Having been forced to watch the original Twilight movie I can relate the plot to you very quickly: A high school girl with greasy hair falls in love with a 100-year-old, but still young looking vampire whose main powers are looking moody and sparkling. Ignoring the pedophilia and concentrating instead on the fact that the two don't have sex, Christians the world over have seized on the movie as a wonderful example of abstinence (Should I have sex with a sparkle vampire? What would Jesus do?) and encouraged their pubescent daughters to obsess over the movie's star, the dreamy Robert Pattinson.

At some point during all the ridiculousness and sparkling, there's some brief message about protecting the people you love. Volvo's seized on this, pushing its products heavily in the movies and now running an ad campaign to tie in with the sequel, New Moon, which opens next week.

Ignoring for a second the bizarre Christian thing that's going to insure that a generation of girls grow up with an incredibly fucked up idea of sex, the target demographic for this teen marketing campaign movie is 12-year-old girls. Is that really the market for Volvo XC60s? We mean, they can't even drive yet!

Then there's the direct parallel Volvo's drawing between the website it's using to promote its product placement and that creepy Christian thing the movies have going on. The website's name? What Drives Edward? Would Jesus be that creepy?

Put your helmets on, fill those tanks with homemade napalm and click "next" because the cities are exploding and you need to know how to survive the upheaval.

Vehicle: EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle
Suggested By: Racin_G37
Pros: Comfort, full armor, integrated communications and weapons center, drapes
Cons: Maneuverability, fictional
Best Suited For: Sneaking a large force into an urban area in the Sun Belt where people expect to see RVs. Come on guys, we're taking over Phoenix tonight!

Vehicle: Matte Black Bicycle
Suggested By: Alfisted
Pros: Quick, easy to carry, stealth
Cons: Lack of armor, storage, speed
Best Suited For: Densely packed urban slums like Rio (ready for an Olympic rumble).

Vehicle: Deuce And A Half/M35
Suggested By: Ryan K. Light
Pros: Will run on nearly every burning fluid, powerful, gigantic
Cons: Too big for small alleys, slow, hard to defend without a roof
Best Suited For: A metropolis with a lot of freeways and high-proof liquor to run the engine on, like Los Angeles or Moscow.

Vehicle: Killdozer
Suggested By: Evil-Jeremy
Pros: Nearly unstoppable, great name, armored, can crush opponents
Cons: Poor fuel economy, space, no exit
Best Suited For: Crazed suicide mission urban warfare when you expect to go up against a lot of pedestrians (Copenhagen)

Vehicle: V8 Interceptor
Suggested By: Snapoversteer
Pros: Proven, fierce looking, fast, Mel Gibson-approved
Cons: Sucks down fuel, poor visibility
Best Suited For: Lawless, abandoned urban towns like Detroit.

Vehicle: EarthRoamer XV-LT
Suggested By: EBone
Pros: Tough, decent mileage, ISO9001 compliant protection against chemical, biological and nuclear contamination
Cons: Big, harder to fix, you're not going to need those satellite dishes when the satellites crash into the cities
Best Suited For: When society breaks down and the armies of the world release all their weapons and it's a mutant/zombie urban throw-down you'll be able to live comfortably in Omaha.

Vehicle: Tumbler
Suggested By: Robbloeb
Pros: Batman-approved, designed for dense urban areas, armed and armored
Cons: Experimental, hard to repair, complex
Best Suited For: quick jaunts of intense urban warfare when you have a subway/dungeon/cave to retreat to when done causing mischief, like Chicago or NYC.

Vehicle: Toyota 4x4
Suggested By: Schm
Pros: Tough, cheap to maintain, can carry your warlord buddies
Cons: Little armor, easy to tipover
Best Suited For: Crowded, dilapidated cities with crappy roads like Mogadishu.

Vehicle: Mazda 323 GTX
Suggested By: 2trips
Pros: Good all weather traction, super tuneable, easy to repair
Cons: Lack of space, small, not at all bulletproof
Best Suited For: European cities like Barcelona with narrow streets, fruit carts and streets wet with blood.

Vehicle: Hamann Typhoon
Suggested By: Arcsine
Pros: G-Wagen toughness, V12 power (0-62 MPH in 5.1 seconds), stainless steel bits, looks ready for battle
Cons: Flashy, uses tons of gas, weakness in the wheels
Best Suited For: any city with open roads and a lot of fuel around like Riyadh or Houston.

You'll find 12 of our favorite items, complete with prices and descriptions below. Should you want to bid on anything, visit iCollector.

We were there for the unveiling of the Black Beauty and learned that Seth Rogen, set to play the titular Green Hornet, was a fan of the site. We wish him the best in this endeavor and, of course, just assume it was Kato driving. Hopefully, this was just part of the filming and not an accident — though it looks fairly real to us. The vehicle seems to have nosed itself right into the CAA building in Century City. (Hat tip to James!) [Photos from JustJared.com]

[via JustJared.com]
[via JustJared.com]
[via JustJared.com]

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

These days, the "concept car" is almost nonexistent. What we get are prototypes, close-to-production models. Some of them are very nice indeed. But they're rarely the sort of breathtaking conceptual leaps forward we got in the prosperous, optimistic post-war years, when General Motors would use their Motorama shows to debut future production cars, like the Corvette, on the same stage they used to debut cars from the not-too-distant future. Those were the days. Here's seven noteworthy concepts that tried to tell the future — seven concept cars of future past.

Firebirds I, II, and III
General Motors
1953-1959

The Firebirds were incredibly striking cars, the very essence of Jet Age design, but their significance as futurist artifacts comes from the fact that they actually worked. The 1953 Firebird I was built, in part, to test the feasibility of gasoline turbine engines in automitive applications and driven, somewhat hesitantly, at Indianapolis. Firebird II, showing three years later, had a less powerful if supposedly more user-friendly engine and a body made of titanium, which was extremely exotic as it was still considered a strategic metal at the time; it also had an autopilot of sorts, a guidance system that would supposedly follow wires embedded into the highways of tomorrow. Firebird III, in 1959, had it all, the turbine, the titanium, the bubble canopies and the fins, as well as being steered, throttled, and braked with a joystick between the seats— as the pamphlet said, it was "An Amazing Experience In Automatic Car Control!"

