If we had to give a prize for the most ridiculous new car of 2010, it would go hands down to Aston Martin's Cygnet luxury mini. The British firm's pint-size model is nothing more than a Toyota iQ (Scion iQ in North America) decorated with fancy-pansy wraps - something like those silly replicas we show you from time to time with an even sillier price tag.
The Cygnet won't go on sale before early 2011, but apparently, Aston Martin has already began shipping cars in Europe, most likely for use by the firm's dealers, though this particular example may have been used by a company exec. This here left-hand drive example with British license plates was spotted by a forum member of Autogespot on the roads of Düsseldorf, which is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. For more photos of the Cygnet, follow the break.
Earlier today, 44-year-old Moscow resident named Oleg N. went on a road rampage for reasons that have yet to be determined. Russian news sites reported that the driver of the silver-colored Hyundai Terracan crashed into some 20 or so cars. The incident was partially caught on video where we see the Moscow resident trying to escape a mob of angry drivers by getting into his SUV and ramming several cars in an attempt to flee the scene. He was eventually caught by the police and a number of drivers who showed him no mercy - guess the Christmas Spirit ain't as infectious as we hoped...
Even though it's an unfortunate situation to be in, we hope for the owner's sake that the reason why these men put are pushing and pulling this FerrariF430 Spider has to do with the snow and the frozen roads, and not something relevant to the story line of the "Gone in 60 Seconds" film... More photos after the jump.
Suppose you are cash strapped motoring enthusiast living in Northampton, England. You live in a council flat and own a third-hand Ford Sierra RS Cosworth. You’re earning a steady if unimpressive income of £180 (US$284) a week, of which you manage to squirrel away a small amount into your savings.
From this, you deduce that your chances of getting behind a £149,000+ (US$235,450) Lamborghini Gallardo are about as good as bedding Natalie Portman. What is a poor boy to do?
Well, I have good news my (imaginary) friend! Silverstone Circuit, home of the British Grand Prix, is now offering a £99 (US$156 or €133) Supercar Thrill package that lets you take the wheel of a Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Ferrari or Lotus for a few hot laps around the famous circuit. There's also a limited offer on a Lamborghini Thrill package for December 19 only with a discount that brings the price down to £60 or US$95 / €80.
And that’s not all. You’ll also get tips from Silverstone’s very own racing experts, professional photography of your driving antics and a certificate that you can hang up on your wall. And it’s available to anyone who’s able to fork up the cash, not just those poncy weekend track jockeys in their souped up Golf GTIs.
Your day starts with a briefing whereby a professional racing instructor takes you through the basics of track driving including how to identify the racing line, how to corner correctly and how to anticipate and compensate for oversteer and understeer.
You’ll then put it all into practice on the track, with your professional co-driver egging you on the whole time. It’s surely one of those things you buy for a friend or relative and then end up keeping for yourself.
The Supercar Thrill package is just one of several “experiences” Silverstone is offering including rally days and the chance to get behind the wheel of a “baby F1” car (kind of like go-karting for big boys), all of which can be found on the circuit’s official website.
It's been long in the making, but here's the first official trailer of the next chapter in the Fast and Furious franchise. The fifth installment of the car-crazy film, which is being marketed as "Fast 5", brings back together many familiar faces from the previous movies including Vin Diesel as ex-con Dom Toretto, Paul Walker as former cop Brian O'Conner, and Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, as well as some fresh faces such as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson who plays the role of federal agent Luke Hobbs.
This time the team of car bandits heads to Rio De Janeiro in Brazil. The film is set to be released on April 29, 2011. You can watch the official trailer right after the break and tell us what you think about it in the comments section below.
Set to air on December 26, Top Gear’s [the original] newest Christmas Special will see Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May take the role of the three wise men, as they celebrate Christ’s birth in the Middle East (see a video shoot from Israel here). Other highlights of the show will be drag races between the Mercedes SLS, Porsche GT3 RS and Ferrari 458 Italia, set in the Big Apple. According to BBC’s Youtube channel, Danny Boyle will be the next star in the Reasonably Priced Car. Follow through the break for the video clip.
