The XC70 Surf Rescue is one of the hottest to come out of watching the bay since... well... Baywatch.

Volvos race, believe it or not, and whether it's a gravity racer or a V8-powered Volvo they're always quixotic and wonderful.

Volvos make for great hot rods. Don't ask us why, they just do.

Most importantly, Volvos make being safe sexy. Someone, please, send us a mint 144 for Christmas.

This one was particularly challenging as that Viper V10 was quite obviously not originally intended for the rusty and upright engine bay it currently rests in. The perceptive among you would have noted the shape of the firewall, location of the wiper motor, the fresh air intake and the dual hinge links and maybe, just maybe, if you've got the skill you'd have put it together and guessed correctly, a 1956 Ford F-100 pickup — the sleepiest sleeper we've seen since the Oklahoma Farm Truck.

[The Real JDM, (ironically)]

George Lucas, Car Guy

We've already shown you George Lucas' USC thesis film A Man And His Car, plus the guy did American Graffiti, for cryin' out loud. His fascination with cars runs deep; that's him riding in the Cobra with Allen Grant at the 1963 Pacific Grand Prix at Laguna Seca. Lucas bummed around racetracks a lot in those days, and apparently worked on the cars as well as filming them. He's said to have worked on pit crews at local tracks, and has claimed he wanted to be a race driver until he crashed his own car, an Autobianchi Bianchina (Fiat 500 variant) in a traffic accident, which is as good an indication as any that he wasn't cut out for the racing life. Luckily for us, it didn't dampen his automotive enthusiasm. After making a movie about cruising, which was chock full of hot rods, he turned his attention to long-ago times in faraway galaxies… and put hot rods there. Let's take a look at his creation through fresh eyes.

Photo: Achievement.org

Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder, Hot Rod

Not exactly a stretch. What else could it be? That dented wraparound grille, the faded paint, those jet engines — Luke has himself a lead sled in progress. Or perhaps even a home-built lakester; Lucas was no doubt familiar with the California dry-lake racing scene, and we can't have been the first kids to look at this shot of Luke tear-assing across Tatooine and think "El Mirage" or even "Bonneville." The landspeeder is a brilliant little "used future" hopped-up vehicle design, and for a lot of knee-high car geeks, it made perfect sense for a space farm boy.

Photo: Lucasfilm

Luke Skywalker, Space Gearhead

Anyone who grew up in a small town recognized Luke, which was of course the idea, but kids who grew up around gearheads recognized something others may have missed. It didn't escape our attention that aside from his space bathrobe, a few space wrenches, and eventually, his laser sword, his ride is the only thing he owns. And it's pretty obvious that despite its smooth levitating action and steady high-pitched whine at idle, it's not exactly the newest-latest, either. You just know that Luke's been wrenching on that thing in between bullseyeing womp rats, wondering if he should fix the stereo or the broken seat recliner next, shucking and jiving for hop-up parts with the Jawas (who just happen to share a name with a particular Czech off-road motorcycle which was popular with California desert riders around the time the film was made, a bike that was also prone to making odd noises and scattering strange bits of metal laying around on the sand). Then, when Luke really needs to get out of town, he sells his hot rod in order to get a ticket on the first thing smokin', a painful life choice familiar to any car guy who ever had their priorities suddenly rearranged by events. You have to wonder if he doesn't want his old landspeeder back in quiet moments, but at the time, he's trading up.

Photo: Lucasfilm

The Millennium Falcon, Whiskey Trippin' Bootlegger's Buggy

Yes, it's a space pirate ship, and yes, it looks more like a hubcap or an aircleaner than any car we can name. But it was a smuggler's machine, and Lucas couldn't have been a California car guy without hearing stories about the moonshiners of the South, many of whom eventually wound up in Bakersfield. Han and Chewbacca are always working on the thing, because if it isn't fast, them Imperial Revenooer boys will catch them. It may not look like much, Han tells us, but she's got it where it counts. Of course, while this turns out to be true, Han sure talks a lot.

Photo: Lucasfilm

Han Solo, Racer; Or, What That Stuff About The Kessel Run Really Means

A swaggering self-centered guy whose identity is tied up with his machine? Any car guy will recognize Han's type right away. He's a tremendous badass, he'll tell you, and he never loses-but when he does, it isn't his fault because, hey, even he gets boarded sometimes. Han's impatient whenever anyone doubts him, has one sidekick he treats as more or less an equal but who doesn't really get to speak, and just wants to be in his ride when he isn't in a bar. Obviously, Lucas had been paying close attention when he was hanging out with racing drivers.

