Ever since LEGO and Disney announced their little partnership back in February, I’ve been eagerly awaiting some sort of joint project between the two companies. My wait has finally been rewarded.
In January 2010, LEGO will release this awesome set of Toy Story minifigs, followed later in the year by sets inspired by Cars, and the upcoming Prince of Persia film. I am SO pumped.
When most people see a Mercedes and think of performance tuning, the letters “AMG” come to mind. Understandable, but what most people tend to overlook is a little company based in Germany called BRABUS. You want your car tuned to the max? You go and visit BRABUS. Take, for instance, the 2009 Mercedes E-Class Coupe. BRABUS will turn the standard V8 engine into a 6.2-liter, 462 horsepower monster that’s capable of doing 196 MPH. Droolworthy? By all means, but remember: BRABUS tuning costs nearly twice as much as an AMG sport package. Actually, make that thousands more since this particular package costs a staggering $39,000 in addition to the base price of the car.
Hope you fuckers have $50,000 sitting in your bank account because you’re going to need to make a withdrawal ASAP. The Tesla Model S is out and boy is she a beauty. Four doors of fury, all electric motor and a $49,000 base price. Did I mention Tesla is producing 20,000 units? This means you’ll be able to buy one without being price-gouged to death by a third-party. Let’s hope Tesla can stay afloat; having a defunct electric car is like owning a Betamax player. Not cool.
New York City is home to a lot of things. The Mets, Mario and Luigi, Bryant Park. One thing that always flies here, however, is luxury. No matter the cost, you can always build something bigger and better. Such is the case with a set of new apartments in Chelsea. 200 11th Avenue will get an in-house car elevator that allows tenants to drive right into the building and get brought up to their floor automatically. It’s quite an amazing feat of technology and luxury unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
Curious how much the price of a “Sky Garage” is? Try $3 million for a one bedroom and up. Put that in your coffee and smoke it.
Know how James Bond got that beautiful Aston Martin he drives? Well I’ll tell you right now he didn’t get it by paying for tolls like a sucker. With increasing prices on toll booths in Philadelphia, New York and other greater metro areas, people are always looking for a way to save a buck.
Now for $121, you can score a remote control RF license plate cover for your vehicle. While you’re driving, just hit a button and a piece of plastic will slide to cover your plate. It looks like it’s designed for European-style license plates but I’m sure with a little DIY modding, you can get it to cover up yours. Seems well worth $121 to me if you’re a speed demon.
This past weekend, I spent my Saturday visiting the Philadelphia-based Simeone Foundation Museum, Fred Simeone’s personal collection of historic race cars. The museum is packed with cars from the early 1900s up to 1970 (with a few oddballs thrown in for good measure.) I took over 120 pictures at the museum, highlighting every detail. What a lot of people don’t know is that these cars are mostly one-of-a-kind or extremely rare. For instance, there’s a 1964 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe that Phil Spector used to own. It’s worth about $4 million bucks I hear.
To be honest, you should just click ahead to visit the Simeone Foundation’s website to learn more (there’s just too much to go over) and then visit my Flickr photoset for all the hot photos. Anyone into cars, mechanical engineering, design, racing or history will surely enjoy a magnificent collection of automobiles. After the jump, a taste of my photos and the museum.
Love to drive fast? Break the law? Good! Audi is aiming to get you into one of its cars in the next few years with a feature that should keep you seated. The Travolution system will communicate with traffic lights to let the driver know what the current state of the light is and when it’s changing colors. While most drivers will use it to roll through red lights with ease, Audi claims it’ll “streamline traffic flow, increase gas mileage, and reduce emissions.” Fair enough.
Unfortunately for us, the system is being tested in Ingostadt, Germany. No word if it’ll ever make its way over to the US but one can dream.
Daniel Deutsch made a lifesize working replica of the Star Wars landspeeder. Deutsch’s masterpiece is 1:1 scale and was built with “a custom aluminum chassis, fiberglass body, and an electric drive system that hits lightspeed at 25 mph.” It is driveable, but there’s no word on whether or not this landspeeder is street legal. Even if it’s only able to make trips around the driveway, it’s still way more useful than that DIY Jabba the Hutt we wrote about a few months back. Read more to see photos of the landspeeder under construction and posing with a puppy.
Zero Pollution Motors is teaming up with French company MDI to bring a eco-friendly “air cars” to the United States by 2010. Air cars travel at up to 35mph powered by compressed air, but they can reach a top speed of 90mph with a small fuel boost. Billed as “the world’s cleanest car,” the air-powered autos are pollution-free when not using fuel. When the power boost is necessary, they still release less than half the emissions of the Toyota Prius, which is currently the cleanest vehicle available on the American market.
In addition to being environmentally friendly, air cars are also easy on the wallet. A six seater is expected to be approximately $17,800. Filling up the tank with air costs just $2 and air cars get an astonishing 106mpg. Air car owners will only need to spring for an oil change once every 31,000 miles because the engine is so clean.
Read more for a gallery of air car pics that may make it even harder not to go postal the next time you break the bank taking your old-fashioned gas-guzzler to the pump.
Futuristic aerodynamic cars seem to be all the rage among automakers these days and the craze has made it’s way to Formula One racing where so-called “shark fin” cars are popping up left and right. Last week, Ferrari became the latest F1 racing team to try out the distinctive finned engine cover at a race in Jerez, Spain. Red Bull was the first F1 team to try out the design in February. Since then, Toyota, Renault, Toro Rosso, McLaren, and Force India have all jumped on the shark fin bandwagon. The design is thought to be more aerodynamic, but race teams are still wary that it might be vulnerable to crosswinds. After the jump, check out more shark fin racecar porn pics.
