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General Motors built two or possibly three transparent automobiles to display at the New York World’s Fair of 1939-1940. The Pontiac Deluxe seven-window touring sedan (B-body) from that project is going up for sale. In between, it’s been on tour all over the country, displayed at the Smithsonian, and owned by a private citizen. Get more details on this car at Hemmings Blog. Link -via Evil Mad Linkblog
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I hear there’s an extra joke in the music if you understand Portuguese. -via The Daily What
This photograph of a liquor store was taken in Minneapolis in 1939, and recently posted to Shorpy. Interesting, but… what is that futuristic thing sticking up out of the car parked in front?
The first comment on the picture identified the car as a new 1939 Mercury, and the second commenter asked about the flashy antenna. It didn’t take long for someone to find another car with the same gadget, and another to find an advertisement for the exact radio and antenna. This kind of collaboration and information sharing is one of the things that makes the internet so addicting. Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!
The first 500-mile race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway took place on May 30, 1911. That very first race was a story for the ages. Forty cars started, but only a dozen finished.
People were excited by the amount of money at stake (the winner’s share would be $10,000, an impressive sum in an era when Cobb, baseball’s highest-paid player, made $10,000 a season) and the danger. (In the downtown saloons you could bet on how many drivers, who wore cloth or leather helmets and had no seat belts or roll bars, might be killed.) But with every mile the story line had become more and more scrambled and the spectators more and more subdued. Those charged with describing the “excitement” to an eager audience of millions were feeling the first damp signs of panic. Like every other lengthy automobile contest these experts on baseball and boxing had ever witnessed, this one was damnably confusing. The auto racing tracks of the day simply did not have the technology to keep track of split times and running order once cars began passing one another and going into and out of the pits.
Between crashes and the extreme length of the race, there was a time when no one was keeping up with how many laps each car raced. One hundred years later, people still argue about who actually won the first Indy 500. Link
When gasoline was rationed or nonexistent during World War II, many cars were converted to run on firewood. The trend is making a comeback of sorts as gas prices rise higher and higher. See some of these cars and find out how it’s done at Low-Tech Magazine. Link -via the Presurfer
Redditor enginesoftime saw this vanity plate on a Tesla Roadster and snapped a picture. But the fact that it has a numeral added, plus Nikola is spelled with a “c” made me wonder how many other vanity plates on Tesla cars refer to the original Nikola Tesla. This roundup of Tesla vanity plates has clever ones, but they mainly refer to fuel efficiency. The funniest one went viral about a year ago. The geekiest Tesla license plate would be one that just says “NIKOLA,” don’t you think? It has to exist out there somewhere! Link
Stormtrooper Talking Dashboard Driver – $9.95
Don’t let bad drivers get you down. Get the Stormtrooper Talking Dashboard Driver from the NeatoShop. He will tell all those people to, “Move along.”
The Stormtrooper Talking Dashboard Driver also makes a perfect desk accessory.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Star Wars fun!
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I think that the electric vehicle (EV) will remain a novelty and sort of a green status symbol, for the most part, thanks to the limited driving range. I do think that eventually battery tech will improve to the point where the EV will go much longer distances. Right now, the best chance of making the EV more appealing is a way to quickly and cheaply swap batteries for a fresh pack. This is exactly what is happening in China with a company called Better Place that will install 2,300 battery swap stations in China by 2015. Hot swap EV batteries FTW! link
The car that was built for the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is up for auction at eBay.
Built on a custom ladder frame chassis, many old world forms of car building were employed, and modern technology stepped in to create a vehicle which was both accurate enough to fool veteran and classic car experts, when held under the scrutiny of 70mm cinema cameras, and durable enough to withstand everything from driving in sand, cobbled streets and down staircases. The bonnet is crafted of polished aluminum; the boat deck is hand-crafted of red and white cedar built by boat builders in Buckinghamshire, and the array of brass fittings were obtained from Edwardian cars. Even the alloy dashboard plate is from a British World War I fighter plane! The car weighs approximately 2 tons and measures 17 1/2 feet in length and is powered by a Ford 3 litre V-6 engine mated to an automatic transmission.
Other vehicles were built for the film to be used for special effects, but this particular car was the only one that actually worked. And it only has 44 miles on it. However, bidding has started at a million dollars. Link -via the Presurfer
Is your car’s front passenger seat uncomfortable? Whatever you do, don’t do what this guy did:
A roadside seatbelt check on Wednesday took a back seat to a bizarre and potentially dangerous car modification spotted by Ontario Provincial Police: a recliner chair sitting in as a front passenger seat.
But the officers in Ottawa were not amused by the idea of comfort trumping vehicular safety, noting that the rocking chair wasn’t even bolted to the floor.
