Jalopnik: iceland

Icelandic Hoons Protest Falling Krona, Rising Gas Prices

Ray Wert — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:40:00 EDT

Iceland's the one country with a currency rate falling further than the dollar and according to the front-pager today in the Wall Street ~~Murdoch~~ Journal it's having a serious impact on our hoonage-loving brethren from the land of the ice and snow. As those of us here have known ever since we saw Richard Hammond try to outrun a man ~~walking~~ driving on water — their only real escape is on nitrous-injected, giant-wheeled trucks which they throw at the mountainous landscape with the greatest of abandon. Unfortunately ballooning debt payments, punishing fuel prices and a cratering currency are all such buzz-kills. The Journal's Marcus Walker tells the story:

"Sveinbjörn Halldórsson, a 44-year-old real-estate agent from Reykjavík, drives a Chevy S10 pickup with a souped-up engine, 44-inch tires with spikes, and four kinds of radios and phones on the dashboard. Filling up the truck's 240-liter tank (about 63 gallons) for the weekend costs him nearly $500, with gas costing $7.84 a gallon. He rolls with one of many so-called gangs on Iceland's highly competitive 4x4 off-road vehicle scene...A once-booming real-estate market is now in free-fall. Last year, Mr. Halldórsson's company sold 30 apartments a month. Last month it sold three. "When the phone rings now, the noise shocks everybody," he says. As his payments balloon and times get tougher, he's having to skip jeep trips, including his gang's annual five-day glacier expedition later this month."

Young Icelandic hoons are apparently even taking to the streets in protest. The Journal continues:

Samúel "Wolf" Thór Gudjónsson, a lanky 21-year-old electrician with long blond rocker's hair, joined with dozens of other jeep fans earlier this month to protest climbing fuel prices, blocking oil companies' depots. Others drove their jeeps through the city's streets at 5 miles an hour to demand cuts in fuel taxes.
Demonstrations are rare in stoical Iceland, a country of only 300,000 people. But the threat to jeep habits is just too much. Alfred "Spotti" Bergisson, a 26-year-old plumber who drives a beefed-up Toyota Land Cruiser, is willing to fight for his right to party. "I just want to go where I want to go," he says. "I get energy in the mountains. I think there."

You go, you young hoons of Iceland. Remember — they may take our tricked out jeep-truck rock-crawlers, they may kill our cheap gas, but they'll never take away our freedom — to hoon! [Wall Street Journal]

GMC Suburban with 49 Inch Tires Will Stop At Nothing

Ben Wojdyla — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:45:00 EST

Most guys into off roading will equip their rig with anything from a set of 33" tires for light duty rock crawling to 44" tires for deep mud bogging. Of course everyone has their preferences and guys usually make tire size decisions based on ego as much as utility. Kristjan Kristjansson of Iceland either has a big purpose, or an enormous ego because he's gone ahead and fitted his GMC Suburban with 49" flotation tires. They make sense for playing in Iceland's frozen wonderlands, but we have to wonder how the tire hum has affected the cabin ambiance.

Dana 60's front and rear, air lockers, hydraulic steering dampers, air suspension, and an Atlas transfer case
that goes from 2.7:1 all the way down to 20.68:1. In case you weren't counting, that's enough reduction to allow the 6.6L Duramax to drag Iceland south if he could find a good towing point. While Kristjan's dually fendered 'Burb is the baddest in the land, we're pretty interested in the T-Rex-like 6x6 Dodge Ram in one of the pics.

What the Hoot Page? Watt has Righteous Bro Blog 'Bout Hydrogen Stations Near Reykjavik While Touring w/ Stooges

Jonny Lieberman — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:37:18 EST

And then it it all comes full circle... There's little we enjoy more than reading Watt's (increasingly) unique Pedro-speak concerning all things that exist in the form of Watt. But, given the "energy diversity" that all the big carmakers are struggling to achieve, well, this is time and place appropriate to us car-blogging types. As the Stooge's Icelandic tour driver explains;

"on our way out of reykjavik we saw the first hydrogen fuel station in the world. the icelandic government along with daimler chrystler, the eu, reykjavik city and more have the past three or four years been trying hydrogen driven city busses in hopes to be able to have the whole bus fleet in reykjavik hydrogen driven by the year 2027 (i think it was)."

A little bit of google-action confirms Mikko's spiel. DCX is (re)fueling select Sprinter vans and city buses with "the ultimate fuel." While not news, it is new to us. Of course, us being us, we're just as amazed that Iggy Pop lives in Miami. – Jonny LIeberman

iggy pop + the stooges | in iceland and europe | may to june 2006 [Hoot Page]

Classic Top Gear: Richard Hammond Walks on Water

Davey G. Johnson — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 20:45:00 EDT

Now that everyone's favorite vertically-challenged British motoring television presenter's condition has stabilized, we here at the apparently now "All Hammond, All the Time" Jalop would like to offer up a clip that illustrates the wacky crap the man does to make us smile. This time around, he straps himself into a jeep alongside a crazy Icelandic person and takes off across a lake. Not a frozen one, mind you. A fully-liquid lake. At rather high speeds.

If Only The Hamster Had A Rack

Ray Wert — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 20:57:06 EDT

Ahh, now that's more like it. Bollocks to those Fifth Gear Poseurs, we've got the real shit right here — Top Gear, baby, Top Gear. Specifically, watch and see the Hamster point out the obvious — painted-on headlights on "Iceland's version of a Jeep" are not real. Ahh, that's more like it. Still, tits would be nice too.

CarAReOK Xtreme Jeep [YouTube]

Related:
More on Top Gear [internal]