By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Hey, planting derelict cars in your front yard is a recognized and authentic form of American folk art. But an airplane, in a crowded Seattle neighborhood? That’s a new twist on the genre I think. The bittersweet part is that there’s a wheelchair ramp ascending to the house from the overgrown yard where the aircraft is parked. I wonder what the little puddle-jumper’s story is. See the whole thing below the jump.

Continue reading "Not Your Usual Automotive Lawn Ornament" »

By Sam Barer

Sound Classics

I can count the number of Lamborghinis I saw driving on the road in Washington State in the 1970s and 1980s on one hand. Hell, I can count this on one finger–which represents the time in 1988 when I followed a red Countach up Clyde Hill in my 1977 Chrysler LeBaron.

But now, with Exotics At Redmond Town Center, at 8:30 AM on any given non-raining Saturday any of us can see more Lamborghinis in one day than I did in twenty years. The same goes for Ferraris, Maseratis, Lotuses, and other high end vehicles. Read on…

Continue reading "Exotics at Redmond Town Center: Bringing Cars and Families Together On Sunny Saturdays" »

By Michael Berenis

Tampa Sports Car Examiner

Two-step, aka “launch control,” cuts the ignition or fuel so that you can keep the car at wide open throttle but stay at a specified RPM for launching which builds boost, and in this case shoots massive fire. Thanks to rapidly rising EGT’s, the leftover fuel ignites once it hits the hot turbo and we get instant fire action. Warning, this clip features NSFW language, but it’s totally worth it.

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

CarDomain HQ is on the move again! This time, it’s not too far–we’ve just scored a better office in our current ‘hood. Meanwhile, Rob is conveniently leaving in the middle of it all to go to party at the New York International Auto Show, so things are kind of upside-down and on fire right now. If you notice any disruption, our chaotic office situation is the most likely culprit. And if you happen see any empty boxes lying around in the blog, let us know–we’re short! Thanks for bearing with us.

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Nothing like a flight of red first-gen Camaros, right? Chad has made a nice little track toy out of his ’68 (second from the right). Check it out on his ride page!

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Let’s say that you have a 1993 Dodge Daytona that has thrown a rod and is emotionally dead to you. There are a couple of options to move on at that point. At least two of them involve a tow truck and a junkyard. These guys chose the third option. Pin the throttle wide open and create the worlds largest smoke machine.

The motor sounds totally awful and this method of motor destruction isn’t exactly “green,” but forgive us if we can’t stop ourselves from laughing at the sheer absurdity of the situation. Did they build a steam powered version of the Daytona?

By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

I’ve been particularly interested in the Australian scene at the moment and checking out what kind of crazy cars there are out there. It’s more than obvious these Aussies don’t hang around! Take a look at this R32 GT-R built by Croydon Racing Developments, crazy hi-power engine under the hood and and almost stock exterior. Me like!

By Dino Dalle Carbonare

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

I went to the world-famous Griot’s Garage in search of a 134db low-tone truck horn I found on their website (the site lets you actually honk the horns–how could I resist?), then ended up going halfers with Chris on a bundle of their ultra-yummy car care goodies (d’oh! More on that later). I also did a motor flush, replaced the valve cover gasket, changed oil, swapped in new spark plugs and wires, and rotated tires on my Escort GT, and rigged up a vent tube to replace the crankcase breather that used to occasionally dribble a few drops of hot oil onto the plug wires and exhaust header.

How about you? What did you do this weekend?

By David Clarke

highspeedhijinks

There are a lot of really good hot rod builders out there, from superstars like Chip Foose to the old body guy at your local shop who’s been building stuff since the dawn of time. The poor mutilated vehicles I’ve linked to below, by contrast, have never seen such quality people. They instead fell into the unskilled hands of hacks who built them all “cockeyed”–they must’ve looked good to them, but to the rest of us with good eyes (and decent taste) it’s clear that something went horribly wrong. “Homely” is the tactful word to describe these kinds of builds, and after seeing my fair share of them at the car shows I dubbed them the “Homely Rollers”. These are the cars that are the vision of some automotive Frankenstein who combs the boneyards for scraps and then cobbling these heaps together in the name of creation. If you’ve never seen these abominations, the mutilation of this Chevy Luv pickup, described by the seller as “the cheapest fun on eBay” (I bet!), should give you a good example of this particular brand of “customizing.” Want to see more carnage? Try browsing through these rides I found on Ebay without writhing in pain:  57 Chevy Belair, a fenderless ’49 Fleetline, and a sightless VW Beetle.

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

I like to ask every so often because I’m always looking for new sources. Lately I’ve been geeking out a lot on Amazon.com’s parts site. People generally don’t think of going to a book site for car stuff, and the parts department is very much buried on the the Amazon homepage (home >Tools, Auto, and Industrial >Automotive). Both of these factors may be playing a role in keeping the prices reasonable–it’s still kind of a secret. Their year/make/model search is extremely good, and while a lot of the common parts come directly from Amazon, the site is also features a marketplace format so you can pretty easily dig up all kinds of obscure and random stuff from out-of-the-way sellers (like, who would’ve known I could get Competition Engineering 3-way adjustable drag shocks for my AMC Eagle? Sold!). All this, plus I’ve been extra-obsessed ever since I figured out I could spend my reward certificates there that I get from my credit card. Free car parts–it just doesn’t get much better than that.

But anyway, how about you? Found any good new online sources for car parts since the last time we discussed it?