Flenn. Posted March 31, 2019 Posted March 31, 2019 It’s time to *record scratch* rewind and take it back to the old-school. See, having spent the last few years swanning around the world shooting the best supercars on the streets of California, Japan and Monaco, you may think that Alex Penfold would have gone full tilt diva and forgotten about his roots. But you’d be wrong. He still skulks around England’s capital to seek out the finest cars on our fine city’s streets. And he’s still very good at it. Having returned from his far-flung travels, our supercar paparazzo has been on a tireless quest chronicling the recent explosion of exotica strewn expensively around our ancient streets. Scamping around the streets, he’s eaten out of bins and slept in an old TV box to make sure he spots the finest four-wheeled cars in Zone 1. This may be an exaggeration. But as you can see, he’s managed quite the haul of hypercars. With a flock of McLaren Sennas, the new Ferrari F8 Tributo and a host of gorgeous classics to name a few, there’s plenty out there. This weekend the clocks spring forward, meaning summer and the latest crop of scintillating supercars will soon be parked on the streets. So click through to whet your whistle at what’s coming. Then let us know what you’d like to see on the street below. Ferrari F8 Tributo This is the new Ferrari F8 Tributo. Not only the most powerful mid-engined V8 Ferrari supercar in history, but also a rosso-liveried haymaker aimed at Woking. Watch out 720S: the 488’s successor is here. Pagani Zonda Uno The Zonda is the seemingly oxymoronic never-ending limited production run. This one being the ‘Uno’, a special one-off built for Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser Al-Thani, a member of Qatar’s royal family who loves his rare cars to come in the same colour as posh parts of the sea. Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster At the 1957 Geneva Motor Show, Mercedes-Benz introduced a convertible version of the celebrated 300 SL coupe “Gullwing,” the 300 SL roadster. 62 years later, it’s still just as stunning. Ferrari 288 GTO Conceived to go racing in the subsequently aborted Group B category, the 288 had the F1 team’s fingerprints all over it, and used a high tensile steel spaceframe, with Kevlar, fibre glass and aluminium elsewhere. Its 395bhp, 2,855cc 32v V8 was mounted longitudinally, which allowed the ancillaries, gearbox and twin IHI turbochargers to be more efficiently packaged, though Pininfarina design boss Leonardo Fioravanti still had to stretch the wheelbase by 11cm and widen the track. Lamborghini Reventon Roadster There have been many extreme cars in Lamborghini’s history. But this is one of the most mental of the bunch. The drop-top version of the jet fighter-inspired V12 supercar, the Reventon Roadster. Porsche 918 Spyder The 918 is the car with the biggest difference between Race mode and “all off”: switch off all the electronic minders, and the fastest Porsche becomes tricky. Leave them on and you’ll be gasping. Not that you can do that around London. Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale Literally ‘Challenge Street’ in honour of Ferrari’s one-make race series, the 360CS was the car that really kicked off the lightweight trend for Ferraris. True, there were uprated versions of the 348 and F355, but the howling 420bhp really is the daddy of Scuderia and Speciale. Porsche Carrera GT Launched in 2005, the Carrera GT produced 612bhp from its 5.7-litre race-derived V10. Mounted in the middle of that lightweight tub, it revved to 8,400rpm and made the most incredible wail. If you could get around the tricky clutch, you’d see 0-62mph in 3.9 seconds and a top speed - where permitted, naturally - of 205mph.
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