Sunday, March 9, 2014

The Lesser Known Slantnose insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

Written By Unknown; About: The Lesser Known Slantnose insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com on Sunday, March 9, 2014

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® The Lesser Known Slantnose

The Lesser Known Slantnose S


In 1981, Porsche introduced the 'flachbau' option, commonly known as the Slantnose, for the 930 911 Turbo. It featured a flat nose reminiscent of the 935 Group 5 racecars, most famous of which is likely the whale tail adorned 'Moby Dick'. Fewer than 1000 cars were ordered with the option.


In August 1993, just before to the introduction of the 993 911, Porsche's VRS department decided to give the 964 one last hoorah. Also known as the Exclusive division, it introduced the hand-built Flachbau (German for 'flat construction' or 'flat form'), known officially as the 1994 Turbo 3.6 S Flatnose.


The Lesser Known Slantnose S


Aside from the obvious flat nose with its 968 style pop-up headlamps, the Flachbau featured several other cosmetic and aerodynamic differences from earlier 964 Turbos. The flat-nose option included exclusive front and rear spoilers as well as different rear fender vents. Those air inlets feed cooling air to the engine and are asymmetrical; the right side being narrower due to the oil tank residing behind the quarter-panel.


The engine in the '94 Turbo 3.6 S is known as the M50/64S. It features specially modified heads, upgraded camshafts, and a different timing gearwheel and turbo. The engine's timing is also advanced slightly from the standard Turbo 3.6, resulting in a factory rated 385hp.


The Lesser Known Slantnose S


In typical Porsche fashion the Turbo S package commanded a $60,179 premium over the standard Turbo 3.6's base price of $99,000.


Total production for the 1994 Turbo 3.6S was 93 cars, of which 76 featured the flat-nose. The remaining 17 are known as 'package' cars, which carry all the Turbo S modifications apart from a set of regular fenders and headlamps. Amusingly, flat-nose 964s sold in Japan featured pop-up headlights carried over from the 930 slantnose - 10 of these cars exist.


For more in-depth technical knowledge and to learn more, visit flachbau.com, a site dedicated to documenting this rare car.


Other sources: Porsche 930 info (Wiki, deal with with it) and the images.


The Lesser Known Slantnose

Watch The Inventor Of The Iconic Dune Buggy Drive An Electric Beetle insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Watch The Inventor Of The Iconic Dune Buggy Drive An Electric Beetle

Finally, I'm an Eskimo Driver with the Myers Manx inventor Bruce Myers — we've both had a chance behind the wheel of the Zelectric Bug. Of course, Mr.Manx is much more accomplished, important, and old-man adorable than I'll ever be, so watch this one.


He did, however, point out the same issue with the old pre-'68 swing axle-setup that I did. There's a camber compensator on there now for those keeping crazily-detailed secret notebooks.


Watch The Inventor Of The Iconic Dune Buggy Drive An Electric Beetle

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Holy Crap! A Skydiver Takes Down A Plane And Both Survive insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

Written By Unknown; About: Holy Crap! A Skydiver Takes Down A Plane And Both Survive insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com on Saturday, March 8, 2014

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Holy Crap! A Skydiver Takes Down A Plane And Both Survive

Holy Crap! A Skydiver Takes Down A Plane And Both Survive


This series of photos from MyFoxTampaBay.com show the harrowing collision between a skydiver and a small Cessna earlier today in South Lakeland Florida. Amazingly, both the skydiver and the pilot walked away with non-serious injuries.


According to witnesses, the pilot of the plane was 87-year-old WWII veteran Sharon Trembley who was practicing touch-and-goes when he happened upon 49-year-old skydiver John Frost who was landing. As the photos show, Frost's parachute becomes entangled in the wing and both of them immediately crash into the ground.


Somehow, neither of them were seriously injured. I guess the lesson here is: Watch where you're landing.


Screencap: Tim Telford via MyFoxTampaBay.com


Hat tip to Airline Flyer!


Holy Crap! A Skydiver Takes Down A Plane And Both Survive

Crimean Crisis Military Update #1: Sunken Ships, Loud Choppers insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Crimean Crisis Military Update #1: Sunken Ships, Loud ChoppersFinally, there are rumors that Russia's most advanced surface to air missile system, the S-400, has made its way into Crimea and is in the process of being set up as this is written. This would make absolute sense as current defenses, including those aboard the Black Sea Fleet, are less than for the size of Crimea and considering the amount of land forces Russia has deployed onto the peninsula by now, estimated at between 16,000 and 24,000. The S-400 system, which is really three separate missile systems tied together by an integrated air defense command and control architecture, would create an impenetrable 200 mile aerial ring around Crimea that would challenge even the world's most capable air forces.

Here is some video that was said to have been shot in Crimea of an S400 system on the move:


Photo Credit: AP




Crimean Crisis Military Update #1: Sunken Ships, Loud Choppers

Your Ridiculously Awesome Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Wallpaper Is Here insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Your Ridiculously Awesome Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Wallpaper Is Here

Your Ridiculously Awesome Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Wallpaper Is Here S


Unlike some manufacturers who shall go unnamed, Porsche puts its money where its mouth is. Racing is no joke for them, and the Porsche 911 is accordingly one of the most popular cars in motorsports. Especially in this variant, the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup.


Porsche is a company known for offering plenty of options on its 911. What some don't realize, is that the options list extends into its customer racing program. Buying a racing 911 isn't as simple as saying "Hello, Porsche, I'd like one race car, please." The response is inevitably "...and which race car would Sir like?"


If you were to buy a racing 911 right now you'd be forced to choose between a 911 GT3 Cup, a 911 GT3 RSR, and a 911 GT America. If you'd like your Porsche racing car slightly used, you could go for a 997 model, which came in 911 GT3 Cup 3.8, the 911 GT3 R Hybrid, and the 997 GT3 RSR.


Which would you prefer? Well, that doesn't really matter, as we're talking about wallpapers and not homologation limitations. And no matter what the variant, a racing 911 looks good.


Photo credit Lele Buonerba. Used with permission. For more of his work, check out his website and Facebook page. For a ridiculously huge desktop version, click here.


