Celebrating the American Roots and Growing New Green Branches
©2009 Isaac Hernández

Bob Lee, the man behind the rebirth of the Hemi V8 engine in 2003 has recently been replaced by Paolo Ferrero as senior Vice President of Chrysler Powertrain. Lee continues at Chrysler, but now Ferrero, who served as vice-president of product engineering at Fiat, calls the shots when it comes to engines.

Fiat owns 20% of Chrysler Group LLC and has management power. As part of the investment deal, Fiat will provide its fuel-efficient engines to Chrysler. If Fiat were to manufacture these engines in the US, the Italian company would be allowed to purchase an additional 5% of the American brand.

Some people in America are afraid that the Fiat takeover would represent the end of the Hemi engine. At Chrysler LLC, they love the Hemi and they’re making sure that the Italians learn to love it too.

During a recent visit of the Italian Minister of Economic Development, Claudio Scajola, to the Chrysler headquarters, the Italian delegation was shown the wind tunnel with no other than a Hemi Chrysler Viper SRT-10 ACR in it.

During the MotoGP Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix races in Laguna Seca, California, Fiat Yamaha Team riders former World Champion Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo drove a 425-horsepower 6.1-liter HEMI-powered Dodge Challenger SRT8.

I have been lucky to drive the Dodge Challenger HEMI on the Willow Springs racetrack first by myself, and then with Eric Heuschele at the wheel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu3G-HthIh4). Eric, Supervisor of Vehicle Dynamics SRT Engineering, is passionate about the Hemi. He later gave me a ride in the Viper ACR (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcbLujK2Gy8)

Today I saw some extremist Americans in Seattle holding posters of Barack Obama with a Hitler’s mustache. I don’t know what far right Republicans find in common between the US president and the German dictator, and didn’t care to stop and find out… If Fiat stops production of the HemiI, soon we may also see posters of a bald Obama as Benito Mussolini. The only reason we haven’t seen them already is because most Americans probably wouldn’t know who Mussolini is. If they only knew that the Hemi V-8 is built in Saltillo, Mexico…

But I’m getting distracted by non-sense politics. Today I want to celebrate the Hemi heritage, in honor of those men and women who have given their ingenuity to develop the hemispherical combustion chamber, which with its arched shape, allows for the spark plug to be placed in the center of the chamber and the position of the valves allows for better breathing of the engine.

The first Chrysler HEMI engine was an inverted V-16, rated at 2,500 horsepower, developed for WWII aircraft, but it never made it into production.

Fiat’s own history has a hemispherical engine, the one that powered the A.L.F.A. 40/60 GP car in 1914. There have been other hemispherical engines before, in racecars from Peugeot, Pipe and Miller, as well as production cars from Duesenberg. Stutz and Offenhauser, among others.

Chrysler continued developing the Hemi after WWII, but it wasn’t until the Chrysler C300 came out in 1955 that the legend began to be written. It was the first production car in the US with over 300 hp. Chrysler won the NASCAR Grand National title and the AAA Championship, with a whooping 33 race victories. Many say the C300 was the first muscle car. The FirePower engine came to propel different models of Dodge, Chrysler, Imperial and DeSoto cars. The Hemi engine died with the 1959 model year.

The legend was reborn in 1964, specifically to win at NASCAR. And win it did. Richard Petty dominated in 1964 and 1966 with the blue Plymouth Superbird Number 43, powered by the 426 Hemi (426 for its cubic inches, or 7 liters). It became such an important part of American car culture, that in the 2006 film Cars, Pixar included a car inspired on the Superbird, named “King”, voiced by Petty himself. It was for this second generation that Chrysler trademarked the name Hemi. Its life came again to an end in 1971.

The first Chrysler Hemi lasted for four years, the second one for twice as long. If we were to follow mathematical logic, the third generation (built in 5.7, 6.1 and 6.4 liter variations, so far) born in 2003 should be around until 2015. Will it? Unfortunately, as much as Americans love their Hemi, sales are not supporting its long-term survival.

The Hemi of the future?

American ingenuity will find a way to have fun with cars and be environmentally friendly, now that our main focus ought to be to reduce carbon emissions, so that our children don’t have to suffer extreme global warming.