Photo: Peter Harholdt for Amelia Island Concours, Gary & Diane Cerveny Collection
I don’t usually ooh-and-aah over cars, but I’ll gladly make an exception for this 1948 Timbs Special by Norman E. Timbs (and restored by Dave Crouse for the 2010 Concours d’Elegance).
Detroit, why don’t you make cars like this? Link | More images at Supercars.net
You can walk many miles in good shoes, but this is taking the concept a little bit too far:
A footwear manufacturer in China has made an electric car out of a giant shoe.
It can carry two people up to 250 miles at speeds of up to 20mph on a single charge of the battery underneath the driver’s seat.
The leather ‘bodywork’ is made in the same way as a normal shoe but on a bigger scale, using the hide of five bulls.
A Kang Shoe company spokesman said it took six months to design and build the car at a cost of around £4,000.
Link – via J-Walk Blog
Comments Off These Dutch automotive engineers chopped up a Volkswagen Golf and it became the Mini-Golf. Then they added roll bars and it became the Rollgolf! See more videos at mastermilo82′s YouTube channel. Link -via Everlasting Blort
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For our fellow Neatoramanauts still digging themselves out of the epic snowstorm in part of the United States, we present: Snowshoes for Cars. From the 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics:
As shown in the photo at the right, these snowshoes consist of box-like steel frames attached firmly to the spokes of the wheels. The frames are then covered with wire netting, canvas, or hide. When the photograph was taken, the inventor was using a wire netting covering on the left wheel and a canvas covering on the right in an effort to determine which was the most efficient. The wire netting snowshoe proved to be most satisfactory.
The width of the snowshoes is ample to prevent the rear wheels from digging through the snow, and ample traction is secured by the broad surfaces. Heavy ski runners are placed on the front wheels, from which the tires are removed in order to secure better bracing. Naturally this contraption does not enable high speeds to be developed, but it proves successful in deep show and is faster than a dog team. Ordinary tire chains on the rear wheels prove useful on hard-packed stretches of ice on city streets.
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If you ever need to play Angry Bird while stuck in traffic (seriously, don’t do this), then this little gadget is for you: a carbon fiber iPad mount for your car that puts your beloved iPad within arms reach from the driver seat: Link
Did you forget where you parked your car? Well, a new camera-based surveillance system in parking lots can help:
Santa Monica Place recently unveiled the nation’s first camera-based "Find Your Car" system. Shoppers who have lost track of their vehicle amid a maze of concrete ramps and angled stripes can simply punch their license plate number into a kiosk touch screen, which then displays a photo of the car and its location.
But what’s the price of that convenience? Can this system be used by Big Brother to snoop on where you are and what you’re doing?
But what if that magic involved an array of 24/7 surveillance cameras and was also available to police and auto repossessers? What if it could be tapped by jilted lovers, or that angry guy you accidentally cut off in traffic? Would the convenience be worth the loss of privacy?
Those are some of the questions civil libertarians and others are asking as technology capable of spying on motorists and pedestrians is converted to widespread commercial use.
Martha Groves of The Los Angeles Times has the story: Link (Photo: Mariah Tauger/LA Times)
It’s always reassuring to buy a used car from someone who you think only went for Sunday drives -but appearances can be deceiving! This German Dutch ad for Volkswagen illustrates that point. -via The Awesomer
This life size 1948 Ford Woodie replica was made by pastry Chef Brian Sundeen and his team of The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel. It is 8 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 5 1/2 feet tall and is made from 150 pounds of gingerbread and 300 pounds of royal icing. It looks like one sweet ride.
Link – Via Edible Crafts
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Remember the game SNES game F-Zero? (Oh, how I love F-Zero). Well, it’s back – in spirit anyhow and with weapons – in this new anime called Redline. And boy, it looks AWESOME!
Redline is a new Japanese animated movie brought to us by Takeshi Koike, the director of the Animatrix. Redline took 7 years to make, apparently using 100,000 handmade drawings, it was no minor task and it looks to have paid off… Bigtime. The animation is just spectacular. It was released in Japan on October 9th, with a nationwide subtitled release planned for 2011 in the States, having some small screenings here and there. So we may have a bit of time to wait, but it looks well worth the wait.
The whole thing has the feel of a mix of Speedracer on methamphetamine and Madmax. You can tell this one was made with a beautiful attention to detail as soon as you see some of the explosions. When there is a lot of detail to something like a fiery explosion, then you know there was some juice behind this baby. But truly, words do not do it justice.
Cool-O-Rama has the trailers: Link [embedded YouTube clips]
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Look at this awesome Speed Racer Mach 5! It’s authentic down to the last detail, but this is no cartoon, it’s a full-size licensed replica from custom car wizard Mark Towle.
Our Speed Racer Mach 5 has it all, from the rotating front saw blades and push button chrome steering wheel to the custom M5 logo and red leather interior. Our Mach 5 is built for SHOW & GO implementing a California RUST FREE CORVETTE C-4 chassis to provide sports enthusiasts with the proformance, and handling only an American Made Corvette can deliver.
