foto of the day.

1954 French Grand Prix in Reims.  The ‘aerodynamic’ return of the MB Silver Arrows!  The groundbreaking W196 R.

click foto two times to get hi(gher) resolution.

eBay eye: ‘71 Lancia Fulvia Zagato.

Definitely don’t see many of these on sale in the US market…and this one looks pretty great…if only I had some loot burning a whole in my pocket, i’d get in on one of my all-time favourite Lancias.

AUCTION —

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320445395824&viewitem=#v4-36

coolest Z ever.

So cool. Love it!

lots more fotos HERE: http://speedhunters.com/archive/2009/11/04/car-feature-gt-gt-that-240z.aspx

thanks to Colla Verglas for the heads up!

foto of the day.

one of those pesky BMW Art Cars.

click foto 2 times to get hi-res

video: Audi TT RS

New video, very cool.

foto of the day.

One of my favourite designs of the last 10 years…the Wiesmann GT. I wish they’d bring this beauty over to the US.

click two times on the foto to get hi-res

lamborghini + tag heuer = phone!

It’s always funny when Lamborghini gets involved with any project.  Now they’ve joined with TAG Heuer to make a cell phone.  Look at how thick it is, that’s because it has an acoustic chamber inside for better sound.  See that glass? It’s sapphire crystal as used in Tag watches, the housing is all titanium….they’re only making 630 of them, and i’m sure they’ll be quite expensive.  So save your pennies and make an iPhone user feel like a cheapass…

more information on the Tag Heuer site:

http://meridiist.tagheuer.com/EUR/index_main.php?cc=EUR&menu_target=

Toyota cars unsafe?

Is Toyota covering up some sort of a real unintended acceleration problem?  Could this be a re-hash of Audi in the 80s? Audi nearly went bust after this issue…could this mean that the Toyota empire is on the brink of getting into a ton of trouble? Guess we’ll have to wait to find out…

Here at IEDEI, we are just hoping that the Prius is the main car affected by this, and all the cars are collected and destroyed! ha!

Meanwhile, read this article at ABCNews

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyota-cover-runaway-car-concerns/story?id=9007163

Mini. Wash me.

Interesting art project involving Mini to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

Get more photos and information here —- http://www.washme.ch

my favourite out of the bunch

Porsche Boxster Spyder.

The latest Porsche invention, the Boxster Spyder.  Will be unveiled officially at the Los Angeles Auto Show.  The weight has been chopped down to 28xx pounds, but it has also lost a proper roof!  Check out the video under the foto.

foto of the day.

1973 Porsche 911 RSR

click foto 2 times to get hi-res.

IEDEI picks 5 future classic cars.

Everybody loves to speculate on which cars are gonna be “classics” in the future.  Who is gonna be at the 2045 Barrett-Jackson selling today’s easy-to-find car for $200,000?

Here are IEDEI’s picks from the year 2000 onwards

1. Mitsubishi Evo 9/Subaru WRX STI —- cheap to buy. cheap to run. quick to run.  have alot of character.  unique in their own weird way.  the ‘modern’, hi-tech muscle cars. very VERY difficult to find good original cars that were not riced up.

2. Pontiac GTO —- Sureshot classic. Didn’t sell well.  Lots of performance. Iconic name. Defunct brand and name.  Even I want one.

3. Audi TT MK1 —- car that changed automotive design.  iconic styling. offered supercar looks and feel for much much less money.  still looks just as striking as it did on launch.  rare in the usa.

4. Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky —- More underrated products from GM.  no one bought any. weren’t the greatest performers, but offered amazing looks for around $25k, which is impossible to beat.  Pontiac and Saturn will both be gone within the next year, and these are gonna be VERY desirable among the nostalgic GM fanatics.

5. BMW Z4 Coupe —- An underrated BMW? who would have thought, since the majority of BMWs are so overrated.  Rare. Misunderstood.  M version is even cooler.  People are gonna line up for these after they are long gone.  BMW had finally made a COOL coupe.

Silver Arrows: Auto Union video.

Hosted by Alain De Cadanet, a very cool look into Pre-WW2 Grand Prix race cars made by Auto Union.  Amazing footage in this video….

PART 1

PART 2

foto of the day.

some random DTM photo…..

click two times to get hi-res foto.

Genetics may be linked to poor driving skills

Very interesting research, and I definitely think it has a basis!

People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it – and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant.

“These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away,” said Dr. Steven Cramer, neurology associate professor and senior author of the study published recently in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

This gene variant limits the availability of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor during activity. BDNF keeps memory strong by supporting communication among brain cells and keeping them functioning optimally. When a person is engaged in a particular task, BDNF is secreted in the brain area connected with that activity to help the body respond

see here to read the rest of the report from the University of California-Irvine

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/uoc–bdm102809.php