What happens when Sammy Davis Jr. hits 88 mph?

There’s no car more perfect than the BMW E30 M3, in my Germanic eyes. It is perfection. Lightweight, boxy, RWD, powerful and agile. For some people, though perfection just isn’t enough: The Mona Lisa could use one extra brush stroke (a moustache), the Steak N’ Shake steakburger could be grilled a little less crispy; Scarlett Johansson could have a better singing voice. If everyday Jack American approached the Mona Lisa very casually with a paint brush and box of water colors he would be publically bounced and trounced. If everyday Jack American returned his steakburger for one in ‘medium rare’ his replacement would be spit on, or worse. And if everyday Jack American asked Scarlett Jo to please take singing lessons before recording another album she probably would not have sex with him.

But there is a loophole. How much money do you got, son?

Green changes everything. A “guy with an extensive BMW collection” commissioned Piper Motorsport of Sterling, Virginia to improve upon perfection. The man in question brought in a pretty decent example of an e30 M3 and some crazed ideas of merging old school BMW looks with new school BMW running gear; brand new motor, brand new suspension, etc. The muscle car guys call this “pro-touring” when they do it to their Chevelles and Challengers. In the case of this vehicle we’re going to have to refrain from publishing the nickname of this particular build style as it simply doesn’t work without all those swear words for proper emphasis.

One can’t just bolt an e90 3 series suspension and e60 M5 powertrain into an e30. German engineering is pretty good but not that damn good. This job required a bit of ‘Virginia engineering.’ I’m pretty certain that this is the first time that phrase has been used when not referring to intercourse with a blood relative.

In order to make this thing work a very large part of the original car had to be scrapped. In fact, according to Piper, only a few exterior body panels and miscellaneous interior bits remain on the car.

To fit a modern v10 into a space once reserved for a cocaine addled 80s four-cylinder took some quality time with a torch. The original firewall was cut out and a new one was fabricated and tacked into place. The original transmission tunnel received the same treatment.

The religiously good chassis of the e30 M3 required some surgery to fit e90 front and rear sub frames. Surgery is an understatement. The front frame rails were removed and new ones were fabbed and placed, and the front shock towers were moved up to allow full travel of the e90 suspension.

The back of the car received a Joan Rivers-esque work-over to accept the rear e90 sub frame. The entire rear end of the car was lopped off and rebuilt to make it all work well, with exception to the rear exterior body panels.

Piper has also installed a roll cage that will remain mostly hidden under interior paneling when the vehicle is finished. Pretty slick.

As of now the car remains under the knife. Some lucky, rich SOB is going to have a real beauty on his hands. Let’s just hope the fool has the driving clout to keep this monster on the road.

Via: TheCarLounge

You’ve always known your snooty granola neighbor’s Prius sucked, but you never knew how to really stick it to her. “My car is faster than yours” doesn’t work. “My car handles much better than yours” doesn’t even make her flinch. Well, I’ve got some ammunition for you, buddy.

Independent commodities consultant and strategic metals expert Jack Lifton says hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius are the biggest users of rare earth metals in the world. Put that in your hash pipe and smoke it, granola neighbor.

Popular Science reports that rare earth metals neodymium and lanthanum, both used in Hybrid electric motors and batteries, could become incredibly scarce or even disappear altogether within the next several years. The Prius uses 20 to 30 pounds of lanthanum in its batteries and 2.2 pounds of neodymium in its electric motor.

It is projected that total future demand for rare earth metals may exceed current supplies by over 40,000 tons. To bad you clunked your perfectly good petrol-only car for a set of hybrid wheels. Now get on that bike, hippie.

The U.S. Department of Transportation just doled out $100,000 to upstart company Solar Roadways to develop “Solar roads,” i.e. sturdy, 12×12 solar panels built specifically to be embedded into roads. The Department of Energy and, of course, Solar Roadways hopes that these solar roadways will push quite a bit of power into the energy grid. Each panel can develop around 7.6 kwh of power per day. The panels may also be include heating elements to keep the road from freezing over and glowing LED road markings to help people finally act out TRON based fantasies in the real world. For a mere $7k per panel!

According to Popular Science a mile-long stretch of four-lane solar road could produce enough energy to power 500 homes. The Solar Roadways press release includes even more potential awesomeness. They say electric vehicles will be able to recharge on the road and in parking lots making long distance travel in fully electric cars a lot more viable. They also claim the roads will be able to detect crossing animals and warn travelers to slow down.

Solar Roadways estimates it will take about $5 billion to cover all of the asphalt surfaces in the U.S. but, that it would produce “three times more power than we’ve ever used as a nation — almost enough to power the entire world.” Can you say stimulus package?