For obvious reasons, there aren’t that many classic drifting competitions during the winter time. However, some drivers can't stay away from the sport. Despite the freezing conditions with temperatures hovering around 30F or -1 Celsius throughout the day, the “100 Drifters of December” event, held at the Summit Point racetrack in West Virginia, took place as planned. Follow the jump to watch these cold weather drifters in action.
Dynamometers, or dynos for short, are a useful tool in any racer’s arsenal. By applying some basic physical principles, a dyno can calculate the amount of horsepower and torque being transferred from the wheels to the track, without ever needing to leave the safety of the garage.
So here’s the scoop (according to the posters): some students at Mech-Tech College in Ponce, Puerto Rico were putting a Lancer Evolution VII through its paces on the school’s dyno, when disaster struck. Everything seems normal until 16 seconds in, when the Lancer careens to the left and slides off. Of course, it was all captured on video for our edification.
According to the EvolutionM forum, the vehicle was improperly strapped down. It has something to do with the fitting of a Blow Off Valve (BOV) dump tube which changes the way the vehicle behaves both on the track...and on the dyno. Of course, nobody seems to have taken this into account when tying the Evo down.
Check out the vid and let us know what you think in the comments section below.
The roadable aircraft is nothing new. It’s essentially an airplane with folding wings and four wheels, allowing it to be driven like a car. It’s so old, in fact, that working examples have been in existence since 1949 in the form of the eponymous Aerocar. Which begs the question: why haven’t we tried to militarize these things? After all, we’ve successfully militarized the motorcycle, the automobile and the airplane.
As anything is possible when you have a defense budget that rivals the GDP of East Timor, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is providing Terrafugia, builders of the world’s only (in more than one sense of the word) working roadable aircraft with US$65 million of funding to build a four-seat roadable aircraft known as the Transformer / TX.
The Massachusetts based firm is teaming up with AAI, a U.S. DoD contractor and builder of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and its Textron subsidiaries to build the TX, which will have a proposed range of 280 miles on land and air, vertical take-off capability and automated flight controls for operation by non-pilots.
Strangely enough, it sounds to me like the same thing Paul Moller has been working on for the last forty years in the form of his M400 Skycar. Somebody ought to give that man a DoD contract just for trying.
The three phase program expects to produce a working prototype as early as Q1 2015, with the TX being pressed into medivac, remote resupply and Special Forces insertion roles sometime after that (you know, if it doesn’t all fall by the wayside *cough* *cough* X-33 *cough*). Though it has to be said: what part of this can’t be achieved with a Bell UH-60 helicopter and a HumVee?
Terrafugia CEO Carl Dietrich is, as one would expect, very excited about the project:
"This DARPA program effectively leverages Terrafugia's core competencies and enables us to grow from a pure [General Aviation] company to an emerging aerospace company with both general aviation and defense development programs. Our strong team of Terrafugia engineers with recent experience designing and building a dual purpose vehicle will bring a unique perspective to the TX program that is highly valued by DARPA and the other contractors on our TX team."
But don’t think that all this talk about militarization will dissolve the dream of the roadable aircraft for John Q. Public; Terrafugia is still committed to producing its Transition Light Sport Aircraft with an expected launch after Q3 2011.
In October ’09 we brought you details and pictures of WaterCar’s US$200,000 Python: a Corvette-engined sea going convertible / roadable speed boat. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t cheap, but some child-like part of us was enthralled with the sheer absurdity of it. Well, if you're on a tight(er) budget, the company also offers a considerably cheaper model. The Gator is essentially a kit car, albeit an impressive looking one at that.
Inspired by the Myers Manx of the 1960s (and looking like a Jeep Wrangler), the US$29,500 Gator comes with a complete fibreglass body, gear box and transmission, water jet propulsion unit, high torque drive axles, front and rear suspension parts, head lights, steering assembly and various stainless steel parts.
All an enterprising buyer has to do is bolt in the chassis and engine from a Volkswagen Beetle and e viola; you have your very own amphibious automobile. Though one has to wonder: does this make the Python, which costs almost ten times as much, redundant?