Weekend Wallpapers are featured on Saturdays. Got one you'd like us to run? Send it to ballaban@jalopnik.com with the subject "Weekend Wallpaper." Just make sure you have the rights to use it.


Your Ridiculously Awesome Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Wallpaper Is Here

D.C.'s Mayor Is So Sick Of All These Darn Motorcades You Guys insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® D.C.'s Mayor Is So Sick Of All These Darn Motorcades You Guys

D.C.'s Mayor Is So Sick Of All These Darn Motorcades You Guys S


Unless President Obama rolls into your town on the reg, you probably don't have to deal with traffic being shut down for motorcades that often. Unfortunately for residents of our nation's capital, that's a pretty regular occurrence, and the mayor has had enough!


Local daily newspaper The Washington Post reports that D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray wants the Secret Service to review how it handles street closures after the city was "paralyzed by traffic" thanks to motorcades for foreign dignitaries over the past few days. He says prolonged closures near the White House and convention center have been "a show of disrespect to D.C. residents."


In the year I've lived in D.C., I've never gotten the sense that the federal government gives a shit about anyone who actually lives here, but whatever. Gray, who's up for reelection soon, says he's still outraged by the closure of the southbound lanes of 14th Street between G Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to visit recently. From the Post:



"I appreciate that important dignitaries visiting the nation's capital and the White House must be afforded every courtesy and protections available by the United States government and local jurisdictions," Gray wrote. He said in the letter that the closure of 14th Street creates "gridlock in and around the area that will cause tremendous inconvenience to tens of thousands of District workers and visitors especially during rush hour. To treat the District with such disrespect is simply unacceptable."



Listen: I treat actually driving in the D.C. city limits like going to war. You only do it when you absolutely have to, you keep it as short as possible, and you expect that something terrible is going to happen anyway. Traffic here is horrible enough on a good day without motorcades, so I feel Mayor Gray on this one.


So what if foreign dignitary visits are just a fact of life for the capital of a nation? I think it's high time we make these jokers get around same as the rest of us: parked on the Beltway for hours at a time, barely moving an inch in the afternoons on Constitution Avenue, or using our sad excuse for a subway system. Next time try using Skype to talk to the president, you fancy castle-owning jokers.


D.C.'s Mayor Is So Sick Of All These Darn Motorcades You Guys

The Sleek Streamliners That Broke Records And Served Evil insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® The Sleek Streamliners That Broke Records And Served Evil

The Sleek Streamliners That Broke Records And Served Evil S


The Nazis were horrible. Unfathomably horrible. Any time you think you've just how horrible they were, go to your local Holocaust museum, and it'll be so much worse than you thought. But the thing about them is, they thought they were better. And they tried to prove it on the road.


The Nazi ethos, at its core, was the belief that its invented concept of an "Aryan nation" was better than every other person on Earth. That ethos was obviously incredibly flawed right at its heart, so to help the German citizenry believe it, the German leadership decided it was going to prove it, somehow. They failed spectacularly at times, like when Jesse Owens successfully kicked Hitler in the face with each successive kick in his stride, winning four gold medals in track events at the 1936 Summer Olympics.


But one thing they did manage to set records in was with world land speed records. Setting land speed records accomplished two goals – one, it "proved" somehow that the Nazis were "better," and it showed off their fabulous new Autobahn. Now famous for containing some of the last unrestricted highways in the world, the Autobahn system that connected Germany was a point of pride for the racist regime.


Ironically, the Autobahn system of highways that connected Germany was originally opposed by the Nazis. Conceived by the previous Weimar government, the Nazis rejected them, only to totally embrace the idea of a national road network once they got into power. Because the Nazis were stupid hypocrites like that.


But automotive history is loaded with stupid hypocrites making interesting cars (looking at you, Ferdinand Porsche and Henry Ford). And some of those interesting cars happened to be the low, sleek streamliners, specially built just to break records. Records that stand to this day.


No matter the records, though, we should remember that these sleek speed machines were the product of a vast and evil propaganda machine, and their drivers were willing participants.


The Mercedes-Benz W125 Rekordwagen


The Sleek Streamliners That Broke Records And Served Evil S


The Germans dominated Grand Prix racing in the 1930s, with automakers like Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union slugging it out in the "Silver Arrows." The Mercedes-Benz W125 Rekordwagen, which means record, uh, wagon car, was derived from the original W125, which was a Grand Prix racer in its own right. It was quite a successful car, too, winning six of the 12 races it was entered in.


The W125 was highly modified for its record run in 1937, ditching the open-wheeled layout of track racing and trading it for some highly sculpted body work. Also ditched was the original inline eight cylinder engine, in favor of a 736-horsepower V12 that could be mounted lower in the belly of the car.


Every adjustment was made for top speed, from the new housing for the side-mounted exhaust to the two small inlets up front for the air intake. The radiator, which normally gets air from the outside to help with cooling, didn't get an air intake. Instead, it was stuck in a chest full of ice. Because when you're competing for the world record, a mere air- or water-cooled engine won't do. No, it has to be ice-cool.


One thing that wasn't adjusted in the car was its driver, Rudolf Caracciola. He was used to driving the original W125, so it wasn't a huge change for him. Caracciola, like most German racing drivers of his day, was a member of the NSKK, a Nazi organization devoted to cars. He made his way up in the world not only through his prowess behind the wheel, but also through a chance encounter with Adolf Hitler.


Hitler had ordered a Mercedes-Benz 770 in 1931, which is that car you always see Nazis being trucked around in from which they stood up and made that funny looking salute of theirs. Caracciola, being one of Mercedes' best racing drivers, was asked to make the delivery, and drove Hitler and his niece all around town. Hitler clearly took some sort of liking to the guy, as Caracciola's career advanced, but Caracciola later claimed the fascist nut didn't impress him very much. That didn't stop him from making enthusiastic public statements in support of the Nazis later on, but after the war he mostly went the route of "oh, I was totally not into that," and he was never officially a member of the Nazi party. So there's that.