Popular Mechanics (PM) modified a Dodge Challenger SRT8, turning it into an Eco+Muscle car. The idea is to use “inexpensive aerodynamic aids, a state-of-the-art electric drive system and some other helpful bits” to turn the Challenger “into a parallel hybrid plug-in/solar/electric that burns no fuel at all in everyday driving.“

The car, featured at the Las Vegas SEMA Show in November, will be auctioned in Scottsdale, Arizona in November.

PM paid $30,740.00 for the Challenger, and quite a bit more on gasoline, doing 9.0 mpg in stop-and-go traffic. On the freeway, because of the computerized cylinder deactivation, they could get as much as 25.4 mpg on the highway.

The tuners went all out, trying to squeeze as much power out of the V-8, even adding a nitrous system. Then they added a UQM electric motor, at a weight penalty of 89 lbs. producing 125 hp and 176 lb-ft of torque. The electric motor provides all torque from the very beginning, improving acceleration for the Challenger. How do you power it? With 28 Exide Select Orbital lead batteries in the back seat, producing 336 volts. This was the best compromise between power and price, according to PM. They’d prefer a lithion-ion system, but pricing was out of their range.

The racing stripes on the carbon fiber hood are actually flexible solar panels, which help charge the batteries. “On a sunny day, they recharge the battery at a rate of 2.5 amps”.

The rear axle was modified and so was the fuel tank. There’s also a fuel cell under the trunk. Making everything fit took some genius. You can read more about it in http://media.origin.popularmechanics.com/documents/ecomuscle/index.html.

The cool thing about the Eco+Muscle Challenger is that the foot pedal controls the combustion engine, while a hand throttle sends powers the electric motor.

To compensate for the extra weight, many body parts were replaced with carbon fiber. The front seats were replaced by lighter ones, and the rearview mirrors were replaced by more aerodynamic video cameras.

There’s still work to do. The engineers are still trying to make the car work on fully electric mode in the city. Right now, the Hemi has to idle to power the power steering and power brakes even if the electric motor is driving the car.

The Eco+Muscle maybe a crazy idea, and an expensive one (PM doesn’t say how much it would cost to build one without all the sponsors), but it’s definitely a fun idea. My hat goes off to the people who want to reconcile the muscle with the eco, the past with the future.

1. Penzi Lauwa
2. Mwanza
3. Waseme Waseme
4. Kilio ( The Fish Song)
5. Tamwika
6. Fadhili Ni Utumwa
7. Mwungo (Naloba)
8. Players
9. Lombamba (Sahala Yayala)
10. Nalia Mwana
11. Libala

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I had mentioned quite a few posts ago about working on the ASI INVADER Ferrari F430 for the 2009 SEMA YEAR. Well, unfortunately a plethora of things happened, schedulings and what not and was unable to complete it. BUT, not showing up to SEMA without the Ferrari was not an option. So To no avail the quality work and team that brought this together was GT Pro in conjunction with Mastermind (TR Trading). The Amazing thing is the whole project took about 2 weeks to build, and was actually put together in three days. Such quality work in a short amount of time is highly impressive and I am glad to see that the car was able to show up.

Check out the K&N 2009 SEMA Booth in Las Vegas.

Ah finally, we are at the end of the SEMA coverage. What a trip it was….got to see alot of homies, ate like there was no tomorrow, won some money, spent some money, and of course, saw some car shit…This last batch is pretty much just random pics and stuff you might have seen before but at better angles. The amount of people died down at the show towards the last couple days and it made picture taking a lot easier…

Still one of my favorites at the show, I recently saw pics of this at Super Lap Battle and it did very well…

I was showing this Scion to some other friends that had come later who hadn’t been inside SEMA yet that week. Just in terms of pure ingenuity, the Scion booth is definitely a landmark at the SEMA show…

Also had to take another look at the VIP Legacy. I don’t know what happened but they took the two Fusas they had hanging on the mirror down and kept the hood closed that day…Hopefully nobody stole that shit…

Damn…

The infamous Ken Block Gymkhana Subaru…

This is an interesting look…I mean, it doesn’t look bad, but it almost looks like it’s a rear bumper installed on the front…

This Focus was really nice. All caged up on Work XD9s and everything…Finally was able to get a clean shot of it since the Ford area was so packed all week…

Here is the Flex that Autofashion built with the custom Falken bandana print interior…

Ryan from Eibach aka Vtecvoodoo was busy being a businessman all week…

One more shot of the Bomex Camaro…I like how they jacked the idea of the exhaust outlet from the new Lexus LF-A…

