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• VIDEO: The Top 10 Greatest Indianapolis 500 Finishes…So Far

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 23 May 2013

  

  While it’s painfully easy to pile onto the Indianapolis 500 in its current form thanks to things like shrinking entry lists, spec tires, a spec chassis, two engine suppliers and increasing apathy from the public at-large, it’s still an incredible event. There’s likely not a single race on earth that can lay claim to as much history, pageantry and – many still maintain – prestige as this Memorial Day Weekend motorsports classic. The 500, together with Formula 1’s Monaco Grand Prix and NASCAR’s Coca Cola (nee World) 600, comprises the racing fan’s highest of high holy days.

  And the cathedral of speed that is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has witnessed some truly thrilling finishes over the past 102 years. Naturally, some of these have been more thrilling than the rest, with the truly awe-inspiring ones being talked about with off-the-charts reverence by die-hard fans. Here, then, presented in chronological order in honor of Sunday’s 97^th Indianapolis 500, are the 10 conclusions to the Greatest Spectacle in Racing that will live forever in motorsports lore.

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• Tires on a Ski Jump Experiment Keeps Japan Weird [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 5 March 2013

  

  It is widely accepted as fact that the island nation of Japan holds well over half of the world’s weirdness reserves.  How else can you explain the existence of the Katamari Damacy series of video games? Or Dekotora? Or jeans with a hiked-up thong built in? Exactly, you can’t.

  This mastery of the bizarre is arguably on proudest display on Japanese television. Japanese game shows are the stuff of legend, but it seems like even some of their educational programming is a bit out there. Rolling the tires of various types of cars and trucks down a ski jump and seeing how far they fly is great for illustrating forces like gravity, inertia and friction, but the presentation – the announcers seemingly treating it like a normal sporting competition – adds immensely to the amusement factor. Never change, Nihon. Never change.

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• VIDEO: Steven Tyler’s Hennessey Venom GT Spyder Gets a Special Delivery

  In Girls / By Tom Anderson / 3 January 2013

  

  The Hennessey Venom GT is already an outlandish, attention vacuum of an automobile. Remove the roof, as Hennessey did with the one-off Venom GT Spyder built for rock deity Steven Tyler, and you’ll get even more people to gawk. And this is just taking the looks into consideration; informing crowds that the twin-turbo GM LS-series V8 that powers it makes 1,200hp tends to only further entrance them.

  However, if you really, really want to draw eyeballs to a vehicle (or anything else for that matter, frankly), you install a beautiful and/or barely dressed woman next to it. Hennessey knows this as well as any company, which is why the enlisted the services of Siren Studios in Hollywood and up-and-coming Latvian supermodel Julia Lescova to help spread the word about the existence of the Aerosmith frontman’s one-of-one topless Venom GT. Make the jump to see the fruits of their labors (which have been set to Tyler’s “(It) Feels So Good”). The delicious, succulent fruits…

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• VIDEO: Playboy Bunny Jesse Preston Goes for a Wild Ride in a 458 Italia

  In Girls / By Tom Anderson / 15 November 2012

  

  The PC Police can kick and scream all they want, but there’s no debating that hot cars and hot women go together like peanut butter and jelly. Like dandelions and a gentle breeze. Like the Doctor and his TARDIS. You get the idea; they’re inseparable. And if pictures featuring hot cars and hot women are good, videos incorporating the two are better, right?

  That has to be what the folks running Exotics Racing, a rent-a-supercar-and-flog-it-on-a-racetrack company based at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The firm has released a couple of videos featuring babes riding shotgun with professional drivers as they hoon high-dollar exotics around LVMS’s various road course layouts. The more recent of these stars the prolifically pretty Jesse Preston and a Ferrari 458 Italia. Check it out after the jump.

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• Ford Racing Mustang Cobra Jet Twin-Turbo Concept Wooshes into SEMA [w/ Video]

  In Motorsports / By Tom Anderson / 30 October 2012

  

  In 2008, Ford and its motorsports and performance parts arm, Ford Racing, reintroduced the world to the idea of a purpose-built, turn-key drag car from a major manufacturer with the Mustang Cobra Jet. These dragstrip-only Mustangs, which are unregisterable for the street thanks to the lack of a VIN, quickly began to dominate the amateur ranks in the NHRA and elsewhere. More significantly, the success of the Cobra Jet program inspired Dodge and Chevrolet to get in the game with the Challenger Drag Pak and Camaro COPO, respectively.

  The latest version of Dearborn’s dynamite doorslammer is offered with the Mustang GT and Boss 302’s 5.0L “Coyote” V8 in either naturally aspirated or supercharged form. However, while the 2.9L Rootes-type supercharger – supplied by Whipple – adds a considerable amount of power, Ford Racing engineers say the blower takes about 100 horsepower to spin. By contrast, turbochargers add massive amounts of power without adding a massive amount of what’s known as parasitic drag, since their compressors are spun by exhaust gas pressure rather than being mechanically driven by the crankshaft. In fact, turbocharging is at the center of Ford’s popular line of EcoBoost engines. So why not set up turbos and the Cobra Jet on a blind date? Well, Ford Racing finally has, and this pairing has definitely clicked.

