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SPACEX LAUNCH: TESLA CAR THAT WAS SHOT IN FALCON HEAVY HAS OVERSHOT MARS AND IS ON NEW ORBIT

2/7/2018

Elon Musk’s car is headed off into very deep space after being strapped to the top of a rocket.
The Tesla Roadster was originally intended to head into orbit around Mars as part of the Falcon Heavy test, which would try out the most powerful rocket on Earth. To fill up the space that would normally be occupied by scientific equipment or another payload, Mr Musk put a car into the rocket – and blasted it out into space, filming it as it went.
In the original plan, the car and the dummy that is sat in it would have gone into orbit between Mars and Earth, slowly passing around the solar system. But the payload has overshot that route and is now headed even deeper into space.

It’s now on its way to the asteroid belt that rings the very edges of our neighbourhood, Mr Musk said. One of the bursts of fuel that get burnt off to give it momentum had actually pushed it too hard, and it was heading away from its planned route, he tweeted.

While the change of route could look embarrassing for SpaceX, it might also encourage more private companies to enlist its services. The long route that it is planning shows just how powerful the Falcon Heavy rocket is, and the ability to get out into the asteroid belt could be useful.

It could even be incredibly valuable for the various private companies who hope to set up asteroid mining companies. Many of the objects deep out towards the edges of our solar system are thought to contain expensive and rare materials – but as yet there’s no way to get hold of them and bring them back down to Earth.
Indeed, some have suggested that the dwarf planet Ceres could serve as a base or hub for those missions, with mining spacecraft landing there first before pursuing the rich asteroids. The car is headed very close to Ceres, according to the orbit route shared by Mr Musk.

All of that work is many, many years in the future. But it is exactly that kind of private space travel and exploration, by commercial companies, that SpaceX wants to make money launching rockets for.
Tesla hasn’t revealed much about the car’s trajectory. Data could allow astronomers to calculate where it might end up as it travels through the solar system, but for now it’s not clear where the pull of the various planets in our neighbourhood will take it.
It’s unlikely that the car will ever collide with anything major, since it’s so small. But once it arrives in the asteroid belt, it might be joined by more things of its own side, and it’s possible it will be smashed up then.
If that doesn’t happen, it’s not clear how long the car will last for, or how it will be destroyed. Mr Musk said that he expected the orbit could last a billion years – but it depends entirely on what sort of orbit it ends up in, and how it deals with the harsh environment of space.

tags: breed of speed , tesla overshot , tesla rocket , car in space , nathan finneman , space x , elon musk , tesla orbit

HERE’S WHAT IT’S LIKE TO FIND $8 MILLION WORTH OF CARS IN A RANDOM GARAGE

1/31/2018

We hear about barn finds all the time, but rarely do we catch wind of a find as wild as this. Hagerty’s Barn Find Hunter video series was fortunate enough to discover not one, but two seven-figure 1960s classics hidden inside a neglected garage in North Carolina, untouched for almost 30 years.
In the video, host Tom Cotter stumbles upon a collection of abandoned cars scattered amongst aging garden tools and lawnmowers. There seem to be five cars in total; an E30-generation BMW 3-Series, a Morgan, a Triumph, and—wait for it—an all original Shelby Cobra 427 plus a Ferrari 275 GTB alloy long-nose. Talk about a find.

The cars, covered in dust from sitting since 1991, were parked by the current owner after his trusted mechanic died in a motorcycle accident. Instead of looking for a new mechanic to keep them running, he simply stopped driving them.
Every car inside the garage looks to be in impeccable condition, save for a few rats nests. We’re sure with a change of fluids, some new tires, and a nice detail, they’ll be in top shape.
Original versions of both the Shelby and the Ferrari routinely go for several million dollars at auction, and judging by the originality of this pair, it’s no question they’ll demand big dollars should they cross the auction block.

Your grandparents Generation was Cooler than you think.

1/17/2018

Heres a short film pretty much summing up a race with skiers being pulled behind vintage porsche 550 spyder and 356 coupes. Legendary to say the least.