Lisa Kubo’s new Integra…

Greddy Peter North nutshot Genesis…

Best of show…

Enkei did Rota one better and decided to do custom colors before they ran off with their designs…

Speaking of wheels, these are probably the ugliest wheels I’ve ever seen…Good job Forgiato…

This of course is the LF-A that everyone was talking about all week. I didn’t even know it was there until I accidently walked outside and saw the Lexus area. They got a pretty shitty spot I might add. There were no signs or anything and you would only see it if you were trying to go outside to smoke or something…

A trio of IS convertibles…

David Huang’s IS300…

That’s about it…We spent the rest of our trip eating at The Earl of Sandwich inside Planet Hollywood…best sandwiches ever…Other than that, we had a couple drinks here and there and just chilled…

Rudy Falcon and Rywire came by our room to shoot the shit for a little bit as well. Not really sure what was going on here, haha…

Somebody called out Ryan and emailed Super Street claiming that Rywire was “Lywire” and rocking Rotas and claiming them to be real Mugen wheels. Rywire just wants to clarify that he put on the Rota centercaps as a joke and even though he really does have Mugen wheels, he’s a big supporter of Rotas. That’s also not a thumb in the picture, I photoshopped it to look that way, use your imagination guy who emailed Super Street…

Here’s Rudy walking into the room where his intervention was taking place…stop doing drugs you ass!…

That’s all folks, back to normal daily duties tomorrow…

]]> http://blog.cardomain.com/2009/11/24/best-of-sema-classic-restorations/ Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:01:56 +0000 Jim Brennan http://blog.cardomain.com/2009/11/24/best-of-sema-classic-restorations/

Welcome to my last post in the “Best of SEMA” series on CarDomain. I have been tasked to bring you the top five “Restorations” from this years nominees. I was absolutely surprised by the number of beautiful, spot-on classics that were represented. I’m not going to include some of the vehicles that look classic, but are actually new builds, restomods, lowriders, or highriders. No, my criteria would be actual vehicles, older than 25 years old, that have been either preserved, or brought back to better than new condition. That’s the rules, now here’s the list.

- There were two Chevrolet Biscaynes in the show with the monster 409, but the 1964 Biscayne wins this round.
- Speaking of Chevrolet, right next to the Biscayne is this knockout 1967 Corvette Sting Ray, with a 427!
- Showing love for the Import Contingent, how about this well preserved Honda N600 Sedan?
- Don Prudhomme’s 1967 Dodge 700 Race Car Hauler, in well preserved condition.
- At the Ford Booth, there was this stunning 1967 Ford Mustang GT500 that was given away.

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A Secretaria de Estado do Meio Ambiente (Sema) da regional da Guarantã do Norte (cidade a 715 km ao Norte da capital) juntamente com as polícias militar e civil realizaram fiscalização em parte do rio Telles Pires. A operação começou às 9 horas da manhã de sábado (21.11) e até as 15 horas os técnicos da Sema e os policiais já haviam feito três apreensões. Na ocasião dois pescadores foram presos, além de multas aplicadas aos infratores. Foram percorridos 30 quilômetros de rio, com abordagens na divisa entre os municípios de Novo Mundo, Carlinda e Alta Floresta.

Foram apreendidos um barco de alumínio de seis metros, um motor de popa Yamaha 25 hp, um motor de popa Honda 15 hp, dezoito molinetes, trinta e quatro varas para molinetes, quatro carretilhas para pesca, um motor rabeta stihl, duas tarrafas, uma rede, mais de mil metros de espinhéis armados no rio, trinta e sete kilos de pescado de diversas espécies inclusive filé de pintado e de tucunaré, além de oito caixas de acessórios de pesca (anzol, chumbada, entre outros) e uma motoserra.

A primeira multa foi aplicada ao indivíduo que estava se preparando para pescar, a ele foi aplicado o valor mínimo de multa, que é de R$ 700,00. Os demais valores das multas foram a outros dois responsáveis por todo o equipamento citado acima. Os valores das multas foram de R$ 12.210,00 e R$ 16.160,00, respectivamente.

O diretor regional da Sema em Guarantã do Norte, Martinho Philippsen, disse da importância destes trabalhos de fiscalização. “Nosso trabalho é parte da programação da secretaria em combater a pesca depedatória neste período proibitivo. Iremos continuar com estes trabalhos, sempre acompanhados por técnicos da Sema e por policiais civis e militares da região”, acrescentou Martinho.

