Concept Car of the Week: Dodge Deora (1967)

Half concept car, half custom but all awesome, the Dodge Deora was designed by former GM designer Harry Bentley Bradley for the famous car customizers the Alexander brothers who wanted to build a radical custom truck using one of the Big Three's new cabover mini-pickups. They relied on Bradley's futuristic drawings to seduce Chrysler who eventually agreed to provide a stripped down A100 truck for them to customize although the final design shares almost nothing with the original donor car. The cabin was radically chopped and integrated into the rest of the body and – after its suspension was also lowered – the overall height of the Deora was reduced by a whopping 380mm.

PSA: Your Green With Envy 2011 Dodge Challenger is on the way

Detroit can be a hard place to live, but for the car-inclined, it's also dotted with daily treasures that make the trouble worthwhile: Perhaps there's a manufacturer-plated Alfa Giulietta parked at the grocery store. A Chevrolet Volt parade cruising up Woodward Avenue on a random Wednesday. Or my treat this morning, a truckload of Green With Envy 2011 Dodge Challenger R/T Classics on their way to market.

Brabus 800 Widestar

The Brabus tuning company takes cars that are already stupid fast and makes them even faster. The German shop tends to focus on Mercedes cars, but its parts can also be found on hopped-up Teslas and the Benz-owned Smart Car. The Brabus 800 Widestar kit for the Mercedes G65 AMG starts with the stock 6.0-liter V12 and massages it --with a sledgehammer -- to put 800 horses to the pavement through all four wheels.