Topic - Jalopnik

This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important? 1st Gear: The Hong Kong Police Will Roll On Electric Motorcycles I don't remember ever seeing an episode of CHiPS where Ponch and John plugged their bikes into a wall, but there are many obvious advantages to having an EV bike, which Zer...

The most underpowered cars aren't just the ones with tiny horsepower figures, but the cars with minuscule engines and tons of weight. Jalopnik readers know the most woefully tubby cars you can buy. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! As you would expect, many cars on this list are from developing Asian m...

This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important? 1st Gear: NHTSA Looking At Auto-Braking Feature The National Highway Traffic Administration's David Strickland told a Congressional panel yesterday that they were considering a mandate that would require automakers to put auto-braking sy...

The U.S government's green car program has been under scrutiny with the recent failure of two of the companies that received the loan, including coverage of a $675 million lawsuit by an inventor claiming he was denied funding for his inflatable electric car company because of politics. What hasn't gotten much scrutiny is the unsuccessful serial inventor behind the lawsuit. Pretend you’re the U.S. Department of Energy for a moment. Your job is to hand out billions in taxpayer-funded loans to c...

Today is the 40th anniversary of the launch of America's first space station, Skylab. Skylab wasn't the first space station ever (that honor goes to the Soviet's Salyut 1), but like many American cars of that same era, it was huge and comfortable in a way not seen since. Skylab really was impressively sized; sure, many space stations since Skylab, like Mir or the ISS, have grown much bigger than Skylab, but those are assemblages of modules. Skylab was one massive unit, made from the upper sta...

Nic Cage didn't earn his reputation as "America's sweetheart" for no reason. No sir. The man acted in National Treasure, Gone In 60 Seconds, Ghost Rider, and many other high caliber films. But now he takes on his greatest acting challenge: An ad for the BAIC Senova D-Series. And he nails it! The ad is set on a race track in China. Cage, sans helmet, is on track when a character catches up to him from behind. That's when Cage's Gone In 60 Seconds instincts kick in. A number of synchronized stu...

When you get into a car, do you like to touch buttons, eat, chat, drink, and smoke? Jalopnik readers want you the hell out of their cars. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! What's the most annoying thing people can do in the passenger seat of my car? I certainly know the answer. Sitting a dog there is n...

We've all got favorite cars. One of those cars exists in our minds as a hypothetical über-favorite car, one built from all the best traits of every year our favorite car was made. For most of us, this remains a drool-producing daydream, but not for the people at Singer. They're actually building these no-longer-imaginary cars. For Singer (especially its founder ex-Catherine Wheel frontman Rob Dickinson) that car is the Porsche 911. And while Singer doesn't build 911s — I had to sign a multi-p...

New cars are confusing. With all the computers, sensors, and gadgets, it may seem like there's some sort of magical witchcraft and wizardry taking place under the hood. We're here to show you how modern automotive computer control systems work but today we're going to start with some old tech: The carburetor. Okay, so almost no new cars use carburetors. Still, it's important to understand how engines got to where they are today. It all began with the good ol' carb. For a lot of you this is re...

Japanese softcore porn with occasional racing, simulators giving you the opportunity the drive the slowest vehicles on the planet, or a T-Rex trying to stop your nitro-powered Holden? These are the weirdest car video games Jalopnik readers know. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! We can't play with Forz...

Who is your favorite Formula One driver? Wait, what's that? You say you don't have one? Poppy cock good sir, poppy cock. You certainly do, and his name is Kimi Raikkonen. Let me tell you why you love him. What's his name again? Kimi Raikkonen. But I thought Kimi was a girls name. Did he have a sex change? No, he's from Finland. They have fun names there, like Mika Hakkinen. Oh, sure, you just keep on saying that. So what do I like about him? Kimi had just 23 car races to his name when Peter S...

First off, I want it to be known that I'm not much of a liar. But I do enjoy a good hoax every now and then, but now it's time to come clean: the video game Ulak-Tartysh, based on the Kyrgyzstani sport (sometimes called Buzkashi), that was made behind the Iron Curtain in 1983, is an incredibly detailed fake of my own creation. Let me back up a bit and explain exactly what I'm talking about: Ulak-Tartysh is a video game made in 1983, in the Kyrgyz city of Mailuu-Suu. It represents the sport of...

