Ken Block might not be the world’s best World Rally Championship driver, but he might be the sport’s best entertainer. The superstar knows how to rack up YouTube views with jaw-dropping stunts and a panache that most of us can only dream of.
Beyond the jump is the latest Ken Block production, but instead of the real KB, we get funnyman Nick Swardson dressed up in full Block gear. Swardson pokes fun of Block just about every way imaginable, and the real Block sits in disguised as the interviewer.
It’s hilarious, and you can watch it . We’d watch it again, but we’re too busy looking for Ken-chantment cologne on Amazon.
Aftermarket smartphone integration leaves plenty to be desired. Most systems limit the usability of your device and require a tangle of cords or battery-sucking Bluetooth. Then there’s the headache of trying to figure out how to access your files and applications via the stereo’s cryptic controls. A new Kickstarter project aims to fix all that. Dash is a standard double-din head unit that uses a unique magnetic CNC-aluminum faceplate to dock your phone straight into your vehicle’s dashboard. From there, accessing GPS, sending texts (by voice, of course) and playing music is as simple as swiping your screen. Pretty slick.
Dash features a video pass through so users can play video on external monitors, and the system keeps your phone charged while in use. The unit pumps out 4×50w of power and includes two preamps for front and rear subwoofers.
We typically get antsy any time we see technology that encourages distraction. To that end, Dash also includes an app to make all of your auto-themed applications easily accessible from one home screen. While that should cut down on the amount of time spent flipping through the main menu, it still appears that drivers will have to squint at their phones from behind the wheel.
The system features some interesting innovations, too. In addition to carrying the traditional FM tuner and an AUX in, Dash will eventually allow users to connect to their vehicle’s computer. That, we can get behind.
The system is expected to begin shipping in June 2012. At first, Dash will only support the iPhone 4 and 4S, but Devium, the company behind Dash, hopes to support other smartphones in the future. Check out the for more information, and click for a quick video of the system in action.
took it on the chin for its boring redesign of the , but here’s one thing it got right: Reducing the use of in the manufacturing process for its interior. According to the Ecology Center’s new report on HealthyStuff.org, the uses the least off-gassing plastics, materials that can lead to volatile organic compound emissions. VOC’s have been linked to health problems including cancer and birth defects, according to the report.
“Research shows that vehicle interiors contain a unique cocktail of hundreds of toxic chemicals that off-gas in small, confined spaces,” said Jeff Gearhart, Research Director at the Ecology Center, in a statement. “Since these chemicals are not regulated, consumers have no way of knowing the dangers they face. Our testing is intended to expose those dangers and encourage manufacturers to use safer alternatives.”
Honda does not use bromine-based flame retardants in the Civic and specs PVC-free interior fabrics and trim, while also eliminating most heavy metals from the interior.
The worst vehicle tested, the , “contained bromine and antimony-based flame retardants in the seating and center console; chromium treated leather on several components; and over 400 ppm lead in seating materials,” according to the report.
The good news is that PVC use is declining overall, with 17 percent of new models boasting PVC-free interiors, up from none in 2006, according to HealthyStuff.org. Some 60 percent of new vehicles do not contain bromine flame retardants. It seems that automakers are backing efforts to eliminate these hazardous chemicals from vehicle interiors, with HealthyStuff.org pointing out that and have adopted voluntary third-party eco labels for some of their vehicles. The average ratings for Ford’s vehicles showed a 30-percent improvement from the 2009/2010 study.
Click for a video and the full press release, including the 10 best and worst vehicles in the study.
It’s quite apparent that technology, in addition to helping us avoid advertising (thank you, DVR), has simultaneously enabled much more of it, and in many more places. And when used properly, technology has made some ads a lot more interesting.
constructed an interactive ad for its Viano minivan in Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse subway station. To promote the chasmic space inside the people-hauler, the ad allowed riders waiting for trains to open the door of a virtual Viano using their own car keys, then watch what kinds of things climbed out and how many of them there were. to check out the video.
co-opts car keys for clever interactive subway ads
There’s a part of us that wishes the automotive industry were packed with more eccentric characters like Lapo Elkann. The rakish heir to the empire (and of ) is anything but dull, in a transsexual prostitute’s apartment one minute and of an NBA basketball game the next.
As much a fashion icon as an industrial tycoon, Lapo is the darling of published arbiters of style like Intersection and Wallpapermagazines, the latter of which got a behind-the-scenes look at Lapo’s favorite cars for a photo shoot. So what’s in his garage?