Of course, none of the Firebird's marquee technologies made it into production, although the research and development probably paid off in countless ways, as R&D always does. What makes the Firebird concepts remarkable is the sheer optimism of the engineers and designers who put them together, who decided that the complexities of 1200° F exhaust temperatures, driver's joysticks, and functional aerodynamic surfaces were going to be part of an increasingly ambitious national landscape someday sooner than we thought.

Photo Credit: Automotive History Online

Chrysler Turbine Car
Chrysler
1963

Once the idea of the turbine got into Detroit's head it didn't seem to want to leave. Chrysler was so in love with their high-rpm, burns-anything motor that they put it in a special Ghia body, which unlike the Firebirds didn't have canopy bubbles or gigantic fins. However, it did feature exhaust-nacelle taillights, which was neat if not particularly outrageous for the time, and was actually given to a few dozen preferred Chrysler customers to drive on the road for a set period of time, which was incredibly daring. A lot of thought was given to solving the problems of putting the car in the hands of everyday drivers, specifically that of the exhaust, which was a potential bumper-melter even back when bumpers were made of steel. It was a first step towards everyone whooshing around in jet-engined cars, a sign the future of driving was almost here, if not next year, then certainly by the 1970s.

Then, as far as most people were concerned, nothing happened. The program was allowed to run its course, during which the cars functioned with remarkable reliability, and the cars were almost all scrapped as per usual with test vehicles. Chrysler kept experimenting with turbines, even dropping one into a LeBaron as late as 1977, but never again took the bold step of putting radical new space-age technology into the hands of potential consumers.

Photo Credit: conceptcarz.com

Nucleon
Ford
1958

When people think of the nuclear optimism of the 1950s, the Nucleon is the sort of thing they imagine: A passenger car that would be powered by nuclear fission. While the Firebirds were retro-futuristic in design and the Chrysler Turbine was retro-futuristic in execution (if that's possible), the Ford Nucleon was so far beyond them in pure concept that it's hard to believe it was even considered. Power was to be provided by a lead-shielded uranium fission plant situated well back of the passenger compartment and driving twin steam turbines. After about 5,000 miles, the entire plant would be swapped out at a Ford recharging station.

It's hard to say whether this concept was recklessly optimistic or just reckless, in the context of 1958; the same year the Nucleon design debuted, Las Vegas tourists were taking their martinis up to on the roofs of the casinos to watch nuclear bomb tests just 70 miles away, and the scientists of Project Orion were hard at work on a spaceship that would atomically pogo men to the stars by detonating a series of small nuclear charges behind them. In this atmosphere, the prospect of a couple production Nucleons T-boning each other may have seemed like the sort of thing engineers would worry about in due time. As it stood, despite hundreds of hours of conceptual design time, the Nucleon never got beyond the three-eights-scale model stage. The idea itself survives as a symbol of that time between Hiroshima and the Cuban missile crisis when The Power Of The Atom was going to solve all our problems.

Photo Credit: Automotive History Online

Oldsmobile Aerotech
General Motors
1987-92

For a long time, there wasn't really a lot of long-range future-think in the automotive world. Emerging safety-consciousness, fuel crises, and the arrival of Japanese practicality and reliability meant that most designers were anchored to the demands of the present, and most designs were mired in those frankly boring contemporary concerns. The Aerotech program of the late 1980s, aimed at aerodynamic research and with the goal of breaking top-speed records, was one exception. There was a strange idea floating around, in the automotive press at least, that there should be some sort of American Autobahn system on which qualified drivers could drive as fast as they wished. Chevrolet had already built the otherwise forgettable 1987 "Express" concept car around the idea, vague though it was. The Aerotech was built with a similar mindset.

Oldsmobile took a two-liter version of GM's Quad-4 four-cylinder, turbocharged it to within an inch of its life, dropped it into the Aerotech along with A. J. Foyt, and drove it 257 miles per hour to break the closed-course record. Oldsmobile was quick to announce that the Aerotech was showing the way forward for Oldsmobile. Sadly, this didn't mean advanced aerodynamics launching us into an unlimited top-speed future; instead, we got the moderately good Aurora sports sedan and the moderately awful Quad-4 production engine. The aerodynamic future has indeed arrived, but as a path to greater fuel economy, and it's taken the shape of the slippery but uninspiring Prius instead of the Aerotech.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Pod
Toyota
2001

The Pod came about as an early attempt at fusing the car with the Internet, with a bit of electronic pet thrown in. Toyota designed the Pod concept in collaboration with then-unstoppable-giant Sony, whose Aibo robot dog was still an object of fascination. The Pod would wait patiently outside your house, its AI interfacing with your TV-watching and net-surfing habits, thoughtfully downloading music you liked and newscasts related to your interests. When you drove the Pod, it would play your content back for you. It would also change its exterior lighting to match your mood based on your driving, from angry red to cool blue, and wag its antenna when you were being especially relaxed and polite. The Pod was, therefore, a friend you could drive around, albeit a somewhat judgmental and creepily attentive friend.

The networked component of the Pod is of course old hat by now, as today it's hard to prevent any internet-capable hardware from showering you with recommendations. And it's hard to imagine that driving around in a two-seat mood ring would be the least bit appealing. But the Pod is a pretty good example of attitudes towards the Internet from just a few years back. As far as everyday utility of futuristic gadgetry, though, that place in our culture is pretty much taken up by the Roomba.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

iReal
Toyota
2007

If the Pod was the turn-of-the-century Internet interpreted as a car, the iReal is social networking interpreted as, well, a conveyance. The shadow of Wall-E, the Hoveround, and the Segway loom large over what looks like an Apple-designed wheelchair-which, for all vehicular intents and purposes, it is. While puttering about town, you sit upright. When it's time to go all the way to a different shopping district, it reclines, leans into turns, and tops out at not quite 19 miles per hour.

The social networking component is the iReal's ability to locate and communicate with other iReal users in the area in order to exchange information, presumably about iReal related activities, and invite them to meet up, presumably for safety in numbers. The iReal is already in limited release, and a patrol version equipped with portable defibrillators is in use by Japanese airport security. But as interesting as it may be, it's also somehow depressing to imagine a future in which we'll all be wheelchair-bound.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

FCX
Honda
2006-present

When Honda introduced this version of their Fuel Cell eXperimental concept, which uses its hydrogen to power three electric motors, they announced that it would soon be available for lease for selected participants in specific areas. They made good on this ambitious promise, and there are currently twenty-some FCX drivers whirring around in Honda's proof-of-concept in a modern version of Chrysler's turbine-car program. This, therefore, is a car of future present.

