Aristotle Onassis’ Mega Yacht

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Aristotle Onassis was well known as a flamboyant Greek shipping tycoon and being a shipping tycoon means you need a fairly good personal yacht. His yacht known as the Christina was a converted 1943 built navy frigate that he purchased for $34000, as it had become surplus after WW2. After spending $4 million on it, the boat has been visited by celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Eva Peron, John F Kennedy and Winston Churchill and was lavishly appointed with his bar even containing whale teeth footrests and whale foreskin leather seats. After his death the Yacht was given to the Greek government for use as a presidential yacht but later fell into a state of disrepair. Today the yacht has been refurbished as a luxury charter now known as the Christina O. So if you want to sit by the mosaic floor pool that rises at the push of a button to form a dance floor, start saving up as 1 day on the boat can set you back more than what some people earn in a year.

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Yugo – the car for when you can’t afford a decent car

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Our classic car ad of the week features one of the worlds worst cars, the Yugo. Produced since 1981 in Serbia by Zastava the car was imported into the US in 1985 and sold as the cheapest new car available. Based on the Fiat 128, a car that dates back to 1969, the Zastava was popular in eastern Europe where the choice of other cars on offer made the Zastava look like a good buy and economical motoring. By the time the car got to the US under the Yugo name, the unrefined and sluggish box was bought up by cheapskates who would of been better off finding a decent secondhand car. Not only did the car suffer from poor build quality and performance, the market of customer the car was aimed at were often too tight to service them properly making the cars mechanical woos worse. Sales in the US stopped around 1992 when UN sanctions against the former Yugoslavia stopped exports. NATO later bombed the factory that has since been rebuilt to churn out a face-lifted version of the car that is known today as the Zastava Koral.

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The Toyota AA

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Plenty of car companies have been known to buy back some of their historic models in order to preserve their history and display them in their museums. When Toyota tried to find their first car (the Toyota AA) they found there was none left possibly due to Japan’s love of crushing outdated cars for the latest model and the fact that only 1400 were build from 1936 till 1943. The next plan was to create a replica of the car but as a full set of plans were not available the replica was built from what plans could be found from over the models lifetime. Today the replica that was built for Toyota’s 50th anniversary sits in Toyota’s automobile museum in Nagoya Japan. While the car may not be exactly like the one you could buy in the late 30’s to early 40’s it is pretty darn close to what the real thing would have looked like if there was still one around.

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Stop your car from being clamped the hard way

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We found this story over at “The Telegraph” and we enjoyed it that much we thought we share the link with you. Long story short, UK motorist Ian Taylor came home and found his Ford Fiesta clamped by the authorities as it was hanging out his drive a bit. So he cut his car in half and invited the authorities to come and take the back half away as he quotes it was only the back half of the car that was parked illegally. Read the full story at telegraph.co.uk.

The Poulsen Hybrid

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Want a hybrid car but don’t want to shell out for a Toyota Prius or similar? Well a company named Poulsen may have the answer for you with their diy kit that transforms any front wheel drive car into a hybrid vehicle. how it works is that two electric motors are attached to the back wheels that are connected to a range of batteries and a plug in charger in the boot. The idea is pretty simple when you think about it, just imagine you are going down a hill in a normal car, you can back off the accelerator and start free wheeling saving gas. These motors use the same idea except on level ground, so when you take the foot off the break in traffic the car will start moving forward without you using fuel. The only down side is it looks a bit hideous but at US$3300 it maybe a cheaper option than a brand new hybrid car.

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Deutsches Technikmuseum – Berlin

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The Deutsches Technikmuseum or Museum of Technology a enjoyable and educational journey with some amazing examples of German technology on show. Built in the former goods yard of Anhalter Guterbahnholf a railway yard the museum has huge pavilions of planes, trains, cars, boats a planetarium and even a brewery. The museum also features some interesting production areas where you can see actual craftsman make suitcases, rolled jewelry and printing. The museum is set over four sites all within a few minutes walk and only about 10 minutes walk from Potsdamer Plaz. The vintage car depot is a must for any car buffs, here you will see a collection of over 100 historic German cars, some very rare while others familiar. The railway yard has dozens of beautiful examples of railway stock all magnificently restored to their former glory while the aviation and space flight atrium has some very interesting military and civilian aircraft.

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