Showing posts with label Offbeat News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Offbeat News. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Alleged Dealer Employee Slams Ferrari 456 into an Oncoming Volkswagen Gol


A violent accident between a Ferrari 456 and a Volkswagen Gol that took place in Martinez, an affluent city located near the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires was caught on tape by a nearby security camera.

The video shows the blue Ferrari 456 after the driver lost control of the car as it heads slideways towards an oncoming Volkswagen Gol hatchback. The impact, as you can see for yourself in the security footage, is severe. Both drivers were taken to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

Although we could not confirm this, media reports from the country citing police sources state that the driver was not the owner of the car but a dealer employee who was taking the Italian supercar for its technical inspection.

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Europe’s 50 Most Congested Cities, according to a Study from TomTom


Navigation system specialist TomTom has compiled a list with Europe’s 50 most congested cities in 2011 based on its real travel time database, which includes more than 800 billion speed measurements sent anonymously by more than 30 million users of firm’s software.

Brussels lead the table, with the capital of Belgium showing a 1.2% increase in traffic compared to 2010. Britain is Europe’s most congested country: London, despite a 0.2% decrease in traffic, has climbed up to third place, while both Manchester and Edinburgh are in the top 10. A total of 16 UK cities are included in the top 50.

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VIDEO: Lexus LFA Wows the Crowds at Tokyo Drift Event


A bespoke sports car priced over than $370,000 and of which only 500 will be produced worldwide, isn’t something you normally expect to see at a drift event. But in the Land of the Rising Sun, everything goes when it comes to burning tires and wowing crowds.

Making its appearance on the sidelines of the 2011 D1 Grand Prix Tokyo drift was this stock Lexus LFA, which you can enjoy in action in the video that follows after the break.

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Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Rolls Royce Owners Adds Some Color to Phantom Limo


Back in the mid-1990s, Volkswagen’s designers came up with a bright idea (literally…) involving the Polo supermini and the colorful theatrical character Harlequin. The result was the Polo Harlekin or Harlequin featuring a multi-colored body. Against all odds, the strange looking Polo proved to be a moderate success with Volkswagen boosting the initial production run from 1,000 cars to a total of around 3,800 units.

Apparently, the allure of a multicolored car isn’t limited to the masses as the owner of this Rolls Royce Phantom proves. According to the team over at Autogespot, it belongs to a UK resident named Alan who happens to own a number of exotic supercars including a Lamborghini MurciĆ©lago LP640 Roadster, Pagani Zonda F Roadster and a Spyker C8 Spyder.

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eBay Find of the Day: 1965 Cadillac Flower Car Hearse


Here’s something you don’t see every day: an ultra-rare 1965 Cadillac Superior Coupe de Fleur “Flower Car Hearse”. Specialist vehicles such as this one traded in the glassed-in section behind their front doors for an almost pickup-like rear deck.

The idea was that an attractive flower arrangement would rest on top of the deck diverting attention away from the unsightly coffin was hidden below. This particular example is said to be based on a Cadillac Fleetwood.

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BMW Crafts Special 760Li Individual Limos for The Charles Hotel in Munich


The guests at The Charles Hotel in Munich, Germany, can now savor the services of BMW’s finest as the Bavarian carmaker has just handed over to the hotel the keys to a pair of special limousines based on the flagship 760Li, which come equipped with a twin-turbocharged V12 engine churning out 544-horsepower. Read more »

Monday, June 13, 2011

Latvian Tuner Wraps BMW 3-Series in Crocodile Leather


There’s something about cars and animal leathers / prints that attracts certain tuners from Russia and the former Soviet states. You all remember the Russian design-house Dartz and it real whale penis leather-equipped Prombron and snake skin-covered Bentley Continental GT SS. Now another tuning firm called Vipon, this time from neighboring Lithuania Latvia, has come with a new animal leather themed proposal based on a pre-facelift E90 BMW 318i sedan. Read more »

Ford Calls Rally Fans to Vote on Their Favorite Roof Livery for the Fiesta WRC


The Blue Oval’s rally team is reaching out to its fans through Facebook and asking them to choose a unique roof artwork the Fiesta RS WRCs driven by Jari-Matti Latvala, Mikko Hirvonen and Khalid Al Qassimi at next month’s Rally Finland, which runs from July 28-30, 2011.

