By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

This guy took a “rust-bucket Alpine” and turned it into a twin-turbocharged 5-liter LSR that ran 192.5 mph at Bonneville last year. It’s nice to see a basketcase rescue turn out that well, but my dad, who sent me this page and who’s building a Sunbeam Tiger that he hopes to run on the salt flats, is a little disheartened by what it’s going to take to get one of these cars up to 200 mph. He’d hoped to also make his streetable! Check out the Alpine’s website.

By Mike Bumbeck

Clunkbucket

Over a million Renault 4CV sedans can’t be wrong. Sales of the 4CV hit half a million units in 1954, and surpassed the million mark by 1960. The 4CV was sold here in America, and manufactured under license as the HINO 4CV in Japan. And what’s not to like? Rear engine. Developed in total secrecy by a German-occupied WW2 France. Rear wheel drive. Cheap to buy when produced. Still relatively easy to hop-up with proven modifications, as long as there’s a few spare parts kicking around. Very light at 1230 or so pounds. The Volkswagen-like 4CV is even the progenitor of the rally-winning Alpine A106. Larry Peacock has one more great reason why he digs his 1960 Renault 4CV with a Lexus emblem glued onto the side. It hasn’t caught on fire and burned to the ground like his Citroen SM did. Read more and gape at a giant 4CV Gallery over at Clunkbucket!

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

The results of our annual People’s Choice Awards are in! Congrats to all the winners and a big thanks to everyone who voted. And a huge shout out to Bud, our 2008 Showoff of the Year! So, without further ado…

1.      Best Tire Manufacturer: BFGoodrich

2.      Best Wheel Manufacturer: BBS

3.      Best Exhaust Manufacturer: Flowmaster

4.      Best Car Audio Manufacturer: Alpine

5.      Best Motor Oil: Mobil

6.      Best Video Game: Midnight Club LA

7.      Most Mod-Friendly Car: Ford Mustang

8.      Most Exciting New Vehicle Launch: 2010 Chevy Camaro

9.      Best Racing Series: Formula D

10.     Showoff of the Year: OrangeKrate

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Sure, vehicles built for audio competition don’t always have to look like something you could actually drive. But seriously, this fugly sound stage BMW doesn’t even have a steering wheel. Of course we’ve had the Alpine "Sinister Six" in the blog before—it’s been around for a few years, and how it’s managed to evade the crusher all this time is a mystery. The car’s days may be numbered, though—it seemed neglected, and was covered in dust. More…

Continue reading "Somewhere Under All That Is A BMW" »

We’ve all heard about the Lamborghini cop cars in Italy. Well, it looks like the French police had some pretty sweet Alpines at one point. Just check out this beautiful A110. More over at Hemmings.

Vote for your favorite… We’re celebrating Car Audio and Electronic magazine’s 20th anniversary this summer. See the October issue for a special retrospective covering some of the best custom car audio rides from the show and sound competition circuit. Online we’ll be featuring each of the vehicles from the retrospective with additional pics. Every week users can vote for their favorite cars from the different categories. Here I’m posting interior shots from various Alpine demo vehicles (the full features can be found on our site). Chronologically you have the Honda Civic, Mini Cooper, BMW X5, The BMW 645 and the MBZ R500. Tough choice but I think I may have to lean toward the Civic that Chris Yato and Steve Brown built, partially because it’s the vehicle that really got the over-the-top demo car trend going. And you see variations of different design elements from the Civic in the cars that followed. Comment on your favorite and vote for yours starting next week on the Car Audio website.

Follow the jump to check out the legendary rides!

Continue reading "Car Audio mag 20th Anniversary" »

• What are the car audio shops in your area like? If you’re lucky, there’s one like JML Audio’s new facility. Based in the St. Louis, MO area, JML is currently in the process of building a new location that sets the bar much higher for all other audio shops in the area.
• SoundDomain member Lary357j picked up a new Eclipse AVN6620 double-DIN navi-radio for his Lincoln SUV. He gave SoundDomain members some insight to the ups and downs of the radio, as well as screen shots of it’s MANY capabilities. Take a look and learn!
• The wait is over! Alpine’s new IVA-W505 is finally shipping. By the time you read this, your dealer may already have yours!
• This Sanyo Gorilla portable navigation device features a 7" screen, digital TV tuner, and 4GB SD card… But the coolest part? It actually tells you if you’re parking in a high-theft area!

• The Audison "bit one" sound processor is not even out yet, but it’s creating quite a stir among the car audiophiles on CarDomain and SoundDomain. It looks hot and is feature packed! But if you read the first post we put up, you may want to check out the most recent news on the bit one. It’s still all pre-production data, but we got an inside scoop on the feature list that’s most likely to make it to production.
• SoundDomain moderator Richard Vedvik (keep_hope_alive) loved his older Alpine CDA-7930, so when the display started to go out he decided to simply replace the CD player’s display rather than replace the entire radio! Cool thing is, he documented the process on SoundDomain for all to see!
• Jensen just updated their Free MP3 downloads section. Get the details here!
• We stumbled on a cool comic satirizing the recent boom in portable navigation products. Be aware that all are not created equal!

The chopped roof and insanely detailed paint made this Mini stand out from across the hall, but it was the single-seat cockpit which really blew me away. While I can’t imagine the plastic seat is particularly comfortable, the controls look more like what you’d use to control a podracer than a car, and that’s pretty dope. More pics after the jump.

Continue reading "Alpine Takes Mini to the Max" »

• T3 Audio has made a name for itself in the SPL Competition world…. Not only do they have insanely loud woofers, but they seem to be quite good at blowing up windshields at every competition due to the immense pressure inside their competition vehicles! Check it out, we’ve got a ton of pics and a video of a windshield actually blowing up at USACi nationals last year. Crazy.
• I’m not sure why every other Auto Blog website is claiming that this Lexus rear seat entertainment system for the RX series is such a hot item?? We think it’s absolutely hideous and way overpriced. Read the rant and see what you could actually get in the aftermarket for that same cash!
• The install crew at Alpine are a creative bunch of mad scientists. Not only do they build the hottest demo cars in the Mobile Electronics industry, they’ve also figure out ways to better dispose of their trash. We’ve got video of their homemade 5-gallon cash crusher!