Arias Pistons 12.5:1 Compression 82mm Bore Honda B-series on 2040-parts.com

Autoweek's 2014 Best of the Best Finalists -- sneak peek

Every year, as hundreds of new cars and trucks pass through our fleet for evaluation, we are always on the lookout for those dazzling few deserving more careful scrutiny for our top honors, the Autoweek Best of the Best. It's down to three cars and three trucks that our regular readers quickly will recognize in the video above, designed to whet your appetite as we get further along in the judging. We'll be bringing you full details on our Best of the Best/Car and Best of the Best/Truck finalists in the coming days, along with updates as we get closer to announcing our winners in the December 23 issue of Autoweek.

McLaren P1 back at the Nurburgring in attack mode

The McLaren P1 is back at the Nurburgring looking to set a new record It was brave of Ron Dennis to declare – before the McLaren P1 was anywhere close to finished – that the it would be able to lap the Nurburgring in under 7 minutes. He was obviously very confident his new baby was up to the task but, just like McLaren’s current Formula One car, the P1 seems to be just a bit off the pace. Last month we reported that it seemed the best the McLaren P1 could do at the Nurburgring was a 7:04s – a time McLaren didn’t make official – so we knew McLaren would be back with their laptops and engineers as soon as they’d figured a way to trim those last few seconds.

Car collector and artist makes you look twice

As with most artists, Louis Carvell simply sees the world differently than others, and his passion for cars and car collecting led him to create a thought-provoking (and clever) body of work he entitled: “Reincarnations: Car Parts ReBorn.” The photographic collages are of spare vintage-automobile parts inspired by, “the dream cars of the Eisenhower era,” Carvell said. “These pieces are art in and of itself. Initially, I photographed them [alone] against white, seamless.” Eventually, Carvell decided to expand and refine his concept and place the parts into surrealist tableaux, to give one pause to consider these objects outside their defined roles.