Home-Built 2700 HP Jet-Truck Is The Coolest Truck Ever!

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By Ray Wert

In a bid to give his 2005 Ford F-150 more power, Jackson, Michigan native Chris Lentz strapped a Czechoslovakian Motorlet M-701 turbojet to the truck bed, creating a 2700HP jet-powered truck. It's the coolest truck we've ever seen. Video below.

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We'll let Automobile tell the story:

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The fifty-five-year-old electrical foreman from Jackson, Michigan, had longed for a jet-powered truck for decades. Two years ago, Lentz discovered a way to realize his dream when he met a pilot from New York who imported used turbojet engines. After watching an example run on a test stand, Lentz paid $10,000 for one. Obtaining a rolling platform for his new toy was a bit easier. Lentz bought a used 2005 Ford F-150 STX on eBay for $12,000.

To install the jet in the truck, Lentz fabricated a sturdy mounting stand, a twenty-gallon kerosene tank, and a control console from aluminum and stainless steel. His decorative touches include a red, white, and blue nose cone and a 2700 HP badge (not divulged is the 516-mph velocity needed to achieve that power level).

So what's that mean for performance? Automobile claims:

"Without jet assist, Lentz's 231-hp V-8 accelerated its 6600-pound burden (truck, jet engine, two occupants) to 60 mph in a sluggish 14.5 seconds. We recorded a quarter-mile speed of 73 mph and a top speed of 85 mph.

The best of three runs in hybrid mode - exploiting both piston and jet propulsion - trimmed six seconds from the sprint to 60 mph. The quarter-mile speed jumped 30 mph and we achieved 140 mph after 45 seconds of acceleration."

Whoa! That seems pretty slow to us. Maybe it's because of that whole 6600 lb thing. Meh, still pretty damn cool!

Photo Credit: John Roe For Automobile Magazine

Zele Nissan GT-R "Complete Edition" Obliterates Price Tag At $205,000

By Ben Wojdyla
The tuner world's quest to modify every Nissan GT-R ever built continues as Zele International announces the introduction of their R35 GT-R ‘Complete Edition,' which comes in at an eye-watering, SpecV-crushing $205,000.

Zele Tuned Nissan GT-R Complete Package

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So what do you get for the cost of a Nissan GT-R SpecV and a base model Corvette? Well, first off, you get exclusivity; Only eight of these cars will actually be delivered complete, though customers will be able to build their own by purchasing the components separately. Those upgrades include a custom paintjob, Recaro seats, complete carbon fiber body kit, a carbon fiber roof, carbon fiber intake cover, and carbon fiber radiator shroud. As to anything that actually makes it a faster car, it gets a titanium exhaust, rear differential cooler, a height adjustable suspension, upgraded brakes and an ECU reflash good for a bump up to 550 HP.
So is that good enough to command that kind of price? One word: Crackpipe.

[via Motor Authority]

The Top 7 Most Ridiculous Car Accessories

Car makers go to great strides to offer the latest in useful gadgetry and customization options in their cars. For whatever reason, some people out there feel like those manufacturers just didn’t take it far enough. These misguided souls ravenously seek gear to put in, on, and around their cars - perhaps in hopes of standing out in the crowd. But it’s pretty doubtful that the kind of attention these accessories get is the sort they’re seeking.

by Brad Iger

The following article does not represent the opinions of Spike TV or its affiliates.

7. French Fry Cup Holder

At what point does unhinged gluttony hit critical mass? If French fries have been such a staple in your daily routine that you need a device for your car designed specifically to chow down on the go, it might be time to reevaluate your dieting habits. Here’s a great holiday gift for the guy who in the senior yearbook who was voted “Most Likely to Get Diabetes.”

6. Neon Anything

Okay, seriously – what is the appeal here? Are you pretending your car is a spaceship? A flying saucer from the planet Auto Zone? To me, it just looks like a hoopty with a bunch of raver paraphernalia glued to it. I mean, I like Tron as much as the next guy, but a Scion is not a lightcycle, and the amount of neon crap you put on it is inversely proportional to its cool factor.

5. Fake Hood Scoops

Forty years ago, hood scoops were totally badass. By putting a vent in the hood to catch cold air, the engine could create more power by colder, denser air forced into the engine via the carburetor mounted atop the engine. Not only did it serve a purpose, it looked awesome.

That was then. Your typical modern air induction systems pull in air from the fender wall instead of from the center of the engine bay. So now, hood scoops are in nearly all cases, totally useless. Which is why most modern ones are fake – simply a plugged vent on the hood or, even worse: a fake scoop that is actually glued on top of a normal hood. For shame.

4. TVs

Can someone tell me who thought it was a good idea to put TVs into cars? This guy needs a donkey punch of biblical proportions. When you’re piloting a 2 ton chunk of metal at high speeds, the last thing you should doing is catching up on season 3 of Heroes. This is brain surgery compared to talking on the phone while driving. And we wonder why traffic sucks all the time. Turn off the TV and drive.

