These gorgeous shots come from Flickr user Ryan Farran, who I hope won’t be upset I’m showing off his work here.  He’s also got a set of shots of an (S12 chassis) Nissan 200SX you should take a look at if you stop by.  As per the car…

I’ve never been a huge fan of the 4th-generation (1992-1996) Honda Prelude, stylistically speaking.  But the addage “stance is everything” (hell, it’s a forum too) rings true.  The car’s naturally awkward proportions (huge taillights, narrow headlights, looks like a wedge of cheese) all of a sudden make sense with slammed suspension, good wheels, and great offset.

Also, Xenon lows and halogen Fogs are sexy, I don’t care who you are.  The front lip really helps the lines of the car as well.  But truthfully, these shots wouldn’t be so gorgeous if it weren’t for the right background and a capable hand behind the shutter.  Here’s to you, Ryan.  Good work on these!

For those unfamiliar, the Alcan Winter rally is basically a test of how huge your balls are.  It covers 4,850 miles from Seattle, WA to Jasper, Alberta – which is pretty far north.  It’s a ten-day event that tests reliability, common sense, and driver endurance.  Of course, the 900 Turbo passed with flying colors.  I particularly loved Team D’s caption for this shot – “I shot this while waiting for the WRX to be extricated from some deep snow…” is not something you hear every day!

Anyway, it makes me happy inside to see a C900 being used in motorsports; after all, Saab did have a massive rally presence back in it’s independent days.  And how gnarly looking is this 900?  TeamD’s got a few other cars (a pair of E30 325iX’s, as well as the aforementioned ’04 Subaru WRX) but obviously this ’85 8v Turbo is the coolest.  And what a wonderful picture, to boot.  You can catch them in the 2010 Alcan Summer Rally, which will probably be a whole lot easier.

But the way I see it, the WRX isn’t the only respectable performance car Subaru makes.  Hidden in the back corner of every Subaru showroom, behind the “arrest me red” STi’s and purple WRX’s, is Subaru’s… sensible performance car, the Legacy 2.5GT.  From which we get LGT.  It’s basically a slightly bigger WRX, but without all the goofy boy-racer wings and 3′ tall hood scoops.  A set of crisp, cleanly folded lines – sorta A6-esque – conceals the heart of a rip-snorting Subaru racer, though.  2.5L of detuned STI motor sit under the hood, sending 250bhp to all four wheels through a 5 or 6-speed manual.

So the LGT is for the Subaru nerd who wants the Subaru performance, without the Subaru stigma.  And here’s one LGT owner that clearly gets it.

For one thing, you’ve got to really “get it” to go to the effort of creating a driveable LGT with this kind of suspension/wheel/tire stance – it’s not as easy as slapping crazy-high offset Watanabes on an AE86.  And how perfect is this fitment?  Just simply gorgeous.  For more on the whole “hellaflush” thing, click here.

Intro Photo credit: Chris Hoare, website here.

Of course, it helps that this is a particularly gorgeous S2000, and a particularly amazing photograph.  Still, for what are pretty simple aesthetic modifications, this S2k sure looks the business.  The CR front splitter, bronze alloys, and fitted hardtop (along with the drastically lowered stance) turn the S2000 from “cute little convertible” to angry time attack machine quite effectively.

This picture comes to us from the lens of the talented Costas Stergiou, who’s work can be found at www.digitalremix.net.  Now, I’m no photography expert, but I’d say it’s quite an accomplishment to make a black car look this flawless (especially an 8-year-old S2000) next to a highly contrasting background.  This photo is doubtlessly better off for the post-processing it went through, which is frequently where a photo is made or broken.  It’s a simply concept, but it’s a resounding success.  Thumbs up to you, Costas.