The idea here is that a network of fueling stations would provide hydrogen just the way they provide gas now, and drivers of tomorrow will live their automotive lives in roughly the same way we do today, certain smells and sounds aside. By all reports, the FCX performance is a perfectly acceptable, if unremarkable, much like its appearance. Which is fair enough; of all the possible futures predicted by these concepts, the FCX's is by far the most probable.

Perhaps that's disappointing, as it's more fun to imagine some sort of 257-mph tail-wagging atomic wheelchair with working tailfins. If that's the case, take heart; as these cars demonstrate, the future we get is hardly ever the future we're preparing for. Who knows? Perhaps the seemingly practical, usable electric car is the first misstep on the road to jet-packs and flying cars after all.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

The Corvette Stingray concept, first introduced at the 2009 Chicago Auto Show, and starring in the recently-released Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen as Autobot Sideswipe, represents a visionary modern interpretation of the past, present and future of the Corvette. Conceptually, it represents the merger of high technology with high design in the powertrain, exterior and interior.

Exterior Design

Despite the recent trend toward concepts as nothing more than an exaggerated preview of a production car, don't expect the next-generation C7 Corvette to look like this concept car. Tom Peters, designer of both the Stingray concept as well as the new Chevy Camaro says very plainly "it's not the C7." Then, pausing, he continued by saying

"that's not to say there aren't elements here that can translate into what the C7's about. There's no parameters to this concept...our goal...I would tell my team, guys, go kick that car's ass. Go beat that."

Despite only being revealed earlier this year, and despite obvious similarities in exterior design between it and the new Chevy Camaro, it's not for the reasons you think. You see, the Stingray was actually first sketched over six years ago, predating the Camaro.

What that means is Peters took the methodology used designing the Stingray concept and applied it to the new Chevy Camaro. That's why you'll see design elements from the Stingray concept in it.

So, despite many enthusiasts' belief the Camaro influenced the Stingray concept car, it was, in fact, the other way around. As Peters says, "that [Camaro's egg crate] grille came from that grille [egg crate grille on the Corvette Stingray concept]." When you see the Camaro sitting next to the Stingray concept, you realize immediately the design influence from the concept's front end to Chevy's new mullet-lover muscle car.

What the Corvette Stingray concept's exterior design did draw inspiration from was almost every generation Corvette — starting with the 1959 Corvette Stingray racer concept, the iconic split rear window from the 1963 Stingray and front wheel arches and side coveys from more modern generations — mixed with distinct, classical aeronautic lines.

The doors open like a Lambo — scissor-style — and the reverse-clamshell hood both open at the touch of a button. With the three carbon fiber appendages spread, it look like nothing less than a bird of prey. It's a sight to see in person.

Achieving the design took a mix of materials that Corvettes are used to seeing as part of their make-up. The concept utilizes advanced composite materials — no new thing for Corvettes, as Richard Pinto, Creative Designer on interior trim told us, aseven the first generation utilized composites — but nothing like the carbon fiber and graphite/nylon reinforced plastic found on the newest Corvettes.

Interior Design

Taking cues from artwork outside the GM Design Center and the flowing, aerodynamic exterior, GM interior designer Micah Jones built a dual-cockpit design to exist in cohesive harmony with the Autobot surrounding it. Sitting in it, we've got to say it works — the ergonomics and touch-zones feel snug but not tight — with all controls available in close proximity to the driver.

Because, unlike base models of the current generation Corvette, this concept's filled to the carbon fiber-gills with conceptual and currently available technology designed to be totally customizable for the driver. To that end, on the steering wheel are two spherical balls. Right side controls shared functions like entertainment, air con and nav. Left side controls the driver's arena — items explained in more detail in the powertrain section below.

The information cluster features, in addition to basic information from a speedometer and a tachometer, small circular screens with 3-D animated shocks and brakes spinning around to give you a visual of what you're adjusting using the two spherical balls.

The center console screen is a dramatic and expansive display where you'll see five settings able to be controlled — the same five you find on the wheel — Entertainment, Air, Home (laptop mode that allows you to access the internet and your information from home. And yes, Twitter fans, you'll be able to tweet from it), Nav and Race modes — allowing you to utilize the advanced haptic touch screen to alter all of these. The really cool features in the center console are a very iTunes cover flow-like ability to shuffle through songs and a system designed to allow for downloadable iPhone app-like racing content — think 0-to-60 timers, race course maps with the fastest lines and the like. Which, given the powertrain, is something we think you'll need.

Powertrain

Under the hood there's a radical conceptual hybrid powertrain, theoretically mating mild hybrid technology with a high performance V8 engine with cylinder deactivation for even higher fuel economy in non-performance driving situations.

The theoretical concept extends to include the driver's ability to switch from pure electric mode for city driving to full use of the big LS-series V8 with five different settings (the left-hand control sphere on the steering wheel) controlling the feel and sharpness of the shift, the intensity and sensitivity of the regenerative brakes, and playing up some of the hybrid system's opportunities. You could theoretically control the output — and how quickly the electricity is put back down to the road — from a more Eco-friendly mode or crank it up to ultimate sensitivity and just pound power out of the car.

But, despite the lettering "Hybrid Stingray" emblazoned on the underhood packaging, it merely represents a futuristic vision from the design studio and not a powertrain exercise. So don't expect the C7 Corvette to get a hybrid powertrain.

How'd It Drive?
It's a multi-million dollar one-off concept car driven at 15-20 MPH, how do you think it felt to drive? Right. It felt awesome, which is exactly how it should feel.

There are so many stupid things you can do with this mini-Tumbler, and just think of all the Mini-Me/Batman crossover jokes you can make. Seriously, this is going to make Shriners parades reach a whole new level of surreal hilarity. We can envision wolf packs of these little monsters terrorizing the streets and the 911 calls from confused whitebread suburbanites. This is the kind of thing we want to play with for a while, but couldn't overcome the nerdshame to actually own one. (hanks for the tip Ariel ) [eBay Listing]

Full release below in the gallery.

