Student Dhiaa Al-Essa has 30 luxury motors in his garage, including four Ferraris, five Porsches, three Lamborghinis, two Rolls Royces and a Mercedes SLR McLaren.

Jealous? What makes it even worse is that he hasn’t had to lift a finger to get them – Daddy buys them.

The value of his collection is set to soar 70 per cent next year when he takes delivery of two more cars.

His Saudi business tycoon father is to buy him a Koenigsegg Agera – complete with gold key – for his 22nd birthday and the boy racer also has a Bugatti Veyron on order. The bill for the two cars comes to £3.2million.

All his vehicles have a personalised number plate featuring the figures 070 – which set him back about £100,000 a time.

The international playboy has spent the summer flying his cars to London, Montreal, Las Vegas and New York to go on driving tours with friends.

‘I love speed but the limit in Saudi Arabia is 75mph so I’m pretty limited. When the Bugatti arrives I hope to take it to Germany where you can drive as fast as you can,’ said the engineering student from Riyadh.

‘The Mercedes McLaren SLR is my favourite. I love the way it looks and drives and it’s also been reliable for a car out in 50ºC temperatures.’

But Mr Al-Essa was ‘devastated’ by the loss of his new Ferrari 458 Italia, which fell victim to the model’s jinx, being destroyed in a warehouse blaze at Heathrow this month.

The disaster forced him to use his Mercedes and even the Underground. ‘I actually love travelling on public transport,’ he said.

But his torment will be short-lived – he is replacing the wrecked 458 with the new Ferrari 599 Roadster, production number 70 of 70.

Numbers, in form of prices and horsepower, have been appended to the English sports car known as the Arash AF-10. Although the Corvette Z06 isn’t considered a supercar, its LS7 V8 is a certifiable star and has found yet another supercar starring role in the AF-10’s engine bay.

The base model gets 500 horsepower and requires €360,000 ($457,560 U.S.). The mid-range, which hasn’t been priced, will be tuned for 800 horses. The top dog shots up another four hundred notches to 1,200 hp, and gets slapped with a €1.6 million price tag ($2.03M U.S.). That’s the same horsepower as a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport with the price of a Veyron Grand Sport. In an alternate dimension we might call that “a bargain.”

As if that weren’t enough, the Arash site offers two more treats: the AF-10 configurator and a sketch of the Arash AF-8, a less extreme sibling. We’ll wait for the AF-10 to fully arrive and prove it knows what to do with 1,200 hp, but if you like its looks yet not its price, there might be hope on the way.

When Carroll Shelby, the legendary creator of the Cobra (as if you didn’t know), started lending his name and company’s tuning capabilities to the front-wheel drive Chrysler  products in the 1980s, instant classics were made. Contemporary tests found that the Shelby Dodges were completely up to the task of keeping pace with the best American performance cars of the era, and the relative undesirability of the base cars meant that a rather small number of Shelby Omnis, Chargers and Shadows were sold.

This raises an interesting question: Now that a several decades have passed since Shelby was tuning Pentastars, are those cars now collectible? And if so, just how collectible are we talking? Today’s eBay Find of the Day seeks to answer that very question. The example currently up for bid ticks all the right boxes and is therefore a perfect measuring stick. To wit, it has seen just 2,700 miles pass under its 2.2-liter turbocharged engine and it appears to be in pristine condition; it’s the top-level GLH-S (meaning it Goes Like Hell, Some more) and it carries all kinds of documentation dating back to 1987, the year of its birth.

So, how much is it worth? We may soon find out. As is often pointed out, a car is worth exactly as much as someone is willing to pay for it. As of the time this was written, this Shelby Charger’s bidding stood at $13,800 after 11 bids and the reserve was not yet met. Just under two days left, for what it’s, ahem… worth.

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It’s true. According to Kelley Blue Book’s list of most searched cars, perennial favorites the Honda Civic and Accord topped the list. The Prius came in at #8, within spitting distance of the Camaro which came in at #12. In fact, if you look at the different lists from websites across the web, muscle cars are pretty consistently high on the search lists, as are hybrids and fuel efficient models like the Smart ForTwo.

So can America have its cake and eat it too?