Nesta operação participaram dois técnicos da Sema e dois policiais militares. Os pescadores presos foram encaminhados para a delegacia, só foram liberados mediante pagamento de fiança. O valor cobrado foi de R$ 930,00 para cada pescador.

Fonte: SECOM-MT

Die hard fans af muskelbils-perioden er godt klar over at der er noget der ikke stemmer helt godt i den overskrift, men i det her tilfælde der er det altså rigtigt.

2010 HPP Dodge Daytona

 Det er Heide Performance Products, der på opfordring fra Chrysler har konstrueret en ny version af den berømte “Wing Car” fra Dodge.

Baseret på en ny Dodge Challenger med 5,7 liters Hemi og en 6 trins gearkasse, har de med kærlighed til den oprindelige Daytona fra 1969 designet en showstopper til dette års SEMA show.

Retro næsesektion og umiskendelig hækspoiler

Herfra er det tydeligt at det er en Challenger

 Sidst i Juli startede de med at rive den helt Nye Challenger fra hinanden, men det var først i ugen op til SEMA showet at de sidste ting faldt på plads.

Heide Performance Products har andre projekter i støbeskeen, der er både Camaro og Mustangs i forskellige afskygninger på deres hjemmeside og det er ikke kreativiteten der hæmmer dem i arbejdet.

Der er tænkt over detaljerne

Det er sgu egentlig lykkedes at ramme meget godt

 Hele historien om HPP’s Dodge Daytona kan læses i Detroit Auto Examiner

Personally, I find most of the traditional luxury cars at SEMA to be a little boring. I just really don’t care if somebody slapped a sweet set of wheels on a 7 Series BMW and rolled it on to the red carpet. Yawn. That said, I’d like to nominate the following cars for best luxury ride: the black Porsche Panamera (not everyone finds it as ill-proportioned as I do) ,  the killer widebody Bentley in the Nutek Wheels booth, the unreal House of Kolor Monte Carlo, this uber-tough diesel powered Caddy, and David Huang’s aggressively attired Lexus IS 300. Even if you think I’m totally high with these choices, vote for your favorite!

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Are we still doing this stuff?…

I love IS250/350s, just the style of them and how they sit when they’re lowered…Definitely one of the cars I plan to own in my lifetime. I actually want an IS-F and at the rate I’m going, hmm, I think I should be able to afford one in let’s say….10 years from now? I also like Weds Kranze wheels so whoever owns this car, good job…

This guy is awfully happy to be photographed next to this S14…maybe he’s the owner, who knows…

There’s so much sunlight in this picture that I’m pretty sure it would fuck a vampire up…I’m just sayin…

Interesting matte blue S2000…never seen it before so I’m wondering if it’s from California. I’m also wondering why the bay is silver still and if the matte blue is a wrap or not…Okay I’m done wondering…

This bB belongs to Dan from BBsquad. He used to have a white one that was really nice as well but he crashed it and now he’s building up this one…Mikey was explaining to me everything that was on it but it’s been awhile so I think I forgot, but the whole front end is JDM stuff like the lights, grille, etc….

I really like the new Genesis, because it’s one of the first times Hyundai took something and made it look nice…

Here’s the Camaro I talked about a couple posts back that came all the way from Japan. Pretty badass right? It even has Work LS wheels on it…

Super clean…when I was in Japan a couple years ago I also saw a couple lowriders and other domestics that were imported that they modified and made look absolutely amazing. Really shows their ability to build anything, Japanese or not…These guys who owned the Camaro didn’t even speak english, they had to have someone translate for them when people approached them to ask them questions…

Look at that center exit exhaust…

Even had their own poster…

This probably belonged in the SEMA post before but this is the bay of that black S2000…

Man I kept going back to this car over and over again pretty much everyday that I was there…such amazing craftsmanship and ingeniuity…

Seriously, where would you ever see anything else like this if you were involved in the import scene. That’s why it’s cool to go to SEMA because you get to see both sides of the spectrum….