You can make a car go faster by tuning its engine, or you can replace its little powerplant with something bigger. I mean really big. That's building a hot rod, and Jalopnik readers have their own favorites. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! A hot rod doesn't just mean a '32 Ford with a Chevy small blo...

This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important? 1st Gear: Consumer Reports Lavishes Praise On Tesla Praise does not come easy from Consumer Reports, just ask Fisker… or I guess you can't because they had to fire all of their PR staff. So it can be taken with very little salt when they...

Surviving the apocalypse could come down to a single car chase, or a long war with mutant bikers. Sam Sheridan spent three years training for armageddon for his book Disaster Diaries: How I learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Apocalypse and explains how he learned to prepare with help from Hollywood's stunt drivers. *** I'd learned how to steal cars, but to survive I’d better learn a little more about driving them, which is why I was on my way to the Rick Seaman Stunt Driving School, aka th...

Do you know how your car works? I feel like I have a strong understanding but there's always more to learn. Here are ten great GIFs found by Jalopnik readers the explain the marvels of the modern automobile. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! Diesels didn't make this cut, but if you really want to know ...

I've seen dozens of videos where a guy puts his mom in the passenger seat of his fast car and then scares her with it. Finally, somebody made a video where mom drives the car and scares the crap out of her son. Watching this mom run out all 900 horses on the highway feels like order being restored to the universe. That and it's nice to see she drives stick better than most of my friends. (Hat tip to Coty!)

Time-rending wormholes are a constant danger we all face. At any moment, we could all be sucked into a rift in the space-time continuum, and emerge anywhere. Even behind the wheel of a Holden whizzing down a crowded Australian highway in the 1970s. That's why you need to watch these videos to be prepared. These eight videos seem to be from a seven-part series (I know, I know) called Skills Of Defensive Driving, produced by the Australian Department of Transportation, and, if nothing else, it'...

Why do so many automotive terms sound so dirty? Is it because we give 16-year-olds a license? Are the British to blame? Or maybe it's just because the internal combustion engine works in a very suggestive way. Whatever the cause, Jalopnik readers have dirty minds, which is reflected on today's list. There are actually too many terms to fit onto one list, so feel free to add your own below in Kinja. You can also add the word "anal" to any car name and make a dirty joke, but we stayed away from...

This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important? 1st Gear: I Learned It By Watching You! A study from the University of Michigan found that 90% of drivers admitted to using a technology-based distraction like a cell phone in front of their kids in the past, reports David Shepardson. Wa...

It's a strange feeling when you kind of agree with something that Charles Manson did. It's not a good feeling. But I just learned that Charles Manson's insane "Helter Skelter" global race war fever dream used battalions of VW and Porsche-based dune buggies as key components, and I gotta say, at least in this one detail, it makes sense. I had no idea about this whole dune buggy part of the Manson story until my friend T.Mike sent me a link to a reddit TIL (Today I Learned) that talked about th...

There's nothing more comfortable than piling into a rolling barcalounger on wheels and letting the world pass by your window at 70 miles an hour. Jalopnik readers know the most comfortable cars of all, fit for your smooth sailing fantasies. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! This list is so packed with ...

This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important? 1st Gear: Mark Reuss Says Chevy Needs A Cheap RWD Car See, I told you this Mark Reuss was good people. The current head of GM North America told the folks at Automotive News that "a really nice, light, rear-drive car that's inexpensive —...

"I sure do love it when YouTube videos have music that drowns out the sound of the Ferraris and Lamborghinis," said no one ever. And I do mean ever. I can't tell you how many videos we get on a daily basis that are ruined by horrible music. Maybe I'm completely out of line here, but when I'm on YouTube and I'm watching some Italian exotic get whipped around a track, I want to be able to hear the engine. Same with a rally car eating some gravel for breakfast or an American muscle car having so...

When most people think of New Zealand, they think mountains and hobbits. If you don't count the hobbits though, all you're left with is mountains. And mountains mean one thing - fantastic roads. Red Bull driver Mike Whiddett set upon one of those with his custom quad-rotor (!!!) Mazda RX-7 that pumps out somewhere around 750 horsepower. Just remember - each rotor in a Wankel engine is approximately three cylinders, so it's got the equivalent of a V-12 under the hood, albeit a very compact one...