If you look at the Detroit Auto Show this year, every automaker was pushing its fuel efficient models. Just take a look at this list of 24 Green Cars that were at the show this year. But muscle cars remain near the top of many people’s most wanted list. Take Yahoo!’s most searched for list, which had the Camaro at #1, Mustang at #3, with the Dodge Charger and Challenger coming in at #7 and #8 respectively. So obviously, people are still interested in muscle cars.

So why all the green cars? Well, we need them, as the ridiculous gas prices of 2008 showed us, the days of cheap gas are rapidly coming to a close. Even now, gas is hovering near $3 a gallon in some places, and it isn’t even close to summer. The government also wants all the major automakers to have a fleet-wide fuel efficiency average of 35 mpg by 2010. That isn’t going to be easy to hit with the cars Americans are used to buying like SUV’s, pickups, and of course muscle cars.

These are the cars that capture our imaginations as well as emptied our wallets at the gas pump. Automakers finally seem to be catching on though, that muscle cars don’t have to be gas guzzlers too. Take the Camaro and Mustang. Both have 300+ horsepower V6 engines, and yet manage 29 and 30 mpg on the highway respectively. That is reasonably good gas mileage for any non-hybrid, and especially for two cars that have iconic names in the American lexicon.

Even the V8 muscle cars are getting much better mileage than they used to. Compare the 2000 Mustang GT equipped with an automatic transmission to a 2011 Mustang, also with an automatic. The 2000 model gets 16 mpg in the city, and 22 on the highway, while the 2011 gets 17 city and 25 on the highway. That doesn’t seem like much of a bump, until you compare the engines. In 2000, the Mustang GT had 260 horsepower and 302 ft-lbs of torque out of the 4.6 liter V8.

The 2011 Mustang GT gets 412 horsepower, 390 ft-lbs of torque, out of an engine that displaces 5.0 liters. Seems a lot better now, doesn’t it?

America loves muscle cars, and that isn’t likely to change anytime soon. But what will change is our perception of what the car makers owe us. After decades of mediocrity from the Big Three, it is about time we got cars that deliver thrills and decent gas mileage. This is a good start, but it needs to get better too.

And hybrids need to get more exciting. I was pumped about the CR-Z from Honda, until they released those figures. 122 horsepower, 38 mpg on the highway, and it weighs almost 1,000 pounds more than the car it was based on, the CRX. So it weighs more, goes slower, and gets worse gas mileage. No good. Even if it is a relative discount in the hybrid market, the production model seems to have lost the edge that make the concept look so cool.

I wonder though, will we ever see a hybrid muscle car? I see the potential, if only because of all the instant torque a good electric motor can deliver, and the money I save on gas could be used to make it even more badass.

Just sayin’.

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Hoping to recapture the glamour of 1930s’ Tinseltown, the Chrysler 300 C Hollywood is a stretched version of the company’s popular rear-drive sedan with a roof treatment that hasn’t been seen since Norma Desmond paraded down Sunset Boulevard in her Hispano-Suiza. With an enclosed passenger cabin and open area for the chauffeur, the best part of the 300 C is that it has a Hemi in it.

Even the combined pedigrees of Bentley and the Italian design house of Zagato don’t automatically confer winner status on the Zagato Bentley Continental GTZ. Perhaps it’s just a case of being a bit overly ambitious, but the large grille, and exaggerated double-bubble top that extends into the rear window are giving purists a case of the giggles.

Some ideas are just so bad they refuse to die. Back in the ‘1970s and ’80s, it seemed every American sported some sort of faux convertible or vinyl top, trying to recapture a sense of long-lost elegance that may not have been there in the first place. The Opel Tigra Twin Top Illusion is a retactable hardtop with canvas glued on it so you think it’s really a soft top. Get it? We don’t.

While some bad ideas have rolled out from the design studios of major manufacturers the world over, the aftermarket seems to have an even worse track record of turning out nightmare cars. The Mansory Stallone, a carbon-fiber-bedecked monstrosity that used to be a handsome Ferrari 599 GTB is just one of many examples inflicted on the showgoing public.

Frank Rinderknecht made a splash several years ago with the amphibious Splash concept and now he’s back with the Rinspeed sQuba, a submersible electric Lotus Elise inspired by the famous James Bond Lotus Espirt that made its underwater debut in The Spy Who Loved Me. An electric car? Underwater? Get real.

