Saturday, December 17, 2016
The Last Fast Place in Australia, a film to be made through an Indiegogo crowdsourced fundraiser about Speedweek on Australia's Lake Gairdner
A documentary journey to Lake Gairdner in South Australia, the salt flats similar to Bonneville.
A film about the colourful community of land speed racers trying to attain the extreme speeds at the annual Speedweek.
The fundraiser is going to be used for the travel, camping equipment, and rental camera equipment at such a remote part of Australia, 150 kilometres from the nearest tarmac road. It might raise enough funds to help with post-production too. 100% of pledges will go towards this project.
Hey, you can even get your 1st IMDB associate producer credit if you can donate $800 AUD and can travel to Australia to join the crew and work behind the scenes on location. (Travel and accommodations not included)
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-last-fast-place-in-australia-environment--2?secret_perk_token=96bee069#/
https://www.facebook.com/DryLakesRacersAustralia/
https://www.facebook.com/omaigniez
the Alfa Romeo Bertone Carabo photos from the 60s
Sensational road car that the thinly disguised racer Stradale was, Alfa struggled to sell the cars. So five chassis were passed to Italian carozzerie for concept use. Pininfarina designed the 33.2 and Cuneo, Italdesign the Iguana, the two to Bertone yielded the Carabo and Navajo.
Gandini used the wedge shape to address aerodynamic lift issues of the Lambo Miura P400 he also designed. He hid headlights beneath active flaps, Carabo was also the first car to use the front-hinged wing doors the great Italian maestro later used on his Countach. The car also gave styling cues to the Lancia Stratos Zero concept and the ‘closer to production’ Stratos HF.
https://primotipo.com/2016/05/15/alfa-romeo-carabo/
who is to blame? Drivers for unsafe speeds on slushy roads? Or telecom workers on the far side of a hill....? OR the maniac filming this instead of getting to the other side and slowing people down, warning them, and calling cops (which did happen, they took 30 minutes to arrive) to get involved to prevent more collisions?
This has to be the most bonkers thing I've seen all week. All these locals OUGHT to know how dangerous it is to drive on this road, with slush on it.
But the situation is a danger magnet, and people in the ditch create looky loos, who either slow down to watch the people in the ditch or stop paying attention to the slower traffic ahead of them (truck at the end of the video) and run into others.
But the telecom workers ought to be freaked out by the number of people going off the road. They should NOT continue to be a part of the problem, and ought to get traffic control in place.
You decide... let me know in the comments if the telecom are at fault, or not. Anything you want to say after that is totally cool... but please start with ".... is to blame" or ".... is at fault, or not at fault."
I'd like to tally the score on this one
wow.. you know this is going to end badly, but it's fun to watch and see how spectacularly it's going to get dunked
Think those idiots had insurance, or any way to ever get that excavator out of the water?
the Johnson Wax company sponsored the Can Am race series and commissioned a unique trophy. And yet not a single good photo of it exists on the internet anywhere. No champion and his trophy, not one photo
“The nacelle-like trophy,” we wrote in Competition Press Autoweek back in 1966, “made of magnesium and aluminum, is given its upward thrust by the ‘repel’ action of powerful ceramic magnets in it and the black ‘launching pad’ of its pedestal.”
http://autoweek.com/article/car-life/what-happened-can-ams-incredible-levitating-championship-trophy
during the filming of the James Garner movie Gran Prix
Bruce McLaren looking upon his teams GP debut, at the ’66 Monaco GP, the color of the car is a function of doing a deal with John Frankenheimer’s crew as part of filming of ‘Grand Prix’
https://primotipo.com/2016/10/07/mclarens-19667-f1-cars/
Friday, December 16, 2016
the only known factory-built ’64 Dodge Race Hemi wagon. With perfect 50/50 front/rear weight distribution, the Hemi Wagon didn’t need wheelbase manipulation to gather trophies, but it had a 17 year old driver.
His father, Harry Baker, ran Harry Baker Motors, a small but successful Chrysler-Plymouth dealership in Newton, Kansas. He was in the Army Air Force during WWII and was a ball turret gunner aboard a B-17. That was one of the most vulnerable positions on the aircraft, but he made it through thirty combat missions over Germany without a scratch. Right after the war ended, Dad came home, started selling cars in 1946, and married his sweetheart.