Tony Stark is a man of wealth and taste. He likes cars that are obscenely fast and ludicrously expensive, like the Audi R8 and the Saleen S7. But when he dons his Iron Man suit, cars get blown up. Specifically, his cars. And other people's cars. Also military equipment, aliens, and his enemies, but especially cars. Bruce Wayne has his Lamborghinis, that sexy MV Agusta in The Dark Knight and his various Bat-vehicles, but the case could easily be made that Tony Stark is the foremost car guy in ...

The airline industry has changed a lot since the glorious sixties and seventies, when luxury was not compromised by fuel economy and the need for extra seats. Still, Jalopnik readers know that if you got the dough, airlines can still put on a show. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! Before we start, let...

When you think Russian dash cams, you think of low flying fighter jets, random gunfire, and cows spilling out of trucks. We see so much of it that we think this is normal in Russia. But for all the weird, there is even more good that occurs. Here's a feel-good compilation to start your weekend. Sure, some of the stuff in this video is still crazy (Why is a small child just wandering in the middle of a busy road?!), but the cameras show off what a normal day is probably like in Russia. Men hel...

One of the great accomplishments of Nazi Germany's war machine was a jetpack that propelled their soldiers into the sky. It was a fantastical device whose story has been told many times on the web and it would be even more impressive if it weren't the propaganda of a Holocaust denier disguised as history. I recently wrote The Great American Jet Pack which chronicles the history of the “Individual Lift Device.” You know: The thing James Bond flew in the opening of Thunderball. As you might ima...

Most of us spend months, maybe years, of our lives behind the wheel of a car. In that time you see some pretty crazy shit. Jalopnik readers had a few ideas about what's not cool while driving. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! Unfortunately it's a jungle out there, and a steering wheel won't make peopl...

Occasionally, we get the go-ahead to do super-geeky articles that probably only reflect our own personal fetishes. I usually do weird Beetle variants, and today's no different. This one is particularly interesting, since it's one of the few cases of an out-of-production car being resurrected. Here's the story: Beetles had been built in Brazil for years, but, facing pressure from more modern designs, both VW's and competitors', production was halted of the original air-cooled Beetle (Fusca in ...

It is the duty of car enthusiasts to preach the gospel of rear wheel drive, but even Jalopnik readers know some front-drivers can be among the best-handling cars ever made. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! Now, we should say that we are judging these cars on their handling and restricting ourselves to...

Last night we saw a V8 Miata start itself, a home, and a man on fire. I got in touch with the "idiot kid" who did nearly everything wrong in the face of danger. This is why he tried to blow out an engine fire with his mouth, why he sprayed his engine with water, and just how badly he was burned. Shawn Prince is 23 years old and is building his first project car, a Miata with a 350 V8 under the hood which he's going to take drifting. Sounds like a great first build. Shawn tells me that "This i...

Thinking about space sex? Good luck! Washing your hands? Well, that won't be easy out there either. Space is a wonderfully scary place where everyday materials and the human body go through weird changes. The insight we've gained from Star Trek and Starship Troopers isn't exactly the full truth about space travel. Jalopnik readers know ten facts that are often stranger than fiction. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the p...

Selling cars is not easy, and while car makers usually turn to sex in order to convince us about their products, things get a bit out of hand sometimes. Jalopnik readers know ten especially offensive examples. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! Some of these ads were speculative, and were rejected by th...

Remember earlier this month when those adorable little kids in India adorably drove a Ferrari F430 around like it was a Power Wheels car? That video has apparently landed the kids' dad in jail. The Times of India reports that the video sparked "widespread outrage" in that country, prompting police in Kerala to arrest father Mohammed Nisham on Friday. The newspaper reports that Nisham's son, the one behind the wheel of the Ferrari, is just 9 years old. Nisham was charged with encouraging under...

Have you ever wanted a Ferrari LaFerrari, but decided not to simply because there was no matching wrist accoutrement? Worry no more, as this week Swiss watchmaker Hublot announced it was releasing a new watch to accompany the latest and uber-iest of all the uber-Ferraris. When the Ferrari LaFerrari came out, I thought it just wasn’t possible to create a more awkward name for something with gears in it. I mean, we know it’s a Ferrari, that’s why it’s called Ferrari. And “la,” well, that just m...