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• Australian Coachbuilder Crafts a Gullwing Door Bumblebee Camaro Limo [w/ Videos]

  In Offbeat / By Tom Anderson / 29 October 2012

  

  When the production version of the fifth generation Chevrolet Camaro was first introduced, a handful of coachbuilders took to chopping the roof off the retro-sinister coupes to create convertibles. Naturally, the introduction of the Camaro Convertible eliminated the demand for aftermarket conversions. And since Chevrolet’s Mustang masher has only ever been offered to the public as a coupe and a convertible (We aren’t counting t-top coupes or the über-yummy second generation based Kammback shooting brake styling proposal.), there are no other obvious body styles for automotive body modifiers to create.

  Of course, some people would argue that creating a limousine out of the fifth gen Camaro would be an obvious choice. Sure, the whole lack-of-rear-doors thing is a definite hurdle, but the newest Bowtie pony car’s muscular styling, burbling V8 soundtrack and Transformers star status are hard to ignore. And one limo company in Perth, Australia, has not.

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• VIDEO: Singapore High-Rise Offers Garages with a View

  In Offbeat / By Tom Anderson / 30 August 2012

  

  Living in a crowded megalopolis poses all sorts of challenges and pitfalls for owners of fancy cars. Obviously heavy traffic, potholed streets, and belligerent bicycle messengers are major causes for concern, but even these pale in comparison to this one seemingly simple conundrum: Where do you park? In cities filled with older construction like New York and London, street parking is the norm…if you can find it. Newer urban living edifices tend to have parking garages in the basement, but there’s still the specter of door dings and rusty water dripping from overhead pipes looming large. And if you forget something in your car and live on one of the upper floors, it’s a long elevator ride down and back up, and there’s a good chance you’ll run into that loaded widow who lives in the penthouse with that stinkeye-giving Pomeranian she named after her dead husband. Awkward pauses ahoy.

  If only there was a way to put a garage next to each individual apartment. Well, as it turns out, there is a way to do exactly that. And as you can see in the videos below of a new apartment tower in Singapore, it’s just as cool as you think.

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• VIDEO: Bosch Spark Plugs Reminds Us That “Your Gut Knows”

  In Sponsored / By Tom Anderson / 30 May 2012

  

  Officially, we humans only have five senses: Sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. But considering all that has been said and written about sixth senses, there may very well be more. No, we aren’t talking about the “I see dead people” one (at least not today), but we are talking about intuition, or the inescapable feeling that something is so even if none of the five normal senses can provide your brain with hard evidence.

  Many of you might know intuition by its colloquial name: Gut instinct. And whether it’s telling you to not talk while the missus is chewing you out, or to buy replacement spark plugs from one of the oldest and most respected names in the automotive electrical components biz, your midriff tends to be remarkably accurate. Just ask the guy after the jump.

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• VIDEO: The Top 20 Closest Calls Caught on Camera

  In Car Videos / By Tom Anderson / 27 May 2012

  

  Few things are more terrifying than an automobile or motorcycle accident, but near-automobile and motorcycle accidents come pretty darn close. In fact, near misses are probably more terrifying, since you’re able to instantly reflect on the incident and contemplate how close you came to buying the farm.

  Thankfully, we haven’t had had any super-close calls behind the wheel, but loads of other people from all corners of the world have. Many of those people have had video cameras running during these entrail-emptying moments, and put the footage on YouTube. There are probably millions of videos capturing these events, but we’ve tried to narrow the selection down to the 20 most hair-raising, expletive-conjuring (It should go without saying that some of the language in some of the following videos is of the not-safe-for-work variety.) of the bunch. Without further pomp or circumstance, here they are.

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• VIDEO: Graphic Designer Renders Bugatti Veyron in Paper

  In Design / By Tom Anderson / 2 May 2012

  

  The Bugatti Veyron is at the top of the automotive food chain in just about every category you can name. Horsepower? Yes (1,001hp in the regular models, 1,200hp in the Super Sport and Grand Sport Vitesse.). Cylinders? Indeed (Sixteen of 'em, arranged in a W-formation.). Top speed? Of course (The Super Sport maxed out at 268 mph on Volkswagen's test track.).

   

  Unfortunately for us mortals, the Veyron is also tops in terms of price. Sure, there are die-cast models out there, but unless you're like us and take great pleasure in unboxing it, opening the doors and hood and stuff, and parking it in your display case, they aren't terribly exciting. But what about a different kind of Bugatti replica? A replica that, say, is made from 44 sheets of paper?

   

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