Wattsy

Citroen GS Bi Rotor

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When you think about the Wankel Rotary engine you instantly think about Mazda, some of you may also remember NSU the German car company that went broke after sinking a lot of money into the Rotary. There also was a third company who thought Rotaries would be good under their bonnet and that was Citroen with their GS Bi-Rotor. Between 1973 and 1977 a luxury version of the Citroen GS was sold with NSU’s rotary engine under the bonnet but when NSU fell in a heap Citroen were left with 847 cars on the road without a source of spare parts. Citroen’s solution was to recall them and buy them all back to be crushed and never mention the Rotary again. A few still survive as some customers loved them to much to sell them back to Citroen, the video above is a Citroen promotional video showing how Citroen did love the Rotary once too. It’s in French but the animations of how the rotary works is pretty cool if you don’t understand the language of the cheese eaters.

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Toyota IQ

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The Toyota IQ was a concept car first shown at the Frankfurt Motorshow in 2007. At only 3 metres in length it will be one of the shortest cars about when a car based on the concept goes into production around 2009. The majority of sales are expected to be in Japan and Europe where kei class or city sized cars are popular. The IQ should make some good competition for the Smart ForTwo, its hard to believe but it does seat four people…well two adults and two very small kids. Watch the short video above for a rundown of Toyota IQ. 

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My other tractor is a Porsche

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A lot of people have heard the famous story about how tractor manufacturer Lamborghini started to produce sports cars after he had a tiff with Enzo Ferrari, but not many people know that the Porsche name can also be found on tractors. It all started around the time Ferdinand Porsche was developing the VW Beetle and the German government asked him to work on a peoples tractor to go along with the peoples car. To cut a long story short it was a pretty good design, WW2 got in the way but after that several companies licenced his design and Porsche badged tractors were built until 1963.

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Citroen 2CV

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Today we feature an ad for the Citroen 2CV that makes it look like a quite attractive car. The 2CV is right up there with the Mini and the Beetle in the cult classic car category. Like the Beetle and the Mini the 2CV was produced long after every other manufacturer had moved on to producing more modern cars but people keep on buying these cars despite them having ergonomics designed in the 40s. The last car ran off the production line in 1990 after 42 years of production.

James Dean’s Porshe 550 Spyder

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Today’s video is a bit of a long one from a TV program that used modern forensics to piece together James Deans last moments. Dean famously loved fast cars and he traded a Porshe 356 in on a Porshe 550 Spyder that got nicknamed “little Bastard”, Alec Guinness told Dean he would kill himself in the car within a week, ironically a week before his death. The car went on to hurt and kill several others after the wreak was bought and parts of it like the engine, wheels and drive train were sold off. Considered cursed the wreak of the 550 was put on display by the California Highway Patrol but the garage it was stored in burnt down with the car escaping unscathed. The car was last seen in 1960 when it was lost in transit while being shipped back to its owner.  

Ford releases new Australian FG Falcon

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Today’s launch of the all new Ford Falcon FG series has been one the most anticipated releases in Australian motoring history. It is hoped the new model range will help boost the large car market in Australia which has been suffering from dropping sales over the past few years. The new FG Falcon comes in a range of models including a new G series which is the luxury flagship for the model. The range also features a sporty XR6 with turbo charged six cylinder engine and an aggressive XR8 V8 vehicle. The vehicle comes in two body styles a sedan and a utility vehicle which is sold in both tray and tub form a must for any Aussie tradesman. The all-new FG Falcon offers fuel economy improvements AND increased performance – as well as introducing new passive and active safety features across the range.

 

See our photospread of the other Falcon FG models.

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Ford Airstream Concept

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With the launch of the FG Falcon tomorrow we thought it only fitting to to check out a ford concept car today to see what the future may hold for the brand. The Ford Airstream Concept uses a plug-in hydrogen hybrid fuel cell to deliver 41 miles per gallon which is pretty good news if it ever makes its way into a production car, what we hope never does make its way into tomorrow’s Ford’s is the LCD display of an open fire, I mean what were they thinking. Sure concept cars are suppose to be way out there, but a display of open fire! Perhaps they thought it was more environmentally friendly than the real open fires we will be using in our cars of the future.

Rinspeed sQuba

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Rinspeed are a car design company based in Switzerland that you may know from their concept cars that they regular develop. First there was the Presto that transformed into half the size and then they made the Splash that turned into a boat, now they have created the sQuba, the diving car inspired by the Bond diving car in The Spy Who Loved Me. Unlike the movie this squba diving car is the real deal, it also produces zero emissions thanks to its electric motor that gives it a top speed of 120kl/h on land and 3kl/h up to a depth of 10m under water. Because this car is a convertible and not designed to be a closed in submarine it is also fitted out with squba tanks, the face masks and squba controls are located between the seats headrest for you to pop on when you want to take a dip. Although this car is a concept and will never make it to production it makes us ask the question would you buy a car to give you a drive through under sea experience or would you rather get out of the car to go swimming with the fishes? 

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