By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

We’ll start with the punchline. According to the Associated Press, neither driver in this massive collision was hurt. We can’ t fathom how that is possible because the impact looks like someone detonating a nuclear device, but we’re glad that it’s true. This is explosion quality that is normally only seen in Jerry Bruckheimer movies. How the dump truck managed to amble across a highway and directly in front of an 18-wheeler gathering steam to merge onto said highway is beyond us, but it happened. Pay attention to the upper left corner of the camera shot. This kids, is impressive stuff…

Raw Video: Texas Crash Creates Fireball

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

We’ve found a new personal gearhead hero. Whoever this guy is, he rules. Anyone who can claim ownership of a twin-engine, Harley-powered nitro bike is already walking among titans, but to have the balls to fire it up in the driveway and make a dry hop? Where do we go to join the fan club and get our decoder ring.

Things to look for. First is the female who was an integral part of the process because she started the camera and wisely sought shelter. Second, note that the dude is wearing velco type shoes with no socks. Thirdly, note that he installs the lanyard which would kill the bike in the event he were to be launched off the back, yet does not bother with a helmet. Fourthly, realize that he does the jobs of like four normal crew guys just to get the thing started and on the wheels.

This is awesome!

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

There are lots of great sleepers out there. The amazing farm truck that surfaced a couple years back still leaves our heads shaking, but this plumbing van from Australia ranks right up there with it. It began life powered by a suck-ass, small-displacement Mitsubishi engine and now packs V8 umph. The best part is the fact that it still has pipe on the roof rack and it handles like a fuel altered.

The fact that this beast blazes the tires at will, and clearly could run 10′s if it could hook, may make this the most entertaining 11-second pass we’ve ever seen.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Ah, the J-Turn. For those of you unfamiliar, it is the act of accelerating your car in reverse, cranking the wheel to one side and while the car is spinning around, jamming it into a forward gear and hammering the go pedal. It’s sometimes called a Rockford, or a Rick Hunter maneuver, and when pulled off correctly, it is loads of fun and you look like a hero. When you attempt the aforementioned move in a car with zero wheelbase and a high center of gravity, even a fifth grade science student could predict the result. These guys failed out of fourth grade apparently.

This in-car video of two blokes attempting a J-turn in a Smart car is pretty funny stuff. Listen closely right after the car goes turtle to what one of the guys mutters out. This is not the first time they’ve found themselves in this predicament.

Warning!!! If you have children in the room, there is swearing right at the end, but it’s in British, so probably hard for kids to understand.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Making big Cadillacs run hard isn’t a new thing, but it never gets old either. This drag video, which we believe was shot at Byron Dragway in Byron, Illinois is awesome. It shows a claimed street race machine from Chi-town on the strip stomping the daylights out of what looks to be a full-race Camaro. We want this car bad!

Sleepers rule, but this thing is beyond sleeper. If you looked at that car and thought 10.20s through the mufflers, you’re way better than us. Our friend Courtney Hines, owner of Cad Company, has built killer Caddy power for decades. In fact, he built the world’s fastest Cadillac, in the Spectre Performance Streamliner, but seeing another one of these beasts plowing down a drag strip still gets us lathered up.

We know what the guy in the Camaro was thinking when he saw the rear doors of the Cad come by, “What the hell?!”

For information on how you can make an Eldo or Deville fly, visit Cad Company here.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

The first Long Beach Swap Meet of the spring of 2010 came with real “chamber of commerce” type weather. The sun was out and promised warm temps from the moment it peeked over the San Gabriel Mountains. Sunny days bring out the people and, oh my, did the crowds come to Long Beach.

We arrived late, just after 7 am, an hour after the gates opened, thanks to mis-remembering when daylight savings started. We were met with a packed car coral lot and nearly every vendor space filled with automotive baubles. We spent more time walking in side step and said “excuse me” more times than we could count, but it was worth the extra effort.

