Make Like Bond and Skip The Toll Booth

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.

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The Simeone Foundation Car Museum

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.

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Audi Developing Traffic Light Detection System

Filed under: Software, Transportation

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.

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Dude Makes Full Size Star Wars Landspeeder In His Garage

Filed under: DIYs, Transportation

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.

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The World’s Cleanest Car Is Coming To America

Filed under: Eco-tech, Transportation

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.

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Formula One’s Shark Fin Racecar Fad

Filed under: Transportation

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.

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BMW ZX-6 Concept “Car”

I can only imagine how great crack cocaine must be. Seriously, it’s gotta be one hell of a drug. I know this much because the design team at BMW has obviously been smoking a shitload of it. Well, actually, it wasn’t BMW that designed the ZX-6 Concept, it was created by students at Turin-based IED design studio. Certainly not the geniuses that created Gina.

The students claim they drew inspiration from elements, music, and arts. I think they just smoked way too much crack cocaine. Look at this fucking thing. How am I going to drive it over a speed bump? Considering the fucking vehicle doesn’t even have wheels, I’m going to have to pass on the test drive. What a piece of shit. These students clearly ride the short bus to attend the prestigious Crack Cocaine University. Have any crack?

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Building A LEGO VW Beetle Won’t Make You A Nazi

Filed under: DIYs, Design, Hardware

Volkswagen owners are really passionate about their cars. My buddy Raymond owns a GTI and puts like $10,000 into it each year. That’s a lot of money, so why not go for something a little more affordable? For $120, you can score this 1626 piece VW Beetle LEGO kit.

Based on a 1960 ‘Charlotte’ model, the VW is 16″ long and features moving parts and doors that open and close. I think that for $120, it’s a steal. You and your pals will have fun getting drunk and building it. That is, until you lose that one piece.
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Completely Unnecessary: The Bentley Laptop

Before we continue, we need to make sure you’re a black rapper with a ton of cash, bitches and no mortgages. If you meet the criteria, then proceed on to learn about an item that will not only make you look good, but will also allow you to wipe your ass with leather if you ever feel like it. Yes, it’s the Bentley laptop and yes, it’s real.

Unlike other high-end laptops (Lamborghini, Ferrari, etc.), this laptop costs significantly more and isn’t exactly the best computer on the market. Aside from the purse-like styling and fancy colored leather, the laptop features a beautiful Bentley logo, Windows Vista, “a 64-bit CPU” and a really lame 160GB hard drive. The price for the name of Bentley plastered on a shit item? $19,943.
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DIY Car Stereo Faceplate Fools Would-be Thieves

Filed under: DIYs, Transportation

Quality car stereos are always getting stolen so a poster on Instructibles who goes by the name of sfgabe came up with an easy way to fool thieves into thinking that your sound system has already been jacked. Gabe, who says he lives in a “sketchy section [of] Oakland” where his car gets broken into on a “weekly basis” came up with a technique that enables you to place a broken faceplate in front of your stereo to cover up the real thing create the impression that the dashboard has been gutted while still keeping your sweet stereo safe and sound. If you make yourself one of these and get some of those anti-theft faux-rust stickers, criminals will definitely keep far away from your ride, but be forewarned potential dates will probably have the same reaction. If you want a ride that manages to stay secure while still looking impressive allow me to suggest Volkswagen’s seemingly impregnable Ego concept car.

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