Well, we he had a and a done up with denim upholstery, but apparently one of his favorites is the that he had painted matte olive green. And then there’s a decked out in camouflage, as if you could hide one of the loudest, most head-turning cars on the road. Want to see the rest? to watch the video.
The Huet Brothers original , released three years ago, was based on the aging mechanicals of a Triumph TR6. The new should have stronger bones: it starts its life as a .
Buyers can opt for the daily-driver model announced a couple of weeks ago, or one of the two more hardcore iterations shown here. The HB Coupe RR modifies the BMW underpinnings with a full carbon monocoque, gives it a more spartan interior, and offers a buffet of engine options, including a 220-horsepower diesel four, a 3.0-liter inline six with 306 hp, or the full M-spec 330 hp six for a 0-60 run in 5.3, 4.0 or 3.8 seconds, respectively.
Not shabby, but for the truly performance-obsessed there’s also a track-ready Race model. Tino and Paul Huet are taking orders, but in order to complete development and begin construction, they’re generating capital by .
Despite tight budgets at all levels of government, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is still . According to a report in The Huffington Post, a small town in New Hampshire was set to receive an armored personnel vehicle before one local resident launched a petition drive to block the acquisition.
The Keene, NH, police department was going to get its own Lenco BearCat, a vehicle the town’s mayor reportedly described as a “tank.” However, citizens in the town of 23,000 revolted, according to the article, with nearly 100 of them packing a city council meeting in opposition. Critics said the vehicle promoted violence, and cited a promotional video for the BearCat that shows gun-wielding cops using one of the armored trucks to knock down the door of a house and spray tear gas inside. The issue is scheduled to come up again at next month’s meeting.
A $285,933 grant from DHS would pay for the eight-ton military truck. The Huffington Post cites a report from the Center for Investigative Reporting stating that $34 billion of similar grants have been issued since Sept. 11, 2001.
A Lenco spokesman criticized some of the citizens who spoke out against his firm’s vehicle, calling them “crazy” and saying, “When a Lenco Bearcat shows up at a crime scene where a suicidal killer is holding hostages, it doesn’t show up with a cannon. It shows up with a negotiator. Our trucks save lives,” according to the article.
Click to watch the Lenco BearCat promotional video, featuring AC-DC’s “Thunderstruck.”
Chevrolet’s fire-breathing, can now be custom configured for your very own garage – at least your virtual one.
The 580-horsepower, 6.2-liter V8-powered won’t come cheaply, starting at $54,995, and choices are limited. Major options include paint (we’re kind of fond of the $325 Rally Yellow scheme shown above, though perhaps it’s a little too Transformersque), transmission choice (six-speed manual or automatic), wheel finish, sunroof and faux suede interior bits. Given that this is a small-volume model with serious performance intentions, we’re not bothered by the limited decision tree offered by the configurator, and it helps tamp the bottom line down.
Build your own by checking out the link below, or compare and contrast builds against the ZL1’s nemesis, the by checking out the latter’s configurator .
Apparently, being the Official Automotive Marketing partner of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit property was just the excuse needed to get in touch with swimsuit model Tori Praver. And we can hardly blame them.
But what could Praver’s statuesque body and perfectly feminine features have to do with cars, you ask? That’s a very good question, and it’s one we’re sure the Lexus marketing team spent hours considering. The answer, interestingly enough, is all in the curves.
Lexus brought us showing two racers drifting a around a makeshift track drawn around the gigantor-size body of Ms. Praver, the luxury wing of the conglomerate has delivered a video game of similar intent for Apple’s ever-popular range of iDevices.
The TORI 500 racing app allows players to pilot GS sedans around digitized 3D renderings of Praver’s body. Sounds… curvy. Check out the official press release , where we’ve also reposted the video of Praver and the (real-life) racing drivers.
We’ll be honest: We miss drifting. Not the polished, sponsor-laden, energy-drink soaked Formula D. We miss the seedy internet shaky-hand cam videos of Japanese drivers slinging their hand-built machines up the mountain side in the middle of the night. Poland, of all places, has sought to marry the worlds of professional, sanctioned drifting with the thrill of taking on a public road. The pairing of a hill climb with drifting may seem odd, but trust us when we say it works. With fans lining the course and drivers all new to improvised track, anything can happen.
Disrespect the mountain, and you’ll wind up on your roof. That didn’t stop drivers from giving it all they had, however. Fortunately for those of us who aren’t within a train ride of Eastern Europe, camera crews documented all the action for the world to see. to check out the high-definition video antics for yourself.