Oh, and that bit about making the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs? People fall all over themselves to explain or retcon this. Some say it was simply a mistake and that someone didn't realize or care that a parsec was a measure of distance and not time. Lucas himself has said that because of the unique nature of navigation in Star Wars, making the run in less distance was a measure of spacefaring skill. Well, we think that's crap. When gearheads hear "making the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs," we're hearing a drag racer say their car will "do a quarter-mile run in less than 12 seconds," which would have been a fairly respectable time when Lucas was a kid. The line would've sounded right to him when he wrote it, and hey, admit it-our explanation makes as much sense as any other. Lucas is just covering up what a car geek he is, because these days— largely thanks to Lucas himself —being a geek-type geek is better than being a car geek. To which we say, George, may John Force be with you.

Photo: Lucasfilm

Sebulba, Stock-Car Racer

As much as it pains us to talk about the later prequels, they're chock full of car culture as well, and none much more obvious than the scenes revolving around this weedy-looking alien. The podracer scenes may have been lifted from Ben Hur, but they were meant to reach kids who were enthralled by NASCAR, so of course there has to be a fender-bashin' bad guy who plays by his own rules and will wreck ya to beat ya. Enter Sebulba. This space-mustachioed villian's name simply must have inspired by Sepulveda Boulevard, one of the epicenters of American automotive subculture and the street Time magazine wrote about in one of the very first mainstream magazine articles about hot-rodding. For all that, Sebulba is a stock-car driver through and through. And if you consider his open-faced helmet, his cheap-looking goggles, his aggressive driving, and his ugly space ‘stache, it becomes pretty obvious that he's intended to be Space Dale Earnhardt.

Photo: Lucasfilm

Anakin Skywalker's Princess-Magnet Yellow Landspeeder

We hate to break it to everybody, but that Anakin kid is no damn good. Check out that speeder he's in-not only is it the kind of yellow that always seems like a cry for help, at one point he even describes the color as "gonzo." Who talks like that? Clearly Anakin's headed for a bad end. Otherwise the car, anyway, is not a bad design, reminiscent of the classic T-bucket rods right down to the exposed engine and even the scuttle in front of the driver. Unfortunately, when it's a teen driving it, you know he's had everything come to him too easy and probably has daddy issues on top of it. Plus, some guys you can just tell are going to be no damn good to women.

Photo: Lucasfilm

Everybody In The Universe Knows That Chicks Can't Drive, Har Har

Speaking of no damn good to women… You've got to take the bad with the good, and part of the bad in car culture is the chauvinism. The Star Wars universe isn't particularly kind to women anyway, as they're always being tortured or chained to fat space mobsters or dying in childbirth, but on top of that they screw up every time they try to drive, which is pretty much once. Here we see Leia driving a space-off-roader in one of the best action scenes in the original trilogy, and she does okay right up until she biffs it and has to be rescued by the cute furry comic relief. Seems her twin brother never had that problem. Sadly, this portrayal of half the driving population is pretty consistent with the attitude of most mainstream gearheads, who like to refer to girls as counterweights, cupholders, or passenger seat warmers. Seems like we haven't come that far since long, long ago.

Photo: Lucasfilm

Unfortunately we weren't able to make it down to Giddings, Texas for this edition of Billetproof, Jalopnik reader and camera-jockey Eric Nelson did, and passed on these great photographs for everyone to enjoy. It's got everything, cool kustoms, rusty rods, engine pr0n, chopped tops and even an Edsel that's had the letters over its yoke rearranged to spell "SLED," super cool. Thanks again for sending us a little bit of Texas Eric.

Christian Pearce isn't just some random illustrator with a knack for unusual media. The New Zealand-based man has amazing talent as proven by his employment at Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop, creating the dinosaurs for the most recent King Kong movie. Weta might sounds familiar to some of you as this is the same production studio that brought us the real-life Warthog, the gun-turret-wielding off-road beast from the popular XBOX franchise, Halo.

Pearce's work has become so popular in his kiwi hometown that he was featured in an exhibition titled 99DS this past February in Wellington alongside fellow Nintendo DS Colors artist, Greg Broadmore. [Drawn! via ChristianPearce.blogspot, 99DS]

The VSR Concept wears familiar Cadillac styling stretched over a low slung tube framed hot rod chassis. Power comes from a 6.0-liter V8 which develops 400 HP. Why not a Cadilac CTS-V matching 568 HP? No idea. What it lacks in CTS-V power it more than makes up for in the "Holy crap that thing is awesome I want it" category. It's spartan, it's low slung, and it's open wheels. This is why we'd be terrible GM executives. The whole fleet would be open wheeled Caddy's and El Caminos.

