August 2009

Wow just wow. Its just so right.

From Speedhunters blog about the Texas Mile

Here’s an interesting news story over on BBC News, it seems the Police are not getting paid enough because they have all started stealing from cars!  That’s not technically correct but it is kind of true. The story says that a new police tactic is to remove valuable items left in unlocked cars and leave the owner a note saying that they can pick them up from the station. I can see why they would do this, because getting something nicked by the police and being able to get it back is certainly a lot better than it being properly stolen. However even if a car is open it is wrong for them to take your stuff and how do we know if the police are respecting the owners privacy if the stolen goods are a laptop or address book etc. The police are opening themselves up for a lot of complaints and to be honest the police don’t need any more complaints than they have already.

I’m not sure if I personally like the idea or not, but then again I dont think it really matters to me, I’m not stupid enough to leave my car unlocked with valuables in. In fact I think the owners should be taught a lesson and the police should take there stuff and give it to charity

The worlds landspeed record for a steam powered vehicle was broken yesterday,in a Californian Air Force Base, by a British team, called the British Steam Car Challenge. It was broken with an average speed of 139.84 mph beating the original speed of 127.7 mph. It did reach a maximum of 151.085 mph, but only the average speed of two runs in different directions is used. The first run reached a top speed of 136.103 mph and the faster second run allowed for the record beating average.

The original record was set in 1906 at Daytona Beach in a Stanley Steamer, but with the steam engined vehicles soon out of date compared to there combustion engined counterparts all has been quiet on the steam powered world record front. That was until ten years ago when Frank Swanston (who sadly passed away before the project was complete) set up a team to beat said record and bring the steam engine into the 21st century.  The driver of the car, Charles Burnett lll, is no stranger to going fast having competed in drag car and drag boat racing as well as landing himself in the Guinness Book Of Records in 1999 for breaking the offshore water speed record of 137 mph. He is a big supporter of environmentally friendly vehicles and hopes this record will raise awareness of alternative methods of travelling and help with the fight against global warming.

The car is relatively simple, for a record breaking vehicle, with a two stage turbine engine that has a 13,000rpm red line, which is fuelled by LPG. This allows the 12 boilers to produce the same power as 1500 kettles. enough for 23 cups of tea per second! (23ctps? sounds like how you measure the speed in which old people work!) Working at 400°C and 40 bar of pressure, 360 hp is made at the rear wheels, Although with 7.7 metres and 3 tons to move this isn’t as much as it sounds. The car was never created to be revolutionary it was more of a demonstration to young British engineers about clean fuels and environmentally-friendly technologies.

It doesnt look very good as a showpiece against climate change and global warming, but rest assured that the smoke is actually steam flowing out at 40 litres per minute. With 1 ton of water needed to drive it for 25 minutes and a 2.5 mile build up and run off needed to get the car to speed dont expect to see them in the local Toyota dealership next to the prius‘ any time soon.

I don’t know about any of you but im really bored of seeing FWD cars mostly VW’s with hugely wide wheels on the back and smaller ones up front. Then a while ago I saw this;

It looks very silly but at the same time its just brlliant. Looks like a real life Hotwheels car, or even, if you remember, Carlos Fandango! It got me thinking about when I went to Santa Pod a month or so ago for the Retro Show and the day before it was Rotorstock, so all kind of silly fast Japanese machinery was running down the strip. Included in them were two very fast Honda Civics that were getting early 11′s and late 10′s consistently. I was stunned that something FWD could get enough grip to post times like that. Being a firm rear wheel drive fan it did make me look at shopping trolleys in a whole new light.

So I did some research today and found a whole load of FWD drag racers and they even have several pro FWD series. None of them look quite as mental as the Golf above, thats not to say they dont look mental, but they manage to get 15 inch wide wheels under actually arches! Here are some of my favourites I found

Of course i’m not going to forget videos, that would be criminal!

Everybody seems to be jumping on the Satin and Matte bandwagon these days, Lamborghini does it, and there have been quite a few Porsche’s and Ferrari’s floating around on the net sporting it. Now Gemballa have done it with one of there modified Porsche GT’s. I have to say it does look stunning, well except that awful interior!

That interior looks like the kind of gawdy furniture you find in an 80′s bedroom!

Personally I love anything satin and matte, always have done, always will (no matter how hated and ‘scene’ it becomes) and there’s something very excellent about very expensive cars being painted in a scheme my mum calls ‘cheap’.

With 670 bhp on tap and a top speed of 208, its probably a fair bit faster than most ‘shiny’ cars available, although I wonder if shinier paintwork creates less drag?!

For anyone that was a user before it went down, its now up and running again so quick go re-register now!

For anyone who has no idea what im talking about, Swdubs is a south west based dub forum run by a friend. its a very relaxed place and everyone is welcome, I dont even own a VW but I still post loads. The old forum had some hosting issues and everything was lost, its very gutting so hopefully everyone can join up again and make it better than it was before

Go here and register now!

Have some Mk1 Golfs to celebrate

Got Milk?

It appears Auto Express have taken it upon themselves to design what the new GTA version, of the Alfa 8c, could look like. Sadly GTA does not mean the ps3 game, I doubt they will have quite as much killing and stealing involved when driving it, but the new GTA will have more  power and less weight so should be a winner in the looks and handling department when it comes out. Sadly with a mere 100 being made and a price tag of £200,000 I doubt I will ever get the privilege to test it out myself.

To make up for the awful white bearded version above feast your eyes on the original ‘best looking car ever’ below

Here is some of the videos I took at the Retro Rides Gathering, not many because my SD card was tiny but worth a watch. First up is my mate ash’s mk1 golf with a run that got him 3rd in the 1500 and under class!

The next video is the awesome slammed Landy giving it some. The noise is lush so turn it all the way up! The smoke at the end was his fire extinguisher going off lol!

Here is Ash on his first run which is a bit of a practice to get a feel of what the track is like. Got to love the sound of Bike Carbs!

This next clip is of a corvette, which has one of the best sounds ever! A really quite fast time as well on such a tight course!

And finally another clip of the landy but this time a bonus bit of 2CV footage! shame I couldn’t zoom out in time though lol!

If anyone has any problems with the video player let me know and I’ll try to sort it.