C’était un Rendez-Vous is a 8 minute French film from 1976. It shows a manic drive through Paris in the early hours of the morning, accompanied by sounds of a high-revving engine, gear changes and squealing tires. Nothing was staged, it was an actual drive, and after the film was released, the director was supposedly arrested. Pedestrians and pigeons are passed and nearly ran over, red lights are ignored, one-way streets are driven up the wrong way… it’s just beautiful high-speed lunatic driving.
The film was shot in a single take by the director and driver, Claude Lelouch. He used a gyro-stabilized camera mounted on the bumper of his 6.9 liter Mercedes-Benz 450SEL.
Driving a go-karts is some of the most fun you can have while looking like a 10 year old. You’re totally exposed and open, and low to the ground, so even the fairly modest speed that a 125cc engine gives you feels supersonic. So I can only image what it’s like to swap out the regular kart motor with a 1300cc Suzuki Hayabusa powerplant. Powerslides and burnouts and, of course, freaky speed. Here’s the builder’s blog.
Check out videos of the go-kart in action after the jump.
Also after the jump, a Smart Fortwo with a Hayabusa engine video. Normally Smart cars have a 3 cylinder engine with less than 1000ccs. Mating it with the 1300cc ‘Busa high quality engine is pure genius. Check it:
It looks like some guy in Poland hooked up his car with a backwards facing seat, steering wheel and pedals, in addition to the regular controls. From what I can see in the video, he also hooked up the rear wheels to a steering rack so he can use them to steer. Strangely, the front wheels look like they still turn too, so they’re not locked in place. This is one of the weirdest DIY alterations I’ve seen in a while.
Double clutching is a method for downshifting that gives you smoother transitions and lowers the wear on your transmission. It’ll prolong your transmissions life and giving you an overall smoother ride. You will, of course, need a manual transmission.
Double-clutching is usually only used by truck drivers or race-car drivers, but if you have a manual transmission, you can double-clutch. It’s easy.
In addition to the Viper look a-like Dodge EV introduced this morning on CNBC [which we posted on here], Chrysler also revealed two other extended-range electric vehicles: the Chrysler Town and Country EV, and the Jeep EV Chrysler. CEO Bob Nardelli confirmed that one of the three vehicles introduced will being production in 2010, though he didn’t reveal which one - suspense that provides the perfect betting statistics with which to bide our time before NBA March Madness begins.
While sifting through the leaked photos of the performance modded 2010 Camaro [pictured here], I also came across a few other upgraded Camaro’s. There were so many noteworthy custom jobs that I couldn’t choose just one, and therefore decided to post them all.
To kick things off, here’s a hilarious clip I found, filmed by a group of friends mudding out in the country. Video Bonus: when the Camaro drives by, there’s a hush of awed silence that falls over the onlookers, as if Bigfoot had just walked through the clearing.
Everybody who grew up playing the original Nintendo Entertainment System knows the Konami Code: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start. It’s seared into my memory from years of Contra. Well most of us are now grown, and we’ve moved on to bigger, more expensive toys, like the Nissan GT-R. And the GT-R has a cool secret code of it’s own.
I’m beyond excited about the GT-R. It’s an ultimate performance machine on par, and better in some cases, with cars more than 5 times it’s price. I mean, $75,000 (plus almost $10k in dealer markups sometimes) for a history making supercar is a bloody steal. I didn’t think it could get any better, then I found out about the launch control system.
The full episode of the Knight Rider series premiere has been posted on video-sharing website Hulu [which we came across via MuscleCarBlog], and we’ve embedded it below for your viewing pleasure. Although the new Shelby Mustang GT KITT is definitely hotter than ye olde Trans Am, KITT’s witty repartee loses its comedic effect when it’s filtered through his automated, Microsoft Windows-ish voice. When KITT dryly suggests to Michael that he could probably run faster if he didn’t spend so much time drinking and casually screwing, KITT winds up sounding more like a school guidance counselor desperately trying to be hip than he does a wise cracking sidekick.
According to MythBusters, it’s pretty much impossible to beat speed cameras. They tried that spray-on license plate obscuring liquid, they tried that clear cover that’s supposedly opaque at certain angles, they even tried going too fast for the camera to catch you… none of them worked. So their conclusion was you can’t beat city hall.
But Jamie wasn’t satisfied with that answer, so he built something that really would work: A License Plate Flipper. He made it look pretty easy too, although they make everything look pretty easy on that show
From Autoblog via MuscleCarBlog: the Chevy Camaro SS and the Chevy Corvette ZR1 were caught going pound for pound on the test track the other day. The Camaro SS actually manages to hold its own in the turns, but when it comes to balls-to-the-wall, flat-out on the straightaway, there’s really no contest.
