There are many aftermarket tuning firms in the world that can take your everyday ride and turn it into a true work of art. For some, it’s a matter of paint and pizzazz; for others, it’s all about high-end parts and mechanical know-how. From the makers of the Ford Mustang Bosch Iridium Edition RTR that was given away at the 2011 SEMA Auto Show comes another piece of the automotive puzzle: the Bosch OE Fine Wire spark plug.
Bosch’s advertising spree for their new line of spark plugs uses a tool that most of us use on a daily basis: our gut. These hilarious commercials show a man who uses his gut to make his everyday decisions, such as knowing when two new beers are in order, knowing when to shut up when his wife is nagging at him to get out of the garage, and apparently, knowing when Bosch OE Fine Wire spark plugs need to be the chosen ones for his car.
"Bosch Iridium’s ultra-fine wire center electrode design improves ignitability, lowers voltage demand and delivers up to 4X longer service life versus standard copper core plugs. Laser welded iridium-platinum alloy inlay on the ground electrode resists cracking and potential loss for improved durability."
Bosch OE Fine Wire spark plugs can fit any American, European, and Asian engine.
Top Gear is beloved by nearly every automotive buff and we all have a great respect for the oft-controversial Jeremy Clarkson. Not only is his automotive knowledge about as in-tune as you can get, but he is also a royal ass sometimes, which we enjoy, most of the time. Well apparently folks in West Mickley in the U.K., he is even respected as a traffic cop.
A young man got tired of seeing drivers flying through his small village well in excess of the village’s 30 mph posted speed limit. Instead of calling the police or lobbying to have other speed control devices (i.e. rumble strips or speed humps) installed, he built a police officer scarecrow, which we will be the first to dub it a “scareslow,” and set it up on the side of the road as you enter the village.
This scareslow is decked out with a toy police officer hat – you know, the funny little plastic domed hats – and a bright yellow high-visibility vest. In the scareslow’s left hand is a small hair drier that is used to simulate a radar gun. Topping off the entire garb is the face of none other than U.K. automotive super celebrity, Jeremy Clarkson! The young man that made this getup decided that a printed face of Clarkson glued to this scareslow was the ultimate finishing touch.
The BBC report says that they are not too sure what exactly makes traffic slow down when seeing this contraption. It is either the sheer realism of it – rather doubtful – or people simply gawking this creation allows them to realize that this is a village with a 30 mph speed limit. The latter is the most likely of scenarios, but it is an innovative way to self-regulate traffic.
Hats off to this man for using his noggin in finding a way to effectively slow down traffic through his village.
Nearly every driver has done it, but we all fear getting pulled over for doing it. No, not speeding. We mean flashing your headlights to warn oncoming traffic of a cop car hidden off the side of the road getting ready to pounce on a fast driver.
Most of us have been told at some point that the practice is illegal, but I once learned that it actually is not illegal, just frowned upon. Apparently, the police in Seminole County, FL seem to have not gotten the memo that there is no law forbidding it in Florida, or any other state, and handed a ticket to a driver for that exact reason. They certainly got that memo in direct fashion as a Florida judge ruled against the Seminole police saying that flashing your lights to warn other drivers of a speed trap is covered under free speech. This court date was just a civil hearing and the driver still has yet to take the ticket to traffic court, which he surely will win.
The worst part of the whole thing is that the police officer gave the driver, Ryan Kintner, the ticket based on Florida’s law banning aftermarket flashing lights on civilian cars. Flashing your headlights is in no way having an aftermarket flashing light on your car. That is abuse of power to a “T,” but we’re not here to debate police and their power.
Now, before you all go out there and start flashing your lights like crazy to oncoming traffic every time you see a cop, make sure to review your state, county and city laws in regards to high beam usage. Every state or municipality has a rule on when you have to dim your high beam lights, most of which are at 500 feet from the oncoming traffic or 200 feet from traffic heading in the same direction as you.
Typically the CEOs of big companies stay in the background and just keep the corporate wheels turning. Most CEOs also know that it is typically not a good thing when your name ends up in the papers just as often, if not more often, than the brand you are heading up. Well, Lotus CEO Dany Bahar must have a tough time comprehending the fact that no new is good news for a CEO.
