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Believe it or not, this insane creation actually started life as a 1991 Buick Lesabre. As you can see, this vehicle has come a long way from its days as a run of the mill sedan. Now it has the face of a Dodge truck, an additional six wheels out back and one of the crazier body kits we have ever seen. This "80% done" exercise in truly bizarre automotive modification is currently for sale on Ebay. More »
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Whenever you think you've seen all of the strange automotive creations Russia could conceivably have to offer something like this tire covered 5 series BMW with wings appears to remind you there is no limit to Russian weirdness. More »
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From the great state of Florida comes this strange and surprisingly well executed mash up of a Jeep and an 80s Chevrolet S10 pickup. Why you would exert this much effort giving your Jeep the less than spectacular look of an out of proportion S10 is an impossible question to answer. All we know is that this is the bizarre result and it's currently for sale on craigslist for a mere $1500. More »
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Let's cover a few basics. First, we've seen this sort of thing before, but it's never been quite this funny. Second, isn't a room with a ceiling a bad idea? And third, why do these people always have southern accents? More »
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Ever seen one? Neither had we. Wanna see more? Click through. Flamed-up Hindustan Ambassador, you had us at hello. It's like Mr. Deeds Goes To Visakhapatnam! More »
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A wheelchair? On Jalopnik? Yes, because not only do we all get old and still have a need for some sweet wheels, but the Rodem M-1 has a cleaner front end than anything currently in the Acura lineup. More »
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We're not quite sure what to make of this. Seems like a scooter with car aspirations, but what to call it? A scootermobile? Autooter? In any case, this thing is the Shoprider Flagship so named as it is the flagship of the lineup. Complete with a fully enclosed shell, large automotive style windows, windshield wipers (or is that breeze shield in this case?) with washer squirts, and headlights. If we were mean, this is the place where we'd make a joke about portly people and indoor NASCAR races at the local Walmart, but we aren't so we won't do that. More »
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Fer putting in the back of your truck of course. We didn't really know how to handle this suggestively shaped 7 foot tall snow sculpture in the back of this GM pickup. We went for tact and made sure it was pseudo-worksafe above the fold, but below we have it flopped out being displayed in all its glory. How far are we willing to go to bring you the offbeat and the weird? Truck nuts indeed. More »
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Many moons ago, the UK Subs once sang, "Well i ain't got no television set or stereo, 'cos I live in a car." Steve Graham, of Pittsburg, KS, has honored the shopworn tradition of killing one's idols by going ahead and living in his Buick Century with those amenities, after his wife kicked him out eight years ago. Meanwhile, his neighbors accuse him of incinerating poop in the yard. Quoth Graham? "No, I go elsewhere. I don't expose myself to people." [SFGate] More »
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Score one for precise, youthful German cleavage in the game to drive men to distraction. Apparently, a twenty-year-old German sales clerk had cleavage so amazingly wonderful that it the driver to stop a Lindau bus and demand that she move, shouting "Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can't concentrate on the traffic. If you don't sit somewhere else, I'm going to have to throw you off the bus." Ah, the joys of surly public transit officials. [Reuters] More »
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Malaysian authorities are no doubt rather sounding shamefaced yawps over a bungle involving a recovered Porsche. A thief absconded with the German sports car and proceeded to run out of gas, at which point the police recovered the vehicle and towed it to a station. The miscreant then braved the not-so-watchful eye of the law, showed up with a gas can and once again took off in the car. He abandoned it once again when roadblocks were set up looking for him and remains at large. [Thanks to eltonito for the tip.] [Reuters] More »
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An undetermined brown-red spray showered a cadre of classic cars at the 35th annual Pontiac Oakland Convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They've yet to determine the makeup or the source of the airborne spew, but it damaged most of the 369 vehicles involved in the show. And given that the judging process required at least one passenger window left open, the flying schmutz gunked up the cars' interiors as well. While a nearby construction site is suspected to be the culprit, we're wondering if the Tulsan Belvedere Time Capsule wasn't exacting its revenge on rival classics, Double Dare-style. [Forbes] More »
