Gallery: the best car renderings of the year

In Car World, news tends to ebb and flow around the motor show circus that punctuates the year. In between, actual car news can get a bit thin on the ground.

Luckily, we have one reliable source that keeps Car World spinning during the lull: speculative renders.

You see, digital scribblers of the Internet like to take fresh metal from motor shows and render what potential future/hot/dystopian or downright outlandish versions might look like.

So, in honour of such efforts, we’ve trawled through the archives and rounded up the best from our favourite Photoshop wizards.

The UK-based concept artist and Photoshop whiz-kid Khyzyl Saleem mashed together old and new with these rather amazing designs.

Taking different road and race cars – from Paganis, Ferrari 250 GTOs, McLarens, Mustangs and pretty much every worthwhile car in-between – his photoshop cocktails make for futuristic fast cars with a completely unique aesthetic.

With captivating colours and Khyzyl’s gripping use of pixelated texture, these cars have us hankering for the future to come a bit sooner.

If you like what you can see above? You should check out a mega gallery of them here.

This isn’t the new four-door Koenigsegg we exclusively told you about last year. It is, in fact, a render of a four-door version of Koenigsegg’s 1,800bhp Regera. And therefore not real.

The image appeared on Koenigsegg’s Facebook page with the caption: “What do you think of this rendering of a four-door Regera as a range-filler?”

Though Koenigsegg put up the render as a ‘bit of fun’, we know that company boss Christian is indeed considering a hyper-saloon for the future. One that could actually exist.

Read more about that here.

This is not the upcoming Bugatti Chiron. It’s the Bugatti ‘Type-6 GT Vision’ from a chap called Alex Imnadze which means it’s not official, nor is it real, nor indicative of any car that Bugatti is likely to make in this or any other universe.

However, it does look quite tasty and you have to admit, the boy’s got skills, no? He took the Bugatti Vision GT concept from earlier in the year and stripped it of its aero garments leaving a very smooth, sloping silhouette.

Given that we’ve now seen the Chiron prototype testing, and know a bit more about it, if it did end up looking like this, we wouldn’t be filing any complaints.

Earlier this year, McLaren released a short video of its new track monster - the P1 GTR - duelling with its F1 forefather around Cadwell Park. If you haven’t seen it, click this link and take five. 

Aside from the whoomping turbos and flames (lots of flames), what caught our attention was the retro paintjob the 986bhp track-only hyper-hybrid was cloaked in.

It’s a throwback to the Harrods livery its predecessor - one of seven McLaren F1s that competed at Le Mans in 1995 - wore to the famous 24-hour race. Put simply, it looked cracking.

It also got us thinking about what other retro liveries would look like on the wider, lower, massively-winged P1. To alleviate such thinking, we enlisted the help of digital drawing doyen Jon Sibal.

You can check out the results and pick your favourites here.

Where the rest of the renders in this gallery are fantastically fictitious, this render has actual truth in it.

It showcases the WRC car of the not-too-distant future by acting as a visual aide as to what the effects of new rules coming in a couple of years time will look like.

In short, the new regs will offer teams greater aero freedom around the whole body: the front bumper overhang can be increased by up to 60mm, with more aero ahead of the front wheels, while the rear can be increased by 30mm.

The door sills will be bigger. The cars will be 25kg lighter. The rear diffuser will be bound by some size limits, but can stick out up to 50mm at the back. And the best bit? The rear wing will “be dramatically increased in size” over the current crop of WRC cars. Yes.

The racers will use the same 1.6-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engines as current regulations require, which, thanks to an increase in the turbo restrictor width from 33mm to 36mm, should see power rise to around 380bhp.

We can’t wait.

Sure, McLaren struggled to make a reliable hybrid engine this year, and finished last-but-one in the constructors' championship, but they certainly know how to render the hell out of an F1 car.

This, the MP4-X, is McLaren's idea of what an F1 car could accomplish in the future. Top of the list includes reading the driver's mind, using solar technology to power stuff, and active aero via adaptive shape-memory alloys.

Also, plasma occurs thanks to electrodes all over the car to control the surfaces.

You want to read the full story here.