It came to a head whenever DRB-HICOM purchased Proton, Lotus’s parent company, and inherited the Lotus money vacuum in the process. The media then took to speculating about the status of Lotus, given its new owner, and Bahar went on a teenage girl-like rampage via the worst possible medium, Facebook. That post still remains on the company’s page too.
At that point, we started speculating that Bahar’s time with Lotus may be limited, as DRB-HICOM really has no need for a moody CEO that can’t keep his company’s head above water. Apparently, we had our crystal ball working that day, as DRB-HICOM has announced that Bahar has been “temporarily suspended” following an operational review and a full investigation of Bahar’s actions will take place during his suspension. Several executives from DRB-HICOM will take Bahar’s place during his absence.
Well, I have been in the corporate world long enough to know that a “temporary suspension” during an “investigation” typically spell out “you’re fired once we find some dirt.” Rarely does a suspended employee ever return to their original position and few return at all, so we have a feeling that this will ultimately put an end to the drama of Dany Bahar. Looks like TopSpeed’s “Lotus” section is going to be dry for a while… At least until we get word that Dany is now managing a local McDonalds.
We have seen many automotive pranks in our time, but the following one definitely tops the list for ingenuity, skill, and creativity. It is unlikely to be topped in the near future, just because it is so impressive.
Volkswagen is unquestionably one of the world’s biggest companies with it owning a fairly large selection of other brands including Bugatti, Bentley, Seat, and even Lamborghini, so it obviously takes some creativity to get an upper hand over the competition. Fiat definitely did just that the other day, when they took the opportunity to take advantage of one of the numerous Google Street View vans driving across the globe, and capture something completely unique.
Both Volkswagen and Fiat have headquarters in Sweden and when workers at the Fiat HQ noticed the Google Street View car driving past, they rushed over to their competitor’s major branch in a brand new Fiat 500, 45 minutes away to capture the perfectly executed images you see in the gallery below.
The bright red Fiat 500 can be seen following the Street View car from a distance just seconds away from Volkswagen headquarters before speeding up Volkswagen’s driveway, pulling up in directly below the Volkswagen sign just in time for the images to be captured and then uploaded to Google Street View for the world to see.
And all of this happened in just a matter a seconds without VW having any idea about the stunt, meaning the German marque will have to accept having one of its competitors cars parked outside its showroom for at least a year.
Don’t however, expect VW to take this lightly. We suspect they’re already planning an ingenious way to get back at Fiat.
We all love viral videos. Sure, half of them are completely irrelevant to everyday life, but we can always find time to watch them. The following video is no exception, with it raking up in almost 2 million views in a couple of days, and it’s not surprising why.
A trio of citizens from Chicago in the U.S. managed to film a $225,000 Lamborghini Gallardo crashing into oncoming traffic and swiftly bursting out laughing, just like we did, even though thousands of dollars of damage was inevitably caused. After all, it’s always fun watching videos of supercar drivers who have no clue in how to control their mighty, Italian machines.
One of the most ironic things about the video is that the man filming picked that the Lamborghini owner was going to pin the throttle through the turn and then just seconds later, it all started to unfold. Whilst getting off the line quite slowly, the owner began to increase their speed through the corner (just like any other good driver does) but before straightening out, the throttle was floored and a split-second later, the tail begins to slide wide sending the Italian supercar into two stationary cars on the opposing side of the road.
All we can say is that we’d hate to see the driver controlling a rear-wheel drive car, as that obviously wouldn’t end well.
Over the years, we’ve seen almost every match-up conceivable to test both abilities of man and machine, until we stumbled upon the following video. Cars have shown themselves against other cars for years, and even a variety of motorcycles, but before now, we’d never seen a Lamborghini pitted against a strongman.
As a part of the 2009 World’s Strongest Man competition, one of the incredibly fierce competitors was put behind a Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT race car and had to hold it back for as long as possible, eventually holding the Diablo back for 6 seconds. However, before the game could get underway in earnest, the clutch of the R-GT broke and throughout the first half of the video, you’ll notice that the Murci is simply revving rather than pulling the man and utilizing all of its torque, so instead a Lamborghini Diablo racer was called in to get the job done.
