Membership starts at, oh, about $8,000 per annum. Forget the necktie- ask your loved one for one of these this holiday season.

(via Hyperleggera)

- Gyro

Photographed by furyksx

Supercar shootout at Silverstone – 20/4/2008

– License

A generous selection for your weekend viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Photo credit: Vincent Martin

- Gyro

Full portfolio here.

- Gyro

As of this writing, this car occupies the front page of Autoblog, making this post redundant at best. But it is simply too glorious not to merit at least a mention here. With its classic shape and modern mechanicals, it brings to mind – almost to a T – the equally badass Singer 911 that we were introduced to just a few short weeks ago.

Now, without further ado, feast your eyes on this gorgeous, magnificent beast…

Addendum: Fifth Gear reviewed a version of the SPF GT40… two years ago!

- Gyro

2009 or 1969? You decide.

Photo credit: Olivers Travels (Oliver Smith)

- Gyro

Click it, it’s wallpaper size.

Com um potente motor V8 central, 5400 cilindradas, 500 cavalos de potência e velocidade máxima de 320 km/h.Um dos grandes campeões de Le Mans (3 anos consecutivos).

Após fazer propostas de compra da Ferrari, Henri Ford II, não contente com o “não” de Enzo, queria fazer um carro potente, mas tão potente a fim de bater as Ferraris nas provas de 24 Horas de LeMans , que junto com as 500 Milhas de Indyanapolis e o GP de Mónaco eram as corridas de maior prestigio na epóca .

Assim nasceu esse carro, depois de idas e vindas com um motor Cobra de 4.7 L , começou a ser competitivo, venceu sua primeira corrida em Daytona com Ken Miles e Lloyd Rubi no ano de 1965 .No ano de 1966 já modificado, e usando um motor de 7 L  com a denominação Mark II , vence inúmeras corridas e finalmente bate as Ferraris em Le Mans, tendo como pilotos a dupla Bruce MacLaren e Chris Amon. Em 1967 repete a vitória em Le Mans com A.J Foyt e Dan Gurney com um Mark IV evolução do GT 40 . 1966 vence novamente Le Mans com outra dupla sensacional Lucien Bianchi e Pedro Rodrigues. Em sua ultima participação em Le Mans vence novamente com a dupla Jacky Ickx e Jack Oliver.

Existem várias miniaturas deste mito, uma delas é da Hot Wheels (maior fabricante de miniaturas do mundo), tendo uma de suas últimas variações lançadas em 2008:

Ao todo a Hot Wheels lançou 32 variações do Ford GT 40.

I first discussed Rosy in early June. Rosy is Google’s new “character-by-character, word-by-word” translation tool that is part of Chrome, the new OS that Google is developing and which translates between any two of forty languages. It’s built on the back of the Google Translate engine.

In case you missed the video of the demonstration I have put it at the end of this post. I said the implications were stunning. Time to talk about what they are.

In the Real World, there are approximately 7,000 living languages (via Ethnologue). However ” … 389 (or nearly 6%) of the world’s languages have at least one million speakers and account for 94% of the world’s population. By contrast, the remaining 94% of languages are spoken by only 6% of the world’s people.” The top 5 are Chinese, Spanish, English, Arabic and Hindi, in that order.

It’s difficult to assign any similar kind of number for languages on the Internet. What would that mean? Number of Website/blog pages in a given language? Number of words? What about the flow of chat? Does Internet telephony/videocalling count?

I can make an educated guess and say that English, Chinese and Spanish are the languages that most words on the Internet are written in today – not necessarily in that order. But it’s just a guess and if you know better let me know. Thanks.

I have discussed Facebook before as an example of a digital country in the making and use it here as the primary example since it is the furthest along.

Facebook has been translated now into over 60+ languages (Settings > Account Settings > Language).

Mark Zuckerberg recently announced a user base of 300 million, which in the language of cldwrld and digital countries means that facebook now has 300 million inhabitants, speaking 60+ languages.

On Facebook they “talk” to each other primarily in writing. So here’s my idea to improve communications between people online (and then in the Real World). It’s in beta …

Set up a test project within Facebook called the Facebook Translate Languages Instantaneously Project (FTLIP).

Install Rosy into FTLIP chat with a drop-down menu to allow people to communicate with each other in the language of their choice. Invite multilingual people to participate in the project.

Here’s how a FTLIP chat works between, say, between two English/Spanish speakers, called Ed and Sara … and Rosy:

1. Ed sends a message in English.
2. Rosy converts that to Spanish and shows the English and Spanish text to Sara.
3. Sara corrects the translation if necessary and sends the result to the Google Translate database.
4. Sara replies to Rob in Spanish.
5. Rosy converts that to English and shows the English and Spanish to Ed. He corrects the English if necessary and sends the result to the Google Translate database.
6. Ed replies to Sara in English.