Steve McQueen’s “Lost” Bullitt Mustang Is Finally Found.

1/16/2018

In 1968, as his celebrity was cresting, Steve McQueen produced and starred in Bullitt. He had been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor the year before for his dramatic role in The Sand Pebbles. But in the crime thriller, he played a tough San Francisco police detective, Frank Bullitt, who was battling a mob boss. The movie was moody and noir-ish, and a well-reviewed box-office hit.
But despite all of this—and co-stars Robert Vaughn, Robert Duvall, and Jacqueline Bisset--Bullitt is recalled today mainly for its car chase, a 10-minute masterpiece shot in and around San Francisco, and completed in a souped-up, Highland Green, 1968 Ford Mustang fastback (and a 1968 Dodge Charger). The scene helped the movie win the Oscar that year for film editing. Full-size replicas and best-selling toys were made of the car, and are still made today. So long is its shadow that Ford has even produced limited-edition versions of the Mustang as recently as 2009.
“I feel like with Bullitt, the car chase is synonymous with the movie,” said Molly McQueen, Steve McQueen’s 30-year-old granddaughter. “So, while there is a story that holds up, it kind of falls by the wayside because the movie is all about the car chase.”
Two different, specially prepared Mustangs were used in filming. One was the “hero car” driven by McQueen throughout the film. The other was used mainly for the hardcore sections of the chase and jump scenes. Both were thought to be lost to the crusher, but the jump car was discovered in the spring of 2017 in a junkyard in Mexico. Now, the car driven by McQueen has also been found, and it was just unveiled Sunday in Detroit, along with a new 2018 Bullitt-edition Mustang, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the movie.

After Bullitt wrapped, the hero car was sold to a studio executive in Los Angeles, who kept it briefly before selling it, coincidentally, to a police detective. The officer shipped the car to New York and kept it for about three and a half years before placing a for-sale ad in the back of Road & Track magazine in 1974. His $6,000 asking price was somewhat steep, but Robert Kiernan, a New Jersey insurance executive and Mustang fan, went out to look at it. He bought it for his wife to use as a daily driver.
The Kiernans used the car avidly for years, adding more than 30,000 miles to its odometer. But, as with many vehicular toys, mechanical and family issues eventually intervened. “The clutch went out in ’80 and I was born in ’81,” said Sean Kiernan,Robert’s son, who grew up with the McQueen Mustang in his family’s garage. “So it kind of went into storage.”
The Kiernans have kept the car a secret, mainly to ward off rumormongers and gawkers. But that didn’t stop Steve McQueen from finding them in 1977. “Dad had owned the car for three years at that point. And he got a phone call from Steve asking about the car, how it was, if he’d changed anything on it. And McQueen said, ‘I would really like to buy it if there’s not too much involved with it. I’ll replace it with a similar, like kind of car. As long it’s not a crazy amount of money,’” Kiernan said. “But dad declined. He said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’”
McQueen didn’t take no for an answer. “I think a week later, a letter to my dad arrived from McQueen and it had the Solar [McQueen’s production company] letterhead and stamp on it. And it said, basically, ‘I’d love to talk to you again about purchasing my car back, if not too much money is involved. Otherwise we’d better forget it.’ And dad never reached out, he did forget it. And that was kind of the end of that.”
This was a decent decision. The car is now valued at $3 million to $5 million.

tags: breed of speed , mcqueen's mustang, steve mcqueen , bullitt mustang found , nathan finneman , bullitt movie

BMW M5 Claims World Record for Longest Drift with 232.5-Mile Slide

1/15/2018

The all-new 2018 BMW M5 boasts some serious impressive numbers from the factory, befitting of the iconic Bavarian super sedan. 600 horsepower. 553 lb-ft of torque. A 189 mile-per-hour top speed. And now, with a little help from an aircraft-inspired mid-run refueling system, a Guinness World Record 232.5-mile-long drift.