Oh yeah, you can buy it! Link
If you buy me one of these Fiberglass Freaks drivable 1966 Batmobile replicas, I promise to use it for good, not evil! Only 8 cars a year will be manufactured by Mark Racop’s Indiana shop. These accurately detailed replicas come with all the features a crimefighter needs to respond to the bat signal including a Batphone and a working flame thrower out the rear! Get a closer look at these officially licensed Batmobiles and some of the awesome details with lots more pictures at our Spotlight Blog. Link
Update: The very first officially licensed Batmobile is up for sale at eBay now. -Thanks, Mark!
At one time the car bra was a popular automobile accessory. I don’t see so many car owners buying them lately. But in the late 1980s, this cartoon of a matching set of car panties and bra that I drew for Road & Track magazine was topical.
Yet this is not the kind of car drawers I am thinking about today. Rather, I am interested in discussing possibilities for new types of pullout drawers, cabinets, trunks and beds for cars and trucks.
As cars have become an essential component of our 24/7 lifestyles – only in a few places like New York City is it feasible to live without owning or driving a car – it should theoretically be possible to make them more accommodating to our needs, with some of the features we expect in a home or apartment. For instance, our homes have drawers and closets. In the early 1980s I showed what closet cars might look like. Admittedly this was one of my more sexist drawings from a present-day viewpoint; it made more sense 30 years ago than it does now.
Closet Cars would look like roving closets. Clothes could hang nicely, without having to be folded flat on a back seat or hung from a hook, obscuring the driver’s view. The car would provide numerous handy drawers for storing shoes and clothing. Jewelry and valuables would probably be kept at home and not in the top drawer of a Closet Car, however.
A pickup bed can be viewed as just another kind of drawer that can be designed in different configurations. In the Double Bed Pickup Truck, a redesign of the standard pickup truck is imagined. The height of the car seat is raised and the hood is made into an ancillary box that is actually a pullout pickup bed. Access to the engine bay is still possible when the “hood” is pulled forward. Perhaps readers who are car buffs will point out that such a design would disturb a vehicle’s balance, which in modern vehicles would seriously affect the delicate power apportioning of the power brake system, as well as the airbag settings. The truck would ride differently depending on whether yard clippings or sand filled the front bed.
Though this drawing was created in the early 1990s, I believe there now exist systems similar to this that allow for extension of the pickup bed by some means. Recently, several car manufacturers offered four-door passenger vehicles with a short pickup bed in place of a trunk.
I have studied possible ways of adding drawers and cabinets accessible from the exterior of a passenger vehicle. The main flaw in these drawer ideas, as I see it, arises if a drawer becomes jammed or broken. This is a potential design weakness. A drawer that was not properly shut, and that has swung out when the car turned a corner, could be a problem. Minor accidents, which would be dubbed “drawer-bender” accidents, could permanently jam a drawer, blocking access to its contents. It would be a big concern, for example, if a laptop with files needed for a PowerPoint presentation within a half-hour, or a decaying salmon bought fresh at the fish market, were rendered inaccessible. The services of a Body, Fender and Drawer repair shop would be required immediately.
Yet in spite of weaknesses that I have enumerated, I am not yet ready to give up on the idea of car drawers or cabinets. Utility trucks have exterior cabinet doors for tools and supplies, so why couldn’t a family sedan?
Consider the Picnicar, for example. Rooftop solar panels would help power small, insulated coolers and refrigerators accessible from the side of the vehicle. A handheld remote would unlock the cabinet doors. The elegant convenience of the exterior cabinets would be a selling point for this car. Perhaps there would be problems from wine connoisseur-car thieves who might try to pry open the exterior wine cabinets to see if rare wines are hidden inside. There is plenty to think about here!
Visit Steven M. Johnson at his website.
How do you keep cars from zooming too fast in a crowded parking lot? How about an anamorphic optical illusion?
In Vancouver, the BCAA Traffic Safety Foundation and the safety group Preventable have teamed up and placed an optical illusion of a little girl chasing a ball down the street in an effort to curb reckless driving.
The reasoning behind the display, which costs roughly $15,000, as explained by David Dunn of the BCAA Traffic Safety Foundation:“We need to expect the unexpected because anything could happen, whether it is a 3D image on the road … or whether it’s a live child or a dog running in front of the car, these are all things that we have to be able to control for in a vehicle”
What do you think? Good idea or bad?
John Kellas went to a car mechanic complaining that his car’s engine was making a squeaking noise. The culprit turned out to be a trapped kitten:
"I said no, no, it must be some engine part – as I could not see any cat. But when I went into town in the afternoon, I was convinced too that I heard something. But every time I stopped the car, I could not hear or see anything.