ROUSH® STAGE 3™ SUSPENSION AVAILABLE TO ALL MUSTANG OWNERS WHO WANT TO PULL Gs

LIVONIA, Mich. (July 31, 2008) - One of the things that sets the ROUSH®
Stage 3™ Mustang apart from the competition is the road-hugging,
highly-tuned suspension package. Previously, this vaunted suspension
package was only available as part of a ROUSH Stage 3 vehicle build, but
now anyone with a 2005 to 2009 Ford Mustang can feel what a 1G lateral
skid pad rating can give you on the daily drive.

Developed by some of the top chassis engineers in the industry, the
ROUSH Stage 3 Suspension Package is the result of hundreds of hours of
testing and thousands of miles on both the street and racetracks across
the country. Tests, including slalom, lane change, skid pad, and were
performed on a wide variety of road surfaces to provide the best
combination of ride comfort and road handling. Data was captured and
evaluated using a DIVAS Data Acquisition System, the same equipment used
by the Ford vehicle engineers. Overall, it took more than six months of
non-stop research and development to create one of the finest
suspensions available today.

The complete kit includes springs, dampers, jounce bumpers and
anti-roll bars which work together in harmony and provide optimum
performance on the street or track. The suggested retail is $1,499.00
(part number 401761), and when installed will lower the car
approximately one inch for a more aggressive stance. All instructions
and necessary OEM-grade hardware is included.

The front anti-roll bar is more than 45 percent stiffer than the stock
unit and is a solid material, unlike most others on the market which are
hollow. This helps to significantly reduce body roll, and ROUSH takes
the additional step to forge and machine the bar ends so that all the
joints are parallel and surfaces match for joint integrity. The rear
anti-sway bar is also solid and is heavier to help balance the vehicle
and remove some of the understeer that is a characteristic of the
Mustang.

The twin-tube shocks have a unique valving and will keep the maximum
tire contact patch on the ground, even while driving over uneven
terrain. They were developed in part with an advanced 7-post shaker rig
like many of the NASCAR teams now utilize to hone their chassis setups.
Like all the metal components in the Stage 3 Suspension Package, the
shocks are powder coated for corrosion resistance. The springs
themselves are cold wound and made from high chrome silicone steel. They
are pre-set so they won't sag.

The ROUSH engineers paid particular attention to the bushings and
jounce bumpers, areas other companies tend to overlook. The bushings,
though stiffer than OEM, are a bit softer than other third-party pieces
which allows for more compliance over low speed bumps. There is a unique
spiral groove cut in the front and rear bushings which helps to keep the
grease in place and quiets the unit. The jounce bumpers were actually
designed to act as a spring assist, and are constructed from an
OEM-quality, micro-cellular material.

"ROUSH has always been known for being the best in powertrain
components, but we also have some of the most knowledgeable chassis
engineers in the auto industry on staff," said Jack Roush. "I
continually challenge them to design suspension pieces that offer
tremendous performance enhancements yet don't make sacrifices when it
comes to ride comfort. With the ROUSH Stage 3 Suspension Package they
have met this challenge, and even exceeded my expectations for what a
performance enthusiast would want on his Mustang."

The Stage 3 Suspension Kit works with any type of wheel combinations,
but for optimum performance it is suggested that the ROUSH RR03 forged
wheels (part number 402422) and ROUSHcharger™ be utilized as well. The
suspension was specifically designed with the weight of these components
in mind.

Unique is an understatement here. This is why we love the return of traditional hot rods to the scene: you never know what you're going to get. And hey, who said hot rods aren't practical. We bet that thing has a huge trunk up front. [Hemmings]

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[Photo/Source: Aftenposten, CarDomain]

Novel ideas don't end there. The car has been sort of a test bed for go-faster ideas seeing all kinds of changes and updates over the years. When it was originally built, it pucked the trend of a front mounted solid axle with trailing arms and instead went with a swing axle design allowing for the low stance. Since anybody who's studied chassis physics will tell you a swing axle sucks for driving dynamics, the car was again upgraded with a double wishbone and coilover setup which it still retains. Motiviation comes via a compact V6 V8 which we could not discern but was equipped with some cool parts. The open headers have a cutout valve operated by a cable which runs down the center of the exhaust pipe and can be operated from the cabin. Speaking of cabin, even though it's a cool looking ride, the driver space looks like a special kind of hell. Looking at one of the mods in particular, the big scoops behind the front suspension leading into the footwell, we're assuming that in addition to being cramped, the footwells were hotter than the fires of hades. Yikes but awesome.

The doors have been welded shut to keep things stiff, so to get in, the roof is actually hinged forward so you can just step right in - cool!. The rear suspension is pretty spectacular, its a solid axle kept in place with a stout panhard setup, a wagon style arched spring to provide compliance, and a set of very, very old oil piston dampers to quiet the chassis. We're eager to see what this thing looks like when it's all done, and we hear there are others from the same shop that are even more twisted and diabolical.