On the 28th of January, 1938, Caracciola lined up his W125 Rekordwagen on the Bundesautobahn 5 and began his run. He eventually reached the mark of 268 miles per hour over the flying kilometer, which is a ridiculous, incredible speed to achieve on what is, even now, a public highway.


The Sleek Streamliners That Broke Records And Served Evil S


And 268 miles per hour remains, to this day, the record for top speed on a public road. 76 years later, nobody has been tempted to try and break it.


The Auto Union V16 Streamliner


The Sleek Streamliners That Broke Records And Served Evil S


Ninety minutes after Caracciola set his record, it was time for his archrival to make an attempt. Not only was Bernd Rosemeyer also a successful racing driver, but he was a successful racing driver for Auto Union.


Today, you might know the remnants of Auto Union as Audi, but in the 1930s Auto Union was Mercedes' greatest foe. Its four-ringed logo derived from its four constituent car companies, DKW, Audi, Horch, and Wanderer, and everything Mercedes-Benz did, Auto Union tried to do better.


And so it came to pass that when Mercedes set the new record for the top speed on a public road, Auto Union had to beat it. They sent out Rosemeyer, their top driver, in their V16 Streamliner.


Like the W125 Rekordwagen, the V16 was a land-speed record car derived from a race car. Except instead of what would today be known as an open-wheel Formula One car, it was derived from the already-pretty sleek 1937 Auto Union Type C.


The Sleek Streamliners That Broke Records And Served Evil S


The Type C was created to compete at the Avusrennen, which was one of the fastest races in the world. A bit of a crazy track by today's standards, it was basically two six mile-long straightaways, with tight hairpin turns at each end, one of which was steeply banked. The North curve, with its big incline, was called "The Wall of Death," because there was no retaining wall. If you went too close to the edge, you flew off, and that was pretty much the end of you.


Because the cars developed for the Avusrennen were so fast already in a straight line, it didn't take much to turn one into the engineering basis for a world record holder. Extra body work was added, and Rosemeyer set out in the new Auto Union V16 Streamliner on the Autobahn.


The Sleek Streamliners That Broke Records And Served Evil S


That extra body work may have been what killed him.


Aerodynamics weren't understood back then the way they are now, and the thinking was pretty much that to make a slippery car even slippery-er, you just make it cut through the air that much more smoothly with the proper shaping.


What wasn't clear, though, was the notorious physics of ground effect. It's now theorized that Rosemeyer's V16 Streamliner may have become one of the world's first ground effects cars, which later revolutionized F1 in the late 1970s and early 1980s.


Either that, or it was done in by a big gust of wind.


Unfortunately, ground effect doesn't really work unless the car that utilizes it has been truly created for it, with stronger suspension and chassis work. It's theorized that Rosemeyer's car may have broken under the extreme forces, sending the driver wildly out of control, onto the highway median to the left, at which point Rosemeyer may have overcorrected, and the car then shot to the right, where it flew into the air and hit a bridge embankment.


Rosemeyer was thrown out of the car, and killed. He very briefly may have topped Caracciola's record, but if he did, the mark remains unofficial.


It's unclear what Rosemeyer's Nazi leanings were, but he was essentially forced to become a member of Hitler's infamous SS when he met a young and famous aviatrix on the podium of a race he won in Czechoslovakia in 1935, named Elly Beinhorn. The couple was basically the Brangelina or the Bennifer or the Bernelly (I just made that one up, see) of their day. This was clearly a fantastic propaganda coup, and Hitler's right hand man and architect of the Holocaust, Heinrich Himmler, invited them to become members of the Nazi murder group.


This was not exactly a thing you'd say no to, as you'd likely end up as one of their millions of victims.


Elly gave birth to a son, Bernd Jr., just ten weeks before his father's death.


The younger Bernd Rosemeyer is now an orthopedist. Because why not.


The Mercedes-Benz T80


The Sleek Streamliners That Broke Records And Served Evil S


After the elder Rosemeyer's death on that fateful day in 1938, the Nazi desire for world speed records seemed to diminish. But only for a little while. By 1940, a third great Grand Prix driver, Hans Stuck, was itching for another shot at the top spot.


World War II was already raging by this point, so if a car was going to be built, it would take some serious personal connections to surmount the challenges that the war effort presented. Materials like metal and rubber were rationed, as was fuel.


Luckily for Hans Stuck, Hans Stuck was exactly that man. A personal acquaintance of Hitler's, they had met in 1925 on a hunting trip. Hitler wasn't really the close-personal-buddy kind of guy, what with all the murdering he was doing, but clearly the relationship was strong enough that Stuck was able to get placed back on his racing team in 1938, after being fired and/or quitting, despite the fact that his wife had a Jewish grandfather.


Stuck didn't want to just go for the top speed record on public roads, he wanted the whole shebang, the absolute record. To that end he enlisted Ferdinand Porsche to design a six-wheeled beast of a car, the Mercedes-Benz T80.


The T80 was originally intended to only target a top speed of around 340 miles per hour, which sounds like a lot, until competing British land speed records forced the target speed up to over 465 miles per hour by 1939.


Unfortunately for Stuck, the lack of real jet engine progress before the war prevented him from sticking a massive one from a plane onto his Merc, like his land speed successors later did. He did manage to get a plane engine, though.


The Daimler DB 603 which powered it was a true monster. A 44.5-liter V12 straight out of use in bomber aircraft like the Messerschmitt Me 410, it was field by a mixture of alcohol and avgasm, with a pinch of ether, too. It put out near-as-makes-no-difference 3,000 horsepower, with the help of methanol and water injection boost.


Yeah, this ain't your modified Grand Prix racer.


The car was more than 27 feet long, and over the aforementioned six wheels, four of them were driven. The twin tails were supposed to keep it stable, and had a drag coefficient of only 0.18, which is kind of crazy for how huge it was.


When the T80 was first imagined, it was intended to run out on the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah. By 1940, when it was supposed to run, young men from Utah were getting ready to shoot Germans like Hans Stuck in a battle for Europe, so the attempt was instead planned for, of course, the Autobahn.


