By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Everybody who’s ran hot laps in a video game has wondered how their skills would translate to reality, and that’s why the latest video from Ford’s Mustang ‘10 Unleashed campaign is so fun to watch. Ford held a competition to find the best Need For Speed gamers, had the top four practice driving a Mustang in the game, then took them to a track to see who could come closest to their times in a real car. From the clips of them practicing virtually—um, and why the hell are they playing with controllers instead of wheels?—I was thinking the poor Ponys selected for this stunt were going to wind up in the crusher, but the Ford folks wisely chose to do this on a course without barriers.

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

I wish Porsche would just get on with it and do a major overhaul on the Boxster. I’m totally fine with the slow, evolutionary pace on the timeless 911, but the Boxster is just, well, dated. To distract us a bit, Porsche is coming out with the Boxster Spyder. For $3k more than a Boxster S, the Spyder features radio and AC delete, a tad more power, bigger brakes, better wheels, better seats, LSD, sports suspension and of course all the stuff that makes it look special. Weight saving include the lightweight soft top and aluminum door skins, which brings the weight down almost 200 pounds from the Boxster s. So, pretty cool… More details at Porsche USA.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Everyone, it seems, even the auto company executives themselves, is perplexed as to why sales of cars like the Mustang, Camaro, and Challenger continue to troop onward and upward when the rest of new car sales slump. Why would people be driving cool, powerful, fun to drive cars? What would attract a buyer to a car that stands out from the crowd, allows owners to compete at the race track in, and has great looks and sound?

Maybe some guy working in the basement of one of the domestic auto companies will churn out some massive spread sheet that comes to the stunning conclusion that people don’t really want to buy bland junk.

When you read the quotes from the guys that work for Chevy in this Wall Street Journal story you’ll probably be as frustrated as we were.

Viva la muscle!

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

Seriously, belt drive? That belt looks skinnier than the V-belt on Heather’s Midget. And not only that, but belt drive between the wheels? If you have a hankerin’ to see how this works, check out the ad for this 1956 Diamond T out of Ottertail, Minnesota, for $4,900. From the seller’s description:

Very RARE rear belt drive tandem. All the bells and whistles ! “532″ Model- North Dakota truck , running when parked. Low original miles (Supposingly an army issue)

More at Hemmings

By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

Here is one nice ride I spotted last month when covering the D1-GP final in Fuji Speedway. This extremely low BNR32 belongs to Ryusuke Kawasaki, the editor of Drift Tengoku (Drift Heaven) Magazine, the only publication you will ever need to read if you are into sliding around in cars! Doriten (the nick name of the mag) first came out back in 1996. It was bundled along with an issue of Option, and it kind of stayed like that until 1999 when it was finally launched as a proper separate publication. Continue reading at Speedhunters

By Dino Dalle Carbonare

By Michael Berenis

Tampa Sports Car Examiner

The nastiest Honda S2000 imaginable goes by the name “Honda S2000 from hell.”  It has a kill list a mile long! Motorcycles, V8s, Nissan Z’s, and turbocharged Neons on meth can’t keep up with this car. Read more about this awesome JDM performance machine at Tampa Sports Car Examiner.

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

There were scads of hot rods at SEMA this year, even more so than in the last couple of years, when the modern hot rod scene was really diversifying and gaining traction with mainstream car culture. The range of the rod genre was astounding–we saw everything from ultra-built trailer queens to bare-bones rats with the road dirt still on ‘em. And now, it’s time for you to decide on the best hot rod of SEMA 2009. Our candidates include the Rolling Bones ’32 Ford, which wins the distance award for driving from New York to Vegas for the show; Piss-Off Pete, an amazing Peterbilt running a twin-supercharged Detroit diesel; the Truckster in the Painless booth, with its hot flat head V8; Bruce Harvey’s supercharged Ratical Model A; and Priapism, the only rod we found at the show that was running two engines. Cast your votes below!

[slideshow id=3386706919818891057&w=426&h=320]

[polldaddy poll="2244019"]

By Fireball Tim

Movie Car Design Master

If you’ve got major bucks, then you’ve got one of these rides. But since most of us shmoes don’t, then the next best thing is to watch a TV show about… DOODS with BIG BANK that can driving serious machines like these. What are they? One hint. …They go on Air, Land and Sea. Very fast. Series Premieres in  January, but check out the sneek peeks this month.

Listings here.

By Ron Honig

WaytooFurious

I truly love it when something interesting lands in my in-box. I collect die-cast models so I was amazed when I saw this picture. The fact that it is made from tin cans makes it even more interesting. Check out all the cars here. Thanks for the e-mail Dale.

By John Naderi

StreetFire.net

Source Interlink Media held its Super Lap Battle finals at Buttonwillow Raceway Park’s Race 13 clockwise configuration today. All of the ink and paper outlets should have the complete story in a few months but if you can’t wait here are the dirty deets as reported by our boys at Everything Time Attack. It looks like David Empringham took/ate/slathered with hot sauce the whole enchilada in the Sierra Sierra Evo VIII with a 1:45.061. This is not too close to the 1:43.523 overall record held by Nobuteru Taniguchi in the HKS CT230R Evo VIII but an impressive time nonetheless for a car that is very much still in development.

The Sierra Sierra Evo is a bit of an enigma in the time attack world, like someone who eats their waffles with syrup and no butter (now THAT’S messed up). This car is built to FIA GT3 specs in a field of cobbled together tuner cars. On another note, this 8 will be retired after this season, as Sierra Sierra is already hard at work on an Evo X with a Cosworth built 4B11. Hit the jump to see some more good times from Buttonwillow.

Continue reading "Spoiler Alert: Super Lap Battle Finals Results" »