Category: Motors

North Carolina’s Can Opener Bridge: this too-low North Carolina railroad trestle is still a notorious truck executioner

Robin

At the corner of Gregson and Peabody streets in Durham, North Carolina lies what at first glance appears to be an innocent railroad trestle – but this is no ordinary railroad trestle. It is sinister and cunning and will mercilessly scalp any vehicle too high and mighty for its own good. Well, most bridges in North Carolina have a 15-foot clearance (about 4,5 meters), but this was designed in the 1920s and built in 1940, and so it has a clearance of 11 feet 8 inches (3,6 meters). This architectural…

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Mao Mao, the feline car model that earns more than most humans

Robin

Mao Mao, a two-year-old British Shorthair from Chongqing, China, works as a professional cat model and earns between 5,000 yuan ($775) and 10,000 yuan (1,550) per appearance. Mao Mao’s rise to fame was somewhat of an accident: her owner, a man surnamed Zheng, works in the automotive industry, and during an auto show he had the brilliant idea of putting his pet cat into one of the cars. That immediately drew a crowd of people who couldn’t wait to take a photo of the cute feline and share it on…

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Maxus V90 Life Home Villa Edition: the van Camper that comes with a second storey and an elevator

Robin

If you’re in the market for the most sumptuous motorhome money can buy, and a luxury truck-shaped camper is not for you, how about a villa on wheels with a second storey and even a built-in elevator? It is the Maxus V90 Life Home Villa Edition, that may look like your everyday modern van camper on the road, but when parked it can transform into a futuristic two-storey villa at the press of a button. That’s right, with a single finger press you can become the envy of your friends…

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Did you know that you can buy this electric Mini Pickup Truck for just $5,500?

Robin

If you’re looking for the cheapest electric pickup truck money can buy, you should definitely check out this bargain on Chinese marketplace Alibaba: an all-electric mini pickup truck for just $5,500 (on February 2021). Manufactured in China under the obscure brand “R&Z” this pretty little electric truck sits on 12-inch wheels, has a maximum payload of 500 kilograms and featured a 1.6m long bed. Of course not the most impressive features for a pickup truck, but keep in mind that this costs a fraction of the price of any electric…

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Zipper Fastener Ship: the boat shaped like giant zip that looks like It’s opening the water

Robin

Japanese designer Yasuhiro Suzuki has created a unique boat shaped like a giant zipper puller that looks like it’s opening up the water when sailing. Unveiled as part of the Designart Tokyo 2020 event, the zipper puller boat, officially known as Zipper Fastener Ship, is the brainchild of Japanese designer who claims it was the result of a simple observation. He was looking down from the window of an airplane and saw a ship sailing through Tokyo Bay. The movement of the water as the boat passed created the illusion…

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Pontiac “Ghost Car”: the first transparent car made in America

Danijel90

Visitors to the 1939 New York World’s Fair Highways and Horizons exhibit by General Motors were dazzled by the display of a one-of-a-kind 1939 Pontiac Deluxe Six Plexiglas car. This specially fabricated see through vehicle was constructed of acrylic plastic (quite an advancement at the time) which made visible the many parts that created the vehicle. Unveiled in the same year, the “Ghost Car” was the first completely transparent car made in America, and eight decades later, photos of it are still a wonder to see. Designed to showcase everything…

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October 1, 1908: Ford Motor Company unveils the Model T, the “car of the century“

Robin

Hailed as “the car of the century,” the first Model T Ford rolled off the assembly line in Detroit, Michigan, on this day, October 1, 1908. One of the leading executives behind the project, Charles E. Sorensen, was to describe later the eventful day when Henry Ford announced the idea. In his book, “My Forty Years With Ford”, published in 1956, he wrote: “Early one morning in the winter of 1906-07, Henry Ford dropped in at the Piquette Avenue plant to see me. ‘Come with me, Charlie,’ he said, ‘I…

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The world’s cheapest electric car that costs $930 and can be mailed to your door

