We liked the idea of styling and building our own car and this guy from Lithuania has done just that. While we would probably start with a Datsun 120Y and turn it into something that looked like a Mercedes CL, this guy has taken a perfectly good CL and turned it into a cross between a Ferarri and a Ssang Yong. We do give the guy credit for the amount of painstaking work this mod must of taken to achieve. Basically he has built a new body around the Benz with expanding foam held in place by cardboard. Once it set he has then finished off the styling with a lot of bog and filing. We really hate the grill and the bulberous wheel arches but then again we’d be happy with the untouched doner car, Mercedes Benz probably spent millions on styling the CL, why does a guy in a shed with a can of bog think he can do a better job. For the full gallery head over to englishrussia.com blog. (more…)
This weeks car ad is a funny one from Italian car manufacturer Fiat for their supermini car the Palio. Apparently if you buy yourself one of these you will love it so much you will do anything to protect it. If you know what country this ad comes from drop us a note in the comment box as we love to know. The Palio has been produced since 1996 in various countries from South America to eastern Europe and Asia. (more…)
The Popemobile is the name given to the modified car used by the pope when he appears in parades. While the pope has used many modified cars for decades the name only come in to use around 1980 when Pope John Paul II started to use the converted Mercedes Benz G-Wagon. The G Class or G wagon is a Mercedes Benz 4WD that has been in production since 1979. The G wagon is popular with armies around the world and is known for its strong go anywhere design. Pope John Paul II’s G wagon from 1981 is on display in the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart Germany. (more…)
Aristotle Onassis was well known as a flamboyant Greek shipping tycoon and being a shipping tycoon means you need a fairly good personal yacht. His yacht known as the Christina was a converted 1943 built navy frigate that he purchased for $34000, as it had become surplus after WW2. After spending $4 million on it, the boat has been visited by celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Eva Peron, John F Kennedy and Winston Churchill and was lavishly appointed with his bar even containing whale teeth footrests and whale foreskin leather seats. After his death the Yacht was given to the Greek government for use as a presidential yacht but later fell into a state of disrepair. Today the yacht has been refurbished as a luxury charter now known as the Christina O. So if you want to sit by the mosaic floor pool that rises at the push of a button to form a dance floor, start saving up as 1 day on the boat can set you back more than what some people earn in a year. (more…)
Our classic car ad of the week features one of the worlds worst cars, the Yugo. Produced since 1981 in Serbia by Zastava the car was imported into the US in 1985 and sold as the cheapest new car available. Based on the Fiat 128, a car that dates back to 1969, the Zastava was popular in eastern Europe where the choice of other cars on offer made the Zastava look like a good buy and economical motoring. By the time the car got to the US under the Yugo name, the unrefined and sluggish box was bought up by cheapskates who would of been better off finding a decent secondhand car. Not only did the car suffer from poor build quality and performance, the market of customer the car was aimed at were often too tight to service them properly making the cars mechanical woos worse. Sales in the US stopped around 1992 when UN sanctions against the former Yugoslavia stopped exports. NATO later bombed the factory that has since been rebuilt to churn out a face-lifted version of the car that is known today as the Zastava Koral. (more…)
Plenty of car companies have been known to buy back some of their historic models in order to preserve their history and display them in their museums. When Toyota tried to find their first car (the Toyota AA) they found there was none left possibly due to Japans love of crushing outdated cars for the latest model and the fact that only 1400 were build from 1936 till 1943. The next plan was to create a replica of the car but as a full set of plans were not available the replica was built from what plans could be found from over the models lifetime. Today the replica that was built for Toyotas 50th anniversary sits in Toyota’s automobile museum in Nagoya Japan. While the car may not be exactly like the one you could buy in the late 30’s to early 40’s it is pretty darn close to what the real thing would have looked like if there was still one around. (more…)
We found this story over at “The Telegraph” and we enjoyed it that much we thought we share the link with you. Long story short, UK motorist Ian Taylor came home and found his Ford Fiesta clamped by the authorities as it was hanging out his drive a bit. So he cut his car in half and invited the authorities to come and take the back half away as he quotes it was only the back half of the car that was parked illegally. Read the full story at telegraph.co.uk.
In 1948 Oldsmobile launched this classic series of commericals highlighting how simple it was to drive their new automatic car. How simple was it? Well it was that simple even a woman could drive. They don’t say this exactly but we all know what they were thinking. Take a look and enjoy a classic bit car advertising from a bygone era.
Want a hybrid car but don’t want to shell out for a Toyota Prius or similar? Well a company named Poulsen may have the answer for you with their diy kit that transforms any front wheel drive car into a hybrid vehicle. how it works is that two electric motors are attached to the back wheels that are connected to a range of batteries and a plug in charger in the boot. The idea is pretty simple when you think about it, just imagine you are going down a hill in a normal car, you can back off the accelerator and start free wheeling saving gas. These motors use the same idea except on level ground, so when you take the foot off the break in traffic the car will start moving forward without you using fuel. The only down side is it looks a bit hideous but at US$3300 it maybe a cheaper option than a brand new hybrid car. (more…)
Nothing sells products more than including a fluffy animal in your advertising campaign. Well Opel took a slightly different approch for their Astra GTC commercial. Watch the above video and enjoy. (more…)