Even though the car was completed in 1939, even Stuck's personal connections couldn't keep the car intact for its big day. Shortly before its intended run, the huge V12 that lay inside was yanked out, so that it could be used in a bomber for the war effort.


The rest of the car amazingly survived the war, and now sits in the Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart.


The Sleek Streamliners That Broke Records And Served Evil S


Hans Stuck survived the war, too, and later turned to become a total beast at hillclimb events.


Like Rosemeyer, Stuck also had a son that he named after himself. Hans-Joachim Stuck is no orthopedist, though. He won Le Mans, twice.


There were a few other streamliners during the Nazi era, and sometimes the cars were the same chassis modified a few different ways for different races. They were all beautiful, but the context in which they were created is incredibly sad.


These three, though, were the once and intended champions of the German land speed effort. Despite the horror they helped promote, they were beautiful.


More importantly, though, is that they were fast.


Photo credits: Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Wikimedia Commons User Morio


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It was 72 years ago on this day that Bernd Rosemeyer flipped his streamlined V16 Auto Union on the Autobahn at 268 MPH and died. Come and watch a… Read…




The Sleek Streamliners That Broke Records And Served Evil

I Know How Bugatti Can Sell More Veyrons insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® I Know How Bugatti Can Sell More Veyrons

I Know How Bugatti Can Sell More Veyrons S


These days, I continue to read that the rich are becoming richer. After all, haven’t the prices for high-end Manhattan real estate gone through the roof? Doesn’t the Swiss watch industry debut a new $100,000 watch every minute? Isn’t Gulfstream unable to keep up with the pace of G650 orders? Aren’t the Kardashians cornering the market on G-Wagens with each new reality show they produce?


So it was with great intrigue that I read how Bugatti was having trouble selling 40 Veyron convertibles. After all, haven’t seven-figure performance cars been selling out lately at almost any price? Haven’t the McLaren P1, Ferrari LaFerrari, Aston Martin One-77, and the Lamborghini Veneno sold out by the time we've seen them?


Exacerbating Bugatti’s woes is the fact the P1, LaFerrari, and Porsche 918 Spyder are going to be released soon. The One-77 has come and gone. The Pagani Huayra has been out for three years. And all of them, with the exception of the Aston, have the newest technologies engineered in and then some.


Meanwhile, the Veyron is based on a design which was first debuted on a concept car in 1999. This has become a problem since it looks ugly compared to the new crop of seven-figure cars. To justify the styling, Bugatti focuses on the Veyron to be the fastest street-legal production car in the world. Therefore, I had find out if the performance superseded the styling.


Unfortunately (for me, certainly not for whoever insures Bugatti’s demonstration cars), I hadn’t driven the Veyron yet, and when I asked Bugatti for a demo car, I was given a resounding “Non.” So I promptly got off the couch and bought a brand-new 2013 model. This involved walking into the living room to ensure I had the resources, and then like all Bugatti buyers, spend hours in front of a large screen pondering the right color combination.


Once I took delivery, I immediately raced it against other high-performance road cars at Willow Springs International Raceway, where it came in third because of a pit stop every third lap due to the Veyron’s abysmal fuel economy compared to the competition. It also went through the expensive tires very quickly, which didn’t help things either. (On a side note, the power gauge on my particular example didn’t work. There’s nothing like going full throttle in a Veyron with the power needle pointing to 0.)


To its credit, the Veyron was extremely fast in a straight line and the visibility was a lot better than expected. It also surprisingly escaped what could have been major collisions on the racetrack with relatively minor scrapes. And when I decided to race it on the streets of Tokyo, the car appeared as good as new. So Bugatti clearly has put plenty of effort into making the Veyron durable.


But was the speed worth the styling? To me, it was a resounding no, since I never reached 250 mph while racing it. Would I buy something better-looking, slower, but about the same price like a LaFerrari (if someone decides to sell theirs a day after taking delivery)? The answer, like most other customers of the other seven-figure cars, is yes.


Despite that, let’s first focus on Bugatti’s approach of selling the last 40 Veyrons. Since the car’s introduction, Bugatti has played up the online configurator and created a large-screen version for potential clients to order their car from. This works to the extent a customer will be sitting in a darkened room, a glass of very good wine in his or her hand, and wondering for three hours whether “Bleu Chagal” goes with “Bijan Yellow.”


Then there’s Bugatti’s other strategy for driving sales, which is creating and selling as many special-editions as they possibly can. Once a quarter since 2010, Bugatti has unveiled a new special-edition intended to be a tribute to something which people either don’t know or care little about. The special editions worked when the par Hermés and L’Or Blanc (the one with porcelain) came out. But the recent “special editions” like the Rembrandt Bugatti edition and the Jean Bugatti Legend edition are simply color schemes with some extra stitching in the interior. Little do the customers for these cars care about the heritage.


Now let’s discuss my way of how Bugatti should take hostage of entice new or existing customers to buy these vehicles. I’m a proponent of selecting Bugatti’s crème-de-la-crème of customers and getting them to each create their own rebodied Veyron, for let’s say, $10 million, and create their own unique cars. At this point, these customers already have the fastest machines. They want something that’ll differentiate themselves from the other superrich in their area, like customers in London, Singapore, Monaco, Miami, and Abu Dhabi. These are the types of owners who’ll leave their expensive cars parallel parked on Rodeo Drive while buying their new watch from a company you’ve never heard of.


And the customization model has been proven, especially at Ferrari. Look at Jim Glickenhaus and his Enzo-based P4/5 Competizione. The 599-based P540 Superfast Aperta. Every year on prominent Concours d’ Elegance lawns, be it Amelia Island, Villa d’ Este, or Pebble Beach, there’ll be an automaker like Ferrari, Maserati, or Alfa Romeo stealing the show with a new one-off. Meanwhile, Bugatti will feature a special edition somewhere nearby, hoping a buyer will come forward for that very car and take it off their hands.


It’s not just Ferrari and its sister companies. Bugatti’s sister brand, Lamborghini, showcases a restyled version of its existing vehicles and then sells it for high prices to existing customers at least once a year. Even sight unseen. Such was the case with the Murciélago-based Reventón, the Aventador-based Veneno, and the Gallardo-based Sesto Elemento. These cars were made in limited-numbers and sold for millions of dollars each, despite having more polygons on a car than you ever thought possible.