Chevrolet announces the 2010 Camaro TRANSFORMERS Special Edition

DETROIT - Fans of the new Camaro and the blockbuster TRANSFORMERS movies can now combine their love of the car and the films with the Chevrolet Camaro TRANSFORMERS Special Edition announced today at Comic-Con in San Diego.

"When the first TRANSFORMERS movie was setting box office records, we had countless customers asking to purchase the 'BUMBLEBEE' Camaro," said Karen Rafferty, product marketing director, Chevrolet. "Now, they can buy one with the new Camaro TRANSFORMERS Special Edition. Streets all over North America will be buzzing in no time."

Features such as an EPA-rated 29 highway mpg on the V6-powered Camaro, Bluetooth phone connectivity, USB connectivity, XM Satellite Radio and OnStar combined with TRANSFORMERS design cues add to the car's status as a 21st century sports car.

"Hasbro is thrilled to team up with Chevrolet and excited to see the Camaro TRANSFORMERS Special Edition come to market for our fans to enjoy," said Samantha Lomow, Global Brand Leader for TRANSFORMERS at Hasbro. "The yellow Camaro with the black stripes has become so iconic and closely associated with the BUMBLEBEE character that this edition was a natural fit for both companies."

While the aggressive styling of the Camaro is unmistakable, true TRANSFORMERS fans will notice some of the unique, but subtle features of the Camaro TRANSFORMERS Special Edition.

The 2010 Chevrolet Camaro TRANSFORMERS Special Edition includes the following:

* AUTOBOT® shield on the driver and passenger side panels
* AUTOBOT® shield on each of the four wheel's center cap
* AUTOBOT® shield embroidered on interior center console
* "TRANSFORMERS" logo on driver and passenger doors' sill plates
* "TRANSFORMERS" logo embedded into the hood rally stripes
* High-gloss black center rally stripe package
* Manufacturer's suggested retail price of package: $995

Dealers are now taking orders for this car. Customers can order the TRANSFORMERS Special Edition as either a Rally Yellow LT or SS model. The optional RS appearance package can also be added.

The V6-powered Camaro uses a 3.6L engine with variable valve timing to optimize performance and fuel economy. It is SAE-certified at 304 horsepower (227 kW) and 273 lb.-ft. of torque (370 Nm). A six-speed manual transmission is standard with the 3.6L engine; a Hydra-Matic 6L50 electronically controlled six-speed automatic, with TAPshift control, is available.

The high-performance Camaro SS is equipped with a powerful 6.2L V-8, with a choice of a six-speed manual or six-speed automatic transmission. Manual transmission-equipped models receive the LS3 engine, SAE-certified at 426 horsepower (318 kW) and 420 lb.-ft. of torque (569 Nm). It is paired with a TR6060 six-speed transmission.

A new, L99 V-8 engine is used on automatic transmission-equipped SS models. It is based on the LS3, but also includes GM's fuel-saving Active Fuel Management feature. It is SAE-certified at 400 horsepower (298 kW) and 410 lb.-ft. of torque (556 Nm). It is matched with a Hydra-Matic 6L80 six-speed transmission that helps delivers an EPA-estimated 25 mpg on the highway.

About Chevrolet
Chevrolet is one of America's best-known and best-selling automotive brands, and one of the fastest growing brands in the world. With fuel solutions that go from "gas-friendly to gas-free," Chevy has nine models that get 30 miles per gallon or more on the highway, and offers three hybrid models. More than 2.5 million Chevrolets that run on E85 biofuel have been sold. Next year, Chevrolet will offer the Chevy Volt, an extended range electric vehicle that will travel up to 40 miles without using any gas at all. Chevy delivers expressive design, spirited performance and provides the best value in every segment in which it competes. More information on Chevrolet can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

About HASBRO
Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE:HAS) is a worldwide leader in children's and family leisure time products and services with a rich portfolio of brands and entertainment properties that provides some of the highest quality and most recognizable play and recreational experiences in the world. As a brand-driven, consumer-focused global company, Hasbro brings to market a range of toys, games and licensed products, from traditional to high-tech and digital, under such powerful brand names as TRANSFORMERS, PLAYSKOOL, TONKA, MILTON BRADLEY, PARKER BROTHERS, CRANIUM and WIZARDS OF THE COAST. Come see how we inspire play through our brands at http://www.hasbro.com. © 2009 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Few eras of industrial design have produced objects of such impeccable, futuristic desire as Art Deco. Tempting it is then to imagine that the svelte lines of Bugattis and the Chrysler Building could somehow live on, infused with modern technology.

Results are ambiguous at best. Take Kerry Conran’s 2004 film, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, an absolutely gorgeous exercise in 30s chic right down to Gwyneth Paltrow’s beige trenchcoat, but a dreadful movie. Oh and—the Bugatti Veyron. The technology is there in spades but the fleeting grace of prewar Bugattis is gone for angry turbopanzer looks.

Failing to accommodate reality in designs is a hell of a slippery slope, but French industrial designer Bruno Delussu’s rendering of a modern Bugatti Type 57 is so far removed from reality that the mind is free to conceive of anything. Say, a France removed by tractor beams from the way of an imminent Nazi invasion. Then allowed to grow in isolation for decades, acquiring high technology on the border of magic, to come up with this thing. A modern take on the Bugatti Type 57 Atlantic, powered probably by ion cannons instead of the original’s clockwork straight-eight.

Judging by looks alone, it would also give a fair chase to the Auto Union Streamliner which Bernd Rosemeyer crashed at a delicious 270 MPH on a cold January day in 1938.

Image Credit: Bruno Delussu

We've seen plenty of DIY Tumblers before and a '40s era Batman Bug but a Batman Forever Batmobile is a first for us, probably because it was a silly looking car from a silly movie, but Bob Causey took the idea and ran with it. He's the sculptor responsible for this incredibly faithful replica, which boasts a remote power sliding roof bubble, a trio of LCD screens inside, and reverse-lit body panels, just like the hokey original. We are mightily impressed with the craftsmanship here, though we reserve the right to raise an eyebrow at the choice of subject.
[Dullam Causey.com via via Gizmodo]

Asked on May 18, 1999 what my favorite movie was I, like many of my contemporaries, would have had an easy answer: Star Wars. Just one day later, with the release of Phantom Menace, that answer would change forever. It didn't make sense. Episode I, compared quantitatively to its predecessors and, according the huge amount of buzz surrounding it, must have been a much better movie. It had a bigger budget, benefited from modern technology, had really neat imaginary creatures and action-packed space battles. So what changed? Well, the environment in which the space fairy tale existed had, in 22 years, become much more sophisticated. Audiences wanted to experience something new in the same way the original film had been unprecedented for its time. Instead, George Lucas contented himself with producing a fancy new version of the same old schlock. That, and Anakin was really irritating.

