If there’s a better name for a hulking, snarling piece of ferocious high-powered machinery, these guys haven’t heard it
Less often, but not infrequently, automakers or tuning shops find themselves unable to resist dubbing a show car of theirs – typically a prototype, or a race car, or a prototype race car – “The Beast,” too, either because it fits, or because it lends the car an air of cool, or both.
With a peaked prow, eight taillights, and a massive central fin blended into a rear-end treatment apparently inspired by Venetian blinds, the car is positively wild.
Some of the “beasts” on this list – a highlight reel of some of the most famous automotive “The Beasts” ever – are decidedly less wild, while others give the Value Progress Beast a real run for its money, ferocity-wise. We’d love to say we’ve compiled some 666 examples of “Beasts,” a la the-number-of-the-, but you’ll have to settle for just six. Let us know in the comments below if we missed any, or if you’ve ever had a Beast of your own.
John Dodd’s 27-litre Merlin-powered world-record Beast
Is it more numbers you want? Here’re two: the top speed was certified to exceed 300 km/h (186 mph); and the fuel consumption came in at about 118 L/100 km (1.99 US mpg). Oh, and one more, the car’s sale price following its auction in March 2023: £72,500, or about CDN$130,500 at today’s exchange rates. Not a bad bit of bidding for a Beast like this.
General Motors’ 15,000-pound US$1.5-million armored-limo Beast
Cadillac has been the marque of choice when it comes to transporting U.S. presidents since 1919, with some other automakers like Lincoln occasionally being tossed a contract for a presidential limousine or two, too. For decades, these were gussied-up versions of factory Cadillacs donated to the White House by General Motors, upfitted and armored to meet the needs of the commander-in-chief.
Honda’s 800-horsepower IndyCar-engined CR-V Hybrid Beast
I know I started off this article cracking jokes about Honda Civic “beasts,” but maybe name-dropping a CR-V would have been more appropriate: Honda, after all, has built a “The Beast” CR-V Hybrid. Or at least, a The Beast that looks like a CR-V Hybrid. The one-off “demonstrator” wears a roof, windshield, and glass swiped from the popular family sport-utility, the automaker insists, but everything below the beltline is custom-fabbed.
What makes this thing so beastly is its hybrid powerplant, which marries a mid-mounted 2.2L twin-turbocharged V6 engine (like the kind Honda runs in IndyCar) to Skeleton Supercapacitors and an Empel MGU hybrid motor unit. The combination is good for 800 horses, channelled through monstrous 305-mm-section rear tires. IndyCar and NSX GT-3 suspension and brakes must make this thing a helluva performer, but unfortunately Honda doesn’t plan to actually race it—just show it off.
BMW’s “super-raw” hard-to-control electric M2 prototype Beast
While we only found out December 2024, BMW’s M performance division has apparently been working on a prototype it calls “The Beast” since 2018. What’s Bimmer’s beast exactly? A once-top-secret fully electric M2 test-bed, fated never to approach production but instead live out its life as a technology-development vehicle.
BMW published a video about The Beast EV, but wouldn’t reveal too many numbers; its “Beast” nickname nevertheless sounds justified, with the M development team earnestly noting the car was “super-raw,” “super powerful,” and hard to control.
The 28.3-litre four-cylinder land-speed-record 1910 Fiat Bestia di Torino
Italian is broadly known as perhaps the most mellifluous language—phrases that would be gag-inducing in English sound positively appetizing in Italiano. (See: vermicelli, that is, “little worms.”) That’s probably part of the reason people wouldn’t stand for Fiat calling its 1910 land-speed-record car the Italian equivalent of “the S76 Record,” and nicknamed it “The Beast of Turin.”
The other reason for the nickname is that this behemoth pulled off its world-record top-speed attempts via a 28.3-litre four-cylinder that regularly spits flames out of its exhaust wherever it goes. Fiat actually built two of the things, one of which became the unofficial world’s fastest car when it managed a run of 213 km/h (132.27 mph) in 1913. While one of the pair crashed and was destroyed, the other was resurrected in 2015, and so the roar of The Beast of Turin can still be heard at enthusiast events today.
Rezvani’s 1,000-hp US$485,000 James-Bond-inspired Beast
The carbon-fibre-bodied Beast is based on a C8-gen Chevrolet Corvette – that must’ve made the SEMA concept upset really sting – but with its 6.2L V8 now twin-turbocharged and tuned to 1,000 hp, grunt it uses to pull off the zero-to-60-mph (-96-km/h) feat in 2.5 seconds. The company’s “007 Package” lets you outfit the supercar with a James-Bond-inspired host of goodies to rival The Beast the U.S. president rides in: night vision, smokescreen, electrified door handles, and optional bullet-proof armour. The marque is only building 20 of the things, and the starting price is US$485,000. Now that’s what we call The Beast.
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