3. Lambo Doors

Back in the '80s, crazy doors were all the rage because of cars like the Delorean and the Countach, which looked new and futuristic at time. Now, even Lamborghini is over it. But some people still haven’t gotten the message.

More than anything, I just can’t figure out what the draw is here. This makes getting into and out of your car ten times more of a pain in the ass because now you not only need clearance on the side of your car, but also above it as well.

That’ll be a fun conversation to have on a first date. And that’s aside from the fact that Lambo doors look laughably ridiculous on anything other than a Lamborghini.

2. Spinners

Ridin' Spinners | Wheels | SPIKE.com

THEY SPINNIN’, THEYYYY SPINNIN’!!!

Ya dude, they’re spinning. It’s blowing my mind.

Actually, what’s blowing my mind is how much money you wasted on those gimmicky wheels. Call me crazy, but putting $5,000 rims on a $1,500 car seems like top shelf stupidity. Trying to draw attention away from the fact that you drive a clapped-out ’89 Buick Riviera by slapping big shiny things on it seems less effective than just buying a nicer car.

1. Whistle Tips

Bubb Rubb Explains Whistle Tips | Viral | SPIKE.com

When this little piece of metal started getting welded to mufflers, it really became a metaphor for just how far narcissism within modern society could go. Mercifully a pretty short-lived trend, the whistle tip is without a doubt the most ridiculous automotive accessory ever conceived.

Having no practical function, the whistle tip’s sole purpose was to annoy people. I suppose in that regard it was pretty brilliant, since all it does is emit a loud, constant, screeching whistling sound from the muffler while the car is in motion. Good times.

Man Builds Audi R8 Super Car Out Of A Mercury Cougar

By Ben Wojdyla
The Audi R8 is one of the most exclusive and beautiful supercars in the world, commanding auto-lust wherever it goes and wherever it's seen. But what if you want an R8 but don't have the $105,000+ to buy one yourself? You could go through the arduous process of designing and building the whole thing from the ground up in your basement, but that would take 17 years. Who has the time? Why not just design an approximation of the R8 around a 2001 Mercury Cougar, fabricate it from fiberglass, and call it the ReplicaAudiR8?

Amazingly Good Replica Audi R8

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Here's the thing about the ReplicaAudiR8 — we don't hate it. For being a front-engine, front-wheel-drive approximation of a mid-engined all-wheel-drive supercar it looks damn good. We find ourselves thinking it wouldn't be a terrible thing if an actual Audi looked like this. Sure some of the details need a little work, like the lack of inner fenders at the back, and an interior upgrade which goes beyond adding an "R8" badge to the steering wheel, but it's pretty slick looking. Lets take a look at the car side by side with its inspiration.


Let's get the first, and most obvious angle out of the way, the profile. Since the ReplicaAudiR8 is based on a front engine front wheel drive sporty hatchback, one would think the thing would look like a wreck from the side. Surprisingly though it's just not that bad. The sculpting works nicely and the car even integrates intake vents from the as-yet unrevealed Audi R8 V10. The lines running front to back are massaged a bit to camouflage the change in layout, but overall it's an impressive effort.


The rear makes the ReplicaAudiR8's lowly Cougar origins blatantly apparent with a much narrower track and a higher roofline. The rear vents are actually bigger on the Replica than on the real Audi, but it lacks the exhaust tips poking through the back bumper. The lower bumper is one of the few places on the car that's fairly awkward, but it's nothing compared to some of the stuff we've seen on Fiero specials.

The front three-quarter view is almost creepy in how much the cars look alike. If you didn't know better, you'd swear it was a Chinese rip-off and not a home-built replicar. The only dead giveaway is the treatment on the lower lip of the front bumper. We'll be honest here, we're split on which one actually looks better from this angle. Henkl and Udo will be miffed at us, but it's the truth.

The one area the ReplicaAudiR8 has nothing on the real R8 (aside from the engine, the transmission, the suspension, the wheels, the chassis etc.) is the interior. The stock Mercury Cougar interior remains largely untouched from the day the Ford line workers installed it. The addition of an "R8" badge to the wheel can't compete against the shiny stainless steel, Nav system, D-wheel and general awesomeness of the Audi R8 interior.

At the front end we see the proportions of the wide Audi is again interpreted pretty cleanly on the Cougar chassis. The intakes are again a bit deeper on the replicar, and that lower lip comes into a clearer focus. Take a note, the ReplicaAudiR8 gets thin-line fog lamps where the real Audi is lamp free.

After all that, here's the big kicker: You can buy one of these if you live in Spain. The car was built by Alberto Gavach Fuertes of Zaragoza, Spain, who has a website dedicated to the car. Don't go to the site unless you want to scream bloody murder at the terrible website design, but on it, Alberto outlines the details on the car and tells us the price on this beauty: 40,000€ or about $50,000. This of course makes us wonder how fast the four-ring fellas will be slapping Al with a cease and desist, but that's for him to worry about. [Replica Audi R8, NECO Forums]