The new record smashes the old 102-mile mark set by a Toyota 86 last year, ably demonstrating that the sixth-generation M5 can wag its tail with the best of them despite a switch to all-wheel-drive. It's also a neat bookend for BMW driving instructor Johan Schwartz, who established the first record back in 2013 with a 51.3-mile slide in an F10 M5 at the very same skidpad where he set the new record in December.

The official rules for the record (technically the greatest distance drifted in eight hours) allow for fuel stops, but BMW decided that would ruin the spirit, fun, and danger of a continuous drift. So it looked to the skies for inspiration and developed a car-to-car refueling system, which features a spare M5 tanker carrying an extra fuel cell, a high-pressure hose, and a daring stuntman to lean out and connect the two cars as they drift together on the skidpad.

THE JET-POWERED RACE CAR YOU NEVER KNEW EXISTED

12/28/2017

Let's cut straight to the chase: the Howmet TX is one of the coolest, most futuristic, and downright scary race cars ever conceived. In lieu of a traditional engine, it features an experimental turbine developed by a defense contractor for military helicopters. The car was built to go toe to toe with the likes of GT40s and Porsche 907s, and it actually took multiple wins and pole positions in 1968— the only year in which it competed—before setting several landspeed records.
Only two were ever built as part of a publicity campaign by jet engine manufacturer Howmet (hence the name: Howmet Turbine eXperimental), and the one you're looking at is for sale.

The turbine it uses can spin up to 57,000 rpm, which is eight to nine times faster than your car. Odd as it may sound, it produces just 350 hp, because the real advantage to the turbine is how compact it is: a normal internal combustion engine is downright clunky and heavy by comparison. As a result, the whole car only weighs 1650 lbs.
Inside, it really does look more like a helicopter cockpit than a race car, with enough different switches and gauges to confuse even a modern Formula One driver.

tags: turbine racecar , breed of speed , jet car , nathan finneman , petrolicious

Clay shooting with a Porsche 911 – Video

12/27/2017

Philip takes on the Porsche Targa with a mounted clay trap on the front! The skeets had firebirdtarget exploding disks set underneath. These guys are doing things right in life.

tags: breed of speed , nathan finneman , sirdrifto , porsche 911 , porsche clay shooting , clay shooting , awesome

It's the new Lamborghini SUV! Meet the Urus

12/4/2017

The Urus is Lamborghini’s long-awaited re-entrance into the SUV market. It’s also the perfect representation of its 55-year journey from seller of mad things with an allergy to ergonomics, to an ultra-modern supercar manufacturer with the quality, reliability and business sense of Audi.
Few would argue the latter is a bad thing when it spawns a family of supercars that you can actually see out of and start on the button every time… but the big fat question here is, is a spacious, high-riding, five-seater family SUV pushing the Germanic sensibleness too far?
Let’s start with the way it looks. No doubt you made your mind up within seconds of seeing it, but hopefully we can agree on one thing: of the Porsche Cayenne, Bentley Bentayga and Audi Q7 bunch with which it shares its steel and aluminium MLB platform, it’s not pug-ugly like the Bentley, and has more presence than the other two put together.
In the interim five-and-a-half years since we saw the Urus concept, it’s become a little larger, rounder and wider of arse, but the overall shape is surprisingly faithful. There’s the same arrowhead bonnet shut line, but beneath that there’s a lot more going on.
Layer upon layer of mesh, intakes and splitters with a cycloptic sensor housing parked in the middle of it. You’ll notice the yellow car here is maximum jazzy – fortunately, more subdued specs, like the grey car with mostly blacked-out elements, are available. Around the back, the concept’s tailpipes have dropped, but the small rear windscreen and full-width tail-light have survived. From this angle, perhaps more so than the front, it’s instantly a Lamborghini.
But the Urus’s real trick is to combine a downward-sloping, BMW X6-esque roofline, which keeps things pinched and muscular around the rear wheelarch, with masses of interior space. We’re talking six-footer behind a six-footer with a good chunk of leg- and headroom to spare. It also has a 600-litre boot – enough for a grown man to climb in on all fours and do a convincing impression of a large dog. A point we prove right here, in our walkaround video.
Big wheels (21-inch as standard, up to 23-inch if you must) and edgier styling than its rivals isn’t enough to earn the Lamborghini badge. For that, it must possess a vicious turn of speed, which is where 641bhp, 627lb ft of torque (available from 2,250rpm), 0–62mph in 3.6 seconds and 190mph flat out come into play.
Before you start Googling furiously, the 707bhp Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk also takes 3.6secs, but that’s from 0-60mph, and it trails by 10mph at the top end. That makes the 2.2-tonne Urus officially the fastest SUV out there. Frankly, we’d be perturbed if it wasn’t.
Where mild perturbing might occur is under the bonnet. You won’t find a highly strung, naturally aspirated V10 or V12 on loan from the Huracán or Aventador, but a version of the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 from the Bentley Continental GT and Audi RS6, connected to an eight-speed auto and redlining at 6,800rpm.
If you can get over the fact that it’s more likely to woofle and rumble than bark and shriek, it’s actually a far better fit for an off-roader – offering more torque at lower rpm. And yes, you can take your Urus off-road should you wish.
The V8’s other trick is being the most fuel-efficient engine ever in a Lamborghini (22.2mpg, 290g/km CO2) thanks in part to a cylinder-deactivation system that works below 3,000rpm and gives you 173lb ft to work with. That’s right, tickle the throttle and you’ll find yourself driving a four-cylinder Lamborghini with less torque than a diesel Ford Fiesta.