1. Chrysler 300 C Hollywood

2. Zagato Bentley Continental GTZ

3. Opel Tigra Twin Top Illusion

4. Mansory Stallone

5. Rinspeed sQuba

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Station wagons are often frowned upon in tuner circles as grocery getter projects that got out of hand. Not so much with this build. In North America, AUDI USA has blessed us by not releasing the B5 RS4 version of the ever popular S4 on our continent. Naturally some people just don’t take no for an answer. We can thank Adam McCarthy from Denver, Colorado for providing us with a good idea, on what exactly we’ve missed over on this side of the pond.

Take an alphabet soup of modification that resulted in 530hp on the dyno. Add the custom made all steel widebody kit grafted onto the donor car with clinical precision. The 19”x10” BBS CH wheels, which provide a deep dish effect wrapped with 265/50/19 Toyo rubber.

You get one killer grocery getter, which I wouldn’t mind driving to the supermarket anyday.

Thanks to some embargo breaking that’s already occurred, we’ve known for a week that the 2011 Ford Mustang GT would pack a brand new 5.0-liter V8 producing 412 horsepower and 390 pound-feet of torque. We thought those tidbits might hold over the internet ’till the official embargo date lifts early next week, but we were wrong and therefore are still awake at 1:30 AM on Christmas morning writing this post. Thanks to Jalopnik via MustangHeaven via BurlappCars, we have the first images of the 2011 Mustang GT and its new 5.0-liter V8.

You can read more about some of the engine’s details that have already leaked here, but let’s just take a look see at what we’ve got. Kudos to Ford for leaving the engine’s tippy top unadorned and we also dig those 5.0 badges on the engine and fenders. Nostalgia FTW

The LA Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning auto critic, Dan Neil, had a chance to sample the Audi e-tron while the electric R8 (R8e?) was down in So. Cal. for the LA Auto Show, and he’s suitably impressed with the nine-month-old prototype that — unlike your average concept — is actually functional.

Not only does it go, stop and turn, the e-tron has a fully functional climate control system, power windows, MMI system and a host of other gadgets on board, making it a rarity in the world of one-off concepts. Granted, it’s still just an overly-stylized mule (thankfully, the million-spoke wheels were dispatched in favor of the R8 V10’s hoops), but this is less about the driving experience (although Neil raves about the dynamics and power delivery) and more about the world’s largest automakers getting into the electric vehicle game.

Neil’s primary point is that while Tesla and Fisker are laying the foundation for EV proliferation, automakers like Audi, Ford, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen all have electric whips in the works. Neil contends that the standards set by the major OEMs are what’s going to drive EVs into the mainstream and if the e-tron (and the forthcoming electric Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG) are any indication, enthusiasts can have their cake and eat it too. Check out the full write-up and hit the jump for Dan’s video review.

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Thanks to a loose-lipped Facebookian that couldn’t help sharing insider information and a quick follow-up post from Inside Line, we can now confirm the return of the iconic 5.0-liter Mustang GT for 2011. Even better news is the fact that the Mustang GT’s new mill will crank out an impressive 412 horsepower.

By way of comparison, the 2010 Chevy Camaro SS has a 6.2-liter V8 with as much as 422 horses when mated to a six-speed manual and the 2010 Dodge Challenger SRT8 has a 6.1-liter Hemi that offers 425 ponies. And remember, both of those rivals are considerably heavier than the Mustang.

As much as we’d like to unload more goods on the 2011 Mustang, you’ll just have to wait until Ford’s good and ready. Or someone blows another embargo, whichever comes first.

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It makes sense, then (okay, not really) that at least one enterprising person with a suitably-warped sense of vision saw fit to build his very own Mr. Fusion-powered Dodge Daytona Time Machine, and we give him solid marks for effort. Except. perhaps, for not wiping the dust off his camera lens (see what we mean around the 1:00 minute mark) before shooting the video.

If you’re like us, you’re probably wondering why someone would go to the trouble of recreating a BTTF Time Machine using a Dodge Daytona? We’ll let the builder explain:

Being an adult, I have realized that without winning the lottery or inventing the latest, greatest thing, I am never gonna have the money to buy a Delorean. Well, I could probally get the money together, but I am pretty sure my wife will not let me spend it on a 28 year old car… but I sure as hell can afford an old 1980’s Dodge Daytona!

Makes sense, no? Click past the break to watch the video in all its child-of-the-eighties glory. Thanks for the tip, Luke!

[Source: YouTube via BTTF4.com]