I recently had the opportunity to spend a few hours with Dave Smith, CEO of Factory Five Racing at Factory Five’s headquarters in Wareham, Massachusetts. While the original intent was to drive Factory Five’s most recent offering, the ’33 Ford Hot Rod, events conspired to prevent that drive (as they often do with small companies). In a way, that worked out well, because Smith and I had more time to tour FFR’s facility and talk about the car business.

CLICK HERE to continue reading about the Factory Five '33 Ford Hot Rod

Ambitious but rubbish? Or will this little project actually work? The folks over at Top Gear America website have taken on the task to save the world— with a 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel. Their Goal? To achieve a 70 mile per gallon mark, at a price of $7,000, and still be able to do a nippy 0-60 run in less than 7 seconds. For the cherry to top this mission, the car will also have to be completely road legal. This means a plate, registration, and hardest of all an emissions test and inspection.

The ol’ Rabbit will begin its quest in New York City and trek all the way out to Regina, Saskatchewan, crossing thousands of miles of “frozen tundra” on its way. There, wizards at CWS Tuning will rip out the dying heart and replace it with a modern, computer controlled, turbocharged VW TDI engine. But the journey will not yet be over. The next stop is Southern California, where a UCLA aerodynamics professor John McNulty will aid in the Rabbit’s aero package.

That's their idea so far.

The rest of the plan sounds pretty solid, but the TGA crew does still need to come up with a name for their new-meets-old diesel. Click through the link below to add your own best guess.
 
+ TopGear.com (America): We Build a 70 mpg Car

Automotive taste may vary wildly from person to person, but the grand beauty of Caminoization is something that unites us all—well, most of us anyway.

Case in point, this charmingly absurd “Metruck 1L” that we found for sale on eBay Motors. The concept of a pickup capable of 60 miles per gallon may be faintly attractive, but in this instance the actual workmanship is rather shabby—making even the standard Metro look well screwed together by comparison.

Little more than a 1994 Geo Metro with part of its hindquarters removed, the Metruck lacks a little in the way of fit and finish. We’d hesitate to go out in any kind of inclement weather with the snap-down tonneau responsible for keeping us warm and dry, and the pull-string interior door handle strikes us a more innovative than is strictly needed. On the plus side, the winning bidder does get a free canoe!

Have a closer look at the tiny truck in our gallery above.

+ eBay Motors:  1994 Other Makes METRUCK Pickup Truck based on GEO Metro Pickup Truck

Days have been dark of late for the American auto industry, so it’s good to know that we’ve got patriots like the individual responsible for this “Starz” Chevy truck on the job. There are really no words that can capture the majesty of this Corvette-powered, kustom-bodied, $85,000(!), ‘Merica-spangled wonder, so we’ll direct you instead to the red, white, and blue gallery above. Enjoy.

+ eBay Motors: 1989 Replica/Kit Makes  CUSTOM

Most readers will probably have no trouble recalling the bonkers Maybach Exelero coupe from 2005—700 horsepower, three ton, $8 million Darth Vadermobiles aren’t quickly forgotten as a rule—so you’ll understand our initial excitement at seeing an apparent listing for the car on eBay Motors. Of course, as is so often the case with these types of too-good-to-be-true listings, getting your shot at the Exelero for a starting bid of just over $300K is, well, too good to be true.

What seller Mark Sanford is really offering is a promise to build you your very own Maybach one-off, albeit one with no actual Maybach parts of any kind. Sanford’s company, Ikit Exotic Cars and Luxury Yachts, is predicated on the notion of building replicas of elite vehicles like the Exelero, using tube chassis, fiberglass, and carbon fiber. Sanford boasts that his company is able to produce these exotic knock-offs for a third, or sometimes a fourth the cost of the original items, while offering a 3 year/30,000 mile warranty for peace of mind.

Sanford’s warranty (and NBA basketball pedigree, zero games played) aside, we’d probably feel more comfortable if he saw fit to include at least one actual photograph of one of his cars in the listing, as opposed to throwing up stock shots of the Maybach. Cribbing the VIN from his personal Mercedes-Benz G500 for the auction isn’t exactly confidence inspiring either.