Hasn’t always been this way, though.  There was a time when the M division cranked out some of the most wonderfully hardcore stuff on the road.  If you’re reading this site, chances are you need no introduction to the BMW (E30 generation) M3 Coupe.  The Group-A fighter body with it’s bulky flared fenders, the huge boy-racer wing, the high-winding 2.3L twin-cam four banger, the steering that was like a Ouija board to the soul…

And what goes more naturally with the race-derived E30 M3 than the most challenging, most respected race track in the world?  This is a shot by Flickr user “Nordschliefenfan” of a Hellarot E30 M3 in the Adenauer Forst.  Hard to tell at speed, but I’d bet those are some top-shelf BBS’s, too.  The E30 crowd doesn’t fool around.

Don’t you wish you had the time and money to be this guy?  And how awesome is this shot, too?  Great depiction of motion, great lighting… fantastic work.  Long live the E30.

So, in what I think can only be construed as a deliberate attempt to bring a smile to people’s faces in these glum times, this is what Jaguar’s bringing to the Goodwood Festival of Speed this year.  A Neon-Lime Green XKR Coupe with some absolutely stunning black wheels, it’s practically a rolling acid trip – and they’ve put up a rather charming photo of it.

I mean, why not?  Simply fantastic.  I so badly want to be at Goodwood this year, but it’s just not in the cards.  If any of you readers go, make sure and snag a picture of this mental Jaguar!  Of course, Jag’ll also be bringing the 225mph XFR record car, as well as a real XJ13 – but none of them are Toxic-Vomit Green, now are they?

And what a gorgeous shot of GM’s new halo car.  This shot was taken by DieselStation’s member BlueDevil of his own personal car. The reflection in the wet parking lot is an old trick, but certainly a good one.  The Camaro is, in my eyes, easily the best-styled of the three current production “retro muscle cars” – Mustang, Challenger, and Camaro.  The classic coke-bottle shape with the pinched waist and muscular, flared haunches worked in the 60′s, and guess what?  It still works today.  “Buy American” would be a lot less hard of a concept to swallow if all domestics were this pretty…

I don’t honestly know how you get such a clear picture of a car putting on a smoke show, but I’d guess it has to do with a really fast shutter speed.  The reflection in the water is brilliant, too.  With all the news coming out of Detroit these days pretty much falling under the category of “bad,” sometimes we have to step back and remind ourselves that we can do some stuff totally right.  How about a bonus Random Capture, for posterity’s sake?

Figured you wouldn’t mind.  And that’s a FoMoCo press photo. Where’s the “don’t attempt this at home” warning?

This particular photo of the 037 in action was taken by Pietro Zoccola, and came to my computer via Flickr – my favorite place to find good photographs.  It was taken during the 6° Revival Rally Club meeting on 8/11/2008 in San Francisco.  Very nice panning work makes for an ultra-clear action shot, which is hard to capture.

The 037 was loosely based on the Beta Monte Carlo mid-engined road car, although it featured a longitudinally-mounted engine rather than a transverse setup (much like the difference between the Ferrari 308 road car and the 288 GTO pseudo-race car).  Power came from a 2.0L 16v supercharged I4 – Lancia picked a supercharger over a turbo for better throttle response – and it produced 265bhp in early carbureted form, although later with the addition of fuel injection, water/methanol injection and a bump in displacement to 2.1L power rose to 325bhp.

The 037 was designed for Group B competition, but it’s competitive life was relatively short-lived – with the advent of 4WD thanks to Audi, the RWD 037 quickly became old-hat, and was subsequently replaced by the twin-charged Delta S4 rally car.  The rest, as they say, is history.

It helps that the RS4 has the 40:60 rear-biased power split and a 420bhp V8 to churn rubber, but seeing a sideways Audi is still always a surprise.  As an added bonus, check out the passenger’s horrified expression – I see clean pants in his near future.  The clarity of this picture is surprising; it’s a mark of great panning technique on the photographer’s part.  Oddly enough, this image comes from the creative commons via Wikipedia.org -  I stumbled across it while trolling Wiki for technical errors.  Yes, I’m a nerd.

Gah, what an awesome photo.  Nothing more to say.