Culture|Garage

We’ve all seen them, derelict beside roads and old buildings. In alleyways and junkyards alike, they sit, motionless, frozen in time, slowly, but surely, giving way to Mother Earth’s icy grasp, fading into memory. They are the cars that we once loved, cruising main, going to the beach, going to the dragstrip. They sit, rotting, until there is nothing left, or until they are scrapped, compressed and made into something else. This is the website devoted to these cars, a fitting epitaph, eulogy and obituary all rolled into one for these once fine machines: Carsinbarns.com Read the rest of this entry »

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I didn’t think it could get much worse than, mf’ing snakes on the mf’ing Cayenne. But it can. German tuner, WaM (wheelsandmore), has aborted created some ridiculous interesting wheels for this CLS55. The chrome 20’s are adorned with hundreds of Swarovski crystals. If that isn’t good enough, WaM will substitute real diamonds. They also did some bumper work, added some carbon fiber. And well, a bigger price tag. Price for the conversion runs in at 175,000 euros. Which is like nine million US dollars. That doesn’t include the cost of the car. Oh, they supposedly also managed to pull 600hp out of the motor.

Detail shots of the wheels follow

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If you thought Ford was a little possessive about their cars, don’t buy a Nissan GT-R in Japan. Speed limiters are nothing new, but when you drop 80 grand on a car like the Nissan GT-R, you might be interested in at some point taking it over the 111mph governed top speed. However, apparently Nissan doesn’t like that idea, so when you do reach over that speed while driving on the street, an annoying light turns on that can only be turned off by shutting off the car completely. That’s only the beginning. Read the rest of this entry »

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Discovered on YouTube today was this video of a Bugatti Veyron getting the Flintstone push to the nearest gas station after running out of fuel. At full throttle, the Veyron burns fuel at a staggering 2.1 mpg which empties the tank in 12 minutes. If I were ever to buy one, I don’t think I could even make a quick trip to the grocery store without running empty, which is fitting, since I wouldn’t have any money to buy food for the rest of my short-lived days.

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It shouldn’t have happened- another answer to a question nobody asked, but it happened. The El Camino is looking to make a U.S. comeback tour. The new El Camino is expected to be badged as a Pontiac, and sold in the U.S. as a derivative of the Austrailian “ute” platform (pictured above). Shades of the “GTO” methinks. Read the rest of this entry »

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I’m always surprised by watching any reports that have to deal with the U.A.E. and this one isn’t any different.

Not only are they avid car collectors willing to spend millions building up their car collections, but even something as simple as a vanity plate turns into an all out bidding war.

The auction is held by the government and lower the number on the plate, the higher the price it fetches. Also certain number patterns (for example 22 or 99) go for higher prices. The money raised from the auctions go to a government-funded charity mostly helping traffic accident victims. In just five auctions, 300 plates have been sold raising over 56 million dollars.

The most expensive plate ever sold was the number 5 plate for an astonishing 6.8 million dollars, and it was 10 times more expensive than the Rolls Royce that it went on. The owner has his eyes set on the number 1 plate which will be auctioned off soon and he said he is willing to spend 15-20 million dollars maximum on it.

Link to video: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/02/01/dinnick.vanity.plates.cnn

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On a quick visit to TheTruthAboutCars.com, Brock Yates’ article hit me like a ton of bricks. An angry, cantankerous pile of bricks. Mr. Yates is known in almost every major automotve circle on earth, and yet he found something, or rather, MANY things to get angry excited about. Not only was Car and Driver a “pale shadow of its former self,” but Yates made sure to endear his new audience with a style of writing that can only be feuled by a Barry-Bondsesque kind of ‘roid rage. I’ll be the first to admit that I love being lambasted by a grumpy old man, but Yates took things further. Read the rest of this entry »

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Yeah, this looks photochopped, but it would still be cool if the Michigan State Police had a new ZR-1 to play with.

I guess we’ll have to wait until some drug dealer gets his ZR-1 seized before we have to worry about seeing this in our rearview, unless of course this is a real image.

My dream would be to play with this police vehicle for a day, just owning ricers on the highway.

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