The 426 Race Hemi was huge news in 1964. To launch it, Chrysler Corp. built approximately 50 Dodge lightweight sedans, 12 steel-nose hardtops, and this 440-series station wagon. It was first campaigned by son of the President of the Mopar parts division, and Dodge Vice President
At the 1964 NHRA Indy Nationals it won B/FX, the A, B, and C Factory Experimental rules did not require quantity production. They only called for the use of approved factory-sourced parts, which could be mixed and matched at will by factory engineers.
The race-ready wagon was sold to Harry Baker Motors before the end of the 1964 season.
Full story and gallery at http://www.hotrod.com/articles/factory-built-64-hemi-wagon-really-happened/
http://www.overdrive.fi/forum/threads/vanhoja-valokuvia-ameriikan-raitilta.267070/page-317#post-3070541
http://www.overdrive.fi/forum/threads/vanhoja-valokuvia-ameriikan-raitilta.267070/page-786#post-3197450
Mystic Warrior, a 1963 Pontiac Super Duty Tempest mule car. This car was sponsored by Union Park Pontiac in Wilmington, Delaware.
http://www.hotrod.com/articles/2016-edition-muscle-car-corvette-nationals-proves-mcacn-greatest-muscle-car-show-country-not-world/
By 1963, Super Stock drag racing was capturing the attention of competitors, spectators, and manufacturers alike who wanted to claim theirs was the fastest car around. Though Pontiac had started the Sixties strongly with its Super Duty parts program and factory-built SD Catalina and Grand Prix race cars, the competition was posing a major threat
Pontiac initially responded to the 200- to 300-pound weight penalty the Super Dutys suffered by offering aluminum body panels, then by building the Swiss Cheese Catalinas.
Unfortuately in addition to having frames break due to the removal of too much metal, the cars were still too heavy once Mopars got aluminum body parts of their own. Something drastic had to be done to shut down the "Max Wedge" Mopars, so the Tempest was called upon to defend Pontiac's honor on the drag strip.
Actually, Mickey Thompson, Royal Pontiac, and even Pontiac Engineering cooked up their own versions of the dropping Pontiac's brutal 421-cid Super Duty race engine, a 12:1 500 hp motor, in the compact Tempest.
The only problem was that stock transaxles weren't able to last under the shock. Engineers came up with a new 4 speed transaxle known as the "Powershift." The Powershift was essentially two Corvair Powerglide two-speed automatic transaxles mounted inline to offer 4 forward speeds by combining off-the-shelf parts with more than 200 new components unique to this design and then casting a new case to hold it ail together.
Though the Powershift was by no means "bulletproof," it was quite a bit more durable than a stock production unit. The rear-mounted 4 speed could use either a clutch or a torque converter, giving racers the opportunity to choose. The only available final-drive ratio was 3.90:1 and only 14 were built, one for each car produced. No spare cases were built.
To save weight, the Tempests were fitted with full aluminum noses and the doors had much of their inner bracing removed. Production of these racing specials came to 2 prototype Tempest coupes, 6 LeMans coupes, and 6 Tempest station wagons.
Unfortunately, all the effort came to naught. On January 24, 1963, General Motors, fearing an antitrust suit from the U.S. Department of Justice, announced that it was pulling out of all factory-supported racing activities. Apparently, GM's market share was dangerously close to the 60-percent figure that would trigger a federal investigation.
Pontiac's Super Duty program was killed. Those few 1963 Super Duty cars that made it out of GM ended up in the hands of privateer racers and collectors.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1961-1963-pontiac-tempest9.htm
Robot wars are getting closer... a Korean mech is looking like the closest thing to the fighting bots in the Hugh Jackman movie I've seen yet
see the video of the testing of it's forward walking at https://www.facebook.com/megabotsinc/posts/1549877731707439
Moose are licking salt off the cars in Canada
In Alberta they are advising that the recommended "moose viewing distance" is 30m (100ft), and any car-licking creatures can be deterred by either sounding a horn or using a remote door alarm instead.
Because a moose can weigh more than 1,000lb (453kg), trying to convince one using any other method isn't likely to be effective. The animals can become aggressive and charge people or vehicles if they feel threatened.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-38329779
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