I have always enjoyed supporting a good cause which is why I thought that it was great that Bentley is auctioning one of their a static prototypes for charity. This Continental GT was built in 2003. However as you can see it is no ordinary prototype, firstly it is a Bentley but then there is the fact that it has been adorned with art work by Romero Britto. To be honest I had never heard of Britto but apparently he is a well know artist, so hopefully the car gets a good price. The proceeds of the sale will go to the Nathalie Todenhöfer Foundation for multiple sclerosis as well as Best Buddies, an organization dedicated to improving the integration of the mentally disabled within society. For the record my favorite artist is Casper David Friedrich with his Wanderer above a sea of fog, so yes it is possible for gearheads to dig art.

Continue reading "Bentley Auction for Charity" »

One of the coolest things I’ve ever done was cover the Pike’s Peak Hill Climb, and since it’s the view from the summit which inspired Katharine Lee Bates to write “America the Beautiful,” I figured this classic footage deserves some sunlight.  “Climb Dance” won a laundry list of awards, and it does a hell of a job capturing the magnificent beauty and harrowing racing of Pike’s Peak. Happy birthday America, I love you! Have a great 4th everyone!

Coolest Fox body ever? Check out the eBay auction and you can see a ton more pics at the JBA website.

After striking out at Summit on gloves, I was kind of at a loss. I hate the whole “order it and if it doesn’t fit, send it back” thing. So I turned my attention to collars, the foam pieces that support your helmet on your shoulders so you neck doesn’t take a serious beating. RJS Racing kept popping up as the cheap solution, and a quick search revealed that their plant is about ten minutes from my job. How cool is that? I ran over there at lunch and come home with the collar and a pair of Made in the USA gloves that fit. I spent $77, bringing me to a grand total of $275, $25 under my self-imposed limit of $300. That includes the $10 I spent on Nomex thread to “fix” my suit.

There’s no narration on this clip, but if you’re anything like me, you won’t care. The shots of these weapons-grade Lambos battling at Italy’s Adria Raceway—and the sound of their engines!—is more than enough for me. Thanks to Lamborghini München for uploading this uber-sexy footage, and congrats on the hat trick finish! Viva la Super Trofeo Series!

We’re jumping the gun with the caption contest this week cause the entire CarDomain/StreetFire crew is gonna be taking tomorrow off to better prepare ourselves for the 4th of July. So anyway, here’s another classic from VWVortex, with an added closeup after the jump. You know the drill: Come up with a caption for the picture below by noon PST next Thursday. If you submit the funniest one, we’ll send you some CarDomain swag. Three entries per member max. Good luck!

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When I was a kid, I worshiped Michael Jackson, and Thriller was the first record I ever bought. That said, I wasn’t terribly sad when I’d heard MJ had passed, because I’ve always pretended he died in 1984. That saved me a lot of unpleasantness over the years. Of course, tons of people are still crazy about him, and some of them fall behind on their DeLorean payments. I have to admit I was impressed with this fanatic’s dance moves—it’s a shame he didn’t throw in a moonwalk!

When I first saw this absurd mod, I almost wanted to call it case of over-thinking, but since that would imply some brain cells were involved, it really wouldn’t be accurate. I’m still trying to decide whether this intake fail demonstrates less knowledge than this custom brake fiasco, but that’s really irrelevant. Anyway, this week’s winner is tribaltatz, who came up with; “Now I can drive underwater!” It’s simple, to the point, and most importantly, funny. Congrats man. Tune in later today for the next installment of America’s best-loved Caption Contest!

Ma Mopar’s Viper is awesome because it’s about as complicated as a hammer. There’s no fancy traction control or electronic nannies to keep you out of the wall, there’s just a giant motor and the potential for trouble. And when you’re talking about a 1000HP Venom version,  things are even more intense. So I wasn’t surprised when the Porsche bests the beast in this race, because hooking up all those ponies isn’t going to be easy, and Stuttgart knows how to make a car corner. But even though it’s way, way, too close for comfort, how cool does it look when the Viper comes sliding by the camera? It looks like a comet! Good thing it didn’t impact the Ford GT…

The XP Vehicles Mini Utility Vehicle electric car prototype features “inflatable membrane construction for extreme durability” and a “removable power pack to recharge at home without (an) extension cord.” Heck, it even “floats in a water emergency.” No word on when you’ll be able to buy one, but you can read more about it on the company website. Via Autoblog Green

Call it project Sniper, project Nitemare, or just bat poop crazy, but Scott Vanderschoor’s twin-turbo, Viper V10 powered Mustang project has officially transitioned from garage-bound dream to functioning automobile status and we have the video to prove it.

The link was sent to us by Scott Clark (DieselGeek on the forums) who spends some of his spare time doing what he’s doing in this video, tuning and dialing in fuel injection setups on cars that range from fairly tame to, well, this.

Vanderschoor, it needs to be mentioned is a home builder, and he performed the work on every aspect of this amazing project. He’s been providing photo updates throughout the build on the BangShift.com forums.

This is a quickie video that shows the car’s first fire up and Clark establishing a baseline to have the car idle and behave itself well enough to get it onto the dyno rollers and really put the wood to that big V10.

Continue reading "The Sniper Lives: Twin Turbo, Viper V10 Powered Mustang Caught on Tape!" »

This is a project I continue to watch closely as it takes shape. Now ASI has completed their Scuderia type exhaust for the Ferrari F430. Here you can see it with ASI’s incredible rear bumper.

Note the high mount dry carbon GT Wing from ASI as well. This is the most sinister F430 rear end I’ve seen yet. To me nothing beats a top level Japanese tuned Ferrari. Between this and the Garage Saurus Ferrari F550 Maranello (another personal favorite of mine), I think the Japanese do aftermarket tuning the best for Ferrari.

Continue reading "ASI F430 Project Update: ASI Exhaust" »

Some of the most impressive post-war American cars came not from Detroit, but from West Palm Beach, Florida, where Briggs Cunningham built both his race and his street cars, the latter produced just as an excuse to continue building the former.

But what if Cunningham had made more of an effort to actually produce a profit from his civilian enterprise and thus keep the company alive for a few years more? Certainly Briggs would have kept racing and developing his competition cars, but perhaps he might have expanded the civilian offerings, maybe by offering a sedan. Continue reading at Hemmings

I was on the phone just now with Andy Barnes from the UK Time Attack/NFS European Drift Series and was discussing our plans for AWD month with him. He suggested I look up this brand new Evo 8 drag car run out of the UK from an outfit called JR Motorsports… The AWD 1400bhp car has been built to a target of 6 seconds if you can believe that… Madness! We are going to need to send a Speedhunter round their shop to see what this car is about.

By Rod Chong

One more pic after the jump. Via VWVortex

Continue reading "Was This the Inspiration for the New Camaro?" »