Porsche stolen 27 years ago discovered in Oregon wilderness

12/3/2017

A cold case investigation into the mystery disappearance of a Porsche 27 years ago has finally been solved.
The 1979 Porsche 924 coupe went missing from a car park outside a cinema in the city of Medford, Oregon, in 1991.
Police say the classic car had not been seen for more than two decades when a dog walker stumbled across the overturned wreckage in remote woodland on 28 November.

Jackson Co. Sheriff's Office investigated initial reports that human remains were found with the wreckage, however bones on the ground nearby were determined to belong to a deer.
“A man walking in a wooded area this week came across a vehicle reported stolen nearly 27 years ago,” the sheriff’s office said.

“He called dispatch to report finding an overturned vehicle down a steep embankment. The position of the vehicle at the base of a cliff made it nearly impossible to see from the road above.
“Heavy forest debris indicated the vehicle had been there for a significant period of time. The registration tags expired in 1991. Further investigation found the Porsche was reported stolen on January 20, 1991.”
The sheriff's office say it is working to determine the best course of action to remove the vehicle.
“Its location on steep, rugged terrain presents logistical and environmental concerns for removal,” they said.

WATCH A MCLAREN 720S DOING 155 MPH CHASED BY GEORGIA POLICE

12/1/2017

The driver told the police that he had three drinks that evening and didn't see the officer's lights.An Alpharetta, Georgia, police officer’s dashcam captured the chase as she raced after a McLaren 720S that the radar showed going 155 miles per hour (249 kph). Police charged the driver with speeding, driving under the influence, reckless driving, failure to maintain a lane, and driving with an expired tag, according to Patch.
The video shows the supercar accelerating into the distance, and the officer’s cruiser unable to keep up. The chase ends because the McLaren driver decides to pull over. The guy admits to the officer to having three drinks that night. The 720S driver said that he didn’t see the police cruiser’s lights or hear its siren.

The incident began when the speeding McLaren driver passed the officer at around 3 AM local time, according to Patch. The cruiser was able to pace the supercar up to 105 mph (169 kph), but the 720S kept accelerating. The speed was significantly over the 65 mph (105 kph) limit on the highway.
"I checked the vehicle's speed again with my RADAR device and the device read 155 mph. I reached a speed of 143 mph in my patrol vehicle and the vehicle was still pulling away from me," the officer wrote in the incident report, according to Patch. "He stated that he pulled over when he saw me behind him, which was approximately 5 miles after I initiated my emergency equipment."
The police reported that the driver had bloodshot eyes and smelled of alcohol. A field sobriety test indicated that he was under the influence, but the driver refused a Breathalyzer.

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