“Up until now the Ford Abu Dhabi Team Fiesta RS WRCs have simply featured the Ford logo,” said Will May, Motorsport Marketing Manager for Ford of Europe. “So we’re inviting our Facebook followers to vote for one of several designs we’ve developed under one theme – which is ‘the food that fuels you’."

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Sunday, June 12, 2011

Peugeot Creates Interactive Print Ad with an Inflatable Mini Airbag for the 408 Sedan


This past February, Peugeot launched the four-door sedan variant of its 308 series in the Brazilian market as the new 408. In one of its first advertising campaigns for the car, the French carmaker wanted to communicate the compact-sized model’s safety features, namely the availability of six airbags with eight protection points.

Peugeot turned to the creative people of the Sao Paulo-based advertising agency Loducca who came up with an interactive print ad for the 408. The company used a supplier from China to create 50,000 mini airbags, which were then inserted in one of Brazil’s most reputable business magazines, the Exame.

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Saturday, June 11, 2011

VIDEO: Mark Higgins' Awesome Save at 150MPH at the Isle of Man TT


We’ve already told you about former British Rally Champion Mark Higgins’ record lap on the famous Isle of Man TT Mountain Course driving a US specification 2011 Subaru WRX STI in a previous article here, but today, we stumbled upon two in-car video clips, courtesy of Road & Track magazine.

Aside from smashing the late Tony Pond’s long-standing record in a Rover 827 Vitesse from 1990 by more than two minutes, Higgins also displayed some amazing driving skills saving the day when the WRX STI started swerving at 150mph (241km/h) after he hit a small bump on the road. In the video you can hear Higgins saying "Biggest moment of my life there...".

Commenting on the incident, Dominick Infante, National Manager, Product Communications, Subaru of America, said: “The WRX STI performed incredibly well at near flat out speeds and Mark drove impeccably. His save at Bray Hill at 150 MPH was some of the best driving any of us have ever seen." Buckle up and watch the two in-car-videos after the break.

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Friday, June 10, 2011

Jump Fail: D'oh! That Must have Hurt…


Four school busses placed in an upright position, a crowd going crazy and a stunt man getting ready to imitate the Dukes of Hazzard with the help of a lifting ramp. You do know what is going to happen next, right? If you’re still wondering about the outcome, then follow the break to watch the video. Read more »

Angry Son Drives Opel Calibra into His Parents’ Living Room!


It is really hard to believe, but a 27-year old man from The Netherlands plowed his parents house with his car after an argument. According to press reports from the local media, the man left his house and returned later in the day but not the way his parents were expecting as he picked up speed in his 1990s Opel Calibra sports coupe and drove or rather flew into the living room of his house!

Amazingly, no one was seriously injured in the rage-induced incident. The police arrested the young man who is now facing several charges. Check out the aftermath of the crash in the video after the break.

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Thursday, June 9, 2011

The King of Overkill Captured in Canada by Carscoop Reader


If there was ever a prize for the crappiest application of decorative ornaments and decals of any sort on an automobile, this here Porsche Cayenne would win the contest hands down. I mean, just look at it…

We first showed you the Porsche Cayenne with the Ontario license plates last Friday, but today, Carscoop reader Jonathan Fernando spotted the car parked outside –wait for the drum roll- a….Dollarama store and didn’t waste the opportunity to snap a few photos.

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Call of Duty: Turkish Police Officer Hangs on Hood of Drunk Driver’s Car


There are police officers and there are police officers. And if anything else, this officer of the law from Turkey that you’re about to see in the surveillance camera footage below shows that some people take their job far more seriously than others.

