By Fireball Tim

Movie Car Design Master

So, there I was, riding my bike down PCH with my squeeze when I spotted this Mini. Well actually, not a Mini, but a MiniMini. I mean teeny.

This dood cut, chopped and sniped. (I’m sure scissors were involved.) And since I’ve never seen a smaller Mini than this, it’s officially “THE SMALLEST MINI EVER.” (Now, don’t go all hog wild and tell me “NO! THERE’S A SMALLER ONE!” Unless, you send me a photo.)

But, for now. It’s Fireball’s Official ‘TeenieMeenie.”

You want to see more? Check out his Facebook page.

Continue reading "Fireball Spots a Teeny Meeny" »

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Tokyo Auto Salon often brings out stuff that makes SEMA seem tame. So how about an Eleanor based on a fourth generation Toyota Supra? The students from Saitama University’s automotive course who built this named it “Moto Supra.” More pics after the jump! Via Car Scoop

Continue reading "Moto Supra" »

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Apparently bidders are not the only ones who scrutinize the cars at Barrett-Jackson. The police get in on the act too and their involvement led to the “recreation” ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda of Beach Boy Al Jardine to be impounded over suspicion that the car was actually stolen.

According to a story on Abc15.com, red flags flew when police noticed that the VIN on Jardine’s car did not match the number on the title. As it turns out, the car was stolen at one point in its life and the VIN tag from the dash was never recovered.

Some time later, the car was sold to a person who lived in Iowa. When they bought it, the new owner applied for a new VIN. which was granted. The original title was never amended to show the new VIN number and that brought on the confusion at BJ.

The police investigating the car were able to get the answers they needed and the car was allowed to re-enter the auction fold. Knowing now that Al Jardine has this pretty bitchin’ car, we’re wondering what else is in his personal garage.

Jardine tours with his own band playing Beach Boys songs, while Mike Love and Bruce Campbell tour with their own minstrels playing the same stuff. Even after all these years those boys still can’t get along!

Source: ABC15.com – Police Seize Beach Boy’s muscle car at Scottsdale auction

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

One wonders whether Emmett Kelly was still clowning around when he bought this 1972 Citroën 2CV at the age of 74. If so, interesting. If not, then does his ownership of it make it any more valuable than any other DeuxChevaux? Offered for $12,500 out of Frostproof, Florida. Continue reading at Hemmings

By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

Andrew from Motive DVD sent us some full-length video clips shot both in Japan and in Australia, and one of my favorites was this one featuring some late night street drift with the infamous Team BURST.

Check the clip to see some of Kansai’s best tearing it up on snow-lined roads.

By Mike Garrett

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Really? Is this how you’d want to be remembered? As the chump who got hauled off to his grave in a tarted-up Lincoln Town Car on cheap 22′s with a fake Rolls front clip? Hell, yes. The seller claims that at its most recent funeral, this converted hearse had folks lining up to get their picture taken with it. Classy! Never mind that the interior looks like it’s out of a junkyard Crown Vic. Check out the eBay auction here.

By Michael Berenis

Tampa Sports Car Examiner

The Cadillac CTS-V comes from the factory loaded with options and speed. Throw a TVS 2300 Corvette ZR1 supercharger into the mix, and now you have one of the fastest luxury sedans on the road. Custom fabricated and assembled for power, read more about the ZR1 supercharged CTS-V at Tampa Sports Car Examiner.

By Katherine Helmetag

Atomicalex

Everyone wants to know what the clutch life of their new manual transmission car will be. There’s almost no way to predict it, as it’s more dependent on driving style than clutch construction. The failure mode is much more predictable. In the case of my B5 Passat, the failure mode is generally delamination of the dual mass flywheel. The what? Some genius at VW decided to move the vibration damping elements from the clutch disc (springs) to the flywheel (bonded rubber). I scheduled a pre-emptive clutch replacement for last week. 132,705 miles seems to be a perfectly respectable clutch life to me.

By Antonio Alvendia

Antonio Alvendia

This past week, all the key members of the Motor Mavens Crew have been extremely busy, working on developing some cool new website features that our readers will enjoy. I recently had the opportunity to hang out with some of my AE86 friends from out of town also. MotorMavens contributor and AE86er Pedro Velado came all the way from El Salvador to hang out at my garage and talk about AE86s; and on the same day, my close friend, Osaka-based AE86er Taku Machida came to visit on his last day in the United States before he and his family moved back to Japan this past weekend.

Since all these AE86 friends have been coming by to hang out and look through my photo albums, filled with old school AE86 photos from over 10 years ago, I felt that it would only be fitting to dig up some old school AE86 photos for our website too. You see, I have to exercise extreme control in order to avoid posting up AE86 photos and stories every day on the MotorMavens site. Hell, if it were solely up to me, I could make it a site that only had AE86 and old school Toyota content… but we wouldn’t want to alienate all our readers who own other car marques.

Today though, I’m going to indulge and share images of one of my favorite AE86s from a stash of photos I took FIVE YEARS AGO. Yes, I took these photos way back in 2005. The red Sprinter Trueno in the photos is the famous “Yama red” AE86, owned by hachiroku driver Yamashita Koichi from the legendary Kanagawa-based drift team, Running Free. Running Free has a small handful of original members, but Yamashita is definitely the most famous in the group. Continue reading and view more photos on MotorMavens!

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Berk Technology just put together a very cool ride page for their time attack 135i. Look for the little Bimmer in the Redline Time Attack and Super Lap Battle series this year!