Moving on…here’s a bunch of BMWs…

Asuka widebody…

This thing is badass…

So after I finished walking around that day, we went to go hang out with the BBsquad guys again because I had to shoot one of the Scions for a magazine. I pretty much just spent the rest of the night hanging out with them while we waited for Tina, May, and Ojay to show up later that night…

We met up with everyone and then we headed over to the new M hotel to eat dinner too. That buffet is the business…oh man, probably right up there with the Wynn buffet with alot cheaper…I ate so much that day I think I almost threw up while eating…yeah, it’s possible…

After dinner is when we went off to go shoot…There’s actually alot of nice areas to shoot off the strip in Vegas because it’s such a huge empty place…

Here’s a sample of the xB I shot… Really clean simple car built by Gene from BBsquad. He’s on air and just rides dumped all day, it’s awesome, dude doesn’t even care…

After I finished up with that, we just hung out in some empty parking structure and took random pics….One of the Squad guys was doing the majority of the shooting but I had the camera on me so I took some as well. They’re not very good but they never are anyway…

That’s it for today….back with more SEMA coverage over the weekend…

Hypertech was at SEMA talking about their new Max Energy Sport line, which is aimed at the import tuner market, including popular enthusiast models by Honda, Nissan, Infiniti, Subaru, Mazda and Mitsubishi, with more makes and models to be added soon. Besides tuning your engine for increased efficiency, horsepower and torque, the Max Energy Sport Power Programmer allows you to raise or lower your vehicle’s top-speed limiter to match the speed rating of your tires, adjust the maximum engine rpm, read and clear diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) and remove the electronic throttle restriction. You can keep your Max Energy Sport Power Programmer up to date via the internet, and you can also revert to your stock factory tuning at any time. More info at Hypertech.

The green category seemed a little subdued this year, and there were a lot of cars we’d already seen during previous visits to SEMA. Still, that didn’t stop us from finding some real standouts in the zero-emissions, electric, hybrid, and alt-fuel divisions–showing that green performance is still alive and well. For one thing, there was the Corsa Motorsports hybrid-electric LMP1 car, which will be running a full series in the American Le Mans Series this year. And the Progressive Automotive X Prize contingent was out in force, vying for the $10 million prize in the race to build marketable ultra-fuel efficient cars–we thought the Saba Motors electric roadster was one of the coolest rides in this section. The LPG-powered ‘56 Ford pickup was an absolute knockout with its candy paint, copper-lined engine compartment, and propane-powered 460 big block. That all-electric 1976 Porsche 912 took a more subtle approach to vintage green, looking refined and flawless following its concours-level restoration and EV drivetrain conversion. Then finally there was Factory Five’s new electric hot rod, a total show-stopper that handily lived up to the hype that’s surrounded it in recent months. Vote on your favorite SEMA green car, below!

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…present!?

Today our staff celebrated his 50th birthday, and just in time for one of our staff’s birthdays, ASI received these fabulous gifts.

Thank you very much, Mr. Nakashima!

* It was nice of you to include one for me too.

Anyway, there are still a few cars from SEMA that I haven’t said anything about yet. One of them was a Scion concept car…

Tada!

That’s a really cleanly finished car! Really cool!

While I was away visiting Northern Japan, at the SEMA Show there was a matte black LFA!!

I think everyone already knows that the 500-vehicle limited edition LFA will go on sale next year.

The LFA’s body colors will have 10 standard variations. There will also be 20 special colors for a total of 30, and this matte black is one of those special colors.

However! Cars painted with these special colors won’t be coming out of the factory until 2012!? They’re sure showing off early, aren’t they?

And if they’re going to have a lottery here in Japan just to decide who will be able to order the LFA…. what about the Sports version which rumor has it they’re going to release 2 years down the line….??? Where can people buy that, I wonder???

So it’s time to kick of our Best of SEMA awards, and I thought I’d start with muscle. There were a ton of cool muscle cars at SEMA this year, so it was difficult to narrow it down to just five, but here goes. For your consideration, the Mustang RTR-C, the Tjin Edition Camaro, the Super Cuda, the Ring Brothers Fairlane and the Tom Nelson Camaro.

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I’m still coming off my experience at the SEMA show held about a week ago in Las Vegas. I have been tasked with coming up with the five best off road vehicles at the show. Well, a lot of attendees will choose a high riding pickup truck, but they are virtually useless off road because the axles could not articulate enough. Inside the main halls of the show, there were a lot of jeeps and other vehicles that were on display, and it was very difficult to single them out for nomination. On that note, here are my five distinct off road nominations:

- The Awesome Ken Block Subaru WRX Tracked Vehicle
- This Outrageous Viper Powered Sand Buggy
- The Mickey Thompson Rock Crawler with Wildwood Brake System on the axle.
- The ICON CJ3B
- The TAC-V JAMMA

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Right before I headed home from the show, I got a chance to talk to Myles Kovacs, the President of DUB, about the cars in his booth and some of the latest trends in the wheel industry. The sun was bright, so shooting the bling was kind of tough, but overall I think this clip came out pretty well. Check it out and let me know what you think. Big shout out to my buddy Max for stitching it all together!