Bugatti has that bespoke heritage of creating customized cars. And since the operation is bankrolled by the Volkswagen Group, the end result should be high-quality, like the 8C-based Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corse and the Viper-based TZ3 Stradale. Even with a different exterior, the car is probably still capable of over 200 mph, considering all the development work that went into it. But for customers on their second Veyron, allowing them to commission their own with a customized body will make Bugatti something truly special. Like most Bugattis sold, the cars won’t be reaching 250 mph anyway, since they are essentially trophy items.


Allowing preferred customers to customize the styling of their Veyrons for a high price will benefit all parties involved. Bugatti can get more money out of customers. Customers can actually have a Bugatti unique from their neighbors. Bugatti might actually be able to make money on each car it sells. The Veyron project can be thought of as successful. The Volkswagen Group can greenlight a successor. Car enthusiasts can salivate at something whose aim is to outdo the McLaren P1 and LaFerrari.


Most importantly, though, Bugatti will finally have a car that looks different to the eyes at each auto show every quarter, rather than forcing its customers and the public to accept a new color scheme, and ending Veyron production gracefully. As long as a Kardashian doesn’t order one.


Satish Kondapavulur runs Clunkerture, named because "Clunker.com" is $82 at auction which was better spent on Gran Turismo 6. In between giving automakers totally unsolicited advice on how they can sell more cars, he complains loudly about how he can't find the perfect P38 Range Rover. Tweet at him with a listing or contact him at clunkerture@gmail.com if you know anyone angry at the electrics and dumping selling theirs.


Photo credit Bugatti.


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I Know How Bugatti Can Sell More Veyrons

Oh Good, Nissan Understands The Juke Needs To Be Weird insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Oh Good, Nissan Understands The Juke Needs To Be Weird

Oh Good, Nissan Understands The Juke Needs To Be Weird S


Much to our relief, the 2015 Nissan Juke didn't suddenly get normal-looking. That's a rare thing at Nissan these days. But it turns out they want to keep the Juke as the odd crossover out.


In an interview with Automotive News, Nissan planning chief Andy Palmer reaffirmed the Juke's place in Nissan's lineup:



You love it or you hate it. You have your mainstream cars — your Versa, Sentra and Altima. But you also need some outliers that really demonstrate the identity of the car company.



This is excellent news in our cause to keep the Juke weird. Audi may be the best example of this, but Nissan isn't far behind in its ability to make its sedans and crossovers practically indistinguishable from each other. And that's fine, as long as there are at least a couple cars in the lineup that show a company still has a creative side.


It's probably helped that the Juke is in a field full of oddly styled vehicles (Buick Encore, Mini Countryman and soon the Jeep Renegade) and that it's been a decent hit for Nissan. Here's to many more weird Jukes.


Photo: Nissan


Oh Good, Nissan Understands The Juke Needs To Be Weird

WestJet Responds To Sexist #DavidIn12E With "Women In Aviation" Video insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® WestJet Responds To Sexist #DavidIn12E With "Women In Aviation" Video

WestJet Responds To Sexist #DavidIn12E With "Women In Aviation" Video


Friday evening, Canadian carrier WestJet Airlines released a video response to the sexist note given to Captain Carey Smith Steacy, one of the airline's female pilots, early this week. The video features women in several positions of power within the aviation field, including a cameo by Captain Steacy herself!


The release of the video also coincides with the celebration of International Women's Day, Saturday, March 8th.


WestJet Responds To Sexist #DavidIn12E With "Women In Aviation" Video

Record Setting Weekend at Amelia Island Concours insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Record Setting Weekend at Amelia Island Concours

This weekend’s Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance is in full swing. Today saw Gooding and Company start off with record setting highs, as well as several classic autos soaring above pre-auction estimates. A 1958 BMW 507 Series II sold for $1,815,000, setting a new record at auction for the 507 Series. Selling way above its estimate, a 1969 Ferrari Dino 206 GT sold for a final price of $638,00.00.


Auctions are some of my favorite ways to keep track of what car enthusiast and collectors are buying or checking out. In the past few years, auctions houses that specialize in high end classic cars have become especially media savvy by posting live links in which to view events. They’ve also started to tweet more, provide updates and more images to the Facebook pages, and interact with regular fans. No longer relegated to the high end buyer, auctions have become accessible to the average enthusiast from the comfort of home. Cynics might view this as businesses just trying to broaden their customer base, which is part of it. However, if one knows anything about the people who both run and work for companies like RM Auctions or Gooding and Company, you know they are dedicated lovers of automobile history and relish sharing their knowledge. On top of that, if you ever get a chance to see car specialist and auctioneer for RM Auctions, Max Girardo in action, it’s a must. He raises the field to an art form.

The Gooding & Co. event is over. They’ll post final results of this weekend’s event by earlier next week. Check out their site with gorgeous images of their offerings and accompanying mini history lessons. Saturday the 8th, RM Auctions holds their event, with live streaming underway at 11:00am Eastern. One of the best things about RM Auctions, is the addition of analysts and specialists to talk about the cars as they are approaching and leaving the block. Joining RM today will be in house specialist, Vinnie Mandzak, and classic car publisher and analyst, DH Kinney. A do not miss. I will be following along on their site, as well as Tweeting results @McNewbie1.


Image of 1974 Ferrari Dino 246 GTS courtesy RM Auctions.


Record Setting Weekend at Amelia Island Concours

Ten Reasons Why The Sale Of The Nürburgring Could Be Awesome insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Ten Reasons Why The Sale Of The Nürburgring Could Be Awesome

Ten Reasons Why The Sale Of The Nürburgring Could Be Awesome S


First off, let me state that I am a huge supporter of the Save the Ring movement. I agree 100% with Mike Frison that things have been completely mismanaged by the German regional government as well as by the most recent management. That being said, I don't believe that things are as necessarily as gloomy as we keep hearing. Here are my 10 reasons why I think that the sale of the Nürburgring could be awesome.