One of Nigeria’s 13,524 kings, whom moved to Long Beach in the 80s in search of a wife, is selling his personal vehicle, a 1987 “MOST ROYAL CUSTOM IL750″ which is somehow half from Germany and half from the U.S. It has been customized in a most royal fashion with the finest in car entertainment system Radioshack has to offer, a set of very distinguished looking low-rider style wire wheels and an amalgam of real imitation gold badges.

I could spend a bit of time writing something snide and half witty about this but, I really can’t top the seller’s own words.

I LORD KING SIR ADAMA ABU AKMAL SR & FATHER OF MANKIND LORD OF LORDS & KING OF KINGS THEE MOST ROYAL IMPERIAL GRAND MASAN 360* OF THEE MOST HONORABLE MASONIC ORDER OF MANKIND IS SELLING THIS AUTO I HAVE DONE OVER 70% OF THE WORK ON THIS CAR MY SELF. ONLY SERIOUS BUYERS!!!!

The king knew that there might be some who would claim that wasn’t a real royal vehicle. It could certainly be an impostor. Afterall, Lord King Sir Adama Abu Akmal Sr. has many followers and fans any one of whom could have built a replica of his Bavarian Chariot. So, he included a royal photograph of himself to reassure potential buyers that the car on the auction block is the real thing.

Via: eBay

Take that, colonials!

Steam, you know, that stuff between your girlfriend’s ears, is good for more than just blowing money on Express jeans or heating archaic buildings. In your Grandpappy’s day it was used to power automobiles, fast automobiles. Back then steam-powered cars regularly blew (or scalded) the paint off of their internal combustion counterparts. Ask anybody besides Jay Leno about this business and you’ll get a pretty odd look.

In 1906 Mr. Fred Marriott pointed a modified Stanley Steamer straight to a land speed record of 127 mph on the sands of Florida’s Ormond Beach. It took internal combustion cars nearly four years to break that record. Marriott might have kept the record for even longer. In 1907 he brought a further modified Stanley Steamer to the beach to break his own record. Things didn’t end that well, Marriott wrecked at a speed somewhere between 140 and 150 mph.

Flappers dig speed, right?

Marriott’s steam-powered land speed record of 127 mph stood for over one hundred years. His record was finally shattered yesterday.

The so called “World’s Fastest Kettle,” a British built car piloted by Charles Burnett III, made 131 mph and finally 151 mph at California’s Edwards Air Force Base, Tuesday. The British Steam Car Team spent 10 years developing their steamy record setter. The 25-foot long “Kettle” features carbon-fiber and aluminum stretched over a steel space frame which houses 12 boilers containing almost two miles of tubing in which steam is heated to 752 degrees Fahrenheit before being injected into the car’s turbine at over twice the speed of sound.

Feel the burn!

Burnett admitted that Edwards Air Force base was not exactly ideal.

“…you’ve got rocks, you’ve got dirt, stones, even bullets in fact out here,” he said. “So we’ve removed the majority of the bullets and we’ve kept on track today.”

via: New Scientist, Birthplace of Speed 2006 and PopSci.

The Lutz is tweeting! The Lutz is tweeting! Try to get that awful, avian nightmare-vision out of your head…

It’s been going down on twitter today. GM officials are letting it hang low and exposed through the wonder of digital, 140 character news bursts.

Well, technically it ain’t the Lutz, nor is it actually GM execs. According to sources at AutoBlog and TheCarLounge, GM is holding a hell of a PR shindig today involving members of its PR team, about 100 members of the public and a gaggle of social media hacks and flunkies. Thank the burnt rubber baron in the sky for smart-phones. The flood of good GM news has been hitting twitter like… well… a flood. Here’s some highlights. Try to keep it in your shorts.

– New compact Cadillac concept under the letters ATS is unveiled. Bimmer 3s, get ready for a fight.

– G8 (!) picked up from butcher’s floor. Potentially will wear Chevy badge. Lutz says “4-Door Corvette.”

Hot damn.

It’s been a while since automobile manufacturers have developed a vehicle destined to become the sort of quirky, underdog cult object that the likes of Volkswagen’s original Beetle or BMW’s original Isetta have, a rare occurrence in the past twenty years but it has been done. Diamler/Swatch’s Smart Car line is the best modern example I can think of. It meets all the requirements: small, underpowered, strange looking, often referred to as cute…

As could be expected, sales for the Smart ForTwo were stellar when it was initially released in the United States two years ago. But the novelty has worn off. Sales aren’t stagnant, but the little Germanic Chihuahua isn’t flying off the lots anymore. Maybe the American public realized that this vehicle isn’t best suited for American roads/lifestyle?

Hopefully BMW has been watching the sales of the Smart brand carefully, the brand hasn’t been doing that great as of late, evident in its withdrawal from Formula 1. Launching a new sub-brand in the U.S. that is near destined to fail is no way to boost sales.

