Wattsy

Drive with the fishes

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If you have ever wanted to go for a drive under the sea the sQuba is the car for you. This aquatic vehicle is going to be on display at the Geneva Motorshow which starts on the 6th of March. The car can actually drive underwater up to about 10 metres. Designed by Rinspeed who are from Switzerland and have made quiet a few interesting show cars over the years, the vehicle can also be used on land as a car. The car uses two Sea Bob jet drives and have special louvers which control the water intake to help the vehicle drive through water. The little sports car looking vehicle was designed to be open top for safety concerns as it was thought opening the doors underwater might cause a problem and the open design also assisted buoyancy. We are not sure how much or when we might be able to have one but we are sure there are plenty of people who would love a novel vehicle like this.

JFK’s Lincoln Continental

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The first in our series of car of the dead stars is the SS-100x, it was the secret service name of the Presidential limo that JFK got shot in. Based on a 1961 4 door Lincoln Continental the car was modified to a convertible (probably not a great idea looking back) and also featured an array of high tech gadgets including a radio link back to the White House. The car featured a variety of tops that could be popped on when needed and by the time the car was finished being modified a 1962 grill and bumper assy was fitted to keep the car up to date. Following Kennedy’s assassination the car was modified again returning it to a closed in sedan, but this time with bulletproof armor. The car continued as a presidential limousine until 1967 and was finally retired from goverment service in 1978 to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

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The AZLK Moskvich Museum

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Today’s video is of the AZLK Moskvich museum in Russia. The Moskvich was a popular car in Russia and were often regarded as sturdy and dependable transport, the company had most of its success during the 60’s and 70’s but actually dates back to 1929 with the first Moskvitch being produced in 1945, it was based on the Opel Kadett as the Soviets gained Opel’s production assets as part of war reparations. Today the company is no more as it went bankrupt in 2002, allegedly the companies factory was deserted with half finished cars on the production line for quite some time after the company folded. We think this video is from the factories museum so we are assuming it is no longer open as well. By the way if you are wondering what AZLK means, its short for Avtomobilny Zavod imeni Leninskogo Komsomola, which means in English Youth Communist League Car Factory, they dropped this acronym in the 90’s. 

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Let’s drive on the wrong side of the road

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According to Reuters a senior Irish politician has come up with the great idea of switching the sides of the road it drives on. Currently Ireland drives on the left like Britain and many of Britain’s former colonies, The plan here is that with heaps of tourists from Europe and the US its all a bit confusing and it would make it easier to swap over or idea two is force the drivers from right hand drive countries to only travel at half the speed. The problem we see is that most of the cars in the country will have the steering wheel on the wrong side and you will still need to swap over when you go to the UK. Our idea is to do a staged introduction starting with buses and trucks first! In Australia on the Great Ocean Road they put up signs reminding tourists to drive on the left (see above), its a good idea but this popular tourist drive is 2 hours from the main international airport where there are no reminder signs so you would recon the tourists should of figured it out by the time they get there.

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Should of Ford taken the T-bird away?

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Today we feature another clip from the fantastic PBS series Great Cars. The Ford Thunderbird was launched in 1955 as a response to Chev’s 1953 Corvette. The first model was kinda sporty looking and cool but something went wrong along the way with Ford calling the car a personal luxury car rather than a sports coupe the car grew into some what of a hideous beast. The first few restyles saw them grow but still retain their cool but by the 70s, 80s and 90s they were just plain ugly and awful. Ford saw some sense and killed it off in 1997, the name returned in 2002 on a cool retro T-bird that was reminiscent of the 1955 model, unfortunately it didn’t sell well and was killed off by 2005. So what went wrong? did the 70s ugly stink up the name or was the retro model the wrong place at the wrong time? let us know what you recon in our comment form below.

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The World’s most expensive Fiat 500

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This blinged out Fiat 500 has just been put display at a luxury show in Rome called the Scrigno, Tesori d’Italia. It features a special 24 k gold paintwork on the exterior and tyres, rich leather from various animals, Swarovski crystals stuck to the handbreak and gearlever as well as cashmere floor mats. We like the Fiat 500 and don’t mind a bit of gold but we really are not sure if the two should come together, I mean could you imagine taking this thing down to the local supermarket carpark? Also at 60,000 euro you could get a lot more car that wont depreciate 5000 euro every time you scrub the tyres against a gutter.  

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Now thats a truck

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We’d be the first to admit the only thing we know about trucks is that they are big and kinda cool, well they dont get much bigger and cooler than the 2009 International Lonestar that has just ben released at the Chicago Auto Show. The truck features cool things like a Workspace to plug in laptop computers and work in a desk-like setting, a Mini refrigerator, Wood flooring in the sleeper cab and a built in blutooth hands free kit. The interior of this thing looks nicer than many hotels and with an 11 speaker stereo system Johnny Cash never sounded so good.

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It’s a doozie

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While stumbling around youtube we come across a few good clips from the PBS series great cars, so we thought we feature a few of them by starting out with the Duesenberg. Duesenberg was a US car company started by two German brothers and originally operated between 1913 to 1937. The cars at the time were the best and most expensive cars on the market with people from Clark Gable to the Duke of Winsor owning a Duesey. Apparently about 60% of them still survive, something that is a rare for a 80 year old production car. A few failed attempts have been made in the past to revive the name with a new car to go into production this year as well. Will the new one be a doozie or are we better off dreaming about times gone by instead of reviving the classics name.