1) Governments suck at running things


'Nuff said.


Ok, I lied, I have more to say. Basically what everyone is up in arms about is the government botching the sale of the track, but yet they want this same deal-botching government to go back to operating it? To me that's like complaining that the Hulk keeps destroying your furniture and then hiring him to be your interior decorator.


2) Crooks suck worse at running things


When you leave the barn door open, the foxes will raid the hen house. Everyone on the inside of the last deal that brought Richter and Linder (i.e. the foxes) to the table got paid, pure and simple. Millions of Euros with no real due diligence or oversight in one of the worst deals in the history of bad deals. Those guys are gone and the company in control has a solid track record of turning around failing companies.


3) Private ownership brings much needed investment


Because the 'Ring is being sold at such a discounted price (it cost $400 million USD to build the COTA F1 track. The entire Nürburgring including the F1 track will be purchased for less than a third of that!) it is no longer being saddled with the massive overhead (€400million EUR) its been struggling under for the past several years. This gives the new owners a huge amount of freedom to operate under. It also behooves the new owner to make investments in order to bring all of the facilities up to modern standards and maximize the value of their purchase.


Ten Reasons Why The Sale Of The Nürburgring Could Be Awesome S


Profit (20% is not reasonable short term profit but we'll get to that in a second) will only come with additional investment in the track. Something that isn't going to happen under continued public ownership.


4) Corporate investment will help regional growth


The management (pre Richter/ Linder) of the track was adequate. Things ran but not efficiently or profitably. Yes, local companies did ok but not to the degree they could if things were being run efficiently.


Richter and Linder absolutely screwed the locals, but that was mainly because they so overinflated their numbers in pushing for the deal, that they had to do what they could to bring in revenue to survive. That meant screwing over everyone that wasn't them. Just because these two goons were evil it doesn't mean that anyone new coming in will necessarily be the same.


Investment firms are not usually into holding their investments for the long term. My guess is HIG will not own the track in 10 years.This means that they will have to make the Nürburgring is legitimately profitable in that time frame. They also will, I'm sure, realize that if they drive away their customers and alienate local businesses then it will make any future sale more problematic.


Ten Reasons Why The Sale Of The Nürburgring Could Be Awesome


5) Tourist drives


Tourist drives are part of the lore of the Nürburgring. Removing them would create an uproar with automotive enthusiasts worldwide and would substantially diminish the value of the track. It is the awe we have of this track, the pedestal we put it on, that creates the value here. If we lose interest the track becomes a really expensive highway to nowhere.


Right now, however, tourist days are like the wild west (yes, even still). The fact that more people aren't killed on the Nürburgring every year is more a testament to modern automotive safety features then any massive improvement in the safety standards of the track. Lining the entire track with expensive safety barriers was a stroke of genius, as it has proved not only to be effective in improving safety but highly profitable as well (you break it, you brought it).


Now as cool as it is diving into the Karussell under a tour bus filled with dozens of wide eyed, picture taking passengers, its also probably one of the dumber things I've ever done on four wheels (which is saying something!).


The reason most other tracks don't offer such free for all relaxed track days is because they realize that the first rule of business is, "Don't kill the paying customer," or in this case "Don't let the paying customer kill himself."


Yes, high end VIP track days make a bunch of money, but that is assuming that you can get enough rich guys who are willing to transport their cars half way around the world on a consistent basis to make having exclusive track days replace Tourist drives. The annual super car extravaganza Gran Turismo events sell out every year, but just. I don't think you could fill ten of those a year let alone enough to replace Tourist days.


Also if you do the numbers, on the busiest of the Tourist days, I would estimate that there are over 5,000 laps being driven. At €27 a lap that means your daily take would be close to €150,000. Yes more effort than a private track day but more profit too as 1000 people eat and drink more then 20.


You want quick profit? Redevelop the tourist entrance with quadruple the parking, triple the size of the restaurant and put TV's everywhere inside with the live hi def video feed from the track. I would spend hundreds of Euros a day just sitting in the bar watching guys decorate the landscape with their cars.


I feel tourist drives will go on long into the future, but they will be better run and far safer then they are currently.


6) MOAR Motorsports!


Ten Reasons Why The Sale Of The Nürburgring Could Be Awesome


I see motorsports as a huge profit center for the new owners. The VLN offers some of the best racing anywhere in the world (I know from experience) yet when was the last time anyone outside Germany has seen a race on TV? I live there and I can hardly find coverage. But what coverage there is, is awesome!


Upgrading the antiquated (notice that word popping up a lot?) TV camera system and production facilities will go a long way to getting a lucrative TV deal which brings with it sponsors. Selling the global broadcast rights to 10 VLN races a year plus the 24 Hour race in hi def would bring millions of Euros into the new owners coffers both through the sale of the TV rights and also from corporate sponsor branding.


More then half of the VLN races I did this year were full capacity fields (210 cars at €1500 a pop for entry fees). Any series in the US would kill for grids this size. Why would anyone kill this off? 300,000 spectators for the 24 hour race? Thats not going anywhere. The smaller RCN and GLP might have to be restructured but I think both of them will still be able to find a place going forward.


7) Heritage


The heritage of the Nürburgring is being protected by the sale as there is basically zero heritage in a closed, bankrupt facility (Detroit's calling they'd like their heritage back).


Ten Reasons Why The Sale Of The Nürburgring Could Be Awesome S


The real value in the Nürburgring is that it is the Holy Grail for automotive enthusiasts worldwide. It is #1 on bucket list for any one that considers themselves a petrol-head. Where else can the average Joe (or Günter) try to measure up to the legends of the sport on their own turf? Take on Jeter at Yankee Stadium? No way! Manning at Mile High? Nope. Beckham at... you get my point.


If you take the accessibility to the enthusiast away then you've lost all of the true value of the deal with almost no way to get it back. The reason that manufacturers spend millions to be there is that it gives them an instant connection with enthusiasts. I feel that HIG will have done their homework to see what makes this place tick and will, I think, do their best not to upset the apple cart too much.


