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For kids of all ages with money to burn, may we interest you in some incredibly detailed 1:32-scale custom slot car tracks?Slot Mods Racing has produced plenty of real-world-inspired slot car tracks, but the company’s latest brings together The Blues Brothers, Animal House, Mad Magazine, and other pop culture icons to the small stage.These customer tracks start at $75,000 and come with hand-built tracks, scenery and people, and six cars to race with.Some people have all the fun. One such person appears to be David Beattie, the founder of Slot Mods Racing, a company that hand-builds bespoke 1:32-scale wooden raceways. We’ve featured his modified slot car tracks before, but his latest creation deserves a fresh look.Normal—if we can use the word—Slot Mods Raceways tracks are designed to mimic the look and feel of real-world race tracks. The team calls these Custom Scenic Megatracks and has created a 10-foot diameter Pebble Beach raceway and a 9-by-15-foot Lotman Laguna Raceway, for example. Because of space limitations, the scale versions of real-world tracks that Slot Mods creates “are built to the “spirit” rather than being a perfect replica,” the company said. The newest Slot Mods track couldn’t be modeled on anything that exists in the real world and instead takes inspiration from a dive deep into decades-old pop culture.Called the Mad Cave Raceway, this new track combines famous movie scenes including the float parade gone haywire scene from Animal House and references to The Blues Brothers alongside billboards for Mad Magazine and Spy vs. Spy. Beattie posted on LinkedIn that Evil Knievel and John Belushi also make appearances. A childhood’s worth of enjoyment is now contained in a model slot car universe. Some people have all the fun.More from the Same MakerSlot Mods’ Custom Scenic Megatracks are not cheap, with the custom builds starting at $75,000. The final price is based on size, complexity, and scenic elements, and if that’s too rich for your blood, the company offers a six-by-12-foot Standard Scenic Raceway basic offering that starts at $50,000. If you just want to focus on racing slot cars and not as much on the landscape they’re racing in, Slot Mods offers a four-by-eight-foot flat-pack Origins Series raceway. This content is imported from youTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.But the real fun here is in the (admittedly expensive) customization. While the standard Megatrack components including cars, scenery and buildings – are built to 1:32 scale, 1:24-scale cars can also be used. Each Megatrack comes standard with hand-painted wooden tracks, as well as “period-correct grandstands, structures, signs and advertising banners, aluminum Armco railing, hand-carved and painted landscaping, shrubs and trees, lap timing system and PC tablet, slot car controllers, variable power supply, LED base lighting, and six slot cars,” according to the company’s FAQ. You can also add external LCD monitors, tablet computer controllers, and POV-in-car cameras.The Mad Cave Raceway proves that the FAQ needs at least one update. The page currently says Slot Mods would like to be able to offer custom-made slot cars in the future, but we can’t help but notice that scale Cake Float car zipping between Ray’s Music Exchange and signs showing Alfred E. Neuman. Fun times.This content is imported from youTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. More

Porsche has been talking about it since last fall, but now it has officially released this limited-edition car with the impressive name of 911 GT3 RS Tribute to Carrera RS.Since the car to which it pays tribute is already special, this is . . . extra special?It will be on display to the public at the 12 Hours of Sebring in mid-March and reach customers starting in “a few weeks,” Porsche said. Porsche just pulled the sheet on the first production version of its newest special edition, the 911 GT3 RS Tribute to Carrera RS package. Which is a mouthful, but when you really break it down is a special edition (RS), of a special edition (GT3), of one of our favorite sports cars. To say this is extra special isn’t incorrect.Related StoriesUnlike the 50-year-old 911 Carrera RS 2.7 from which this draws inspiration, there isn’t any extra performance for this 518-hp GT3 RS. Underneath the Python Green on white livery is a GT3 RS with the Weissach package. The Weissach package nets some exposed carbon fiber (can be painted at customer’s request), lightweight magnesium wheels (painted green here), carbon-fiber anti-roll bars and rear shear plate, and magnesium shift paddles. And that’s in addition to the active aerodynamics, wider tires, and its highly adjustable suspension, in addition to a host of other modifications that the non-Weissach GT3 RSs have. Inside you’ll find Python Green stitching and illuminated doorsill guards that read, “Tribute to Carrera RS.” The package also includes some RS-branded valve stems, custom license plate frames, a Porsche Design watch, and a pair of 1:43 scale models, one of the 2023 GT3 RS and one of the Carrera RS.Porsche foreshadowed this production tribute at the GT3 RS’s reveal last August. But we have now had it officially confirmed that the tribute package will ring in at $314,000, not including a gas-guzzler tax in an amount to be named later. That’s $55,230 more than an “off the shelf” GT3 RS with Weissach, if such a thing even exists. This content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. More

The 2004 Land Rover Discovery II came standard with a 217-hp 4.6-liter V-8 and four-speed automatic transmission.This Disco that’s up for auction on Bring a Trailer, however, relies on a 5.3-liter V-8 from a Chevy for motivation. It mates to a six-speed automatic transmission.The auction ends on February 24, and bids have already eclipsed five figures.Car and DriverIt’s no Toyota Prius, but this 2004 Land Rover Discovery II is a hybrid. Don’t bother looking for any electric drive motors or high-capacity batteries, though, because this Disco’s not a gasoline-electric hybrid, but a manufacturing one. You see, this British box no longer relies on the 217-hp 4.6-liter V-8 it left the factory with. Instead, it utilizes a good old American General Motors mill from a Chevrolet.Related StoriesBring a Trailer doesn’t share the specific Chevy this Rover’s Vortec 5.3-liter V-8—or LC9 to you GM nerds—was plucked from. We presume the engine, which was factory rated to produce north of 300 horsepower, came out of a Tahoe or Suburban from the late 2000s or early-to-mid 2010s. Then again, it may have come from one of the bow-tie brand’s full-size pickups of that era. Bring a TrailerDoes it really matter what kind of Chevy this engine once pushed around, though? Why dwell on the past, when you can look toward the future?Oh, and what a potentially frustrating and fun future this near-20-year-old Disco holds for the winner of this auction. We won’t sugarcoat it; this vintage of Discovery, much like Land Rover’s in general, is no poster child for reliability. In theory, the Vortec V-8 and the 6L80E six-speed automatic ought to give this off-road-ready rig a shot at reliably running around town or motoring about off-tarmac; however, the reality is that Discos of this period often suffer from non-powertrain-related issues, too. While the LC9 and 6L80E engine and transmission are reliable workhorses, this reputation may fail to carry over to this Rover if the individual or shop responsible for its heart transplant cut corners somewhere. That said, there’s no indication of this based on the information and images provided to Bring a Trailer. Bring a TrailerWe hope this Discovery is as good as it looks, and that the winning bidder encounters next-to-know frustrations and instead manages to simply have fun pushing the limits of this machine’s off-road capability. Even in its factory form, the 2004 Discovery II was never a slouch off the beaten path, but the myriad of upgrades made to this body-on-frame SUV surely makes it an even better tool for traversing the unknown. This includes the likes of a four-inch lift, aftermarket front and rear bumpers that ought to improve this Disco’s front and rear departure angles, and 16-inch Terrafirma wheels wrapped in beefy Nitto Ridge Grappler tires.If you were hoping to score this Discovery II for cheap, then you better think again. Although this auction may still have plenty of time left until it closes on February 24, it’s generated enough interest that bidding on this Land Rover has already eclipsed five figures. We may not call this 2004 Discovery II a bargain, but this British-American hybrid is still a toy worthy of a spot in our hearts.This content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. More