"I decided to take the vehicle to Farmer Autocare in Perth, but the mechanics couldn’t find it either. They were thinking I was taking the mickey out of them, that I was referring to a catalytic converter or something
"Just when they were about to give up, we all heard the kitten. At that point two of the mechanics stripped out the bottom of the car. That was when we saw a couple of little eyes peeking out from the dark corner, looking very terrified.
Have you ever wished your car had eyelashes? Now it can! Carlashes attach to your car with tape and won’t damage the paint. It will give your car that totally unnecessary feminine look. Link -via The Daily What
If you’re the sort of guy who slept on a car-shaped bed when you’re a little kid and loved it, perhaps this is the hotel for you: the V8 Hotel, a car-themed hotel in Stuttgard, Germany:
Welcome to the hotel that offers you the night – and the ride – of your life.
The V8 Hotel boasts rooms guaranteed to rev the engine of any car lover – because the beds and rooms are made from their favourite vehicles.
Based in the centre of Stuttgart’s Meilenwerk – a German international hub for car dealers – guests can sleep in everything from a Morris Minor to a Mercedes.
The Daily Mail has more pics: Link | V8 Hotel website (in German)
This old car was bought sight unseen off Craigslist because it was cheap. I think someone many years ago tried to make this resemble another famous car. What do you think? -via Cynical-C
Hayes Johnson made a Storm Trooper hood ornament for his Buick Park Avenue. Geeks Are Sexy asked and found out how he did it. These might become really popular! Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Agent RayBans)
Where I live in the suburbs of Los Angeles there is a small – admittedly very small – chance I will be shot at while driving or riding in a car on the freeway. For reasons not clear to me, some young men enjoy shooting at other young men. Some even enjoy shooting at strangers. I am getting pretty tired of all the violence in our culture! One of my solutions for the freeway shooters is to give them their own freeway. This would be a toll road where one pays for the privilege of smashing and damaging other cars and even harming the cars’ occupants. It is likely that my fussy rules – “No Smashing or Squirting Above 30 MPH” – would be ignored by drivers who are already prone to breaking rules. The toll booth operator would look for the words “Road Violence Certified” on the driver’s license and require the driver to sign a waiver exempting other drivers from responsibility for property damage to his car, bodily injury or death to his person or passengers. The toll road would be walled off from nearby bedroom communities, though the sound of screeching tires, and violent thudding would be audible from backyards at all hours. Perhaps at times gunfire would be heard. If this sounds like science fiction, I can attest that while I live in a “good” neighborhood of Los Angeles, one that is relatively safe, it adjoins a “bad” neighborhood where the sound of gunshots, especially at night, is not uncommon. 
The existence of this special freeway would of course stimulate a small industry devoted to the design of protective grating, cladding, and roll bars, as well as offensive weapons that would be guaranteed to dent vehicles or ruin paint jobs. 
The least offensive weapon would be the squirt cannon. Some cannons would be oversized versions of a child’s squirt gun, while others would be powerful and might be capable of shooting liquids that peel car paint. 
Perhaps there would be participants – new to Car Wars – who would naively think it fun to bring the entire family along for an afternoon at the Car Wars Toll Road. That would be the last time they brought the wife and kids! Here the car owner is shown filling his squirt cannon for the first time. 
Designing a vehicle that could inflict harm, yet remain relatively unharmed itself would be a challenge. My sketches explore both offensive and defensive modifications. The latter include window bars, cladding, heavy armor and spiky projections from a car’s body. 
A Bonger Car, named for the sound it makes when its “bonger” arm smashes a car’s reinforced metal roof, would dent or smash in the roof of a nearby vehicle, but unless it was protected in some way, it would be easily damaged in a retaliatory attack. The protected Bonger Car may look silly, but it sustains less damage than when unprotected. Exiting the car following an afternoon at the Car Wars may require outside assistance.
Visit Steven M. Johnson at his website.
Police in Larkspur, Colorado investigated a complaint of a car with the horn blaring for 45 minutes in the middle of the night. They found the car, with a bear inside it. What’s more, the bear had taken the car where the police found it! Ben Story had parked his car the night before and did not lock it. What’s more, there was a sandwich inside, which bears find hard to resist.
Ben’s father, Ralph, said the bear hit the shifter and the car rolled backward about 125 feet, off the driveway, down an embankment and into some trees on Eagle Road near Tenderfoot Drive.
“So this bear opened the door on his own. Somehow the door closed behind him. He panicked and started thrashing around, hit the shifter and put the car, took it out of park,” Ralph said. “It rolled back, down over the hill, and down into here, and stopped. The four way flashers were on. It’s like he knew what was going on, and kept hitting the horn.”
Police declined to open the car door, and finally freed the bear by tying a rope to the door handle so they could open it from further away. The bear wandered off, leaving the vehicle’s interior shredded. Link
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