And so it goes.

There exists a widget that allows Windows-users to select text in any website and throw it to the Google Translate service and get a translation back. Let’s integrate that into Facebook chat and allow chatters to select any of the 40 languages supported by Google Translate (the GT40).

As the crowdsourced translations betweeen the multilingual speakers on the FTLIP team feed into the GT40 more languages will become available and the quality of the translations will go up.

Thus we will have to simply call Google Translator the GT, driven by Rosy and note that communication between users of Facebook who don’t speak the same language is made easier.

More in the next post …

The video of Rosy’s introduction (still only viewed less than 9,000 times for some reason):

Go Like Hell, by A. J. Baime, is an engrossing account of the battle between Henry Ford II and Ferrari for dominance at the Le Mans 24 Hour endurance road race.  Winning races sold lots of cars, and Ford was in to win.

As a boy, I built models of all the racers, read magazines about the events, and watched movies like Grand Prix.  I was not very interested in the races themselves, or the racers, or the nationlistic and team competition – it was the cars I loved.  They are amazing feats of engineering, brutal and beautiful at once.

The Ford GT40 is the car that took the trophy away from Ferrari, and I had a Cox slotcar version of it, with real magnesium wheels and functioning knock-off wingnuts on the wheels.  It had an enormous engine – the ultimate muscle car.

The Ferrari P3, the answer to the Fords. It looks like a metal sheet was thrown through the air to drape itself over the chassis. Curvaceous, refined, sensual.

Carrol Shelby, the Ford racing team developer, with the Ford GT40 Mark IV, my all-time favorite.  The raw power of the original GT40 has been fitted into an aerodynamic sheath that restrains its curves in a way, typical of British design, I’ve read, with a rectangular footprint, the sides parallel all the way from front to back.

I wanted to do something for my Father in Laws Birthday, and to thank him (from Alex) for a great day out at a Goodwood Breakfast Club. As you may all know, little Alex (3yrs old) knows his cars…. and I mean REALLY knows his cars…. Ferraris, Jaguars, Pagini, Lamborghini…… Gumperts, Bently, Astons etc…. he has an uncanny ability at recognition! So, as a treat, and to see Ian (FiL) we went to a Goodwood Breakfast Club (PICS). Admittedly my father in Law was working (as he is Senior Track Steward & Site Supervisor at the Goodwood Circuit), but he managed to share some time (and bacon sarnies) with us!

What did I do then….. well….

I rate the Mac pretty highly – It’s an easy machine to use (far easier than a PC…. and yet performs much better).

My Macbook came with a program called “Garage Band” which is a music writing/edit suite. It’s fantastic! It allows me to take any of my music and turn it into ring tones (with a sample length does not breach copyright).

It has inbuilt samples along with a huge array of instruments for original compositions… you can even plug in your own real instruments and vocals…… but the first thing I played with was the samples. They can be cut, re-arranged and mixed to make some pretty good stuff…. I’ve had a few people convinced it was a real recording, and not some computerised mix up I had produced!

Anyway… Here’s the first track I wrote – mixing and cutting/splicing the Apple supplied samples. To make it a bit more interesting, I made it into a photo slide show of Alex at Goodwood for my Father in Laws birthday. Happy Birthday!

Watch below or CLICK HERE!

There are many regular events at Goodwood… not just the annual Revival or Festival of Speed. There are club days, race days, fly ins, all sorts… and one of those days that occurs regularly throughout the year is the Breakfast Club… a Sunday morning jam packed with high end sports cars and supercars…

As I still had a hire car due to the Fiesta issue (See here) I decided to take Alex down to Goodwood to see his Granddad (My Father in law) at work on the race circuit.

Luckily it tied in with one of The Breakfast Club events…

As we drove closer our little Fiesta hire car was surrounded by top marque sports cars. Alex was getting giddy with excitement as he called out all of the names!

We parked up at Granddads house and then walked up to the track. I saw from a distance what I thought was a Jaguar XJ220 in Rothmans colours. Alex meanwhile had spotted a Pagini Zonda which I could not see…. until we got a lot closer to the Rothmans Jaguar…. which wasn’t a Rothmans Jaguar… it was the Zonda – It was the paint scheme that threw me, but not Alex!

All photo’s can be seen HERE or just click on the photo’s:

Tuned Pagini Zonda... as if it needed it!

After the Pagini Zonda the cars kept rolling in… and each one was named correctly by the 3yr old petrol head! He was uncanny – and he was surprising some others that over heard him!