Lastly don't mistake heritage for status quo. Yes, things will most likely change at the 'Ring but that doesn't mean that is has to be worse.


As I've mentioned before, while the ring has been maintained very well, it hasn't been brought up to fully modern standards. From the minuscule parking area at the Tourist entrance resulting in massive crowding on the roads leading in, to the lack of modern safety warning features during the VLN or track days, the Nurburgring is outdated and no one wants to (or can afford to) spend the millions in additional Euros needed to upgrade it.


The new owners have promised a new Hi Def Camera system throughout the ring which will help monitor traffic and warn of danger as well as increase the value of the TV rights. Additionally, they have also mentioned an in-car warning system which sounds similar in nature to the Delphi system we used in Grand Am (IMSA) that can alert drivers to upcoming danger long before they would see a traditional flagger (especially as there are no flaggers on tourist days!)


Ten Reasons Why The Sale Of The Nürburgring Could Be Awesome S


One of my favorite cars of all time is the Lancia Delta Integrale Evo II and I finally got a chance to drive one (coincidentally at the Nurburgring) and... it was the slowest, most unstable bitch of a car to drive. My point? As much as we like to look back on history with a certain fondness, sometimes, history is just old.


9) Stability


After years of instability, having a global company with a proven track record take over, will bring a legitimacy (on the business side) to the 'Ring that it hasn't had in years. Manufacturers and other companies in the industry will now look with far more interest in investing in the region then they would have with the track under government control or the control of couple of goons with Euro Disney fantasies.


10) It's Immortal


If the Nürburgring can survive a couple of World Wars and countless numbers of idiots trying to throw themselves off into the countryside at high rates of speed, it can survive this.


Ten Reasons Why The Sale Of The Nürburgring Could Be Awesome


In this shaky global economy I don't think continued reliance on tax dollars to support the Nürburgring is a viable solution. All it would take is another Euro Zone crisis to hit before someone high up in food chain realizes that there's an easy way to slice several million Euros a year off the tax payers burden and poof, there goes our playground.


And as much as I love the concept of a non profit running the show, I don't believe it's sustainable in the long term. Most non-profits survive off of donations. Who donates to the Nürburgring? Manufacturers are already spending millions of Euros a year to own facilities and test their products at the track and most of the enthusiast/tourist drivers I know have spent their last nickel to put one more lap on their ring card, while praying they have enough gas to make it back to whatever country they drove in from.


The Nürburgring costs a substantial amount of money just to keep it running smoothly. It might turn a profit if separated from the money draining overhead of the Ring Walk and associated hotels, but it wouldn't be a huge profit. If there are no donations and only small profit then how do you pay for the millions in upgrades needed to keep the facility relevant?


That all being said, the one piece of advice that I would give to HIG or whomever the new owners are is: "Ignore the locals and enthusiasts at your own peril!"


These are some of the most die hard, passionate and driven people it has ever been my pleasure to encounter. They live, eat, and breathe the Nürburgring. It is more than just a passion for them, it is their way of life. And they will fuck your shit up if you cross them.


This is the real reason I think that the future of the Nürburgring is in good hands. People like Mike Frison and the hundreds of thousands of other people that feel so passionately about this place. People who will go to the ends of the earth to ensure it lives on.


So what are you waiting for? The Nürburgring is dead! Long live the Nürburgring! Get your ass out here and drive!


Robb Holland is a professional race car driver for Rotek Racing and basically lives at the Nürburgring most of the year. He's also the tallest man in Germany.


Ten Reasons Why The Sale Of The Nürburgring Could Be Awesome

This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for

This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S


It's not the massive Sandcrawler Ultimate Collector Edition every Star Wars and Lego nerd in the world were claiming for, but it's pretty damn good. 3,296 pieces! It's pretty damn big. Here we got all the official images. It really looks fantastic.


It includes seven minifigures: Luke Skywalker, Uncle Owen, C-3PO and four Jawas, plus R2-D2, R2 unit, an R1-series droid, Gonk droid, R5-D4 and a Treadwell Droid. But best of all is that it's a great design, with lots of mechanisms:



Features 8 tracks with steering function, lowering front ramp, opening side flaps, removable top, working cranes, speeder bike, opening hatch for easy access to the boxes, attachable handles for lifting boxes, and a detailed interior including engine bay, storage bay and cockpit.



It will be available in the US for $300 (Canada will be $350, 300 euros in Germany and£249.99 in the UK.)


This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S


This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S


This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S


This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S


This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S


This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S


This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S


This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S


This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S


This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S


This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S


This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for S





This is the 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler you were looking for

Your Beat Up Van Has Gone More Miles Than A Super-Fast Space Probe insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Your Beat Up Van Has Gone More Miles Than A Super-Fast Space Probe

Your Beat Up Van Has Gone More Miles Than A Super-Fast Space Probe S


Good news, for fans of beat-up old vans that haven't budged from the lawn you parked them on 20 years ago. Your van has actually racked up a bunch of miles! No, a bunch of hoodlums haven't been stealing it in the night for shenanigans. It's just been sitting there, stuck on Earth, moving at blazing speeds.


There interesting little physics factoid comes to us from the ever-lovely What if? blog from XKCD. Each week author Randall Munroe tackles a random science-y question, posed by a reader. This week's question:



In terms of human-made objects, has Voyager 1 travelled the farthest distance? It's certainly the farthest from Earth we know about. But what about the edge of ultracentrifuges, or generator turbines that have been running for years, for example?



It turns out that space probes like Voyager 1, which is now breaking through the edge of the solar system, haven't actually traveled that far, relatively. The crux lies in the fact that not only is the Earth rotating constantly, making everything stuck on it just rack up the miles, but also in the fact that once Voyager 1 escaped Earth's pull, it essentially just went sailing off into the distance. Like someone who took a leisurely walk away from a merry-go-round wildly spinning at just over 1,000 miles an hour.


Add to that that the Earth is going around the sun at over 67,000 miles an hour, and everything still stuck here is moving very fast indeed, including your old van. So even though Voyager 1 is moving at 39,600 miles per hour, it's not nearly as fast as your crapwagon, or, really, as fast as you. Which means you've gone much further, especially if you were born before 1977, the year Voyager 1 left the planet.


