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. 

That Pacer sure is ugly

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When designers come up with new car designs you would think they would go out to market research just to check that the public like it and then do a few tweaks. Even if they stuff up you would think management would say.. hey no one is going to like that and send them back to the drafting table, well what went on here? The AMC Pacer would have to be the ugliest car of all time, there isn’t a bit you could like. There have been several polls for the ugliest car over the year but the Pacer comes up tops most times, The AMC Gremlin (its sister) always ranks high, as does the Ford Pinto, The Chevy Aztek and the poor old Edsel from Ford. The Pacer was a two door compact produced between 1975 and 1980 it more resembled a jellybean on wheels than a car. You might remember the “Mirthmobile” in the Hit 90’s movie Wayne’s World and they had a stretched and convertible one in the sequel. The car also came in a station wagon form and with lovely wood panelling that was also just as hideous. The only thing I can’t understand with the whole Pacer story is AMC made 280,000 of them, who would have bought one?

If you have a Pacer and think we are being a bit unfair or have another ugly car to note drop us a line!

Los Angeles Auto Show concepts

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The LA Motorshow brought a few very interesting concepts to the stands and today’s You Tube video gives you a really good up close look. Some of the highlights include the Mustang Giugiaro, Ford got some really good Italian style to make this lovely vehicle. Honda showed a clay concept called the Remix which may become a future CRX style car. Hyundai showed their Hellion, this interesting vehicle with a very aggressive and curvy look. Like the host of our video we are not sure what Acura was doing with their so called Advanced Sedan, it is awful but there’s some clever technology going on, not half as good looking as the Mazda Nagara which gives a glimpse of Mazda’s new DNA.

Audi R8 Diesel Supercar

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In a motoring first Audi has shown its R8 V12 supercar in turbo diesel form. The engine pumps out a whopping 500hp with 1000 nm of torque. Using an engine closely releated to the Audi R10 Le Mans winning vehicles the car is a true super car. Top speed is well over 300 kph and it can do 0-100 in 4.2 seconds. The engine was built at the Gyor plant in Hungary nd it looks that the TDI V12 will go into production for this amazing vehicle. The engine already fulfills all the Euro 6 emission standards which wont be in effect until 2014. One intresting styling feature on the vehicle is red illuminated LED’s in the engine bay so the engine can be seen through the window all lit up at night. How cool is that!

For more Information:

Audi official press release for the R8 V12 TDI

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