It all started when the man in blue attempted to stop a silver car but the driver ignored him and tried to take off but not before the cop threw himself onto the bonnet. The determined cop clasped onto the windscreen wipers for a 3 kilometer-long (about 2 miles) wild ride until the driver, who turned out to be intoxicated, hit another car and came to a stop. Fortunately, the officer suffered only minor injuries. Watch the footage after the jump.

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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Gutsy Toyota Supra Driver Drifts Around $2 Million Bugatti Veyron


No matter how talented you are, it takes a lot of guts and an extra dose of craziness to attempt what you are about to see in the video clip after the break, because it’s one thing going around a Ford Pinto in circles and another when the car in question is a Bugatti Veyron priced close to $2 million.

The man behind this feat (if you can call it that) is 25-year-old pro drifter Derek "Buttsy" Butler from Ireland. Buttsy performed the…gutsy drift stunt around the exotic 1,001-horsepower supercar in a heavily modified Toyota Supra during this year’s Gumball 3000.

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Chrysler’s SRT Team Teases…Next Dodge Viper SRT10 on Facebook


In a very…tongue-in-cheek move, Chrysler’s newly formed Street and Racing Technology (SRT) brand responded to fans asking them on various social media sites what future products are in development by posting this…revealing sketch on its dedicated Facebook page. Here is what Chrysler’s SRT team wrote:

“Like many of you, Twitter user @DaveOrrSales asked for a taste of what's to come at SRT. We dodged death to sneak you this top-secret photo. That's all you get, crew.”

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Too Close for Comfort: Subaru Impreza WRX Flips Over Right in Front of Spectators in Canada


A fun track day at the Toronto Motorsports Park near the town of Cayuga in Ontario, Canada, almost turned tragic for both the driver and many of the spectators gathered behind the safety wall when an older generation Subaru Impreza WRX flipped over after exiting a corner.

From the video, it looks like the driver of the Impreza took the corner wider and faster than he was ready for and as a result crashed into, or rather ran over, the safety haystack near the wall, which acted as a launching ramp lifting the car into the air only inches away from the spectators. The car then landed on its rooftop several feet away.

According to eyewitnesses, the driver of the Subaru, who was wearing a helmet, was shaken but...not stirred. But enough talking already. Follow the break to watch both the incident as it happened and the aftermath.

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Tuesday, June 7, 2011

And the Unluckiest Car in Britain is…the Honda FR-V


Well, the question and the answer have already been given to you in the title, so let us elaborate for a moment. A UK-based car insurance price comparison website called “Confused.com” conducted a study to find out which vehicle make and model had the highest accident rates in Britain in the last five years. The company notes that the statistics you’re about to read show only a snapshot of accident-related claims made by owners of a particular make and model of vehicle.

According to the results, the Honda FR-V, a compact 6-seater minivan marketed in Europe and Japan from 2004 to 2009, topped the list with 2,529 owners of the model making 466 accident claims in the past five years, which is equal to a claim rate of 18.4 per cent, or close to one in five.

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Embarrassing Motorcycle Flip-Fail Caught on Tape


As this video proves, automobile drivers are not alone when it comes to dim-witted mistakes on the road. For unknown reasons, this particular motorcyclist was trying to manage the controls of the right handlebar of his high-performance bike with his left hand. And yes, as you may have already guessed, that’s a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately for the bike driver, the mishap occurred at low speeds and from the looks of it, he wasn’t hurt - at least not physically because his ego does seem a bit bruised… Click past the break to watch the amusing video clip.

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Forza Motorsport 4: Here’s how they Record Car Engine Sounds


Long gone are the days when video game developers used simple electronic instruments to emulate car engine sounds for their racing games. Now, thanks to a dramatic increase in video games sales, which of course resulted in huge budgets, developers can justify the costs of recording the actual sounds of each car featured in their games.

For those of you wondering how it’s done, the tech-savvy crew over at Electricpig were invited to Redmond, Seattle by the creator of the Forza Motorsport gaming series, Turn 10 Studios, to witness the recording of a previous generation Subaru Impreza WRX STI.

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