AutoSkin, what the hell is that? It is a self adhesive vinyl that is applied to cars (usually) for the purposes of promotion of businesses and so on. People in Melbourne may have seen the newly released MINI Clubman around town recently and wondered just how this stuff works. If you go on over to the Decently Exposed website you can find out all about it.
See below for the finished product.
I know it is poor form to get amusement at other people’s misfortunes but a few of the stacks in this compilation from MotiveMag are on the lighter side. Some on the scarier side and one even has supernatural themes. I’ve included my favourite from the top 10 which features the late, great Colin McRae in one of the lighter moments on the list “Just drive through it”. Make sure you check all 10 clips in MotiveMag’s Unintentional Stuntmen feature.
MINI Challenge racer Paul Stokell is looking forward to an “unpredictable” round at Wakefield Park this coming weekend (4-6 April). Stokell has plenty of experience at the tight 2.2 kilometre circuit just outside of Goulburn, including stints in a Lamborghini Murcielago in the Nations Cup and a Volkswagen R32 in the Australian Production Car Championships. When Round 2 of the MINI Challenge series kicks off he will be behind the wheel of the DecoRug Motorsports MINI. Leading up to the event Stokell said, “It’s a nice little racetrack and being front-wheel drive, the MINI Challenge racecars should be perfectly suited to the circuit.”
Both Stokell and series leader Neil McFadyen will be burdened with extra weight, or “success ballast” on account of their good form at round 1 held at Eastern Creek. Stokell will carry and extra 15kg and McFadyen will have 25kg ballast added to his M3 Motorsports team MINI. In what will be a new experience for McFadyen he commented, “It will be the first time I’ve driven in a class with success ballast, so I have no idea yet how it will affect my times or driving. I know what having a passenger in a racecar does to the handling, whilst it won’t be quite that dramatic, I have no doubt the 25kg will alter the way in which we approach the weekend.”
Fancy a car that emits only water vapour from it’s exhaust? How about a zero emissions vehicle? Well, that car does exist. It is called the Honda FCX Clarity. Initially the FCX will be available in Southern California only, although as availability of hydrogen fueling stations expands, increased availability will follow suit. The car is only available from Honda on a 3 year lease at a price of US$600 per month. Clearly a case of small steps into the market place then. Although, this car is a much closer friend of the environment than existing hybrid vehicles, which still rely on some portion of power from conventional internal combustion engines. The FCX, then, is the future.
The big improvers at the start of the 2008 Formula 1 season so far have been the BMW Sauber team. Robert Kubica all but took pole position in Melbourne and Nick Heidfeld followed up this promising sign finishing the race in second place. The following weekend in Malaysia, the team continued their good form with Kubica taking second place and Heifeld placing in the points in sixth place.
This promo clip from the excellent BMW-web.tv site gives a small insight into the BMW F1.08. Okay, it’s a fluffy promo piece with little in terms of technical detail, but it is worth a look!
This was the last episode in Series 13 of Fifth Gear. The Anglesea shootout was between the early 1990s Ford Escort Cosworth and the early 2000s Ford Focus RS. Interestingly the older Cossie took the honours and was around 1.5 seconds quicker around the track than the RS. Amazingly, and somewhat surprisingly, as seen on last week’s show, my wife’s shopping trolley (Mk5 Golf GTI) is faster than both of these, haha.
It’s new, but it still didn’t keep me awake. Lucky, then, Tiff took the wheel of the new Impreza STi. Well, maybe not if you work for Subaru. He wasn’t exactly glowing in his praise of the car. Seems that, as well as hitting the new Rex with the ugly stick, Subie have hit it with the softly, softly stick as well. Shame.
A recent article in the Tasmanian rag the Mercury has given the opportunity for a couple of Hobart Alderman to voice their complaints over the impending Targa Tasmania event. The piece, titled Targa racers just ‘hoons and bandits’, details a plan by the aldermen to have the Domain stage of the event cancelled. Opponents to Targa Eva Ruzicka and Bill Harvey hit out with Harvey stating, “It’s organised hooning, and we’ve a problem with hooning on our streets, Targa actively encourages that behaviour.” In support of those comments Rizicka claimed, “It encourages hooning and I get increasingly angry that Targa would appear to result in the attitude of young drivers thinking they can drive their cars like Targa competitors drive theirs,” she said. “After Targa has been, you can see and hear more of it going on, screaming cars late at night.”
Renault Australia, get your arses into gear! Why do we not get the Clio down under? It was released when Napolean was telling Josephine ‘not tonight!’ There’s no excuses, surely!
Rant aside, this is a clip featuring the Renault Clio Cup and the MINI Cooper S with JCW tuning kit, as broadcast on the final episode of Fifth Gear’s series 13 (more on that to be posted later). Jason and Tiff abuse the cars around Cadwell Park and in a close affair the Clio Cup takes the beans from the mildly tuned Cooper S. While a more seriously tweaked factory built MINI John Cooper Works has been announced, which should give it the edge over the lightened Clio, it will get nowhere near the Clio Cup if ‘bang for buck’ is high on your purchasing criteria. C’mon Renault, bring it to Australia, you know it makes sense!
Spotted via CarAdvice and the NAGTROC forum was the sad news that a newly delivered R35 Nissan GT-R had met an early demise. It seems the Singaporean driver was on his way to Sepang for a few track thrills. Too much ah beng and not enough talent I guess, poor bloke. There’s more pics on the NAGTROC forum for you to have a gander at if twisted metal gets you off. I think the damage to this car is sufficient enough to declare, no, it won’t buff right out.
Oops, a bit late with this precis (Episode 10 aired last night)! Fifth Gear‘s Series 13, Episode 9 kicked off, as usual, with a shootout at the Anglesea track, and we saw the current hot-hatch du jour, the Mk5 Golf GTI take on the newly launched Subaru Impreza WRX. It seems the new Rex has been hit with a curse worse than the ugly stick. (See below for YouTube clip).
The iconic nameplates of Porsche GT2, Nissan GT-R and Corvette Z06 will all make their worldwide tarmac rally debuts at the 2008 Targa Tasmania, held from 15-20 April. The newly launched R35 Nissan GT-R, to be driven by Tony Alford, is one of the most keenly anticipated new cars in recent years and Australia is very lucky to be having the car running in such a high profile local event.
The Corvette will be driven by Neil and Daniel Ford, and there will also be a second Z06 to be used as a support vehicle. I wonder how many spare parts will be removed from that car before the event is over!
The other big name, the Porsche GT2, will see Targa Porsche stalwarts Jim Richards and Barry Oliver in the cockpit. Expect this experienced team to be fighting for outright honours. The GT2 and GT-R will most probably be duelling in this event just as they have been trading Nürburgring Nordschleife lap times. Just another interesting sidenote to this year’s Targa.
Stay tuned for some detailed reports on the event from AUSmotive, more on that later.
If you’re not a fan of the BBC’s TopGear, then you should be. To show that you are, get yourself one of the great official t-shirts available from Amber Promotions. I have three t-shirts from their range and they are well made and of a very high quality. Delivery to Australia is no problem and if you can get a group of mates together bulk ordering and discounts may be available as well. I dealt with Doug at Amber Promotions when coordinating the purchase of around 25 shirts in 2006 and he was excellent to deal with. If you’re keen on some of these shirts, shoot Doug an email and tell him Liam from Australia sent you.