as well as twin Norton mufflers attached to custom-bent headers.
The hand-carved wooden dash was supplied by Stammer’s father, and is now in pieces but thankfully still with the car. Former owner @georgealbright may have more details, and we’d love to hear from him! The car is currently being listed by the Petersen Museum, and it would certainly look right at home there once restored.
Enviate Hypercar Evo Hill-Climb Race Car
The Pikes Peak hill climb may be the last true “run what your brung” event, and it takes a serious racer (and more than one’s fair share of chutzpah) to make it all the way to the top at speed. The Enviate Hypercar Evo was built to do exactly that, and it’s just the kind of weapon you’d want to pull up with at the Devil’s Playground. Built by the seller’s company, the racer attracted the talent of F1 engineer Sebastien Lamour to assist, and was later campaigned by Paul Gerrard—yes, that Paul Gerrard (aka “The Stig” in the US edition of Top Gear)—at the 99th and 100th running of Pikes Peak, earning an eighth-in-class finish in the latter.
The naked carbon-fiber body looks menacing, and the aero package is said to be capable of making 6,000 lb. of downforce at 140 mph. The Steve Morris Engines 6.2L LS-R V8 features a single Garrett G42-1450 turbocharger paired with twin TiAl 60mm wastegates and a TiAl Q blow-off valve, and sounds like Zeus thundering from the heights of Olympus.
Lingenfelter-Modified 1995 Chevrolet Impala SS 6-Speed
The B-body Impala SS was cool in stock trim, but its 260-horse LT1 and automatic gearbox left a lot of room for improvement. This Lingenfelter-modded six-speed car is what the Impala SS always wanted to be (or at least what we always wanted it to be). The changes are standard hot-rodder fare—a 383 stroker, stiffer and lower suspension, and a Tremec six-speed with a Hurst short-throw shifter—but they seem to transform the car.
We haven’t experienced it in person, mind you, but this frame from the driving video says everything we need to know.
1971 Ford Ranchero GT 429 Cobra Jet 4-Speed
There’s more to say about the venerable 429 Cobra Jet than we can succinctly fit here (for the curious, we covered it in a piece during 2024 Big Block Week). The largest seven-liter lump came in a variety FoMoCo products back in the ’60s and ’70s, and one of the rarest applications was this 1971 Ford Ranchero GT. Some 56 cars were produced with the 429ci Cobra Jet Ram-Air V8 and four-speed gearbox for the 1970 model year.
1995 BMW M3 AC Schnitzer ACS3 CLS
Before the E36 M3 Evo there was the ACS CLS, which was created by German tuner AC Schnitzer—gesundheit. The company was founded by Willi Kohl and Herbert Schnitzer in 1987 as a tuner of BMWs, and they’ve held a longstanding relationship with the automaker since. In the early ’90s, the ACS3 CLS (Coupe Lightweight Silhouette) was part of the company’s second chapter, and it was insane. Based on an E36 M3 coupe, it featured carbon-kevlar body panels, a tuned 3.0L inline-six, revised suspension, and a stripped interior. Don’t worry—power windows and A/C weren’t sacrificed.
This is one of the 75 converted cars from the German firm. It’s currently offered by BaT seller and Local Partner @1600veloce, who’ve given us a taste of what it’s like to be behind the wheel.
10×4″ Yamaco Courrèges ACB-P Wheels
Image: Reddit
If you saw this listing and thought “what am I looking at here?” for a minute or two, you’re in good company. These are 10″ Yamaco wheels designed by French fashion house AC Courrèges for use on Japanese kei cars.
The inspiration for this design was, quoth Courrèges, “I want to run them on an open car under a full blue sky”—a perfect fashion designer non sequitur if we’ve ever heard one.
Honorable Mentions:
LSX454-Powered 1971 Datsun 240Z Roadster Conversion 6-Speed
If anyone knew how to properly de-roof a Z, it would be Pierre Z—the same outfit that partnered with Nissan on their Vintage Restoration Program. This one was further modified during the late 2010s and received a repaint in black, a set of forged HRE wheels, and…an LSX454 V8. From certain angles, it exudes a whiff of C3 Corvette—or maybe that’s just us. It is Friday, after all.
L’Autopède Bus Ride & Power Car Go-Kart
This whimsical bus, designed by Karel Baeyens, was produced by L’Autopède during the mid-20th Century. Today, it sits in a refurbished state, and is motivated by a ride-on motorized unit trailing behind. Talk about backseat driving…
It’s hard to tell how big the Austin America is, because its proportions work so well. For that, we can thank Pininfarina, who clad Alec Issigonis’ upsized Mini in classy two-box bodywork. Though it is oh-so-British, the car was designed primarily for export, and for a time BMC couldn’t make them fast enough to keep up with demand.
Dutch Police-Style, 3.2L-Powered 1980 Porsche 911SC Targa
When safari Porsche builds go out of style, Euro police car builds ought to replace them.
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