With the $22,995 V6-equipped 2010 Chevy Camaro LS producing 304 HP, nearly as much as the V8-engined 2010 Ford Mustang GT, and the 426 HP 2010 Chevy Camaro SS starting at just $30,995, initial impressions of GM's new muscle car are extremely good. It's faster than its competitors and benefits from more svelte looks than the Dodge Challenger and less familiar styling than the 2010 Mustang. It's even more fuel efficient, with the V6 returning an impressive 17 city, 29 highway MPG-rating, while the V8 returns 16/25 MPG when equipped with the slightly higher-geared automatic transmission.

But this Camaro's also supposed to be about more than just numbers (click here for our 2010 Chevy Camaro Numbers Comparison) for one very important reason: it's based on the 2009 Pontiac G8 GXP. When we drove that car last November, we couldn't believe that a $40,000 Pontiac was like the new E39 M5, only better. That impression was the result of a driving experience that wasn't so much about the 415 HP Corvette-derived LS3 V8 as it was the car's subtle ability to read your mind, then react to what you wanted faster than we thought possible from a big sedan. In short, the G8 GXP is a handler before it's a muscle car and that's saying something for a vehicle that can hit 60 MPH in 4.7 seconds.

The opposite is true of this new Camaro. Based on an updated version of the G8's Zeta platform (here called Zeta II), the Camaro gets a 2.5" shorter wheelbase thanks to bringing the front wheels forward 6", then moving the A-pillar rearwards 3.5" to create a longer hood and new front suspension chosen to make that hood lower. Unlike the class-defining Mustang, suspension is also independent all the way around. The V6 starts with GM's FE2 coil-over suspension package, before moving up to standard FE3 on the V8-equipped SS. Wheels start out at a smaller-than-GXP 18x7.5" on the base LS, before moving up to a standard and massive 20x8" front, 20x9" rear on the SS. The G8 GXP's are 19x8". Most of the SS's standard equipment is available optionally on the V6 models, while the RS-package essentially looks like an optioned-up SS, but with a V6 under the hood.

Somehow, all those changes translate into an experience that's no less capable — in fact the Camaro SS is 11-seconds faster around the famed Nurburgring than the G8 GXP — but a lot less involving. Where the G8 GXP is all about including you in the driving, requiring and enabling you to aggressively wring the most out of its chassis, the Camaro SS doesn't seek to make the driver a crucial part of its equation. It makes the classic American muscle car mistake of confusing grip — of which it has plenty — with handling. Throw the two cars into a second or third gear (oh how we love big V8s) 90-degree bend and the Pontiac will encourage you to explore the limits of the rear tires adhesion using your right foot and communicative steering, the Chevy will push its vague front robbing you of speed. Sure, you can get on the throttle half way around and step the rear out, but not with the same degree of control the Pontiac delivers. The Camaro does bring one huge improvement over its platform-mate: there's virtually no body roll under any circumstances.

Well that and the incredibly successful styling. Chevy knows it looks good too, displaying a level of self-assuredness that would be absurd in any other segment. Here's a great example. Our co-driver asked a GM engineer whether the new Camaro increases "length or girth?" His straight-faced response? "It increases opportunity." Cocky, right? But they're right. Where the G8 looks like a rental car, the ZR1 looks like a bass boat enthusiast won the lottery and the CTS-V, even with its classy chrome mesh grille, looks like a tuner conversion, the Camaro strikes exactly the right balance between the mass appeal of its aggression and a more sophisticated retro futurism that successfully references the original while adapting wholly new forms that are completely contemporary. Even though we've been staring at pictures of it for what seems like years, in person it's still surprising how good it looks.

If you've been following Jalopnik or even had a conversation with me at any point since last August, you're probably bored to death with hearing about how good GM's latest crop of performance cars are. The 2009 Corvette ZR1 is the best car I've ever driven, the 556 HP Cadillac CTS-V is an utterly awesome performance sedan and you've already been reading about the G8 GXP. So it comes as a surprise that Chevy's flag-waving everyman muscle car doesn't live up to those driving standards. Sure it's stinking fast, but it doesn't make exploiting that performance rewarding in the way all the above did so well. It doesn't so much defy convention, as drive like you'd expect a Camaro would, a really good Camaro.

The other defining characteristic of the Camaro's driving experience is the interior. Hop in one and like a classic Camaro, the first impression is of claustrophobia. It feels like Chevy's designers have purposefully set out to make the interior, which is actually surprisingly large with adequate space for four adults, feel surprisingly small. Most of that comes from the slit-like windshield; its top sits at about the height of your forehead, something that will be familiar to Lotus Exige owners. Out through that narrow strip of glass, the hood bulge and fenders are prominently visible, accentuating the power under the hood. Unlike the Exige, there's almost 8.5" of vertical seat movement to accommodate a wide range of drivers. All of them will end up with their head in the exact same place: about a half inch from the ceiling as that's the only position that affords adequate forward visibility. Strangely, the wheel and instruments sit very high, never affording the wheel-in-lap arrangement that I prefer, even with the seat all the way up and the wheel all the way down.

That interior is also going to be a bugbear for the Camaro. While the overall shapes are appealing, the materials are mostly cheap plastic, even on the big knobs that you use to adjust the HVAC and stereo (Nav isn't an option). A huge swath of that cheap plastic runs from the steering wheel all the way to the right door. The standard-on-SS auxiliary gauges, mounted down low in front of the gear lever, are largely worthless on the move due to their positioning, but look really cool, providing a false sense of driver/machine integration that just isn't born out in the driving experience. Believe it or not, the 2010 Mustang with a few options is actually a nicer place to spend time.