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We love to sing along while driving, we admit it. We also enjoy partaking in the proletarian art of karaoke now and then (Texas residents, we highly recommend keeping an eye on Karaoke Underground's schedule). However, we have never considered installing a karaoke machine in our motor vehicle. Apparently, however, this has become a problem in the Kingdom of Thailand. In addition to considering a hands-free-only cell-phone mandate, Thai authorities are also looking at banning in-car DVD systems as well as vehicle-borne karaoke devices. As long as they don't take away our pad phed tofu and mango & sticky rice. Or ban smoking in cars. More »
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Sho 'nuff, it is impossible for a single human being to consume too much English Russia. The finest site on the web presents this wacky-ass Soviet-era contraption, which was apparently some type of amphibious vehicle. To us, it looks like a Messerschmitt bubble car crossed with a Japanese Kaiten torpedo submarine. According to English Russia's mercurial webmaster, "It was a car that was designed and built by special Soviet car company, it had many advanced features at that time. It had some features never being implemented in Russian cars before." No shit. – Davey G. Johnson More »
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Gideon Hosein of Halls Trace, Hard Bargain, Trinidad and Tobago is facing bail of TT$150,000 (about 24,000 USD) after attacking seven cars with a freaking cutlass in some kind of sword-wielding Southern Carribean rampage that caused TT$100,000 in damage to the vehicles. Didn't somebody tell the hapless sod that International Talk Like a Pirate Day isn't until September 19th? – Davey G. Johnson More »
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We had a pal in college who liked to wear a black trenchcoat, a Gecko T-shirt and a ring on a lanyard around his neck with a silver ring hanging from it. After a year or so of knowing him, we actually looked at said ring and noticed it had "The Crow" engraved in it. Needless to say, he wasn't exactly beating the ladies off with a stick, except for that one exceedingly odd girl who spoke Klingon. Regardless, he is a smart, sharp dude who now occasionally appears on television. And he dresses better these days. In the UK, however, one particular crow hasn't smartened up. He's horny and territorrial, and when he sees his reflection in the roof of an automobile, he has a tendency to attack it as if it were a romantic rival. Either that, or he's just a really, really big fan of Black Flag's Damaged album and doesn't have a mirror handy. – Davey G. Johnson More »
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Forty-two-year-old Brian Hudson of County Mayo, Ireland apparently had a few pints and went to nick himself a new exhaust system for his car out of a junkyard. In the middle of the night. In a bout of wrecking-yard frustration, he paused for a cigarette, which he lit by lighting a piece of paper with a lighter he found in a car and then utilizing said burning paper to light his fag (we have no idea why he didn't just use the lighter). He discarded the piece of paper in the car, which then caught fire. Then the police showed up. Hudson ran, 11 cars burned. Remember, kids, you never know what can be flammable in a junkyard! – Davey G. Johnson More »
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An intoxicated driver, apparently coked to the gills, attempted to elude capture by the po-pos in England by driving into a field. The result? Four damaged patrol units, the offending driver's car in a ditch and a crop formation that would even give M. Night Shyamalan an uncontrollable case of the jibblies. [Thanks to Haller for the tip.] – Davey G. Johnson More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=272144&view=rss&microfeed=true Back when we thought Generra Hypercolor shirts were a good idea, a bunch of Frankish nutters in 2CVs and 2CV-based machines got together in Orleans, France for a motorized hoedown. Somehow, it does not surprise us that any of these vehicles exist, but when we think that somebody actually took the time to build them, our minds boggle a bit. It seems more like they should've sprung fully formed from the head of André Citroën's younger brother, Jim, during one of his more profligate peyote benders. – Davey G. Johnson More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=262192&view=rss&microfeed=true There's nothing like watching the slow, deliberate progress of a disabled backhoe. But you have to admit, this guy could be the most resourceful driver since Nicky Cugnot pressure-cooked his first pot roast. – Mike Spinelli More »
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Remember that science experiment where you put a tooth in a glass of Coca-Cola and watch it dissolve over the subsequent month? Now imagine an early-70s Mercedes 230 SL as the tooth, and Germany's Neckar river as the Coke. And instead of a month, figure it's been submerged for 30 years. That's exactly what happened to this sad specimen. The vehicular pride of Stuttgart, past which the Neckar flows, wasn't quite dissolved, but it was chomped assiduously by rust and beset by barnacles. The heap is now the property of SL Club Pagode, which is showing it off at the Techno Classica Essen show in Germany. No word on restoration plans, but we'd suggest about 700 cases of Bondo and plenty of sandpaper. No problem. – Mike Spinelli More »
