The graphics in this video are simply breathtaking. It’s a tribute to the new Ferrari 458 Italia made by the guys of Gran Tourismo. Parts of it if you were not looking closely you’d swear that it was actual video footage. Make sure to watch it in HD and full screen:
Can’t wait to see what “Gran Tourismo 10″ might be like in 10 or so years time. They’ll probably be beaming it into our heads in a virtual reality that will be indistinguishable from real life! Fingers crossed anyway..
The Stig. Our favourite make believe person next to Santa. He’s a better driver than God, and he has never, ever, crashed a car. Well… Apart from the Reliant Robin… And Koenigsegg…
Everyone loves the introductions from the Top Gear presenters – so here is a bunch of them:
Some say he can play guitar with the clutch…and his carbon fibre beard is chizelled in the most streamlined way…
Some say that all his pot plants are called steve.. and that he has a life size tattoo of his face.. on his face..
Some say, he’s actually dead… But the Grim reaper, is too scared to tell him…
Some say He’s contracted every STD known to man, and that he has inflatable breasts to get him out of speeding tickets. All we know.. is
Some say he nighted the queen….and that he saved the Queen from God….
Some say that he can hypnotise sheep, and that if he could be bothered he could swim the Atlantic ocean – underwater.
Some say, that he is one of the protons in the Large Hadron Collider, AND that he creates miniature black holes every time he sneezes.
Some say, that he once co-presented a brazillian show about blimp disasters, and that once, he actually punched God.
Wow, just listen to the sounds of this thing!
Full info here: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/10/13/2012-lexus-lfa-review/
I was just on a weekend away down south, and here are a few photos I took:
On this tiny little dirt road, apparently our often overprotective government, think its perfectly ok to do up to 80kph while driving on it. I’m a pretty quick driver but I don’t think I would do 80kph on this road. After this straight it gets pretty twisty and downhill – I drove down it at probaly not more than 30kph or so. Doing much more would be a but silly, and that says a lot coming from me! ;)
However, this photo taken above, on the same day, shows a very wide, smooth, straight, 2 lane dual carriageway – which apparently they think its unsafe to drive more than 60kph – 20kph slower than the one vehicle wide dirt road.
Now yes, they are temporary signs – but regardless - it’s ridiculous - how in the world do they expect us to take them seriously? Where is the sense in this? For a considerable amount of time there were parts of the M50 where they set a speed limit of 60kph – 99% of people completely ignored it and went 100kph or so anyway. Completely defeats the purpose really. Why can’t we have some sense applied to the roads in this country?
Chrome seems to be all the rage these days. I remember seeing a car like many of the ones above, and apparently it was actually silver plated. Ridiculous. Now you can get the same effect for a tiny fraction of the price. Many of these cars are actually covered ina reflective vinyl substance, like a giant sticker, but it looks amazing and actually lasts too. Only costs 1-2k too!
I just did my motorbike test last week. It was stressing me out for a good few days before; I was worried I was not prepared, so I made sure to cram and practice as much as I could – and it paid off as I passed with flying colours :-D
I hunted down as much info as possible by asking friends for advice and searching all the forums, which really helped me a lot. In the hope of helping others too – I thought I’d write all my tips and advice down in a blog post – if you have your test coming up – study and know this, practice, and you’ll be fine.
General Stuff:
Lessons – Get them – no matter how good a rider you think you are, get a pre-test at least. There are lots of little things you might not think of that you can fail for easily. Definitely get a pre-test at a minimum, but do it early, weeks before your date. Practice is key – In the few days up to the test, whenever you are on your bike, ride like it was your test, do not be lazy. It’s very hard to just “Switch it on” for the test and start doing everything perfect. Sometimes you do know exactly what to do, but you can just make mistakes and forget stuff. Try talking to yourself and narrating your actions – it actually works!
Wear all your gear, boots trousers, Yellow reflective jacket with L plates -and make sure it’s not brand new looking, dirty it up a bit. Park your bike in backwards so you can drive straight out and not have to reverse. Know the road signs, especially Clearway, Bus lane, Contra flow bus lane, pedestrian zone etc. Look the part and answer questions confidentially without rambling, and you are already off to a good start.
He’s going to ask you all about your bike, how to check oil, brake pads, adjusting chain tension etc – know all this inside out. When he asks you to get on your bike, put your right hand on the bar and hold the brake before swinging your leg over.
When out on the road – be confident. Don’t drive stupidly slow and carefully – he will fail you. Drive normally but just drive as near to the speed limit as possible at all times. Driving too slow is one of the main reasons for failure. Don’t hold up traffic. If in a 50kph zone, you can get away with doing a 33/34kph a few times – just don’t do it consistently.
Don’t worry if you make a mistake – you can get away with a few and still pass- but you don’t know, he might not have even seen it! Don’t give up, give it your best at all times and relax…
Exaggerate your observations – move your head, not just your eyes – if he can’t see you looking – you did not look – so make sure he sees you. Indicate early and manoeuvre – but not too early. Look into approaching junctions early.