On initial impressions and despite a spec sheet that strongly claims otherwise, I'd tip the hat in the Mustang's favor when it comes to driving enjoyment too. To create it, Ford engineers essentially took the old model and made it as good as they possibly could. The result is, for the first time, a Mustang that's as much about going around corners as it is about acceleration, which is good, because the Camaro SS leaves it for dead in a straight line. Despite the Mustang's live rear axle, which never really manifests any limitations on the road, the 'Stang is ligher on its feet than the Camaro and has considerably more steering feel. The Camaro's is dead on center, never really manages a huge amount of feel in general and is overly light. It's so light, that it's possible that the engineers that drove it around the Nurburgring did so one-handed.

The much-touted performance of the V6-equipped Camaro doesn't live up to its Mustang GT-killing hype. While GM has gone to great lengths to make it as visceral as possible — the crisp exhaust note sounds almost as good as a 370Z — its flat torque curve leads to a somewhat uneventful feeling of acceleration, especially out of faster corners where the Camaro's prodigious 3,780 Lb curb weight leaves you with foot flat on the floor, wanting for more. Nor does the V6 manifest a handling advantage over the V8, even when equipped with all the RS options. Its steering still lacks feel and it becomes harder to push the car around corners using the throttle.

GM's Hydra-Matic SL50 6L50 6-speed automatic gearbox does however do an excellent job of keeping the V6 on the boil, particularly in "sport" mode. Its one of the quickest-to-shift slushboxes we've experienced and never seems to find itself in the wrong gear. In fact its so good that it renders the steering wheel-mounted shift buttons largely irrelevant. The 6L50 is clearly better than any of the Camaro's domestic rivals.

Look at the value-for-money and the performance numbers of the Camaro combined with its Dragon-tastic looks and you can't help but feel GM has a winner on its hands. It'll beat its competitors hands down, not only in a numbers-based pissing contest, but also in the public's imaginations: an advantage presented by its futuristic-yet-retro styling. It's exactly the car GM should be making, a car that will sell; it's just not the unprecedented new experience that we were hoping for, it's not a real driver's car. With the Camaro, GM has chosen to stick with the muscle car archetype rather than push the limits of what's possible, it's not likely to win many conquests from more adept sportscars like the 370Z, Audi TT and BMW 3-series as Chevy hopes it will. The result, like the new Star Wars films, is a product that will undoubtedly be a commercial success, just perhaps not a timeless classic like the original, a product that will blend in with, rather than stand out from, its rivals.

Photography credit: Wetzel Tucker

While watching a dead ringer for Lee Iacocca become, well, exactly that, may have been a bit disconcerting for many auto-obsessed fan-boys, but it wasn't the only automotive hat-tip in Watchmen. Frankly, the entire movie revolves around a need to get the world out of an energy crisis — moving citizens of the world from gas-gulpin' autos to 'lectric cars. But it's not just the movie with a plot-line centered on cars being evil, the graphic novel it's based on did as well.

Without getting too much into the nitty-gritty, let's get a quick recap of the auto-related plotline of the Watchmen graphic novel by way of our friends at Hemmings:

the graphic novel takes place in an alternate 1985, where Dr. Manhattan's very existence has changed several things. Nixon's still president, we triumphed over the Communists in Vietnam, and electric cars have become commonplace. Apparently, Gibbons envisioned electric cars all as jellybean-like pods that recharge at fire hydrant-like roadside plugs."

While the movie version wasn't quite as electric as the original, the world of Watchmen (the movie) still has a plot line revolving around Dr. Manhattan's alternative fuel. But, instead of electric cars being the present (of Watchmen 1985), they are the future, unveiled at the end of the movie — as a savior to the "energy crisis" of the movie plot-line.

Additionally, one of the (many) secondary plot-lines of the graphic novel revolves around the "Dr. Manhattan-produced" electric cars and Hollis Mason, the original Nite Owl. Mason retires in the graphic novel because Dr. Manhattan's blue phallic strength makes costumed vigilantes totally unnecessary. Mason decides to go work as an auto mechanic, telling Dr. Manhattan even he can't put GM out of business. Ha. Silly Mason, little do you realize that in reality Dr. Manhattan doesn't need to exist to put GM out of business. Society found a way to do that all on their own. But we digress. In the comic book reality, Dr. Manhattan explains he already has put him out of business with his electric cars. Mason then becomes dejected and ends his life alone, beaten to death by street punks.

So what can we take away from the dual Watchmen realities? Well, for starters, it's really sad seeing Lee Iacocca gunned down. Secondly, Hollywood still views cars as evil things. Like Mason, our love of cars will probably end up leading to a life of sadness.

We wouldn't have it any other way.

There is no way we can match the description provided by the seller of this highly "customized" Cobalt, which has an eye-watering "Buy It Now" price of $20,000, enjoy:

This Paint features a detailed Star Wars likeneses like the Darth Vader reaching his hand out as if he's congering up the red realistic fire and the Dumbbell nebula. Next to him are the Imperial Walkers & Storm Trooper. Also featured are Photo reproductions of Nebulas and gallixies Etc. Photographed by the Hubble telescope. The Hubble is featured on drivers side over the planet Saturn along with the Horsehead nebula and Helix nebula. Both doors feature spiral galaxies NGC 1300 & M81. Passanger (blue) side features the Eagle and Trifid nebulas along with the NGC 346 emission nebula & Pleiades star cluster NGC 1432 with Boomerang nebula in door jam. Front view features the SN1987a Supernova remnant with The Mice center and Orion nebula next to R2D2/C3PO. Next to that is Han Solo Frozen in carbinite with a stunning Toxic Green Yoda congering up the realistic blue fire and light saber. AWESOME!! The hood features X-Wing Fighter, Millenium Falcon, Imperial & Corellian Fighters and Death Star plus much more. We used House of Kolors Auto Finishing products, basecoat and candy colors to produce and create this truly fabulas art work over original factory paint. This is a one of a kind Custom Painted car. The paint is smooth and super shinny. Many hours have been spent buffung and polishing this car. Painted Aug. of 2008, John and myself worked over 200 hours from preping, creating, producing and finishing this stunning professional paint job in just 4 weeks in August, showing it Laybor Day Weekend. We have shown this car several times and took home the Best Graphics Award at Harps Lake, Wisconsin Laybor Day weekend. Sure to win more. We have gotten a huge responce and great comments. The Custom Paint extends under the hood, door jams and rocker panels. This car was professionally cleaned and prepaired prior to paint. Front end and doors were disasembled so all edges and undersides were cleared. Sales tax, Licence and pick-up is resposability of winner. We will work with winner to secure a pleasent sale and delivery. Your satisfaction is our goal. Car offered as is. This paint has held up to driving condition. Any extra work is possable but possably at additional cost. The interier has been kept clean but not new. This car preforms very well, its comfertable a pleasure to drive with good gas econamy and a head turner. Good Luck and May the Force Be With You.