[streetfire id=2857e833-cf0c-4a37-ba9f-9cc400caee9c w=428 h=352]

I somehow forgot about this picture in my post yesterday!

Black Doraemon!?

This picture from the show really caught my interest.

Ah, motorsports–it’s so much more than racing these days. The motorsports contingent is always huge at SEMA, and it’s one of those categories that can literally go from A to Z: there are so many variations on automotive competition that there’s no way you can expect to capture a representative cross-section. That’s okay–it just allows us to focus on what we find cool, with shameless subjectivity. In the interests of inclusiveness, we’ve tried to hit as many of the hottest motorsports series as our five entries will allow. NASCAR is represented by the new Nationwide Series Mustang, running Ford’s all-new Roush Yates FR9. Then there’s the 2010 Camaro’s debut entry in Formula Drift, which will definitely be on our radar in the coming season. Chris Rado’s insane Time Attack Scion carries the torch for that genre. SCCA is represented, albeit in vintage form, by Bob Boileau’s multiple-championship-winning Civic. And the Traxxas short-course race truck rounds out the motorsports fleet for off-road racing. Um, yeah, we totally skipped NHRA. And a bunch of other stuff. Oh well, time to hit the polls!

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Need I say more?…

Probably one of the most talked about cars of SEMA was this all carbon Zonda R…

Ridiculous…

370Z sitting in the Falken booth…

…along with this Porsche…

Alot of people are iffy on the new Porsche Panama but I really like it. Sure the idea of a 4-door Porsche seems a little weird but hey, can’t blame them for trying. I think it’s executed really well….I’d rock it, especially on some HREs…hah…but then again I’ll never own one, so wishful thinking…

After we finished up at the wheel section, we headed back outside to look at the cars out there before taking off…

Jimmy’s Previa of course…

Another shot of his homie’s coupe…

A couple of S2000s…

White guy picking his nose…

This G37 belongs to JR from High End/Auto Concept. He passed away a couple months ago and this is the first time his car has been out since, especially with the new paint. Such a shame that a great car builder and human being had to go before his time…His car as well as his memory will be immortalized in the new Gran Turismo game so look out for that….RIP…

The graphics for this car was actually designed by someone in Forza 2….the owner held a contest to determine the final design for his car on the Forza forums and in-game copies of the car was even distributed to gamers all over the world…pretty cool stuff…

Those three guys are probably staring at it thinking, “what the fuck is happening right here?”…haha…

Airbrushed vent on the fender…interesting…

Kia Euro Civic Type R, haha…

C6 Corvette GTR…

My boy Billy’s supercharged M3…

Ronzilla’s bB…

Suzuki Kizashi?…Imagine if you owned one of these things. Someone would ask you “what kinda car you drive?” and you say…”I drive a Kizashi”…hmm…not a good look. Car is pretty cool looking though, name…eh, sounds like a name for a character from Killer Instinct, haha…

I’m trying some new effects with photography…it’s called “put as many huge gigantic shadows as possible in ur pictures and even get a shadow of yourself in the car that you’re taking a picture of”….

That’s all for today…might switch it up tomorrow and take a break from SEMA stuff and put up some other shit, just to switch it up you know…we’ll see…

]]> http://neo1984.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/winter-car/ Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:01:29 +0000 neo http://neo1984.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/winter-car/ http://cyantificdsgn.wordpress.com/?p=172 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:35:00 +0000 cyntfcdsgn http://cyantificdsgn.wordpress.com/?p=172

Large panels for SEMA show 2007

While I might be using the term sport compact a little loosely here, I thought all these cars were wicked, so I was able justify shoehorning them into this category. Sue me. Anyway, I’m a sucker for an old-school VW, so I loved Paul Newman’s 351-powered Beetle, and I was really impressed with Rhys Millen Racing’s mid-engine Genesis Coupe, the Fiesta—stock, but awesome—in the Ford booth, the ferocious Fiat 500 and the Scion xB that won the Tuner Challenge. Vote for your favorite below!

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