By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

HKS Technical Factory has always liked to impress by creating some pretty rare cars in the past. Their most well known has to be the BNR32-based Zero-R built in the early nineties. Only 4 were ever made, HKS kept 3 due to homologation problems and one was bought by the Sultan of Brunei to add to his vast collection of exotics. But the car you see here, the HKS CT200MR is, believe it or not, even rarer than that. There is only one in the world! Continue reading at Speedhunters

By Dino Dalle Carbonare

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

In just the 14 months between the November 1979 issue of Mechanix Illustrated (the ads from which we showed you recently) and the January 1981 issue, things seemed to change a little bit: No more sedan ads in the pages of MI, and fuel mileage, while mentioned in the earlier ads, wasn’t trumpeted nearly as much as in these ads.

Then again, there are also way more ads showing yuppies smoking than car ads in both of these issues. Take from that what you will. See the rest of the ads at Hemmings

By Antonio Alvendia

Antonio Alvendia

Since I’ll be joining CarDomain as a contributing writer, Editor-in-Chief Rob Einaudi thought it would be fitting that I give CarDomain readers some background info. As a contributor to the hot new car culture/photography site, MotorMavens.com and a  founding member of the original team that created Speedhunters.com, blogging about cars definitely isn’t new to me. In fact, I’ve been ‘blogging’ about cars online since the late 1990s when I made my first site, which dealt with old school Japanese cars, especially AE86s, TE27s, and drifting, import car shows in the USA, Tokyo Auto Salon, and other aspects of Japanese car culture.

I’ve also been fortunate enough to shoot covers and write stories for several magazines in the USA (Super Street, Modified, Grassroots Motorsports, 0-60, Rides, FHM, Classic Motorsports, etc) and in other parts of the world (Battle Magazine, Daytona, Speed, Drift Battle, Carboy, etc).

In 2006, my first hardcover book, entitled “Drifting,” was released at book retailers worldwide. Drifting was the first book that documented the history of drifting as it came from Japan and spread in popularity across the USA and to other parts of the world.

My love of car culture doesn’t just stop at photography though. I have a pretty large collection of vintage Toyota cars and memorabilia, like my AE86s and my original paint 1973 Toyota Corolla 1600SR 5-speed (TE27), which is an extremely rare find in the United States. You can check out some photos of my cars on my Cipher Garage profile on Cardomain, on my Cipher Garage Myspace, and on my new website, MotorMavens.com as well. Please feel free to drop me some comments! I’d love to hear from everyone!

By Katherine Helmetag

Atomicalex

Yesterday, I showed you the weld that was holding me back on my current Rabbit project. These bolts are considered the bane of rear axle work – they frequently become intractable and most people give up on the work or scrap the bodies. I posted up on the MkI forum over at VWVortex, and was told to cut the floor pan. I went out to the car and triangulated, and the welded bolt was right under the back seat pan. I shined my worklight down through a body vent, and yup, there it was on the floor, about an inch from where I needed to be. I enlarged the vent to get access to the bolts – take a peek after the jump. Next step is to drill out the welded bolt so I can weld a new one back in.

Continue reading "Bolts in Captivity" »

By Fireball Tim

Movie Car Design Master

Lots of people are looking forward to Seth Rogen’s Green Hornet. And with Cameron Diaz and Nicholas Cage now on board, it makes sense. But some of you think that this is gonna be a new movie, when it’s actually a remake of an old 60′s TV Show. And THAT show was a remake of a 40′s Serial! But the 60′s show was just one of the coolest shows that happened to be on TV at that time. Better than Batman and Bonanza, better than Route 66 too. Right up there with Twilight Zone and Hawaii 5-0.

And of course, with any successful crime fighter, this Green dood had a sidekick and cool car. Kato was the sidekick (Bruce Lee), and the Black Beauty was the car. It had rocket launchers, super cool sonar and a bunch of other doodads. But if you liked cars and Martial Arts as much as I did, then this series was the bomb. It was nothin’ but flyin’ foot fists and the smell of burnt rubber over the face of the bad guy. (The movie will actully have a story, too.)

This gallery shows the car in all it’s glory. Oil slicks, scud missiles, even a phone! What are they doing for the big budget movie? Ah, that’s a secret. Is it cooler than the original? Hm. Is it fulla cool gadgets that obliterate bad guys? Yup. Is it black? C’mon, gimme some REAL questions…

Until the movie gets closer, this is all you get, although I did post a concept I did a while back. See if you can find it…

A super modded Chrysler Imperial, thunder stumpin’ the evil doers of the planet. By the time the movie comes out, you’ll be well versed in this beast. Do it.

Continue reading "Fireball Dissects The Green Hornet" »

By David Wallens

Grassroots Motorsports

We have one of the real Group 44 Inc. Triumphs in our fleet, and earlier this year it experienced a little oiling problem. Apparently an O-ring blocked some oil flow, and the results were less than ideal. This is bad, right? Anyone else ever uncover such horrors?

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

While Nads and the StreetFire crew were down in Vegas for Round four of the 2009 Formula D Series, they got a chance to chat with some of the sport’s biggest names about what’s been a—um, how should we say it… —surprising season. Former champ Rhys Millen didn’t even qualify for Vegas, two-time champ Tanner Foust is down in the dumper points wise, and Samuel Hubinette has lost his Mopar sponsorship. So what the hell is going on? Watch now for some insight about this crazy season.

By David Wallens

Grassroots Motorsports

I do a lot of the photography for our magazines, but sometimes you have to call in the experts. Anthony Neste’s past subjects have included professional athletes, famous models and the cast of The Sopranos. Every now and then he’ll lower his standards enough to work for us.

Last week we shot the cover for the next issue of our Classic Motorsports magazine, and it was a group effort: Tony handled the photography, a friend let us turn his shop into a studio, and the rain held off just long enough to get the job done. Oh, and the models never stopped smiling.

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

In-car clips are great and everything, but I think it makes all the difference when you can see the driver working, as well as the speedo and the car’s location on the track. I especially like it when there’s a camera down in the driver’s foot well, so you can see their feet in action, but since this Lambo is an e-gear, that’s really unnecessary here. Even thought the mount seems a little loose—there’s some pretty serious vibrations at high speed—this is still a great clip. I wasn’t able to determine which track these guys are at, but since the since the video was tagged with the address of a German Lambo dealer, I’m assuming it’s somewhere in Germany. Maybe Sachsenring?

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

When you combine an old estate and more than 1,000 muscle cars, classics, and trucks, you’re bound to see a few things that catch your eye, make you cringe, or simply make you fall in love on the spot. Such was the case at the 2009 Bay State Antique Auto Club Annual Show held at the Endicott Estate in Dedham, Massachusetts.

The day was hot and the show was packed. Seeing as this was a judged event, mostly everything there was chromed, shined, polished and pretty. There were a few exceptions, but experienced “showers” made up the bulk of the entrants.

There’s good and bad in that as we’re not typically judged show type guys simply for the attitude one generally runs into in that situation. This was much more laid back, most likely due to the size of the show with more than 1,000 cars jammed on the grounds.

Here’s a collection of photos that should give you the essence of the show. Maybe Attilla will rumble into the grounds next year.