+ eBay Motors: 2009 Maybach Exelero Coupe

Motorcyclist, inventor, and green-thinker Dave Akhurst has built an LPG powered motorcycle that should be the envy of any DIY garage. Called the Greenfly, Akhurst started with a 1970s-era Yamaha XT500 and modified the bike to run on compressed natural gas. The high octane rating, cheap running costs, and clean-burning nature of LPG are all plusses in the inventor’s book—enough so that the prospect of a potential bomb-like detonation if the tank is ruptured doesn’t really make him sweat. We should all be so brave.

The 500cc single-cylinder engine is tuned to deliver approximately 30 horsepower while returning about 70 miles per gallon—about a 20 mpg improvement over the standard, gasoline-burning motor. Additionally, Akhurst has  done a raft of custom metalwork on the bike, including a hanger for a full-size spare behind the front fork, quick-change hubs on the custom five-spoke alloys, and a massive touring pannier that can be swapped out for the removable pillion seat.

The Greenfly is an exceptionally well-done piece of work from what we can see, and a standard bearer for green, DIY projects everywhere. Have a closer look at the bike in our gallery of images above.

+ The Biker Gene: Dave Akhurst’s Greenfly: the LPG-powered custom motorcycle.

http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2008/10/the-2008-illega.htm...

It seems as if the already rather geeky (and we mean that in the nicest possible way) cadre of Segway owners is taking a step towards the bizarre, by embracing the blooming trend of customization in the personal mobility market. Adorning their rides with acres of diamond plate and colored Lucite, these bold individuals aren’t afraid of standing out from the crowd—not as much as they fear walking a few blocks, at any rate.

Is a fully chromed and chopped Segway with matching tow-along trailer a true bid for individuality, or just another sign of the impending apocalypse? You can judge for yourself by sifting through our gallery above.

+ GeekAlerts

British interior designer and motorcycle enthusiast Barend Hemmes hadn’t any experience at designing vehicles, but the 36-year-old South London resident knew he had struck a winning shape when he penned Jaguar’s famed “Leaper” logo onto a bike frame.

Hemmes says that he had been doodling at, “combining corporate logos with motorbikes” when he realized that Jag’s Jaguar would make for a perfect fit with a motorcycle. Having no construction experience, Hemmes sought out the bike builders of South Yorkshire’s Polar Cycles, who helped to craft the cat on top of running gear from a 1997 Buell S3 Thunderbolt.

The re-bodied Buell doesn’t exactly have performance to match its sleek appearance – only reaching speeds of around 50 miles per hour for unspecified reasons – but according to Hemmes the bike is quite the head turner wherever he rides it. It could be argued that a motorcycle shaped like a giant duck could boast the same,but we digress.

Have a better look at the Leaper bike in our gallery above.

+ Mail Online: Pictured: The ultimate PURRING machine - a motorbike in the form of the pouncing Jaguar logo

We’re hanging around the amiable and hip Austin, Texas following an invite for a new product launch (more on that coming shortly) and took part of the afternoon to pay a visit to entrepreneur (more on his good work here ), part-time motoring gypsy, and NextAutos comrade, Ehren Foss.

In addition to being a fun guy to go run errands around Austin with, Ehren is the proud owner of a heavily modified 1984 Bluebird school bus, with which he has spent the past four years touring North America, altering the contour of his concrete driveway, and showing off to nosey and easily excited friends. Ehren’s first tour in his creation lasted nine months and spanned the better part of the borders of the U.S., costing he and his traveling companion only around $1000 per month ($500 in fuel) total in those halcyon days of sub-$2 diesel – even burning roughly one gallon of fuel every eight miles or so the Cummings B engine was remarkably reasonable to run.

From the exterior the most obvious modification to the Bluebird is the roughly two feet of additional head room that has been added to the space, enough to facilitate a raised sleeping compartment in the rear (that’s the queen size mattress between the two filing cabinets in the photos), as well as the distinctly more exciting skybox over the driver and passenger seat. The best seat in the house, the skybox affords a view of the road that can be matched by little traveling the highways today even from a seated position, but the daring quick-duckers among us can also remove a panel in the roof for a standing view of the changing landscape. It’s an experience that we wouldn’t soon forget, even if we hadn’t been meanly flicked by a largish maple branch while observing.

We took the Bluebird for a spin around the neighborhood, picked up the dry cleaning, and got several dozen thumbs up for our trouble. Fun times though nothing in comparison to the adventures Ehren has had and documented on his bus blog. Click through the link below for a wealth of adventures and images or check out the gallery of our day with Ehren above.

+ Vicaribus