We’ve been tracing trail 16 through the ridges and hollows outside of Oliver Springs, Tennessee for the past five hours, inching along through rocker-deep mud, crawling over differential-busting rocks and clamoring up and down slopes made slick with two days’ worth of torrential rain. Our wanderings have led us here – facing down one of the steepest climbs of the day. Through the mud-speckled windshield, I can see the path make a quick right turn before bolting up the side of the ridge. Walls of red clay littered with jagged roots and jutting rocks tower to either side of the deeply-rutted path, waiting to open our sheetmetal like maniacal can openers. You’d be hard-pressed to walk the route we’re about to take, let alone drive it.
The two-way radio in the center console crackles to life.
“Trail’s clear up top. You’ve got it.”
I drop the five-speed automatic into Drive, kick the transfer case into Four High and turn the traction control off before taking a deep breath. Fortune may favor the brave, but so do body shops. My spotter in the passenger seat repeats the word of the day, “momentum,” and takes hold of the grab bar on the dash as I plant my foot on the accelerator.
We’re boldly going where no bone-stock has gone before.
There are a few car photographers out there that we count among our favorites. Our own is at the top of the list for obvious reasons (have you seen his recent ?), but close behind is Jordan Shiraki. We’ve shown you his work before, including a where the came face to face with the supercar that’s replacing it.
Jordan mainly shoots Lambos, rare ones at that, and he shoots them well. Recently, however, he decided to do something extra special for a shoot with an ultra rare . Only 12 of these special edition Gallardos were made; this one is #11. So to set this shoot apart, Jordan decided to try his hand at producing video, and the result is .
The three and a half minute video is every bit as beautiful as his still photography, if not more so. We suggest setting the YouTube player to 720p and turning up the sound. Oh, and he didn’t forget to pull out his DSLR during the shoot either, so check out the gallery below.
Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But most of all, give us your supercars.
There have been far too many that were never homologated for the American market, but thankfully the new McLaren MP4-12C isn’t one of them. McLaren Automotive has set up an entire network of dealers across these United States – and even one in Canada! Which is all well and fine, but ain’t worth jack if they don’t have stock.
Fortunately that’s exactly what has arrived at the Port of Baltimore and proliferated across the country. It’s enough to have us looking at what our extraneous organs would be worth on the black market, and you can see it for yourself in the . (Pay close attention and you just might notice one passing something rather unique on Rodeo Drive.)
What We Like: There is no joy in Bimmerville. Not any more. In truth, BMW has not really been advertising “Joy of Driving,” or “Joy” anything, for about a year. It had already returned to using the world’s best ad slogan, “The Ultimate Driving Machine,” after many months of defending “Joy,” as well as some executive changes. But a new ad effort for the all-new 3 Series puts UDM center stage again in a way that underscores the company’s commitment to an ad slogan everyone seems to love.
There are six video shorts running mostly on the web, but also as TV ads. In fact, one of the shorts, touting the car’s system that reads email aloud to the driver, ran as a local ad during the . Each “short” ad, which focuses on a single feature of the car, ends with a hunky-sounding voiceover asserting with no doubt in his voice: “We only make one thing. The Ultimate Driving Machine.”
BMW has a raft of new products coming this year and next, as well as rolling out two complex platforms of technology – EfficientDynamics and BMW ConnectDrive. It seems like a good idea to spotlight one product benefit per ad the way this campaign does, and have each play off a few bigger TV ads for the 3 Series that focus on the image of the whole car, and its reputation as the best sports sedan in the world.
What We Don’t Like: The focus on individual features like a heated steering wheel, adjustable seats or emails read aloud in the car seems more than BMW. The voiceover sounds like he drinks whiskey, but the overall feel of the ads and the focus on “fun features” feels more Brandy Alexander.
We note that advertised its soon-to-be launched during the Super Bowl, and referred to the 3 Series as “The best in the world.” We are looking for more ads from BMW’s new ad agency that have some guts, majesty and the faint aroma of burning rubber and brake dust.
Strategy: BMW seems to shy away form the guts, grit and red-blooded desire for a great driving machine that is the heart of its brand image. Yeah, yeah… we know… women are looking for a more approachable BMW. Married men need for their wives to bless the Bimmer purchase. And this collection of video shorts is a step in the right direction. A 30-second ad that shows us the 3 Series zipping around city streets and hairpin turns is even a bigger step as the TV spot also spotlights the 3’s surprising 36 mpg highway few economy. We’d still like to see BMW guts and glory show a nit more often.
is earning quite the reputation of underrating its turbocharged engines. From the early days of the , through the iteration and straight on to the , the crafty Bavarians have always erred on the low side with their factory-quoted power figures.