The FORCE will be Strong as you drive this very comfotable and gas economical car.

We would like to know how late he gets to cruise for babes in this machine before his mother makes him come home for curfew.(Thanks for the tip Felipe) [Ebay Listing]

The website is put together as a faux corporate page for Skynet Research, or at least what the corporate homepage would have looked like before Judgement Day. It's pretty standard fare, "Who we are," "Products," "Testimonials," "Outreach," and "Communications" all narrated by a detached generic female voice. Click through into products though and you can see the embryonic elements of humanities destruction, including this bad boy: the Skynet Research Autonomous Mass Transit Bot. Warner Brothers Skynet Research describes this tracked transit bot in the following way:

Description:
Safety comes first and foremost with the Skynet line of transport. Our line of robotic people movers features the latest in both GPS navigation and terrain mapping to aid in the first true ‘program and forget' product for transportation. Independent evolvable ‘Transpo-Al'™ translates into smooth operation and easy large-scale integration into complex systems.
Specifications:
Two parallel base segmented grinder class tracks; X08 Model Chassis with additional multi-valve Cylinder Scope; Hybrid Alloy central mechanism Processing Coolant; Self-charging Ion Combustible Power Cell; Driverless correction enabled Transpo-Al™ Navigation Core Index; Full Spectrum Sensor Module; Dual Insulated Human Containment Vessel Frame

This means it's perfect for transporting meaty experiment subjects from the field to testing facilities. Notice how it's got a set-it-and-forget-it GPS feature, that can only mean one thing, BMW is going to become Skynet. Watch for further "viral" marketing to come out of this website as the source code is chock-full of easter eggs which currently lead to nowhere. [Skynet Research (Warner Bros)]

We want to believe, but this story of being magically assaulted by an unidentified source sounds questionable to us. According to the woman:

The entire left side of my car appears to be scorched but no paint was removed.

I was driving 40-45 miles per hour heading north toward I-94 East towards Chicago on Lake Cook Road. While I was in the middle lane, I felt a nudge on the left of my car which made my car shift to the right. I did not swerve out of the lane and gained control back quickly.

I slowed down and as I got my bearings, I realized that my left side mirror was knocked off and so I turned right onto Revere Drive and put on my hazard lights.

I got out of the car and saw that I had several dents on the side of my car. There were two that were deeper and larger than the others; one was located in front of the rear wheel and the other was in the center of the driver door.

I called 911 to file a police report and the officer said that I was side swiped by another car but, there were not any cars around me before or after the hit and also there were no paint scratches from other cars on my car.

We happen to know this area quite well as we used to drive up towards this part of Northern Illinois to stretch the legs out on our review cars. The damage is curious as you would expect more scratching from car-on-car action. Plus, you'd expect the person to remember. We put our knowledge to work and have two theories.

The first involves the woman traveling, as she says, eastward toward 94 on Lake Cook Road. Most of the road has high visibility, low traffic in night. This would make it easier to see someone coming. The only part of the drive where it would be harder to notice another driver would be here, near Portwine Road and the Potawatomi Woods Preserve. Were a car to go to far here it could strike a car traveling eastbound, knock into it, and it would appear to the inattentive driver as if no one was around.

The second theory involves the peculiar timing of the event. It occurred at 11:20 PM on November 4, 2008 — the day Barack Obama was elected president. This was right after CNN announced his victory. Our guess, given that this is a more Republican area of Chicago, this woman is a Republican or Libertarian. She's at a party, drinking more and more as the night goes on and she realizes the Republicans are getting stomped. Ohio falls. Florida falls. The announcement is made and she gets in the car. Drunk. Mad. The spectacle of African Americans being re-enfranchised still dances in her head and she accidentally plunges the car sidewise into the ditch, thus creating the damage. As a cover she drives home, calls the cops, concocts a crazy story and voila. There it is.

[Image Copyright NUFORC via Motive]

It just seemed weird, considering GM's level of involvement in Transformers, for them not to have a Corvette in the movie. Now, here it is. It's not the next Corvette, but it is what we wish the next Corvette would look like — it's the Stingray Corvette Concept, and it'll play the character of Sideswipe. Frankly, it was gorgeous when we first saw it at GM's design center and it's even more gorgeous now.

We'll have more on the rest of the Autobots revealed here in Chicago shortly, but we kinda figured you'd want to see this silver gleaming slab of beautiful first.

By the way, I just touched it. Now I want one.

UPDATE: Shots of the other 'bots on parade here in Chicago below.


UPDATE: Names of all the Autobots that are Chevy vehicles now official:

SIDESWIPE – a stylized Corvette vision concept vehicle
SKIDS and MUDFLAP – twin AUTOBOTS® based on Chevy's Beat (a concept that will go into production as the Chevy Spark in 2011) and Trax concepts
JOLT – an AUTOBOT-based on Chevy's upcoming Volt extended-range electric vehicle
BUMBLEBEE™, the heroic AUTOBOT based on Chevrolet's Camaro concept from the first "Transformers" movie, returns with a high-performance attitude. Joining the vehicles on stage will be BUMBLEBEE in his AUTOBOT form, standing almost 17 feet (5.2 meters) tall and 13 feet (4 meters) wide.

PRESS RELEASE:

AUTOBOTS® WITH BOW TIES: CHEVROLET-BASED CHARACTERS STARRING IN ‘TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN' AT THE CHICAGO AUTO SHOW

Giant movie robot also on display with vehicles used in the upcoming blockbuster summer film

CHICAGO – Visitors to the Chevrolet display at this year's Chicago Auto Show (Friday through Feb. 22) will be treated to an out-of-this-world vehicle display – the automotive stars from the upcoming DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures release, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen."