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New Yorkers' automotive proclivities could fill an entire volume of "What the Hell Is Wrong With Those People Britannica." But this latest clash between a New York couple and transportation common sense is a news-cycle dominator. The elderly husband-and-wife team are paying a New York cabbie to take them from the borough of Queens to Arizona in his Ford Escape taxi. The meter fare on the trip is $5,000, but they're paying a $3,000 flat fee plus room and board for the driver. The reason? They don't want their two cats to go tits up in the cargo hold of a commercial airliner. Central casting just called, they want their crazy old cat people back. – Mike Spinelli More »
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Yesterday, Fort Worth's finest were in the middle of a pursuit with an old white Crown Vic that was involved in a gas station robbery (Is it just me, or does the sketchiest behavior always occur in decommissioned police cars?). Suddenly, a maroon truck sped past. The truck's driver, who was likely intoxicated, thought he was the one being chased and decided to realize his own worst fears by inciting the FWPD to pursue him. Both drivers were eventually caught, along with a third suspect involved in a separate chase on the other side of town, coincidentally occurring at around the same time. We can only imagine how many highball glasses of second-shelf hooch the local news producers knocked back after their shift. – Matt Hardigree More »
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Generally, your traffic-snarling freeway spills are on the ho-hum side, news-wise, but not when the stuff fouling the roadway is great big gobs of greasy grimy beaks-and-feathers-fortified chicken fat hoovered up from the overflow trough at an especially grotacious Louisiana poultry-gutting facility. It seems that a truck operated by the Dixie Hydro-Vac Specialist company sprang a leak on I-20 and proceeded to spew forth the contents of its tank onto the roadway. The stench was described as being "overpowering." Rain turned the cleanup into a sodden nightmare of stinking schmaltz, of course. – Murilee Martin More »
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Phillip C. Holliday Jr, looking straight down the barrel of his sixth DUI conviction, is alibi'd up tighter than a popcorn fart, and that's air tight. See, the unicorn was driving when he ran the red light and smacked into a light pole. No word on the unicorn's Breathalyzer score. – Murilee Martin More »
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I must say I was a bit startled when this '69 Borgward went for $3200 last night. But then, as the seller puts it in his item description: "Remember Borgward is german engineering." Yes, mid-50s low-budget German engineering, built in Mexico 10 years after the company went bankrupt and sold off all its tooling. Yet... there's something strangely appealing about this Borgward; maybe it's the fins, or that oddball engine. – Murilee Martin More »
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If you have a Crown Victoria and you want junkyard parts, you'll spend a fair bit of time crawling through beat-to-death junked taxis and marveling at all the weird cabbie detritus still in the cars. I found this CD label in a Crown Vic at Pick Your Part, and I've been studying it with confused fascination ever since. It's apparently some sort of collection of Bollywood soundtrack remixes (unfortunately, I didn't find the disc itself), but what's the connection with BMW? Why is there a scantily-clad woman about to get hit by a speeding BMW? Why does she walk with a cane? Has she already been hit by other BMWs? Is that her special kink? And what's up with that front license plate? – Murilee Martin More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=239545&view=rss&microfeed=true As kids we did similar things to this with steel trash cans and M-80's. Difference was we always faced the steel bottom of the can between us and whatever explosive device we had somehow obtained and put under the can. Spare airbags are evidently the new fireworks. Despite the danger pictograms on dashboards and vast information floating around the interwebs and television, these guys failed to remember that airbags can in fact be dangerous. Slow-mo replays at the end of the clip are absolutely comical. Don't try this at or away from home, kids. – Mike Bumbeck More »
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Because we eventually want to end up living somewhere north of Edwards Air Force base in an old B-52 fuselage surrounded by non-running automotive obcsura and trained squirrels, we scan the Craigslist cars and trucks section every now and again. It's our duty now for the future. The search parameters are simple. Minimum price zero, maximum one-thousand. Yesterday's prize winner was this allegedly good running 1973 Fiat 124 Sports Coupe. No bumpers. Cracked windshield. No grille. Shot interior. No headlights. Rust issues. And above all, no dickering! The owner claims that any portion of this fine Italian automobile is worth the entire asking price. All this for the princely sum of 350 bucks. – Mike Bumbeck More »
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Sunday afternoon. A great time to take a look at your rides. Check the oil. Change a tire. Apply some wax. All good stuff until a chunk of ice screaming down out of the sky breaks up the party. A five-pound ice cube recently chose Andres Javage's 2000 Ford Mustang as its target, and hit with such tremendous force that it collapsed the roof, blew out the rear window, and caused the car to jump three feet into the air. An incredulous neighbor came over and took the big chunk into the freezer. The FAA is looking into if the chunk came from an airplane. While noted authorities and geniuses are pretty sure where blocks of blue ice falling from the sky come from, they are less lucid when it comes to origins of clear ice descending from the heavens. – Mike Bumbeck More »