Kill Bill co-star David Carradine was a big car guy and requested Cadillac's Cien Concept for his eponymous character in Kill Bill. Quentin Tarantino isn't a car guy and he planned to use a silver Porsche for Bill's ride. Luckily for all of us, Carradine won. Tarantino writes his own material and has a pretty strong idea about the pictures he wants to make. But he also knows his crew, and for Kill Bill, he hired David Wasco as a production designer and his wife Sandy as set decorator. I know ...

People tell us cars are for driving on things like "roads" and "highways." Jalopnik readers know that cars are much better when they're driving through things, instead. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! This list, as you will soon see, is full of a lot of Hollywood magic, and there are some not-very-au...

Whether the cops in your town patrol in Crown Victorias, Ford Tauruses, Dodge Challengers or the occasional Lamborghini if you live in Dubai, make no mistake: the Seattle Police Department has them beat. The Associated Press recently highlighted the 1970 Plymouth Satellite sedan that is currently in use by the department. It's not just some random old car, either; this Plymouth was actually a Seattle-area police fleet car back in the 1970s that has since been restored. Today it's part of the ...

If you get on The Price Is Right, you don't want a dining set. You don't want a jacuzzi. You don't want to guess the price of popcorn for Plinko chips. You want A NEWWW CAAAARRRRRRR! Earlier today, one woman had a chance to win a Ferrari 458 Spyder. And she lost. Badly. The contestant, Therese, had to play Three Strikes to have a chance to get the 458 Spyder. They even had to add a sixth number to the board in order to accomodate the price of the Ferrari. Therese doesn't really know how much ...

This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important? 1st Gear: The Twizy Renault Sport F1 Concept Is So… French You last saw the Renault Twizy electric plaything in the hands of Chris Harris, but that golf kart has nothing on this hopped up version from Renault Sport (the same people behin...

If you've visited a right-leaning blog or received email from your conservative uncle recently, chances are good you've seen a photograph of a car with a "Coexist" bumper sticker that's alleged to be the car carjacked by one of the Boston Marathon bombers. It's not. And, even if it was, getting some kind of creepy glee from the sticker being on the car would make you a colossal dick. Let's tackle the facts first: Here's the picture being circulated on sites like the Daily Caller: That's the c...

These are the corners that put fear into drivers' eyes. These are Jalopnik readers' choices for the ten toughest turns in motorsports. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! We restricted ourselves to turns that are currently existing. If we didn't, you could expect to see the Masta Kink from the old Spa ci...

Minecraft has a dedicated, almost cult-like following in the video game world. Some players spend months building incredibly precise replicas of structures like the Millenium Falcon, Fallingwater, the Taj Mahal, and more. Now, one racing fan has built an exact replica of the Circuit de la Sarthe. And it is stunning. The goal of Minecraft, which I normally confuse with the very different Minesweeper, is to build yourself a shelter during the daylight hours. At night, monsters come out, so you ...

Tiff Needell is a man used to driving some very serious, very fast cars. It's amazing to watch him in action. But everyone's probably getting pretty sick of seeing him drive finely-tuned, expensive sports cars all the time, right? It's time he took something else on the track. Something that looks more like a washing machine. I was out at Willow Springs Raceway to watch him do what he usually does, this time in a very special 911 that 5th Gear was shooting and I'll be covering soon as well. T...

Putting a celebrity in your ad will make your car sell better, right? Jalopnik readers know ten ads that question that maxim. Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy! The goal of a car ad, we suppose, is to get you to remember the car. By that measure, all of these ads are unqualified successes. If the ad is ...

An NHRA drag race in North Carolina on Saturday gave fans a little more than they bargained for when pieces of a Funny Car's body flew off during a run and landed in the stands. Amazingly, no one seems to have been seriously hurt. USA Today has the scoop on the incident and they report that during the final qualifying session at the zMax Dragway, the engine in Robert Hight's car exploded and sent pieces of the body flying into the east stands. Hight was unhurt. The pieces landed on several fa...