Ferrari and Stingray

Almost embarrassing were the two times when Alex corrected some adults as to what certain cars were! Luckily being 3 he can get away with it by being cute!

Lambo Diablo!

Lord March showed up in… not his superb Aston Martin Vantage, but his “Rat Rod”…. A car a little bit different to the super sleek supercar from Alex’s birthday!

Lord March's Rat Rod

After walking around the cars we caught up with Granddad Ian in his office…the hub of the race circuit… The pit lane office… Alex had a whale of a time watching all the cars roll by with me and his Granddad. He was having such a great day!

It looked like we had turned up at just the right time, as Bacon Rolls showed up, so we ate a snack in the pit office – Granddad shared his bacon roll with Alex, and Alex shared his sausages with Granddad!

Alex looking at the Alonso and Granddad photo

After a while we let Granddad get on with his work. We went off to look at yet more cars. Alex surprised me again when he pointed out a GT40 and looked into the engine bay intently…. ran his hands over a few parts and then looked at me and said “V8 daddy…. V8 Ford….“

V8 Daddy... V8 Ford

Alex may have liked the V8 Ford, but I was taken aback by the beauty of this Jaguar E-Type (pointed out, once more, by Alex)… The V12 in this gorgeous machine looked like new – even the little petrol head said it was “Pretty engine” … he wasn’t wrong… he has a good eye!

V12 beats V8...

Back in the pit land Graddad got Alex a ride around the circuit on the Tractor – bus that tours the circuit. Once more I was told about the cars tht Alex could see – and in between naming cars he was saying “Thank you Daddy.. Thank you Granddad..” Such a sweet well behaved grease monkey!

Touring the Circuit

At the end of the afternoon Alex was tired out. He slept well in the car all the way home – very happy and content. He really loves seeing his Granddad – and the cars just add to that. He never says “We are going to see race cars and Granddad” – it’s always “We’re going to see Granddad! Granddad and cars!“

It’s times like these that the hard times we are going through are made fully worthwhile. I may be driving my wife’s purple 1997 Ford Fiesta, I may never own a sports car, but maybe I can get Alex on the path to a better future.

I wonder what he dreamed about on the way home… he had a huge smile on his face…. a Mini in one hand and a Lamborghini in the other….and his toy puppy on his lap……

Alfa Romeo 8C

Stunning E-Type

Countach - 80's Italian Muscle

There were even ballon flights, though we didn't go on one

Polished Lambo Murciélago Perfection

Ferrari Daytona - A proper race version

Happy Alex and Granddad

Este modelo foi construído como fruto de orgulho da Ford, perante o fracasso na tentativa da compra da Ferrari. A Ford “atacou” onde poderia “ferir” mais a imagem da Ferrari, na competição. O Ford GT40 ganhou durante 3 anos consecutivos as 24 horas Le Mans e terminou com o reinado da Ferrari.

O Ford GT40 apresentava uma apurada aerodinâmica, um potente motor V8 com 4700cc e 425cv, e um reduzido peso de apenas 950Kg. As acelerações eram brutais e a velocidade máxima cifra-se nos 340 Km/h.

This is a 1968 Ford GT40. This car ran the Le Mans back in the 60s and beat Lamborghini four years in a row. Who says your car has to be exotic and wedge shaped to tear ass up the road?

Jada Toys has had a SLIGHT trickle of decently tooled toys release. I have found a few in the last few weeks. I am hunting the flat black Superleggera Lamborghini at the moment. I saw a 1:24 scale model at KMart but the $19 price tag was a bit much for that model. However this Ford GT40 will suffice for now.

A competition version of the CAV GT road car that continues the original style of GT40s that beat the Ferraris to win Le Mans during the 1960’s is now available.

Available as the GT-R, the car is eligible to compete in several race series.

Described as “the most thrilling track car for many years”, we believe that these cars, race supported by Andy Water and his team will provide unbeatable performance and thrills to the many GT40 enthusiasts who see the classic as the most exciting race car of all time.

While the original cars may sell for millions of pounds, our aim is to provide the GT40 enthusiast with a fully prepared and supported exciting but affordable GT40 race car.

 This opportunity is nothing less than amazing.

For further details on Road, Track and Race ready cars contact GT40 Cars UK  today on:

 Tel 08709 747 417    Email: cw@thelegendlives.co.uk       www.thelegendlives.co.uk

GTR Track Racing Car

We didn’t make Hot Import Nights after all Saturday night due to some delays so we went to have dinner. This was sitting in the parking lot all alone when we pulled up to the our dinner spot. Sick huh!?! It pays to have a camera with you at all times!