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Imagine you're Ali Baba, stumbling on the 40 Thieves' treasure — only the thieves are long gone and the treasure is actually 180 European cars of various description. That's kind of what happened in this case, where inside a warehouse welded shut for years, a wealth of dusty cars — Jags, Porsches, Lancias, Alfas, Lotuses, Austin Minis, Renaults, open-wheel formula cars, and on and on — sat rusting for over 15 years. No word yet on who's claiming the cars, or what will become of them, but we'd imagine there are a few resto shops in Lisbon whose phones are ringing off the hook. [Thanks to Geert for the tip.] – Mike Spinelli More »
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Lawsuits and drama within the automotive aftermarket industry continue with allegations of religious discrimination versus good old fashioned slacking over at Irvine, California based Meguiars. On one side is Meguiars, who claim former employee Atticus O. Firey got the axe after alleged poor attendance at the office, and a generally abrasive management style. On the other side is Firey, who maintains he was broomed from the company after 10 years of employment for his lack of enthusiasm for the Christian way. Car crazy company President Barry Meguiar allegedly told Firey that he was "robbing this company of the blessing of God by not being on your knees and on fire for Jesus." We're going to keep our eyes peeled for lightning bolts and plagues of locusts while applying wax or tire dressing of any kind. – Mike Bumbeck More »
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Our Cyrillic is a bit rusty, so we're not sure exactly what the deal is with this Porsche 911. Could the Czar's relatives be planning a run at the GT3 title? Click through for detail. [Thanks to Yegor II for the tip.] – Mike Spinelli More »
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Maybe we heard about this at the SEMA show this past November, but couldn't process the information. The engineers at Kumho have taken a long drag on their silly pipe and come up with another gimmick for the drifting crowd. They started with tires that produce colored smoke during burnouts — an arguably fitting visual addition to drifting competition. Now, they've gone down a dangerous road, as it were, creating scented tires that release their secrets, Glade-like, into the air. But who chose the scents — rosemary and lavender — participants in a Bucks County scrapbooking bee? – Mike Spinelli More »
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We stumbled across this gallery of what the master of these pages terms "ugly cars." Some were born with severe aesthetic defects, while others were defiled by overzealous owners of questionable talent and taste. Regardless, flip through and feel better that you're most likely not the one seen in any of these cars. Although we'd be proud to roll in the Edsel ambulance. – Davey G. Johnson More »
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Lady and gentlemen, we present for your viewing pleasure, a creation of Edmund Rumpler. This mid-engined mechanical marvel, the product of wartime aviation experience and sheer Germanness, featured a W6 engine long before Volkswagen began fusing Vs together. Winglets, a teardrop-shaped cabin and body, and that gnarly center headlight, somehow conspire to produce a super-slippery drag coefficient. When the boys at V-Dub pulled one out of the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin in 1979 and ran it through their wind tunnel, the Tropfenwagen returned an astonishing figure of 0.27 Cd. (They wouldn't be able to create a peoples' coefficient that low until the 1988 Passat.) Keep in mind, Rumpler's creation predated even the concept of a digital computer. Sadly, the high point of the Topfenwagen's life was when a couple of them were torched for fun in the famous 1927 Fritz Lang movie, Metropolis. Only two remain in German Museums, where I'm sure they're kept company by other vacky but precise Deutchland flotsam. – Ben Wojdyla More »
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As a man once known as Samuel Clemens said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." Still, we love the paranoid delusional ramblings of a crazy man sitting in his mother's attic registering his hate throughout the world via the power and glory of teh internets. I mean, how funny is; More »
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A friendly reminder, as the holidays approach: If you happen to be driving a float, and a tractor up ahead is going 5 mph, it's likely you are in a parade. And, unless the rule changed sometime between Thanksgiving and yesterday, there's no passing allowed. A man in South Carolina was recently arrested and charged with drunk driving after he gunned the float he was driving around another and took off, running a red light. Police were alerted when someone on the float called 911. The man, whose own child was aboard at the time, faces at least three dozen charges, including DUI, kidnapping, assaulting an officer and being super naughty. [Thanks to Phil for the tip.] – Mike Spinelli More »
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