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This insane Barris-like custom car is a backyard BMW Z3 build

This is the second car made by Englishman Paul Bacon and it's called the Cosmotron, fashioned over 18 months in his backyard shed. Underneath that Jetsons bubble canopy and swinging-sixties body are the bones of a 1998 BMW Z3 with a 2.8-liter inline-six. Bacon stripped the roadster down, then built it back up using fiberglass laid over polystyrene foam, and leather hand-stitched by his wife. Bacon said he remembers how we were told that 21st-century cars would look like the Cosmotron, and since they don't, he had to fix the error. The list of 20th-century add-ons, however, is impressive, like the six SU carburetors topped off with department-store salt and pepper shakers, and the rear grille decorated with shiny plastic tops from moisturizer bottles. After driving the Cosmotron for two years, Bacon sold it to get ready for his third project. You can hear Bacon and the new buyer tell their stories in the video above.

Project CARS vs reality at Laguna Seca shows amazing potential

Project CARS is aiming to be the next great racing sim. Offering a mix of modern and classic cars on famous tracks, developer Slightly Mad Studios is trying to inject a fresh energy into the genre, and at the moment its game looks ready to take on Forza and Gran Turismo.
The game is still about six months from release, and the graphics already look practically photorealistic. The video below shows side-by-side laps of Laguna Seca in a BMW - real life on the left and the game on the right. It's absolutely astounding. Other than some changes to the sponsorship around the track, they are almost identical.
Of course anyone with quality seat time in a racing sim knows that graphics are just one factor. How the game feels is even more important, and without getting hands on, it's impossible to judge yet. However, consider our interest piqued. Project CARS is scheduled to launch in November on the Sony PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox One, Nintendo WiiU, Windows PC and Steam OS. Scroll down to check out the video.

Here's why you don't want the 2016 BMW M4 Clubsport

BMW Spain recently announced a special-edition M4 Competition Sport. It's billed as a more comfortable version of the M4 GTS (including rear seats) and, with only 60 copies available, will be more rare than that hardcore M4. But hold on a second because the CS is not exactly the unicorn it appears to be. And the closest thing to a CS in the United States might be better. Here's why. The M4 Competition Sport comes with more power, 20-inch wheels, and adaptive M chassis. The twin-turbo six has been turned up to 444 horsepower, which is shy of the crazy 493-hp water-injection version from the GTS. In fact, it's the same power you get with the $5,500 Competition Package that BMW USA announced back in January. And our Competition Package also comes with the wheels and M chassis setup. View 38 Photos We concede one area where the M4 CS does earn our envy. The giant carbon wing on the back and various other carbon-fiber elements do look pretty great, although tacking them on likely does not reduce the vehicle's weight. They're also all available from the vast M Performance catalog, so you could buy an M4 and tack on whichever ones you like best. Lucky Spanish customers also get carbon-ceramic brakes, but we can order those as a standalone option for $8,150. And the M4 CS only comes with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. Here in the States you can order all those goodies with a manual. Each of the 60 M4 Competition Sport coupes will sell for 132,900 euros in Spain, which works out to about a 45 percent markup compared to a standard-issue M4 coupe. So no, we don't get the numbered plaque on the center console or the neat seats. But we do get all the rest of it, with a manual, and at a much lower price than the Spanish M4 CS. And you can get the same stuff in the four-door M3. U-S-A! U-S-A! Related Video: Related Gallery 2016 BMW M4 GTS View 65 Photos BMW Coupe Performance bmw m4 bmw m4 gts