Apex
Weekly.

Porsche's Sonderwunsch department revealed a one-off road-legal 911 called the Flachbau RS at Monterey on 14 August 2026. It turns a 2018 991.2 GT2 RS Weissach into a modern slantnose homage to the 935/78 Moby Dick.

The 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six stays untouched at 690 hp and 750 Nm through a seven-speed PDK, rear-wheel drive only. Deleting the PCM, audio, carpets and sound deadening cut another 31.6 kg from a car that was already the lightest GT2 RS spec. The manually adjustable three-position rear wing sits about 50 mm higher than standard and makes 554 kg of rear-axle downforce at 340 km/h in its High Downforce setting. Three years of work by Sonderwunsch, Style Porsche, Weissach, Porsche Motorsport and Manthey included three test cars, crash and airbag validation, wind-tunnel runs and 50 laps of the Nordschleife.

Porsche is turning Sonderwunsch into a margin business while volume sales are soft, and a single commission now gets full factory crash and Nürburgring validation. That is a very different proposition from an aftermarket widebody, and a quiet test of appetite for a series version.

Read the original at Porsche Newsroom →

The 49th Cividale-Castelmonte hillclimb closes the northern half of the Italian mountain championship on 2 to 4 October 2026, in the Julian Prealps of Friuli. Cars run the closed provincial road from Cividale del Friuli up to the Castelmonte sanctuary twice, with both times added together.

The course starts at Carraria in Cividale and finishes at Castelmonte in the municipality of Prepotto after 6,395 metres, gaining 408 metres for an average gradient of 6.4 percent and topping out at 618 metres. The 2026 edition counts for the Super CIVM and CIVM Nord final, the IRS Cup, the Friuli Venezia Giulia series and the Slovenian championship, run by Scuderia Red White. Entries are capped at 250 and regularly run past 200: 243 cars were entered in 2024, of which 184 finished. Federico Liber won that year in a Gloria C8P with a combined 7:21.85 over the two runs, his sixth Castelmonte victory.

Outside race weekend the road up to Castelmonte is an open, lightly trafficked provincial road about 9 km from Cividale del Friuli, a UNESCO Longobard town. First weekend of October it becomes a closed-road stage with historics and modern prototypes running side by side, and free paddock access down in town.

Read the original at ACI Sport →

Porsche revealed the 911 GT3 100 Jahre Nurburgring on 14 August 2026, a market edition capped at exactly 100 cars and sold in Germany only. The 4.0-litre naturally aspirated flat-six stays at 375 kW (510 PS) and 450 Nm, with a choice of seven-speed PDK or a six-speed manual.

Orders open in September 2026 and deliveries follow in 2027, the year the Nordschleife turns 100. An optional colour-matched Manthey Kit makes 540 kg of downforce at 285 km/h and has lapped the Nordschleife in 6:50.853, set by reigning DTM champion Ayhancan Guven. Porsche presented the car to the public at the Carrera Cup Deutschland meeting at the Ring on 15 and 16 August, deliberately skipping Monterey the same weekend. Details include White or GT Silver paint with a wrapped green nose, 20/21-inch forged wheels in California Gold, a green roll cage and a customisable start number from 0 to 999.

Porsche is monetising heritage while volume sales stay soft. A Germany-only allocation of 100 cars is a loyalty play aimed at the buyers who already own the Ring story, not a global product launch.

Read the original at Porsche Newsroom →

Switzerland's Klausenrennen returns on 25 to 27 September 2026 after 13 years, running pre-1949 race cars up the original 21.5 km course from Linthal to the 1,948 m Klausen Pass. The climb gains 1,260 m through 136 corners with gradients up to 10.5 percent.

Around 250 cars plus 150 motorcycles, sidecars and three-wheelers built up to 1949 are eligible, and this is the first running since the last memorial event in 2013. From 1922 to 1934 the Klausenrennen was considered Europe's hardest mountain test, drawing Caracciola, Chiron, Nuvolari, Varzi and Stuck to a gravel road that still defines the pass. The outright record has stood since 5 August 1934, when Rudolf Caracciola took his 354 hp Mercedes-Benz W25 to the summit in 15:22.2 minutes at an average of 83.9 km/h. The cantons of Uri and Glarus have granted Klausen Historic GmbH basic authorisation for a permanent revival, with regularity classes on Saturday and a second timed run on Sunday.

A closed 21.5 km alpine pass with pre-war machinery is the rarest thing in European car culture, and the permit is the real news. Two-year cycle means the next chance is 2028.

Read the original at Klausen Historic →

Ford revealed the Mustang Dark Horse SC Convertible on 14 August at the Woodward Dream Cruise. The supercharged 5.2-litre V8 makes 795 hp and 895 Nm through a seven-speed dual-clutch to the rear wheels. It is the most powerful open-top Mustang ever built, and Ford's first high-performance Mustang drop-top in 13 years.

Power matches the Dark Horse SC coupe and sits just 20 hp below the $300,000-plus Mustang GTD, which uses the same cross-plane-crank supercharged V8. The convertible rides on the Mustang GT convertible platform with a magnesium tower-to-tower brace for rigidity, plus MagneRide dampers at all four corners with unique springs and anti-roll bars. Chief engineer Arie Groeneveld says it was tuned as a top-down grand tourer, not for lap times. Detail changes include an extended hood-vent fin to suit the soft top's aero, revised rear wing stanchions without gurney flaps, and a colour-shifting Precision Purple paint. The coupe starts at $108,085 including destination; convertible pricing follows later this year, with orders opening in the fall and deliveries in spring 2027.