Check mirrors every 20 seconds or so. Don’t look at one mirror and then the other immediately, look straight ahead for a second or two in-between. Check your mirrors every time before you slow down, or even come off the throttle.
Look out for stop signs – made sure to put your foot down at/before sign – regardless if there is not traffic.
Keep elbows down especially on lifesavers – if your arms are straight when you look over your shoulder, your bike will turn slightly when you do a lifesaver – this can send a false indication to the driver behind you.
U turn: Mirror and look behind you, but keep your hands on the handlebars, do not take your hand off to look around. Don’t drive too far forward before turning, be confident. Turn your head all the way around and look back up the road, do Not look at the opposite curb. Lean into it, drag back brake, feather throttle if needed. Don’t kit the curb whatever you do, you won’t fail if you put a foot down. He may ask you to do it again. Don’t forget to mirror, indicate, lifesaver and pull in on the other side. Practice these a lot.
This is just brilliant… A guy from a car valeting company was bringing this Ferrari back to Des Cullen’s after its wash job. The car was in sport mode, it has a flappy paddle gearbox, and the traction control was turned off. A couple of girls walked by and he decided to show off and revved the engine… But when it hit 4000rpm and the launch control kicked in and sling shot him across the road – head first into a Peugeot 307!!! The worst thing is – its not insured because he wasn’t supposed to take it out of the valeting premises! It was up on carzone to be sold at 110k – HATE THAT!!!!
Taxi men in this country get a pretty bad rap. There is never a shortage of people complaining about them on the various radio stations, or on one of the many message boards in Ireland. Sometimes I think a bad reputation can hang around for an unfair amount of time, and I think they suffer from this because of years past. I vividly remember the countless hours I have spent trawling the streets of Dublin in the small hours of a Friday or Saturday night waiting for a taxi. Back then the numbers were small in comparison to today and getting one was next to impossible unless you walked far out of the city – or you were just lucky.
Thankfully today it is different and there are many more taxi’s on the roads, so it is not so much of a problem. Actually the tides have turned now and it’s the drivers themselves that do the most amount of complaining about not being able to make a decent living. It’s called a free market and competition lads, deal with it.
Anyway I could go on and reinforce many other people opinions about why they have a bad reputation, but I’m not – I’m just going to talk about the one that pisses me off most: their frankly appalling standard of driving.
Now please let me state that I may be making sweeping statement here, but I am not trying to slander every single driver. There absolutely are some very good drivers out there, but unfortunately they are by far the minority. I do a fair bit of driving on the roads of Dublin in both and car and on a Motorbike, and it really amazes me how when I see some bad driving on the roads, a massively disproportionate amount of time it is a taxi driver.
Honestly I am just amazed at how these people’s actual profession is Driving, yet they seem to be worse than most of the rest of the people on the roads – which really isn’t saying much to begin with. Taxi’s seem to think they have their own set of rules different from everyone else, and make no apologies for it.
What i see most is the following:
I think there should be several people who’s job it is to ride in taxi’s and mark their driving ability. If they are not diring properly their permit should be suspended until they get lessons.
The trends of colours is a funny thing. We are all fairly aware of how different colours are more/less popular in the world of fashion, one season its hot and next season its not, not many other areas are quite as volatile. Cars are obviously an area where we all have a preference and when buying a car, one of the major key decisions we will make is on the colour.
It’s a personal choice and psychologists will say they can tell a lot about you by the car I drive. I think my current car; a Milano Red Civic Type R probably describes my personality quite well – for the moment anyway.
Obviously, some cars look better in some colours than others. Many supercars some in wild variants of orange, yellow and green, the likes that would never be seen on family saloons. Jeremy Clarkson recently slagged off BMW because in their new range of X5′s you have an incredibly limited choice of dark greys and blues – and nothing else. Boooooorrrrrrring!
However, the one thing I have noticed recently is how pretty much all the major manufacturers, are now touting while as the new ‘cool colour’… I have to say that in this instance anyway, I have fallen to the feet of the marketers and jumped on the bandwagon with full force. A couple of years ago I would not have driven a while car if you gave it to me for free. I really thought it was a colour that just should not be used for cars at all. OK if you live in Audi Arabia and having a while car will mean its 5 degrees cooler when you get into it in the morning, that s probably a good enough reason, but apart from that – no thanks.
Now however, I have done a total 360, and now I have to say I absolutely love the colour white. As in the photo above, for some reason I just white has taken on a new persona, maybe something to do with a minimalistic and simplistic style. Its just cool. Continue reading
Diesel is no longer just a fuel to power trucks and farm machinery. In a pretty short space of time they are now a perfectly respectable alternative in even performance cars. Audi won the 24 Hour Le Mans race in a Diesel in 2006, and they have just announced that their flagship supercar the Audi R8 – will soon be released with a 5 Litre, 600BHP Diesel Engine!
I always loved the VW ad for “Don’t forget it’s a Diesel“:
