Photo Credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

While the rat-tat-tat of owner changes is perhaps an indication of the Boeing-Porsche’s build quality, the sale is a great opportunity to shoot yet another gallery of this awful yet absolutely wonderful car. If you, dear reader, end up being its next owner in 2010, please rent a medium format back and give the Porsche the photographic treatment it deserves before you send it flying into the unfriendly skies.

On the other hand, if you’re interested in a proper jet car with looks to match its source of power, look no further that the Ghia Gilda Streamline X Coupé, also known as the coolest Chrysler ever made.

Source: eBay Motors

Source: eBay
Source: eBay
Source: eBay
Source: eBay
Source: eBay
Source: eBay
Source: eBay
Source: eBay
Source: eBay
Source: eBay
Source: eBay

Modern Cairo was built to house four million people. It has now swelled to some 17 million which is why narrow two-way streets on the banks of the River Nile, are by 0900 local time transformed into four-lane carriageways.

Drivers swerve with the greatest dexterity into the tiniest of spaces. Nearly every car or bus carries the scars of battle.

The rules are pretty simple. Full-beam headlights and blaring horns somewhere behind usually mean you are about to be overtaken - or undertaken - at high speed, even though there is no space between your car and that concrete wall beside you.

One more business opportunity, it seems, for flying cars. Proper flying cars, that is, in the Jetsons manner.

Source: BBC, Photo Credit: KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images

We’ve already reported on this IS-F, created for last year’s SEMA, but the soundtrack is worth another listening. If you care about the car’s full specs, The Lexus Enthusiast knows all.

Hat tip to AlieN.

There is something definitely wrong with the heat exchangers of Italian air conditioners. Granted, they have fans in them and machines with fans will never be silent but cooling a small building by Lake Como should not require a jet engine.

There, I said it—and as if on cue, this orange-silver concoction from half a century ago rounds a bend and motorvates leisurely down a service road. The noise is deafening, high, piercing, slightly dangerous.

The Gilda—named after Rita Hayworth’s famous role in the 1946 film of the same name—is not a Chrysler in the way a 300 or a Hemi engine is, but it would certainly not exist without the company.

Chrysler’s executives commissioned it in 1955 and it was designed by Giovanni Savonuzzi of Italy’s Ghia coachbuilding firm. The car was shaped to take a gas turbine, but it was never fitted with one: the Gilda toured the show circuit with a 1.5-liter OSCA four-pot, then was handed over to the Henry Ford Museum, where it sat until purchased by a Californian eight years ago for $125,000.

Scott Grundfor, the car’s new owner, had the car restored and fitted, as originally intended, with a gas turbine. It’s a perfect complement to the styling, which, as you can see in our gallery, is perhaps the most extreme example of Fifties jet plane car design. A weird one-off from an era where ultra-high speed transport seemed to be just around the corner. And when Project Orion was not the name of a space program set to retrace our achievement from forty years ago, but stood for a set of spaceships powered by atom bombs.

Yeah, the Fifties were cool.

Postscript: Chrysler’s partnership with Ghia in designing a jet car culminated eight years later in the Chrysler Turbine Car, a test run of 50 automobiles powered by the A831 turbine engine making 130 HP at a very un-V8 60,000 RPM. While the cars were reliable, they never made it into production, and died quick EV1 deaths.

Photo Credit: Natalie Polgar and Peter Orosz

"The chassis is bent, the historic afterburning Rolls-Royce Orpheus turbojet engine might run again (there is a comprehensive spare parts inventory to go with the car, including a new jetpipe), and just about every component on the car is damaged in some way. The rollcage was removed by someone post-crash and has not been returned to us. But this is the only key component which is absent from the car, everything else is there exactly as it was last used."

Up for auction with NO RESERVE is 'Vampire', the jet dragster seen on the BBC Top Gear programme and which holds the Official British Land Speed record at an average, each-way speed of 301mph.

The cars owner helped build the vehicle originally and had lovingly cared for it and driven it since 1981: it is one of three land speed cars he operated. Shortly after the car was wrecked he suffered a near-fatal heart failure and now needs to raise whatever funds he can by selling everything off.

[Thanks to Retro Thing for the tip]

Jet Powered Sinclair C5 Still Can't Outrun a Reliant Robin [retrothing.com]; Buildup Details; VIDEOS! [jetpower.co.uk]

Related:
Twenty Years of the Sinclair C5 Electric Car [Internal]

It just aired on the BBC, and now we've got it right here for you. The "it" we speak of is exclusive video of Richard Hammond's death-defying 288 mph jet car crash. And no, it's not a hamster in a ball hitting a wall — although we did think that was funny. – Ray Wert

UPDATE: We've got the full 12 minute segment, which is both scary and hilarious, after the jump!

Related:
The Hamster's Not Dead Yet: Top Gear Is Back! [internal]

Related:
2CV Nautiques!; More 2CVentertainment [Internal]

Sacramento Raceway [External]

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Gas Huffer Archetype; Shit. Dick Landy's Dead; The Bakersfield Nitromethane Sound

Video footage that could cast light on the jet-car crash that nearly cost Richard Hammond exactly one mortal coil is gone — vanished, according to UK's The Sun. The car's builder, Colin Fallows, says the video may well have shown the crash was caused by the Hamster's not following Fallows's instructions, rather than the accepted explanation of a blown tire caused by leprechauns. There's no word on what's become of the footage, or whether the camera was damaged, the tape was erased or if a strike force of BBC damage-control commandos swooped in from a waiting harrier jet and whisked it off to be properly degaussed. [Thanks to Ritchie for the tip.] – Mike Spinelli

Hamster crash video mystery [The Sun]

Related:
More on Richard Hammond [internal]

Has it really only been five months since Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond's jet-car crash? Considering the violence of the accident — now visible though the miracle of photography, and via ownership considerations of such — it's truly amazing the guy has recovered enough to, quite literally, get on with the show. Man, a blown tire ... [Thanks to Stephen for the tip.] – Mike Spinelli

Hammond crash pictures released [BBC]

Hamster on his TV Crash [Mirror (UK) via German Car Scene]

Related:
More on Richard Hammond [internal]

Johan Jacobs, the "World's Fastest South African," was killed when his jet-powered dragster flipped over and disintegrated at 300 miles per hour. The accident happened on a trial run, a day before he was to make a run at the a land speed record he set this past March, at 316 mph. He'd been hoping to set a world record for acceleration over one mile. [Thanks to Haje for the tip.]

Attempt at land speed record ends in death [Fast Car]

Related:
Beware, Johan: Jet-Powered Man Becomes Fastest South African [internal]