By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

Well here’s a sight you don’t see everyday, even here at Ebisu! Not only was this guy drifting an NSX, “the Japanese super car,” but a modified NSX! The car has a wide body aero kit and engine tuning that includes aftermarket camshafts coupled with remapping via an HKS FconV Pro. The most amazing thing about the day was the way he transported all his drift equipment, including 6 spare wheels! Continue reading at Speedhunters

By Andrew Gray

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

The Royal Marines don’t mess around, and this high-speed motor-and-trans swap makes me wish such things were permitted in the pits in NASCAR. But I call a bit of bs: if the car’s front end is anything like the US Escort’s, you have to disconnect the lower ball joints and swing the wheels way out to plug in the half shafts. But despite the shortcuts, it’s worth a view. Via Jalopnik.

By Michael Berenis

Tampa Sports Car Examiner

An amazing performance piece by Boost Logic, the 243 mph Toyota Supra is sending out a strong JDM message to the world. Move over Veyron, there is a new contender in town. The mid 1990′s built Supra can withstand the top speeds of the multi-million dollar exotic. Only a few miles per hour slower, this Supra is not done and is expected to break the Veyron’s top speed in spring of 2010. Can it do it? I think so. Who cares about leather and chrome trim at 240+ mph anyways! Bye bye Bugatti, eat the Supra’s dust. Learn more about the 243 mph Supra at Tampa Sports Car Examiner.

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Looks sweet with those custom billet wheels! More pics on James’s ride page.

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Jonathan Ward just e-mailed to tell me that his ICON CJ3B prototype AKA “the Dog” is complete–just in time for SEMA! Check out his ride page for more details, and of course we’ll be meeting up with Jonathan and seeing this cool ride up close and personal at SEMA.

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Over the years, there have been countless times where I’ve jogged through the crosswalk to make a light. And the worst thing I’ve had to deal with is some friendly teasing about the funny way I run, so I was blown away by this near miss. Seriously, there can’t be more than a couple of centimeters between this dude’s elbow and the bus. Let’s hope he has another pair of underwear back at the office…

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Our second eBay Motors Showdown went to the 1973 Duster 340 by a pretty wide margin. It’s interesting to note that the Duster only got bid up to $13,600 before the auction ended, well shy of the $16,5000 reserve. The 1972 Nova sold for $14,500. Have any ideas for next week’s match up? Post them in the comments below!

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

As part of our recently completed site migration (and yes we are still working out a few bugs) we revisited the way ratings work on CarDomain. Many people complained that they saw their ratings drop. That is not exactly the case. I asked Steve Crane, one of our developers, to explain the tweaks they made to the system.

The rating system is something we take very seriously. It serves as a two purpose piece of information that is extremely important. On one hand it gives a the ride owner a sense of how others think of their ride. On the other it shows users what rides they might be interested in spending some time learning about.

When we undertook to update the site we noticed a few issues with the system as it stood. The old system was rounding up improperly giving the impression of having a higher rating for everyone. Anything above 3 was a 3.5, anything above 3.5 went to 4 and so on. Similarly a system was meant to be in place that prevented rides with a few stacked votes (say three people voting 5) to beat out rides that have been getting consistently high votes for a long time (say fifty votes with 20 being 4 and 30 being 5) was not functioning. Both of these issues have been ‘fixed’ as it were. This will result in everyone seeing what looks like a reduction in rating.

For our long term goals a full redesign of the rating system should help everyone. We are working on a system that will reward rides that do well over the long haul and give rides that are new rewards for improvement. Also in the wings is a few ideas that will help give people who rate rides well over time more of a say in how rides rate compared to other rides. Our goal will always be to more truly reflect the votes and opinions of those doing the rating while not allowing for petty ratings or ‘bought’ ratings to influence the system.

Hopefully this answers more questions than it raises. Post your questions below and I’ll do my best to answer them.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

This is a confusing piece. isn’t it? Normally people turn stuff into El Caminos by adding a truck like bed. Few people actually modify the Elky to be more car like. The seller of this creation is one of the few. See the eBay auction here.

Talk about having two faces. Up front there’s the boxy, angular 1980s styling and out back there is the swoopy early 1990s Cadillac bumper, tail lights, and trunk lid. You can open the trunk, which extends all the way to the back of the cab with the press of a button.

We’re not knocking the car when we ask the simple question, why the hell would someone do this? It appears to be done very well, we’re just looking for clarification on the reasons for the mashup. Make a bid on it and we can guarantee that you’ll have the only one on your block!

Thanks to BangShift.com member Mr4Speed for the tip.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

Another one from the Steve Williams collection out in Napa, California. It seems somebody decided they needed a bed cap for their 1963 Studebaker Champ, couldn’t find one in the aftermarket, and simply decided to make one themselves. I’d hazard a guess that the cap was built from a domestic 1960s van, but that window glass seems awfully big. From the seller’s description:

Has an odd custom camper on top, straight 6 we drove it to where it was parked for a couple of years so all is probably well with engine and drivetrain

A grand takes it. Your thoughts?