Why in the hell would anyone put 1,350 horsepower in a 2,600 lb plastic car? Two reasons actually: 1, to reclaim the world’s fastest street legal production car record. And 2, because life begins at 250 mph.

The new SSC Ultimate Aero II from Shelby Super Cars is possessed with a 6.8-liter V8 with a screaming 9,000 rpm redline. The company expects it to hit 60 in 2.8 seconds and, get this, a top speed of 275 mph! That is certainly enough oomph to squash the current speed record held by its arch nemesis, the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.

Of course, Top Gear magazine gets first dibs on pictures and the inside scoop, so for more info, check out their October 2010 issue that hit newsstands yesterday.

In less than a week, Bentley Motors is set to reveal their new Continental GT. And in befitting Bentley fashion, the stately new grand touring coupe is being launched in a stately fashion. The following statement is pulled directly from the Bentley press release:

“Bentley will reveal its new and compelling vision of the Continental GT next month with a unique internet reveal. The studio lights are switched-on and the cameras will start rolling at 1500 British Summer Time on Tuesday 7 September.”

So, if your packed social calendar happens to open on Tuesday, 7 September at 1500 British Summer Time—you’re in luck ol’ chap.

Source: Bentley

Though we’re not too much into electric cars here at the Insider, we are very into fast cars. And the Buckeye Bullet, a student-built, 100% electric-powered land-speed streamliner from the kids at Ohio State University’s Automotive Research Center is both electric and fast—way fast.

On Tuesday of this week, the Buckeye Bullet electrocuted the electric streamliner record at Bonneville with a scorching 291 mph. The next day, they did it again with a buckeye-popping 307 mph average (320 mph top speed in case you’re wondering). Unfortunately on Thursday, the team really tried to push it, but the Bullet succumbed to a severe case of clutch carnage. Check the record breaking run at their blog—The Buckeye Bullet.

Source: DiscoverHybridCars

Highly anticipated to some—mythological pipedream to others, the 2010 Porsche type 301 has finally seen the light of day. And not only has one of these Stuttgart masterpieces been spotted, but the auto-insiders over at RidePros.com actually got their hands on one and conducted a full-blown test drive. Lucky buggers. Due to copyright issues, we can only display the logo here. For images of the type 301 and the entire salivating road test, follow the link to RidePros.

Source: RidePros

Warning, the following video contains shockingly graphic footage of a Datsun 1200 Coupe beating the bejezus out of a Nissan GT-R—watch at your own risk.

If you’re not familiar, the Datsun 1200 is actually a 25 year project in the making—dubbed the White Zombie. It’s a homebuilt, full-electric street/strip car. In fact, it’s the world’s fastest street-legal electric car.

So, hang onto your extension cord, because with performance numbers like this, green-performance is here to stay.

Ferrari’s next Grand Tourer simply sounds bad ass. Heavy camouflage hides the exterior, but there is no masking the high-whine of an Italian-bred V-12 powerplant. Thank you, Enzo’s ghost.

Yup, the land-speed record-seeking freaks are at it again. Seeking to smash the current record of 763 mph, land-speeders extraordinaire Richard Noble and Andy Green unveiled a full-scale model of the Bloodhound SSC.

Designed to hit 1050 mph in 42 seconds, the Bloodhound SSC is powered by 3 different motors. The first, a jet engine, takes the car to 300 mph. The second, a rocket, takes the car to the four-digit mark. And finally the third, an 800 hp gas-burning engine serves as an auxiliary power supply and powers the rocket’s oxidizer pump.

Altogether, this bundle of powerplants generates 135,000 horsepower, which makes for one hell of a hybrid! Look for the Bloodhound SSC to start sniffing out the new land-speed record in early 2012.

What do you get when you take a Lamborghini Gallardo, beef up the thunderous tone of that famous Lamborghini Exhaust, strip the dead weight and kill the front-wheel drive? A Lamborghini Valentino Balboni, that’s what.

So, what do you get when you strip the top off of said Lamborghini Valentino Balboni? A Lamborghini Valentino Balboni Spyder, that’s what!

Now for some, a top-down track machine doesn’t make sense, since they tend to be heavy and sluggish compared to their top-on brethren. But once you get an eye and ear-full of this gallant bull runnin’ ‘round the ‘Ring, you may start throwing dollar bills and begging for the top to come off!

Creating the world’s fastest production car just wasn’t enough for those speed hounds over at Bugatti. So, they went back to the drawing board and made the world’s fastest production car even faster, which makes the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport the world’s fastest world’s fastest car.

Only 30 of these Bavarian rockets are to be built, so if you’re in the market for a 1200 hp, 268 mph production car that can pull 1.4 g’s on the skid pad, break out your checkbook.

There’s something beautiful about Italian supercars tearing it up on German racetracks. With that thought in mind, breaking news from the Nürburgring today shows the the Pagani Zonda R set a new road-based car record ‘round the ‘Ring. The 6:47 time crushes the former record held by that other Italian company, the red one. Sorry Ferrari.