A 795 hp V8 convertible at roughly a third of GTD money, aimed straight at European grand tourers costing twice as much.

Read the original at Motor1 →

The 41st Sanremo Rally Storico runs 15-17 October 2026 as a round of the FIA European Historic Rally Championship. It sits inside a five-day motorsport week, 14-18 October, alongside the 73rd Rallye di Sanremo, the 40th Coppa dei Fiori and the 27th Rally delle Palme. Last year's edition covered 123 km across 11 special stages in the Imperia hinterland.

Organiser is the Automobile Club del Ponente Ligure, which has run the event since the first Rallye di Sanremo in 1928. The historic rally is one of only a handful of Italian rounds counting for the FIA EHRC, so entries come from across Europe. Stages climb from sea level into the Ligurian Alps behind Sanremo, on the same passes that hosted the World Rally Championship round from 1973 to 2003 and made names for the Lancia Stratos, the 037 and the Delta. The 2025 running started 40 crews in the historic classification and 26 saw the finish, with close to 250 entries across all concurrent events. The modern 73rd Rallye di Sanremo follows on 16-18 October. Watching from the stages and the town sections is free.

Mid-October is the last usable window before the high Alpine passes start closing, and Sanremo lets you drive a proper mountain road in the morning and be at the coast by lunch.

Read the original at Rallye Sanremo →

Toyota will deliberately build fewer GR GT supercars than the market wants. The US gets 200 to 250 cars, buyers must pass a vetting process, and prices start above 220,000 dollars — the most expensive Toyota ever sold.

The GR GT is Gazoo Racing's halo car: front-engined, two-seat, rear-drive, on Toyota's first all-aluminium body frame, with a new 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 and a hybrid motor built into the transaxle for 641 hp and 850 Nm through an eight-speed automatic. More than 150 buyers had already spec'd cars before order books opened, and Toyota also corrected earlier reports that the first allocation had sold out. Senior VP Andrew Gilleland put the scarcity plainly: they will not have enough to meet demand, and that is by design, because they do not want to sell to flippers. Deliveries start in 2027 through Lexus dealers in the US and Gazoo Racing outlets in Japan.

A mainstream Japanese OEM rationing a six-figure driver's GT by intent, not price.

Read the original at Carscoops →

The 36th Gran Premio Nuvolari runs 17 to 20 September, starting and finishing in Mantova. Three hundred crews in cars built 1919 to 2000 cover roughly 1,100 km in three stages, with 100 timed trials and 10 average-speed trials.

The route crosses Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria, the Marche and San Marino, taking in the Mugello, Imola and Magione circuits plus city circuits at Carpi, Forli and Lugo di Romagna. The event traces back to Nuvolari's death in August 1953, after which the Mille Miglia organisers rerouted their race through Mantova and created a Nuvolari Grand Prix for the fastest driver across the Po Valley. Four historic editions ran between 1954 and 1957 before Scuderia Mantova Corse revived it as an international regularity rally in 1991. It now counts toward the Italian Classic Regularity Championship and sits alongside the Mille Miglia at the top of the Italian historic calendar. A separate field of 35 modern supercars runs the same roads. Entries closed on 31 July.

Four days, six regions, three circuits — Italy's biggest historic regularity rally after the Mille Miglia.

Read the original at GP Nuvolari →

Lamborghini has confirmed the Lanzador, its fourth model line due in 2028, will launch as a plug-in hybrid instead of the 1,341 hp twin-motor EV shown in 2023. CEO Stephan Winkelmann says the switch, decided in February 2026, was very well accepted by customers.

The Lanzador concept was a 2+2 Ultra GT with a motor on each axle and peak output above one megawatt, slotted between the Urus and the super sports cars. Sant'Agata reversed course this year after luxury EV demand grew far slower than planned, and will now fit a combustion engine working with electric motors. It is not yet confirmed whether it gets the through-the-road hybrid layout of the Revuelto and Temerario or a version of the Urus SE's electrified 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, which makes 801 hp in Performante form. Winkelmann says demand for the hybrid is already stronger than it ever was for the EV.

Lamborghini is doing openly what Porsche has been doing under pressure: retreating from a fully electric halo product because the high-end EV buyer never showed up. For drivers it means the fourth Sant'Agata model line arrives with an engine, and the plug-in hybrid becomes the default architecture rather than a bridge.

Read the original at CarBuzz →

The 2026 Ascona Classic Car Award runs 19 and 20 September on the Lungolago in Ascona, Ticino, the 13th edition since 2014. Entry is free for spectators, judging starts 13:30 Saturday and the awards are handed out 14:00 Sunday on the lakefront.

Organiser Open Air Tours splits the field into period classes from pre-war up to 1989 plus a Modern Classics group, with Best of Show, Best Unrestored and Public's Favourite on top. Past fields have included a 1930 MG Type M works Le Mans car, a Monteverdi 375 L Highspeed and a 1963 Corvette Split Window. The 2026 edition puts Iso Rivolta in the spotlight. On Sunday morning the entrants leave at 09:30 for a road tour through the Piano di Magadino before the prize giving.

One of the last big open-air concours of the Alpine season, and the drive there is half the point. Gotthard, Nufenen and San Bernardino all funnel down into Ticino, so a pass day stacks straight onto a free Sunday on Lago Maggiore.

Read the original at Open Air Tours →