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Weekly Recap: Racing legend Jim Hall explains Chevy's futuristic Chaparral concept

"I said our cars are built to be winners." – Jim Hall Racing legend Jim Hall never thought he'd be a video game consultant, but when Chevrolet asked for his advice to create a futuristic Chaparral for the Vision Gran Turismo series, he was eager to help. He reviewed early sketches and suggested some changes that made it onto the concept, including the addition of a camera that's mounted onto a mast over the cabin to aid the driver. The Chevy Chaparral 2X Vision Gran Turismo concept was revealed this week at the Los Angeles Auto Show and will be part of a downloadable update for PlayStation 3's Gran Turismo 6 in December. Theoretically, at least, it uses a laser-beam propulsion system and an air-powered generator to produce 900 horsepower in the video game. It's capable of sprinting to 60 miles per hour in 1.5 seconds en route to a top speed of 240 mph. Those gaudy performance specs – even in the virtual world – came at Hall's urging. "I said our cars are built to be winners," Hall told Autoblog on the floor of the Los Angeles show. The 79-year-old drove Lotus racecars in Formula One before launching the successful Chaparral Cars in the 1960s. Like his innovative Can-Am racers, the Vision Gran Turismo project has an eye toward the future. It also introduces the iconic Chaparral name to a new generation of fans, and hopefully, Hall says, gets them excited about engineering and design. "It emulates what we did in the '60s," he said. And what they did back then still resonates. Chaparral Racing and Chevy partnered more than 45 years ago for development work on the composite monocoque chassis, lightweight alloy powertrains, automatic gearboxes and active aerodynamics. "He [Hall] walked right back into this and was able to apply thinkings and learnings," said Clay Dean, General Motors executive director of advanced design. The Chevy Chaparral 2X Vision Gran Turismo concept was created at GM's North Hollywood advanced design studio, and it will be on display at the show through November. Other News and Views Sebastian Vettel joins Ferrari team in 2015 Ferrari confirmed that four-time Formula One World Champion Sebastian Vettel will join the Scuderia for the 2015 season, jettisoning Ferrari's current ace, two-time champ Fernando Alonso. Vettel has been F1's most successful driver since Michael Schumacher, though he's struggled to match his previous accomplishments in 2014.

Ferrari planning 458 Speciale Spider?

The Ferrari 458 comes from a long line of mid-engined V8 supercars to roll out of Maranello, from the 348 and F355 to the 360 and F430. Each has also bred a Spider version, and starting with the 360 Challenge Stradale (through the 430 Scuderia and 458 Speciale), a hardcore performance version. But combining the best attributes of Spider and performance model is relatively new territory for Ferrari, one which it attempted only with the limited-production Scuderia Spider 16M. And if the latest rumors are to be believed, it's about to go at it again.
Though we can't verify its sources, 4WheelsNews says it has double confirmation from within Ferrari that a 458 Speciale Spider is in the works. When reached for confirmation, Ferrari refused to comment, as it typically does on the prospect of new models yet to be announced. Given the precedent of the Scuderia Spider 16M, it would seem to make sense, but for the time being we'll have to chalk this one up as a rumor.
If it were built, the Ferrari 458 Scuderia Spider (or whatever it would ultimately be called) would take the best of the 458 Spider and 458 Speciale to pack the 600-horsepower version of Maranello's sweet-revving 4.5-liter V8 underneath a folding hardtop. The latter is something the 16M did not offer, but crucially, the new McLaren 650S Spider does. We'd also expect only a limited number to be produced at a suitable premium over the Spider's $257k MSRP and the Speciale's $288k sticker.

Ferrari 400 Superamerica fetches record $7.6 million at auction

RM Auctions and its new partners at Sotheby's are no strangers to setting records at classic car auctions – especially when it comes to Ferraris. And now they've set another with the sale of this gorgeous 1962 Ferrari 400 Superamerica SWB Cabriolet. Sold as part of the father-and-son Paul & Chris Andrews Collection last weekend, chassis number 3309 SA fetched a whopping $7,645,000. That's a fair bit more than the similar, green over red, open-headlight example which the same auction house sold just a couple of months ago for $6.38 million, and far outstrips the $4,070,000 paid earlier this year at Gooding & Co.'s Scottsdale auction for a white Aerodinamico coupe. A 1963 Ferrari 400 Superamerica LWB Coupe Aerodinamico also sold for $2.86 million at the Andrews Collection sale. Succeeding the earlier 410 Superamerica, the 400 Superamerica was the Bugatti Veyron of its day: extremely expensive, exceedingly rare, and incredibly fast. Only 47 examples were made, seven of which were bodied by Pininfarina, and this was the last of them: a convertible with removable hard top and covered headlights. This was the show car which Ferrari exhibited at both the Geneva and New York auto shows upon its completion, originally in red over tan, before its first owner took it to the Bonneville Salt Flats. It subsequently bounced between a few owners over the following decades, undergoing restorations along the way and picking up numerous awards. It most recently served as the centerpiece of the Paul and Chris Andrews Collection in Fort Worth, TX, which RM Sotheby's liquidated over the weekend. The Superamerica was, of course, the top lot sold, but far from the only one: the auction featured another 15 seven-figure lots, including Packards, Duesenbergs, and more. All told, the event brought in a massive $53,887,585, setting a new record for a private automobile collection auction after every one of the lots sold.