Five Chevrolet-based characters – including four all-new characters – are featured in the new film set to open in the United States on June 26. All of them are at the Chevrolet display. The four new movie characters include:

SIDESWIPE – a stylized Corvette vision concept vehicle
SKIDS and MUDFLAP – twin AUTOBOTS® based on Chevy's Beat (a concept that will go into production as the Chevy Spark in 2011) and Trax concepts
JOLT – an AUTOBOT-based on Chevy's upcoming Volt extended-range electric vehicle
BUMBLEBEE™, the heroic AUTOBOT based on Chevrolet's Camaro concept from the first "Transformers" movie, returns with a high-performance attitude. Joining the vehicles on stage will be BUMBLEBEE in his AUTOBOT form, standing almost 17 feet (5.2 meters) tall and 13 feet (4 meters) wide.

"Chevrolet is thrilled to again be part of one of the most anticipated movies in years," said Ed Peper, GM North America vice president, Chevrolet. "‘Transformers' gives us a great opportunity to connect with young people on their terms, with a dynamic, environmentally friendly image. The new characters represent the change going on in Chevy showrooms. From the exciting Camaro, the 21st century sports car, to the game-changing Volt, there's more than meets the eye at Chevrolet today."

Directed by Michael Bay, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" sees the AUTOBOTS confront a new threat from DECEPTICONS® bent on avenging their earlier defeat on Earth. The new AUTOBOT characters in their current Chevy-based form square off against new, tougher foes determined to rule the universe.

"‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen' goes way beyond the first film in terms of robot action and excitement," said LeeAnne Stables, executive vice president of worldwide marketing partnerships at Paramount Pictures, the distributor of the film. "The new AUTOBOTS add to the storytelling, and these Chevy vehicles went with our filmmakers to locations all around the world. GM has again provided incredible support to the production team working on the movie."

Along with the Camaro that's reprising its role in the new film, the other Chevy models to be seen on the big screen are new to movie-goers.

SIDESWIPE takes the form of a sleek, vision concept dreamed up by the Corvette designers at GM. The design is influenced by the original Stingray race car, introduced in 1959, but also draws on Corvette heritage cues from other generations. It brings them together in a futuristic shape that seems to be equal parts racecar and space ship.

"SIDESWIPE represents an exercise in exploration for the Corvette," said Ed Welburn, vice president of GM Global Design. "By giving my creative team the freedom to design no-holds-barred vision concepts, it helps them push boundaries and look at projects from different perspectives."

The Beat and Trax-based characters, SKIDS and MUDFLAP, remain faithful to their concept designs introduced at the 2007 New York Auto Show – although each wears new paint and other exterior accessories. And while they may be small cars, when they turn into fighting AUTOBOTS®, they pack a big punch.

The other new AUTOBOT, JOLT, appears in the production form of Chevy's 2011 Volt extended-range electric vehicle. With the capability of up to 40 miles (64 km) of pure electric propulsion, plus hundreds of more miles with the assistance from its Voltec powertrain system, the real-life Volt will change driving in America.

Of course, the AUTOBOT team isn't complete without BUMBLEBEE, the yellow Camaro based on the new, 2010 production model. Sporting new wheels and SS-model performance cues, BUMBLEBEE is more stylish and powerful than ever – and enthusiasts will be able to drive their own new Camaro when it goes on sale this spring. For more exclusive AUTOBOT movie information relating to Chevrolet, please visit www.autobotsrollout.com.

Chevrolet is one of America's best-known and best-selling automotive brands. With the largest dealer network in the United States, Chevy is the leader in full-size trucks and the leader in sales of vehicles priced $35,000 and above. Chevrolet delivers more-than-expected value in every vehicle category, offering cars and trucks priced from $12,120 to $103,300. Chevy delivers expressive design, spirited performance and great value with standard features usually found only on more expensive vehicles. More information on Chevrolet can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures present, in association with Hasbro, a di Bonaventura Pictures production, a Tom DeSanto/Don Murphy Production, a Michael Bay film, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Kevin Dunn, Julie White, John Benjamin Hickey, Ramon Rodriguez, Isabel Lucas, Glenn Morshower and John Turturro. The film is directed by Michael Bay and written by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. It is based on Hasbro's TRANSFORMERS™ action figures and is produced by Don Murphy, Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Ian Bryce. Executive producers are Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, Brian Goldner and Mark Vahradian. This film has not yet been rated.

TRANSFORMERS is a brand of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE:HAS). Hasbro is a worldwide leader in children's and family leisure time products and services with a rich portfolio of brands and entertainment properties that provides some of the highest quality and most recognizable play and recreational experiences in the world. As a brand-driven, consumer-focused global company, Hasbro brings to market a range of toys, games and licensed products, from traditional to high-tech and digital, under such powerful brand names as TRANSFORMERS, PLAYSKOOL, TONKA, MILTON BRADLEY, PARKER BROTHERS, TIGER, CRANIUM and WIZARDS OF THE COAST. Come see how we inspire play through our brands at http://www.hasbro.com.

# # #

On Wednesday, February 11, 2009 Chevrolet and Paramount Pictures are proud to announce the return of BUMBLEBEE ™ to the Chicago Auto Show, in anticipation of the upcoming movie, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." BUMBLEBEE ™ , the heroic AUTOBOT ® based on the Chevrolet Camaro concept, will appear for the first time in public with other new Chevrolet "characters" from the film at a press conference scheduled to begin at 10:15 am CST in the Chevrolet exhibit at McCormick Place.

Roberto Orci, head writer on Transformers:Revenge Of The Fallen, the sequel to the blockbuster of two summers ago, claimed in a web chat on fan-site TFW2005 that the Chevy Volt was not in the original script, but rather was foisted upon them at the last minute.

When asked the question:

Was the Chevy Volt TF kind of shoved into the film by GM and not really in the script?

Orci responds:

Yes. Had to figure it out last minute.

This confirms other reports we'd heard from movie insiders who've told us the Volt was a last minute requested addition by the General. Apparently, the GM team was adamant the Volt be included and wouldn't take no for an answer. Keep in mind this is different than what Michael Bay did in the first movie — personally selecting all the vehicles to appear in the film. (Hat tip to Jack!)

[via TFW2005]