We normally don’t come across a lot of celebrity news around here, except of course when we’re snooping around to find out which A-class celeb purchased what exotic supercar. But then again, this piece of news we found cortesy of photos shared by Just Jared were just too good to pass up.
As you may very well know by now, Hollywood is buzzing in anticipation of the Green Hornet movie that is currently under production. One of the things a lot of us pistonheads are excited about this movie is the Hornet’s ride, the Black Beauty Crown Imperial.
Unfortunately, while the crew was filming a scene with the Black Beauty, the car ended up crashing onto a cement barrier of the CAA building in Century City with rescue workers scrambling into the scene to check for any injuries. Now, we don’t know if this was a real accident or just part of the script, but judging from the photos, the scene looks more and more likely to be an unscripted one.
If somebody told you that Jay Leno and Rowan Atkinson share another thing in common apart from their comedic wit, then you probably would have just laughed off that person.
But the truth is, the two comedians do share another passion apart from making people laugh: cars.
Leno’s fanatic obsession with cars is well-documented here in the US but not a lot of us probably know that Atkinson – best known for his hilarious mimed antics as Mr. Bean – is one true blue pistonhead himself.
Aparently the sculptors at Legoland are as big a fans of the BBC’s Top Gear as we are, because as soon as they got a lead on the $60,000 Caterham Superlight R500 becoming the automotive journal’s car of the year they couldn’t help but capture the moment in Lego. Located near Windsor in England in the U.K. the four stars of the English television show find themselves at home surrounded by over 40 million other colorful building blocks in Legoland U.K.’s motor sport arena.
Legoland’s chief model maker, Guy Bagley said, “the Caterham is such a timeless and iconic car that it was a no-brainer as our choice for the motorsport area…my colleague remembered that the Stig had put the R500 through its paces and how incredible it was on the test track…it’s a design that lends itself particularly well to our bricks, too." If you just can’t get enough of this Top Gear Lego action, then do a search on youtube where you will find quite a few impressive recreations of the best television show about cars on the air today.
If you have ever seen what most consider to be the greatest car chase in movie history, then you are most likely familiar with the American actor Steve McQueen’s appreciation for reality, which is why he insisted on filming the motion picture’s iconic chase scene between McQueen’s 1968 Ford Mustang Bullitt and a black shotgun wielding 1968 Dodge Charger R/T 440 Magnum where both cars go flying through the air in San Francisco and then end up trading paint at over 100 MPH on nearby open roads. This short film from 1968 highlights McQueen’s commitment to reality in the 1968 film Bullitt.
That car, the No. 48 Chevy, belongs to Nascar driver Jimmie Johnson, who, along with colleagues Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and Dale Earnheardt Jr, dropped by the White House on the invitation of the Commander-In-Chief.
Mr. Obama gladly took some time off – what we can only assume – his hectic schedule to honor Johnson, the three-time Sprint Cup titleholder and defending champion.
We all know the President is a sports nut but we didn’t figure that he ranks Nascar right up there with the NBA and the NFL. While a number of celebrated athletes have all been invited by the President, this is the first time he’s met with NASCAR drivers, something that he’s been looking forward to for a long time. When the time finally came, Obama showed why a lot of Americans have called him the ‘People’s President’, cracking jokes with Johnson and the rest of the NASCAR constituents.
Everyones favorite late night comedian Jay Leno was recently given the opportunity to drive the all new Porsche Panamera at Pebble Beach in Carmel Valley Califonia. Jay was immediately in awe of the new Porsche’s front end while he did mention that the back end would take some getting used to. On the inside the talk show host agreed that the from the driver’s seat he was feeling pure Porsche. An interesting observation that Leno made is that like certain new cars the Panamera is one of those automobiles that looks much better in person than in any two dimensional representation. Luckily the funny man had second generation Porsche racing driver David Donahue on hand to show him the finer points of the Panamera’s launch control as well as to discuss the finer points of the two plus two’s packaging.
The Panamera made its world debut this past April at the Shanghai Motor Show with a design heavily influenced by the best selling 911. The Panamera becomes the fourth stand alone model in Porsche’s line up next to the the 911, Boxster/Cayman and Cayenne with sales set to begin very soon.
Porsche will offer the new car in two different trim-levels: Turbo and 4S. Unlike the 911 and Boxster/Cayman, the Panamera will not have a boxer engine. Instead the lineup will take its cues from the Cayenne and have engines in the more traditional V6 and V8 arrangements with power ranging from 300 to 500 HP and is fed through either a six-speed manual gearbox or aseven-speed Double-Clutch Gearbox (PDK).
Jenson Button is the greatest Formula 1 driver of the moment, thanks a great deal to his team principle Ross Brawn. It looks like the English racing driver has some big plans in store for the future because he has just put his monotone black 2008 Bugatti Veyron up for sale. So the next car he purchases will have a very large parking space to fill.
Mr. Button is only the second owner of this particular Veyron and it only has a mere 1500 miles on the odometer. He is asking £899,995 for the lot. That is a quite substantial $1,482,620 here in the U.S. That isn’t such a bad deal considering that the 1001 HP super car retails new for $1.7 Million and used versions are going for as much as $1.8 Million and the original Veyron went for $2.4 Million. So that means Jensen is taking a hit for the depreciation instead of trying to sell it as a celebrity owned automobile.
Oops! Richard Hammond did it again! After he almost died in a 280 MPH dragster crash, he was now involved in a new super car crash. This time he was driving a £110,000 Morgan AeroMax supercar.
The incident happened in the village of Gloucestershire where another car braked suddenly. Richard hit the Nissan in front of him. According to a witness to the incident the car’s front was damaged in a pretty bad way.
"Everyone got out and exchanged details and there was some good-humoured banter exchanged by the drivers after they realized it was him." reported an onlooker.
The Aeromaxis is powered by a 4.8 Lliter BMW V8 engine and can hit a top speed of 170 MPH. But it seems that Richard was only able to enjoy his super car just for a few months!
When Jay Leno officially hung up his gloves as a late-night talk show host, the prevailing thought was it was only a matter of time before he ends up in front of the cameras again.
Apparently, the return was sooner than most of us thought. Leno is scheduled to debut a one-hour prime-time show, which is predictably called, ‘The Jay Leno Show’, and being a true pistonhead, Leno is pitching to include an auto-racing event as one of his key segments.
While the format for this segment seems familiar – Leno actually copied it from Top Gear’s ‘Reasonably-Priced Car Challenge’ from which, ironically, he was one of the guest drivers – the ex-late night host is adding his own personal twist into this segment.
He’s calling it the “Green Car Challenge”, which will have celebrities racing around a specially-designed track inside the NBC compound in a – you guessed it – environmentally-friendly car.
Hold on to your horses; Michael Schumacher’s return to Formula One is still not set in stone – at least not yet.
While the entire sporting world is waiting in breathless anticipation for the 7-time World Champion’s return to Formula One, there’s one thing that could potentially derail all of that: Schumi’s neck.
Not a lot of people know that before the German decided to fill the seat vacated by the injured Felipe Massa, he sustained an injured neck while testing a German Superbike last February.
As a result of the accident, Schumacher had to be hospitalized for a few days and it was more than three months later before he saddled back up on a racing bike. While it seems like the injury occurred ages ago, Schumacher still has to get clearance from a group of doctors that will perform a series of intense training and medical checks.
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