10 Spectacular New Cars Revealed At 2023 Monterey Car Week

Last year, Monterey Car Week provided the CarBuzz team with sleepless nights, repetitive strain injuries to our typing fingers, and, happily, a rose-tinted outlook on the future of the automotive industry. The highlights of the 2022 event included the McLaren Solus GT, the Bugatti W16 Mistral, and a universal favorite in the form of the Koenigsegg CC850. It's difficult not to get excited about the future in light of such amazing machines, but would 2023's extravaganza be able to hold a candle to last year's?

As it turns out, this year is just as jam-packed with amazing machinery. Dozens of new cars are showing their faces for the first time, but we've whittled the list (in no particular order) down to 10 stand-out reveals.

The all-new AMG GT has just broken cover, and the important news is that it retains a V8, adds the option of two rear seats, and now comes with AWD. In top form, it produces 577 horsepower, but we expect that to be eclipsed by hybridized version producing over 840 hp in the not-too-distant future.

Active aerodynamics, hydraulically-managed active suspension, automatically narrowing seats, and an AMG Track Pace data logger are among the highlights. The latter is especially noteworthy, as it can coach the driver on where they're losing time on track by showing optimal braking and turn-in points. 11 paint options, eight new wheel designs, and several exterior design packages mean that this is a car you can make your own with ease.

And it's absolutely gorgeous.

Nobody saw this coming. Ford decided that the S650 Mustang could do more than take on the world's best in sports car motorsport and decided to take on the European supercar elite - in their own damn backyard. The 5.2-liter supercharged V8-powered Mustang GTD supercar is aiming for 800 ponies and a sub-7-minute Nurburgring lap.

Exotic elements include a dual-clutch transaxle automatic, a carbon fiber driveshaft, dry sump lubrication, pushrod suspension, advanced aero, and even pieces of old Lockheed Martin F-22 fighter jets. All of this comes at a price - and a high one at that. Ready for it? $300,000. Yes, that's a lot for a Mustang. But it's par for the course when you're talking about a world-beating GT3-based supercar produced in highly limited numbers.

Best of all, it's street-legal. We want one - badly.

We were hoping that Lamborghini would take the opportunity to launch its first-ever battery-electric production car as a modern reinterpretation of the utterly gorgeous Estoque concept, but the concept we have been presented with is a generic slab of sharp lines and aggressive angles that could be mistaken for the latest Chinese electric crossover. This writer is not a fan, but the buying public will be enamored, and that's why this is such an important car.

We hope the styling will be improved for the final production version, but what really matters is that this sort of car (an electric one) enables Lamborghini to take its time making other cars free of tailpipe emissions.

As a concept, outputs have not been revealed, only that it will generate more than a megawatt, or 1,340 hp, but Sant'Agata does want to give the EV active suspension, clever torque distribution, and active aero. Will that be enough to help us look past the design? Time will tell.

Thankfully, there are still some clinically insane automakers out there, and Zenvo is near the top of the list. Its Aurora supercar claims to be capable of 280 mph, but the really mental part of the Aurora is that it's powered by a 6.6-liter V12 with four turbochargers and up to three electric motors. Two specifications are available - a lightweight Agil version and a grand tourer called Tur - with maximum outputs as high as 1,850 hp and 1,254 lb-ft of torque. Its chassis is one of the stiffest ever made, and the entire thing has a dry weight under 3,200 pounds. Just 50 of each variant will be made, and if the claims are accurate, we'll be looking at a hypercar that can get to 248 mph sooner than the record-holding Koenigsegg Regera.

Countless OEMs claim to offer bespoke services or to have produced unique custom cars, but only Rolls-Royce seems to understand the concept fully. La Rose Noire is the first of four Droptail creations that will be produced, and its gestation took four years. New painting processes were invented, a custom AP watch is electronically presented from the dash, and even the chassis is bespoke to the Rolls-Royce Coachbuild division, meaning no run-of-the-mill Roller will get to use it.

There's even a custom vintage of Champagne in a bottle matching the unique finish of the car, itself inspired by a color-shifting French rose. There's a moving center console divider, a removable carbon fiber roof with electrochromic tinting, and hand-painted, hand-polished grille elements and wheel details. We could go on, but that's what our reveal article is for.

An evolution of last year's Project24 idea, the Maserati MCXtrema is an extreme iteration of the Maserati MC20 supercar. As such, it is powered by the same Nettuno twin-turbo V6, but instead of offering only 621 hp, the MCXtrema goes all the way to 730. It's a track-only toy, so it will be lighter than a regular MC20 at 2,755 lbs dry, achieved through a carbon fiber monocoque and matching bodywork. Think of it as a Maserati GT2 racecar freed from the shackles of organized motorsport regulations. Pricing is, at the time of writing, a mystery, but it doesn't really matter because all 62 have already found owners.

The Italian design house has, in recent times, been just that, but lately, Automobili Pininfarina is reminding us what the first part of its name stands for, and that has culminated in a new electric barchetta producing a scandalous 1,900 hp. Just 10 Automobili Pininfarina B95 hypercars will be made, each at a cost of around $4.8 million. For all that scratch, the quad-motor hypercar gets to 60 mph in under two seconds and tops out at 186 mph. Pininfarina's first coachbuilt car is crazy for not having a proper windscreen, but in this stratified air, it's no surprise that the company will provide buyers with bespoke helmets that can be painted to match their particular car.

The car with the longest name on this list is also aiming to be one of the fastest around a track. The Hennessey Venom F5 Revolution Roadster has been presented at Monterey Car Week in bare carbon, a first for the Texas-based company. Like the regular Venom F5 Roadster (and the coupe versions), this is powered by a 6.6-liter twin-turbo V8 producing 1,817 hp, but it also has larger splitters at each end, new front dive planes, and a large rear wing. The suspension has also been reworked.

Hennessey has not made any performance claims or set its sights on a specific lap record, but considering the componentry, we hope to see some times tumble.

A special edition of the Czinger 21C was always going to be cool, but when it's inspired by the Lockheed Martin SR-71 'Blackbird,' we need better adjectives. The 21C Blackbird Edition produces 1,350 hp (100 more than the already ludicrous standard 21C), and let's not forget that this power comes from an incredible 2.88-liter V8 paired with electric motors. To pay homage to the Blackbird, the car's carbon fiber body is painted Jet Black, the wheels are inspired by a top-down view of the SR-71, and the exhaust outlets have been styled to look like the jet's afterburners.

We don't care if Czinger ever proves its claim of producing the fastest car in the world. This makes fighter pilot fantasies come true, and that's worthy of praise on its own.

We conclude with a triple-header. World-renowned sports car manufacturer (not tuner) RUF has presented three new cars at Monterey. One is the RUF CTR3 Evo, with the suffix denoting that this is a more extreme version of the 911 GT2-like CTR3. Instead of 775 hp, you get 800 ponies, enabling 0-60 mph in 3.2 seconds and a claimed top speed of 235 mph. RUF's most powerful car to date is a beast.

If the longtail life is not for you, perhaps a roofless roadster is. The RUF Spyder R comes with a naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-six producing 508 hp, but the main focal point is the bodywork, which features no real windscreen or roof. It's like a budget Ferrari Monza SP2, but it'll still make a big dent in your trust fund.

Finally, we have the RUF Tribute, a sports car powered by a 3.6-liter twin-turbo air-cooled flat-six producing 543 hp. The engine is all-new and was designed by founder Alois Ruf. Old-school styling with just enough modernity characterizes all RUF creations, and this is no different. As a "love letter to air cooling," it's sure to be a hit with purists.