With so many gadgets, parts, project cars, and fully restored classics offered up for the taking and a limited amount of cash in our pockets; we really had to focus and prioritize our parts list. With a cruise and drag race coming up in the near future; spending money on window felts and trunk seals for another project car wasn’t going to get us to the track. Focus, BangShifter, focus. We would’ve been better served bringing along the naysayers instead of the enablers. The latter are always great help for spending your money.

Check out the gallery below to see the cars we wanted, dreamed about, and drooled over, but really had to control ourselves not to buy. Besides, our spouses threatened us with death and dismemberment if we dragged home another rusted out wreck.

Gallery: The March 2010 Long Beach Swap Meet

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

We’re proud to say that both our three- and one-year-olds are driving cars built 100% in America. Sure, they happen to be Little Tikes Cozy Coupes, but we’re happy to know that the cars are made by the fine people of Hudson, Ohio, and that is from start to finish. Even better news? They can barely make the things fast enough.

We were happily shocked to find out the weird little cars (and in our case pickup trucks) were made here in the good ol’ USA, and we were right for being so. According to a story we found on MSNBC.com, 95% of the toys sold in this country are made in China.

The success formula for the Hudson, Ohio, Little Tykes plant is similar to others we have seen. It’s local government chipping in some, workers chipping in some, and the company making smart and occasionally painful decisions to run their business in a lean fashion.

According to the general manager of the company, the process for building the cars is very labor intensive and there’s not much automation, yet they are able to be competitve here on our soil, instead of abandoning ship to head for red China. Hell, we may buy another one just because of this story!

Source — MSNBC.com — Made in the USA Makes Cozy Coupe a Rarity

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

There are not too many cars you can name from the West Coast that are famous for street racing, but here is one of them. It is the 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona that is one of three that were supposedly given by Chrysler to Big Willie Robinson and his wife Tomiko to help them promote the Brotherhood of Street Racers in Los Angeles, which was actually an organization designed to keep kids away from other crime. Big Willie also opened the legendary Terminal Island drag strip under the Brotherhood name.

We found this car listed on eBay with information that states it is a factory 440-powered car that was at one time raced with a Hemi and a Clutchflite. The hood scoop has ties to the movie Two Lane Blacktop that featured another Daytona with this same hood. Big Willie was famous for a magazine ad for American Racing Wheels, but the car in that ad photo is not the same one as this.

We also found a story from the guy who bought this Daytona directly from Big Willie’s back yard several years ago. Click here to see that story on the DodgeCharger.com site.

If you can afford $250,000 for some 1970s street racing history, go to the eBay link!

Source — eBay Motors – Big Willie’s Dodge Charger

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Talk about bizarro world! This 1961 Chevrolet Corvair was put through the full kustom treatment in the late 1960s or early 1970s and then stored. It’s a time capsule to a world we’re not sure we wanted to be taken back to. Just about every inch of this Corvair was modified somehow, including the nose which looks oddly Mustang-ish to us.

The car is being sold sans-engine, but it does have the four-speed transmission intact. According to the seller the car had some type of hydraulic suspension, and several other features of the car operate via hydraulic controls, like the trunk and hood. None of that hydraulic stuff works, but it’s there to be repaired.

The rear of the car is pretty cool with its smoothed sides and the strange louvers on the trunk. The crazy lacquer paint is totally perfect for the time period and frankly, there aren’t many shops that could replicate that look today. The targa roof is creepy and we’re thinking that unless the rest of the car was braced up, it’ll be flexy.

We’re putting this one in the, “We dig it so long as someone else owns it,” category. Would you buy it?

Source — eBay Motors — 1961 Chevrolet Corvair

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

While it’s kind of impossible to call a race car a sleeper, we’d never guess that a Cortina packing 200ci of straight six Ford power would be uncorking 8 second lap times all day long. This car is an amazing testament to how a science’d out turbocharger application can really bring the thunder.

This car belongs to Aussie racer Joe Gauci and according to the video it rules the strip and is a great promotional tool for his business Profam Motorsport Fabrications. Joe must get a kick out kicking ass with that little bitty motor. Thanks to BangShift.com forum member 64FalconSix for the tip!