So if you have a 1974 Plymouth Voyager, it's done a few million miles by now. No matter what it says on the odometer.


Or did I just blow your mind?


H/t to For Sweden on Oppo!


Photo credit: Photobeppus


Your Beat Up Van Has Gone More Miles Than A Super-Fast Space Probe

Is The Jaguar XK Dead? insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Is The Jaguar XK Dead?

Is The Jaguar XK Dead? S


The latest news out of Britain is that the Jaguar XK is no more. Blame it on a hot young thing called the Jaguar F-Type.


Autocar reports that the XK, last redesigned in 2006, will end production later this year. While never a big seller, sales of the XK were down to about 1,300 cars last year in the U.S., about a third of what they were when the new car was launched in 2007.


As a relatively small company, Jaguar has more important new cars to launch. There was the F-Type and all of its derivatives. And they've made the announcement about the 3-series rivaling XE sedan, due next year.


There's a chance the XK will return as a larger GT car, according to Autocar. I'd imagine it would be something along the lines of a four-seat convertible like the BMW 6-Series. For now, though, Jaguar has a sports car image to maintain with its really gorgeous new coupe and convertible.


And this also gives Jaguar some time to figure out how it'll interpret some kind of modern XJS. Because that's what a dozen people want, right?


Photo: Jaguar


Is The Jaguar XK Dead?

Every Car Was A Star In Switzerland insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Every Car Was A Star In Switzerland

Every Car Was A Star In Switzerland S


This is The Weekend Shift, our one-stop weekly roundup of all the most important auto news you missed during the week. The world doesn't stop just because it's Saturday. Who says you should sleep in?


1st Gear: I Hear Geneva's Lovely This Time Of Year


Every Car Was A Star In Switzerland S


This week marked the start of the annual Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland. As Switzerland professes to be neutral territory, it serves as the big hub for a lot of the European companies to show off their offerings for the earlier part of the year.


We saw cars like the Lamborghini Huracan for the first time, the new Audi TT, the Fiat 695 Biposto, the BMW X4, a sweet Volvo wagon, yet another Pagani Zonda (the Car that Lived), a 3D-printed composite passenger cell, a new SEAT, a new Skoda, a new Opel, a new Honda, a new Apple, a Mini concept, a tacky Mercedes, and everything was orange.


And that was just a little bit of it. But one car is probably more important than all the others.


2nd Gear: Jeep Brings A Renegade


Every Car Was A Star In Switzerland


The Jeep Renegade is a tiny little SUV, but it made a bigger splash than any other vehicle at the show. Jeep's caused some consternation among the old guard as of late, what with the new Cherokee being not the lean truck it used to be. But the Renegade may put all that aside. For the first time in a while, Jeep is offering what appears to be, on paper at least, a small vehicle that's plenty capable off-road. If you wanted something like that up until now, you really had to settle for a Wrangler. And Wrangler's aren't exactly considered very cheap or very small anymore.


The Renegade, based on the Italian Fiat 500L, will come available with four-wheel-drive variants, manual transmissions, and a diesel, for Europe. For the non-enthusiast it'll come with features like lane-departure warning systems and collision warning systems and many other warning systems besides.


But the reason why it's so important is that the little Jeep will serve as a test, of sorts, for the American consumer. Will we, the People, buy a small SUV? Recent history says no, but on the other hand, most of those weren't very good. So maybe it was due to a dearth of desire, the thing which sparks all purchases. We'll see what happens.


3rd Gear: Van Bonanza


Every Car Was A Star In Switzerland S


Want a glimmer of hope that the Renegade will live up to the market hype? Let's look at another segment of captive European imports that have turned a market on its head – vans. Big vans, like the Mercedes Sprinter and Ram Promaster, and smaller vans, like the Nissan NV200 and the Ford Transit Connect, have combined to boost van sales by 40% since 2010.


When the new generation of vans first debuted, they were derided by some fans of the older models like the Ford E-series, for some reason, but mostly because they were European designs that didn't look like the vans people were used to. Those fans were wrong, as now those same people can't wait to buy a van that was actually made in this century.


Go figure.


4th Gear: The Life and Death of Canada's Auto Industry, In About An Hour


Every Car Was A Star In Switzerland S


In one of the weirdest auto industry blips in a while, Canada's auto manufacturing industry nearly died for about an hour, before coming back just as quickly. It's premature death was feared mainly because Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne hinted, ever so slightly, that Chrysler minivan production may be moved away from the Windsor, Ontario plant where the vehicles are currently made.


Then about an hour later Fiat-Chrysler said no, instead they plan on upgrading the plant, and Canadians all over breathed a sigh of relief and dug into their poutine.


The Windsor plant is crucial for the Canadian auto industry, mainly because a certain baseline number of factories need to be present in a given area to support all the feeder industries that contribute to the larger whole. Take away one big assembly plant, and you don't just lose the jobs in that one factory, you can potentially lose thousands in a ripple effect.


But that probably won't happen, this time. Hooray.


5th Gear: Mulally Is So Money


Every Car Was A Star In Switzerland S


Ford CEO Alan Mullaly already makes quite the bundle as the top guy at one of the world's largest car companies. Ford earned more than $7 billion last year, though, so as a little extra present the company gave him another $13.8 million in restricted stock options. That's a 13.8 million dollar smile right there.


Reverse: Bring on the Bus!



Volkswagen, maker of the Beetle automobile, expands its product offerings to include a microbus, which goes into production on this day in 1950. Known officially as the Volkswagen Type 2 (the Beetle was the Type 1) or the Transporter, the bus was a favorite mode of transportation for hippies in the U.S. during the 1960s and became an icon of the American counterculture movement.



[HISTORY]


Neutral: Surely We're Missing Something


Van sales have been huge since we got the European models, and if the Jeep Renegade is a success, it may herald the arrival of a wave of smaller European SUVs. What other market segments do you think would do well here in the States?


Photo credits: Getty Images, Chrysler


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Every Car Was A Star In Switzerland