This is, of course, all horseshit speculation, rantings from a pure Mobil 1 lubricated loon. So lets get straight to the facts.

BMW confirmed rumors yesterday of a new sub-brand, I-Setta. I-Setta will operate much like BMW’s M-Division only focusing less on smile inducing performance and more on mile per gallon increasing performance.

I-Setta is set to build little urban, high efficiency zingers much like the aforementioned Smart car. BMW has been referring to this new project as a “megacity vehicle.”

The new I-Setta will probably go the retro route drawing from the styling and emotional feel of the old single door, 13hp death-trap but with, hopefully, two doors and modern technology and amenities. My advice to BMW: sell a limited amount of them in the U.S. for one year and pump them out wholesale to the Europeans. Good luck.

Source: WorldCarFans

The R35 Nissan Skyline GT-R has spent more time careening loose and mean around the Nürburgring than just about any car over the past two years. As a result of such consistent corporate sponsored hoonery the brute currently holds a hotly debated production car lap-time record. This did not go unnoticed by officials at the legendary Green Hell.

Recently, between a second helping of wursts and a sixth helping of weissbier, the Big-Heads at the ‘Ring picked the R35 Nissan Skyline GT-R to fill in as the new, official Nürburgring rapid response rescue vehicle — much cooler than the old Skoda Octavia wagons I saw plowing headlong around the track when I was there two summers ago.

The car is equipped with a full roll cage, a fire retardant tank , a functional hose reel and an equipment bay in the trunk. All the better to save the Rubes.

Free sweaters!

Let’s cook a nice little scenario:

You’ve been dying to run a hot lap at the ‘Ring since you first brought home Gran Turismo 4 so many years back. You’ve had what professional automobile racers and unrepentant lap hogs call “little to no real world preparation.” You’ve finally hawked enough illicit drugs and bootlegged DVD’s to minors to afford a trip over to gear-head mecca and you’ve secured yourself a nice track-prepped rental BMW for a day of laps. When you get there the track mentally staggers you, but you recall all those hours spent in front of the big screen television — you can screw through digital Adenauer Forst or Karussell in your sleep. Why in hell would this be any different? You hand 30 Euro to the gate attendant and the gate rises. You let the clutch of the bimmer out slowly and confidently squeeze on the gas — 60, 90, 110, 120 miles an hour. And you lose it. You blast into Schwalbenschwanz too damn hot, you lift off the accelerator and the rear of the car begins to rotate (your Cobalt never does this on highway off-ramps!) and you panic. You slam the brakes, they lock up, you burst over the curbing like belly fat over a girdle and you smack the armco hard. There’s some teeth sticking out of the suede wrapped steering wheel, a lot of smoke and a lot of pain. Lucky for you there’s a Nissan GT-R somewhere on the track waiting for an amateur like you to do just this sort of thing. At the very least an official will be there to pull you from your Bavarian Coffin in 7 minutes 26.7 seconds. Thank Jesus, they chose the right car.

Source: WorldCarFans

In an interview at Toyota’s Washington office, chairman and CEO of Toyota Motor Sales USA, Yoshimi Inaba, officially admitted something that car enthusiasts have been saying for years, Toyota’s are boring, soulless appliances.

Well, he didn’t quite say that, but close enough.

Inaba spent his Monday doing one of his favorite things, admitting to a room full of reporters that Toyota is no longer profitable in America and that Toyota vehicles had often lacked “passion.”

“Toyota is a good car, but not exciting. Those are the comments we usually (or) always get,” Inaba said.

Inaba acknowledged that Toyota’s cars must be “more exciting, more nimble.”

Toyota’s sales have dropped 38 percent in the first six months of the year; U.S. industry sales overall have dropped 35 percent in the first half of the year. Toyota is currently reviewing its entire North American operation. Among the issues on the table are two U.S. Toyota factories, the 25-year-old New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. assembly plant in Fremont, Ca. and the recently completed Mississippi plant.

The New United Motor Manufacturing plant employs 4,700 people and, until recently, was a joint venture with GM, who backed out of the deal during its bankruptcy shitstorm.

“That put us in a very difficult position,” Inaba said. “We are carefully evaluating all the options.”
According to the Detroit News, Inaba refused to rule out layoffs or plant closures as a cost cutting options.

California is Toyota’s largest North American market and Inaba noted that closing that plant would probably negatively impact Toyota’s image there.

Toyota’s Mississippi plant was recently completed, structurally that is. It’s currently just like anything else Toyota has built in the past 20 years, a soulless husk waiting desperately for the breath of life. The plant is scheduled to open next year, but Toyota is currently debating whether to shelve the venture of not.