According to the dyno run that you’ll see , the tradition continues with BMW’s new twin-scroll turbocharged four-cylinder inline N20 engine that sees duty in the . The mill is rated at 240 horsepower and 255 pound-feet of torque, and on at least one Dynojet dyno, a stock 328i put down 226 horses and 230 lb-ft.
Assuming that around 15 percent of power is lost to the various friction forces of the drivetrain, these results indicate that the engine is really spinning out 265 horsepower and 270 pound-feet of torque. Those are mighty impressive figures, and equal about 25 more horses than stock and at least 15 more lb-ft of torque. Suffice it to say, this engine is an extremely tempting proposition for future 3 Series owners.
We hate to break it to you, but the world is chock full of unscrupulous people, folk who don’t care one bit about screwing you to get ahead. Thankfully, unscrupulousness can be kept in check by vigilantly recording everything that happens to you. We know, the prospect sounds daunting, but a good dash cam will at least keep you covered while driving.
While most of the time your dash cam will record nothing but the drudgeries of daily driving, if you’re like this guy, you’ll be glad you had it on when something fishy goes down. The setting is a traffic-clogged freeway somewhere, and the characters are played by our dash cam owner and one of those unscrupulous people we were talking about earlier.
to see why it’s always good to have a dash cam rolling.
Don’t call it the Cajun anymore. has officially announced the company’s upcoming small sport utility vehicle will be called the Macan. As with the vehicle’s larger brother, the , the Porsche Macan will blend the seemingly incongruous worlds of tall-riding off roaders and low-slung sports cars with performance to match.
The Macan is the latest effort in Porsche’s plan to expand its portfolio by 2018. While true purists may once again cry foul at the notion of another non-sports car with the Porsche shield on the hood, something tells us this Porsche will meet with far less skepticism this time around. The Cayenne and the have proven Porsche can successfully expand into segments beyond sports coupes without sacrificing its core principles. The Macan is likely to toe that line as well.
From , the Macan will arrive on the same chassis as the Audi Q5, though with suspension, brake and engine tweaks suitable to the Porsche range. Rumors have also hinted toward both hybrid and three-door iterations as well.
The automotive world has been mistakenly calling the upcoming baby Porsche the Cajun for more than a year after Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn mentioned the name in an interview. for the full press release on the Macan name, as well as a quick introductory video.
Pitting the against the all-new is ridiculous. They’re two different beasts in two different classes with two different purposes. It’s a cynical, SEO-optimized comparison. And even worse, . But…
We can’t help but post on it. Not because it’s clicky or that a few of us have man-crushes on Chris Harris. No. It’s because watching the two cars being flogged back-to-back on a damp circuit demonstrates how technologically sophisticated each one is and how they go about putting the power down so differently. You can actually see the GT-R – traction control switched off – trying to right itself as Harris flings it sideways, while the M5 slackens and goes neutral while the turbocharged eight responds like a naturally aspirated mill.
Scary with a capital “F?” Indeed. But just as educating as it is entertaining. See for yourself .
apparently set a precedent when it teased its . That with all the tell-tale bits of kit blurred out. Now, BMW is ready to give us a taste of its new fitted with an assortment of M Performance baubles and it’s taking a similar tact to tease us.
In the video you’ll see the 2012 BMW 1 Series hatch running around the paddock and the track with all the “important” M stuff – fascias, mirrors, etc. – strategically blurred out.
Like the M diesels, we’re hoping this is more than just an assortment of tacked-on body mods and more of a comprehensive, factory-approved upgrade path. We’ll find out soon enough, as there’s a solid change we’ll see the M Performance 1 Series in next month.
We’ve seen a lot of motorized bicycles over the years, but none look quite like the YikeBike. It looks like a miniature nineteenth century Penny Farthing bike that has no pedals and a backwards handle bar. But once you go beyond the looks of the YikeBike, the engineering is pretty interesting.
The YikeBike can be folded up to the size of a suitcase, it can be had in various composite materials including carbon fiber, and it is electrically powered. It even captures energy via regenerative braking. The downside? It only goes 12 miles per hour, and it could cost as much as $3,800. Oh, and it’s impossible to look cool while riding a YikeBike.
Translogic’s Bradley Hasemeyer traveled to England to try the YikeBike For himself, and the five-minute video is available . Yes, it looks awkward, but we’d be happy to give it a go ourselves.