The clock started when the famous supercar began to burn up its rear tires in a valiant effort to pull the strongman off his feet but it failed to do so until he let go at the 6 second mark. The occurrence of the wheels spinning may look extremely impressive, but the vast majority of the cars power and torque are lost during this spectacle and it would be a better representation of the car’s ability if it were all-wheel-drive and could access all the necessary power.
Nevertheless, it’s an incredible effort to hold back a car packing in excess of 500 horsepower for upwards of 5 seconds, and something you’re never likely to see in real life, so check out the video!
We appreciate a funny parody when we see one; this particular creation, called the Fahrradi Farfalla FFX certainly ranks among the funniest we’ve seen in a while. From afar, the vehicle looks every bit like a Ferrari FXX supercar, but once you take a closer look, you discover that the only thing "super" about it is its design.
What lies underneath the specially constructed aluminum frame is, for lack of a better term, a bicycle that runs on the leg strength of the one riding it. For good hilarious measure, folks behind this piece of work decided to turn the skit to a whole new level by producing a video that mocks Michael Schumacher’s SLS "tunnel" commercial, complete with a ridiculous visual effect of the Farfalla FFX driving on the walls and ceiling of the tunnel.
Check out the video (after the jump) and a few photos of a true one-of-a-kind vehicle...err...bicycle. Let the hilarity ensue!
A few weeks ago we brought you Justin Bieber’s completely ruined – chromed – Fisker Karma and we pretty much marked that monstrosity up as the world’s worst car modification. Well, it didn’t take too awful long for something a little more disgustingly over the top to unseat Bieber’s rolling mirror.
This 2005 Porsche 996 Turbo Cabriolet, which we all know and love dearly as the 911 Turbo Convertible, has received some real blingage in the form of gold leaf covering the entire body of this once gorgeous machine. According to rumors afloat around the Interwebz, this debacle of a modification took somewhere in the range of $600,000 to create.
Should you desire to be as conspicuous as possible and snag up this rolling theft bait, you can do so at the tune of just 1.8 million Russian Rubles, which equates to just a tick above $61,000. That price has to be rather disappointing for its owner if those $600,000 build cost rumors are actually true, as that is only about $9,000 less than you can get a mint condition 911 Turbo Convertible with 58,000 km (36,371 miles) for, sans the gold.
With a price that low, there may be quite an interesting back story to this entire sale, given the price is 10% of the initial cost and less than the actual market value of the car. There are no mentions of its mechanical condition, so that could be the reasoning for its low cost, or maybe the owner is tired of panhandlers peeling off sections of his car to pawn.
Here’s to hoping that someone buys this once awesome car and converts it back to its correct form, which shouldn’t be too hard since the interior looks pretty much stock.
Every car buff knows that when you need to haul 15,000+ pounds, rip a stump out of the ground, or pull down an aging barn, you’re best off if you use a diesel-powered machine. Not due to its horsepower, but due to its torque. See, diesel engines notoriously have extremely high torque ratings, but their horsepower is typically very low in comparison.
So now you can understand our confusion and excitement when we hear about a diesel-powered dragster. That’s like hearing about a 1994 Geo Metro that can tow 10,000 pounds; it just doesn’t quite make sense. Well, now it does. What we have in the above video is a rail car with an International DT466 engine, which primarily saw use in school buses and farm equipment.
We are not too sure which DT466 this dragster has, as there are several variants – MaxForce DT466, DT466E, and DT466 – but we do know they produced a maximum of 300 horsepower, which is certainly not enough to get the car down a quarter mile in 7.6 seconds. According to the original poster of the video, the engine was built by famed diesel engine specialists Hypermax.
Needless to say it is fairly badass to hear a diesel engine spooling up three turbo chargers, then flying down a racetrack with black smoke billowing away. Yeah, a 7-second drag car is fun, but the added effect of the diesel sights and sounds just make it absolutely insane.
Crank up those speakers nice and loud, and enjoy the sounds of this beast.
