headline of the day
Couple caught trying to blow up car with flaming TAMPONS
The Lockheed Lakester
This 1917 beauty, known as the Lockheed Lakester, will be up for auction at Barret-Jackson later this month.
The car, registered for road use as a 1917 Crow Lakester Custom, was hand-built from the wing tip tank of a Lockheed Super Constellation and uses a mix of automotive and aircraft parts. Wedged inside the tank is a 1.8-liter turbocharged Hemi four-cylinder mated to a five-speed manual transmission, and the two-person cockpit features gunner seats and an air-speed indicator in lieu of a speedometer.
You can’t just toss an old surplus turbojet engine into a homemade chassis anymore and go for it
Waldo Stakes wants to build a rocket car to beat the current land-speed-record of 763.035 by 1273 mph.
Moving his family to Southern California in 1984 to be closer to the aerospace industry, Stakes was soon scouring scrapyards for parts he could use to build a rocket car. His most impressive find is a set of XLR99 rocket engines designed for NASA’s legendary X-15, the stub-winged experimental plane that grabbed the flight speed record of 4520 mph in 1967 and has never let go. “Back in the ’80s this stuff was considered scrap metal, and everyone was melting it down to recover the silver and gold from the brazed tubing,” Stakes says. “But these engines weren’t built that way. They’re made from Inconel-X [an exotic alloy] and virtually indestructible. I think they cost $1500 each for four. I have two left. One for the car and a spare.”
dueling banjos
It’s the first of the year and we’re officially a 1 car family.
— Michael Smith (@themichaelsmith) January 1, 2012
Here’s to the serial killer that sells me cars.
— Deron Bauman (@deronbauman) January 1, 2012
How do I feel about this car?
U.S. Routes as a Subway Map
Graphic designer Cameron Booth re-imagined the U.S. Highway system as a subway map:
At long last, I present the latest in my series of transit map-styled designs. This time, we have the U.S. Highway system (that’s U.S. Routes, not to be confused with the newer Interstate Highway system – which as most of you well know, I have already mapped).
How do I feel about this car?
She had a nose ring.
She slides the papers across to me and asks if I am so excited about my new car.
I do not look up, I say: “It’s just another material posession.”
She laughs brightly and I sign my name twenty times or more.
An Introduction
My car is a Kia.
I drive to IKEA.
I had Chick-fil-A for lunch.
headline of the day, III
Woman sues dealer, alleges dead-body odor in SUV
One of these things is not like the other
No fewer than eight Ferraris and a Lamborghini Diablo were among the victims of Sunday morning’s collision, while the other victims were two top-of-the-range Mercedes-Benz, a Nissan GT-R and a Toyota Prius hybrid.
photo out of context
(via)
Icon4x4Design’s Ford Bronco
How do I feel about this car?
a little car porn
What does a twin turbo V-8 sound like?
Vicki Butler-Henderson gets emotional driving the Ferrari 458 Spider
I’ve changed my mind about how I feel about the looks of the car, but I haven’t about wanting to drive it. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, the aesthetically induced emotion begins about four minutes in.
headline of the day, III
Italian man gets $44,500 parking ticket that dates to 208 AD
photo out of context
Chevy Rips-Off Dear Photograph
Not too many seem to be watching the Rangers – Cardinals World series, so maybe this has gone unnoticed, but Chevrolet seems to have done a pretty thorough job of ripping off Dear Photograph.
I ain’t a cyclo-facist
but Bikesnob nails it:
It’s fascinating how readily we’ve come accept this notion that we must have respect for a car’s “power,” as though it’s some force of nature beyond all human control. Sure, someone who goes into the wilderness, starts poking grizzlys with a stick, and then gets eaten should maybe have a little more respect for the power of the bear, but that’s a different scenario. Oddly though, if a bear is just doing its bear thing and kills somebody we’ll go out of our way to destroy the bear. Yet if a human being kills somebody with a car we just charge them $42 and blame the victim.
How do I feel about this car?
1884 De Dion Bouton Et Trapardoux Dos-A-Dos Steam Runabout
The world’s oldest running car sold at auction last Friday for $4.62 million.
The Runabout had been in the same family for 81 years prior to the sale, and is one of six De Dion tricycles known to still exist. A total of 20 of the three-wheelers were built. When new, the trike had a top speed of 38 mph and a range of 20 miles on one tank of water. The vehicle that sold last night was the only car to show up for the world’s first auto race, where it averaged 16 mph over a 20-mile course.
The Star Wars Celica
In 1977 Toyota and Twentieth Century Fox teamed up to offer a Star Wars Celica sweepstakes. Since the promotion, it’s gone missing.
The Star Wars Celica was designed by Delphi Auto Design in Costa Mesa, California, and awarded sometime after the end of 1977, probably in January 1978. While the sweepstakes were a joint venture hosted by Toyota and Twentieth Century Fox, the awarding dealership remains a mystery, as does the identity of the winner and the vehicle’s VIN number.
The Official Star Wars Blog wants your help finding it, old Jedi.
dear clusterflock
Opinions on center-mounted dashboard gauges in cars?
How do I feel about this car?
cars I’d buy, classic, vol. 1.2
BMW 2002
If BMW were to make the 2002 today it would be a thousand pounds heavier, feature Chris Bangle flame surfacing, and depending on which angle you looked at it from, strike you as cute, fat, or angry. In short, it wouldn’t be done. Also, I think that is a photograph of a die-cast model.