Danijel90

If you’ve been dreaming of an electric car, but can’t yet afford to buy a Tesla, you can start low. Really low. Changli is the world’s cheapest electric car, it cost $930 ($1,200 with larger batteries), it can be ordered online and delivered to your door. Designed and produced by Chinese manufacturer Changzhou Xili Car Industry, Changli, or “Changli ” is a tiny electric vehicle that has been getting a lot of attention online after being promoted as “the world’s most affordable electric car”. Calling this thing a car is…

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The impossible climb: No dirt bike has ever made it atop this notorious hillside

Robin

The Andler Hillclimb is an annual dirt bike competition that has dirt bikers from around Europe try to reach the top of a really treacherous hillside course in Belgium. It’s been held every year for the last two decades, but so far no one has been able to reach the top. The so-called “impossible climb”, starts out as rough gravel and then switches over to a washboard of rough cliff face designed to throw riders off and send them and their bikes tumbling back down to the base of the…

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The miniature Rolls Royce that costs as much as a real car

Danijel90

Probably you can’t afford to shell out $330,000 for a brand new Rolls Royce Cullinan, but you can still get a 1:8 replica complete with the SUV’s iconic accessories and details for “just” $27,000! Car miniatures don’t usually cost as much as an ordinary vehicle, but this isn’t an ordinary miniature: It consists of more than 1,000 individual parts carefully put together by hand by Rolls Royce experts in about 450 hours. And, interestingly, that’s more than half the time it takes the luxury car company to build an actual…

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#June 1, 1935: first test for drivers!

Robin

In 1934 in Britain there were about one and a half million cars on the roads, but despite the relatively low number, more than 7,000 people were killed in road accidents. Something had to be done…and so it was.Parliament decided that anyone driving a car had to prove they could do it safely and the first compulsory driving test was introduced on this day, June 1, 1935. Those who had not passed the test were required to display L (for learner) plates on their vehicle.The test lasted about half an…

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The history of Volkswagen, the “People’s Car”

Anya016

Germany’s Volkswagen is the largest car maker in the world, after Toyota. Its 590,000 employees produce around the world nearly 41,000 vehicles daily. It currently owns 12 subsidiaries including Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi, Seat and Skoda, luxury brands such as Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche and Ducati, as well as Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Scania and Man. And, above all, it is a long way from its origins as part of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s vision to enable German families to own their first car! In all began on May 28, 1937,…

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#April 20, 1887: in Paris, world’s first motor race!

Robin

Historic records show that on this day, April 29, 1887, Georges Bouton “won the world’s first motor race”. But it was a hollow victory and there was no champagne celebration. The reason? Bouton and his co-driver were the only ones taking part. And, to be exact, it wasn’t even a car, but a steam-powered quadricycle. The curious event was a test organised by the newspaper “Le Velocipede” to see if Bouton’s machine, which had boasted speeds of 60kmph, could make the 29-kilometre distance between Neuilly Bridge in Paris and the…

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#March 18, 1662: the first public buses began to run in Paris, probably 200 years ahead of its time.

Robin

The first public buses began to run on this day, March 18, 1662, even if it was an idea probably 200 years ahead of its time. The service, introduced in Paris, was abandoned in 1675 and public transport did not return to the streets of any major city until 1895, exactly 233 years later. The idea was promoted by Blaise Pascal who was a man of many talents: physicist, philosopher, mathematician, inventor, author – and more. The Governor of Poitou, the Duke of Ronanes, thought it was such a good…

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Global XRS 7200: the luxury motorhome suitable also for a global apocalypse!

Pavel

If the end of the world is a perfect script for eclectic writers and screenwriters of cinema, there are also those who, in real life, have thought of creating a vehicle that is perfect even if all would become reality and we were finding ourselves as catapulted into a post-apocalyptic film or science fiction. But, seriously. Have you ever had a dream of selling your apartment and travel the world in a motorhome? Of course, It’s one of the most fulfilling things one can do in lifetime. But to live…

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International Car Forest of the Last Church~

Leo S

The International Car Forest of the Last Church is the unusual dream project of two Nevada artists. Some artists work with paint, others with clay, marble or stone. Chad Sorg’s challenge was to make art with cars, buses and trucks and this “church” looks more similar to a druidic henge of junkers than any Christian chapel! The product of artists Chad Sorg and Mark Rippie, the Car Forest began when the Reno artist Chad Sorg was driving through Goldfield, Nevada, several years ago and saw a vehicle sticking out of…

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The “Bazooka Vespa”: the scooter that could destroy a tank.

Adam

Its technical name was “Piaggio Vespa 150 TAP”, but it remained known among the experts and military history enthusiasts as “Bazooka Vespa”, for the imposing M20 cannon that crossed it longitudinally in its entirety. It was commissioned by the French Ministry of Defense in the fifties, commissioned by the licensee in Piaggio France (ACMA) requested the development of a vehicle for military use, which was already the concessionaire for the production license of the original Vespa vehicle on French soil. The result was a very special Vespa of which there…

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Carhenge, the American Stonehenge made of vintage cars

Danijel90

Near Alliance, Nebraska, there is an exact copy of Stonehenge, but made entirely from vintage cars. All of us, at least once in a lifetime, came across some images of Stonehenge, the most famous and impressive “Stone Circle” in the United Kingdom located near Amesbury, Wiltshire. A set of megaliths, some of which are topped by horizontal elements, a structure that is believed to be an ancient astronomical observatory, but whose real purpose still remains a mystery. Certainly less common is come across images of Carhenge, located in Nebraska, in…

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Morano sul Po: history of a circuit that didn’t make it.

Anya016

Once upon a time, on the banks of the Po, a few kilometers from Casale Monferrato, there was an autodrome: the Morano sul Po circuit. A simple path, surrounded by a beautiful natural environment, not far from the Monferrato industries and a crossroads between the Turin of Fiat and the Milan publishing industry (here the very popular magazine “Quattroruote” did several test drives). Called “Circuit of Casale Monferrato”, given the greater importance that the historical center covered (and still covers) in the area, the track touches two municipalities, Morano sul…

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Concrete Traffic: an actual 1957 Cadillac De Ville is encased in 15 cubic yards of concrete~

Leo S

Casual observers could be mistake this object, which is in a parking space in the University of Chicago’s Campus North parking structure, for a representational sculpture of a car. In fact, it’s an actual car: a 1957 Cadillac Sedan De Ville encased in 15 cubic yards of concrete. Named “Concrete Traffic,” the unique and unusual piece was created by German artist Wolf Vostel (1932–1998) in January 1970 as an “instant happening” and an “event sculpture” at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Vostel was associated with the international art movement Fluxus,…

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SVL: the Very Fast Soviet jet-propelled Train of 1970

Adam

Before high speed, which today we consider a service almost obvious, railway companies around the world were looking for different tricks to make their convoys fast and able to travel huge distances in a short time. During the 1960’s, Americans, followed by the Soviets, experimented with turbojet trains. The idea was that, like a jet aircraft, the train is propelled by the jet thrust of the engines, rather than by its wheels. From Russia, in 1970, a futuristic project arrived that today appears to be decidedly vintage, a piece of…

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ISO Exposition, Photogallery

Pavel

Bresso 12/5/2018’ Iso was an automobile and motorcycle maker, the product of Iso Autoveicoli S.p.A of Italy. The company was predominantly active from the late 1940s through the early 1970s. Iso are known for the iconic Isetta bubble car of the 1950s, and for a number of powerful performance cars in the 1960s and early 1970s. Iso was initially named ‘Isothermos’ and manufactured refrigeration units before the Second World War. The company was founded in Genoa in 1939, but was transferred to Bresso in 1942 by Renzo Rivolta, an engineer…

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