One Lap of the Web: World of Wheels Edition

-- We reported on carbon-fiber wheels almost exactly a year ago. Back then, our Carbon Revolution test also came with a gaggle of obsequious matte-wrapped BMWs against a soundtrack of David Guetta and overpriced exhausts. This latest episode of "Inside Koenigsegg" examines the art of carbon fiber wheels at 280 mph.

-- Speaking of wheels, HRE Wheels has announced the date of its annual open house outside San Diego, Calif. On Saturday, June 7, expect a fair share of supercars and their owners to arrive at the HRE factory for tours, raffles, and barbeque. The Smoking Tire's Matt Farah will emcee the event, and afterwards we're all gonna meet at Stone.

-- Bill Caswell nabbed what he alleges to be the prototype BMW M235ix. That's a lot of alphanumerics, but it's the bigger-engined compact with all-wheel drive and a mysterious electrical tape pinstripe running down the flanks. Caswell somehow was able to take photos inside the wheelwells without getting shooed away to BMW Jail, where he would have been forced to recite the options sheet of an X6M.

-- For a few short, glorious years in the early 1990s, Nissan went mad. It built, in this exact order, a real-life Chevron Car, a 2CV-esque clown shoe named after fried snails, a roll-top African safari buggy, and a delicate little roadster that wore chrome like mascara. Then, it built the twin-turbo 300ZX. Pike Factory is a story about all of those, except the last one.

-- How do you restore a piece of Porsche history, of Hollywood history? Very carefully. Porsche 917 chassis number 024 was the camera car for Steve McQueen's Le Mans, and wound up in a shed somewhere in the French countryside.

Image via Flickr.

By Blake Z. Rong