A new feature on IEDEI, i’m just gonna pick a random year and find different cars from different marques—to compare how differently companies were moving with their directions…many of these were designs these brands had JUST introduced. From the ugly Alfa Romeo Giulia to the progressive BMW E12 and Saab 99 to the bizarrely futuristic NSU Ro80—-1972 was full of ‘interesting’ european sedans.
All i can say is that I was blown away. Where to begin? Should i start with my driving of an R8 V10 Spyder around? Or that I was in the Audi Sport Team Joest pits for 2 R18 pit stops? Or that I was in heaven sitting at the track side at night watching some of the greatest race cars in the world go thundering just feet away from me? Or that I met some of my favourite drivers? I had a total blast.
More to come about the event, with photos….later this week. I have so many photos to rummage through.
Oh, and the R18 TDI is even cooler up close!
(picture from the Audi hospitality “chalet” where I had access to, right across from the Porsche base)
Tesla Motorshas never been a company which has been able to back up their rhetoric with a product as advertised, market or sell anything other than a rebodied Lotus Elise with a bunch of batteries in it, OR bring anything to the market as they’ve promised in the past. Instead, they have sucked money out of the US Government, Toyota, and floating a stock IPO. What’s the result? Well the US Government had given them $465m in financial grants, and they have produced 1000 jobs. really? Where did that money go?
Word to Tesla—-if you’re going to pull a scam, don’t get the government involved—–because YOU are gonna get burned in the end. The public has their eye on you, and the image of Tesla Motors ain’t so good right now. I’m not sure what kind of dream land the people in this company think they’re in, however in my opinion “all hype and dead products” companies like Tesla should be left out to dry.
Here’s to the US government NOT granting you more money, as you are asking. Maybe they’ll get smart and fund a company that doesn’t talk so much smack, and actually produces something worthwhile.
To Tesla? If you convince me that you have a product worth developing and selling, i might retract these opinions; but as of right now I have no reason to believe any of this is worth taxpayer money. Everything i’ve seen by Tesla looks like a business pitch, an opportunistic one at that.
The race is this Saturday—-in Atlanta, Georgia, and IEDEI-Audiphile will be there in full force with the Audi corral in the hospitality suite starting from Friday! This is my first attending of an endurance race, and i’m damn excited to see my favourite race car (Audi R18 TDI) battle it out with Peugeot! Expect plenty and lots of pics on Audiphile and here on IEDEI.
By now you’ve probably heard all sorts of ‘hype’ surrounding the release of “DRIVE” to the cinemas. Besides the over-ambitious title, and the blatant Steve McQueen-like imitations of Ryan Gosling in the photos and trailers leading up to the release of the film—–I feel it would be appropriate for a petrolhead perspective on the film.
For the first 15 minutes of this film, I sat in my seat in awe—–thinking that this may join the ranks of one of the greatest car films/films ever made. My mind slowly changed over the course of the next 1 hour and 25 minutes as “Drive” entertained the hell out of me, but fell into the trap of uber-violence, as american films generally tend to do. That being said, the classic Steve McQueen-isms and the slightly over-acted role of Ryan Gosling actually work pretty damn well. The degree of straight up violence in this film is pretty heavy, so don’t think that watching a V8 being dismantled is what’s around the corner. You are in for some gore.
From the perspective of actual driving and automobile references in the film—-i think there are many references to the love of actually driving, rather than the love of automobiles. The Dodge Charger Chrysler 300c (thanks Anon) vs. Ford Mustang chase in here, which only lasts a minute or so—-is a good one, but a blatant tribute to one of the most famous car scenes ever put onto film from “Bullitt”. Other than that, there are some decent car scenes, but i am pleased they were not drenched in absurd special effects like other hollywood car films tend to be. The guy loves to drive though, and he’s got perforated driving gloves to back it up! Those driving gloves (see picture) are a nice touch. I’m not sure why they gave him an old grey Chevy Malibu to drive in the rest of the film, however the car is obviously ‘modded’ (interior and exterior).
All in all, this film is the perfect combination of “Bullitt”, “Taxi Driver” and the utterly fantastic TV series “Dexter”. It is violent, interesting, and very well made. The soundtrack is cool, the cinematography is cool, and the acting is good. I enjoyed the film very much, although I think it could have been EVEN better with a bit less violence, and some better cars.
I knew that the new MB CLS was meant to be one of the first cars to be sold with full LED headlights along with the C7 Audi A6—- however the lights in full led setup looks pretty striking in real life.
I was stuck in traffic today (as i generally am), and found it quite amusing that there is a common similarity between the shapes of taillights of the ‘new’ generation BMW 7-series and the Chevy Cruze!
I’m still not sure what to think of vinyl wraps people are doing on cars—–mainly because the ‘matte’ look is such a played out, cliche look these days—–and although i was fascinated by it a couple of years ago, now i generally see either cheesy supercars with it OR rubbish 1990s japanese cars whose owners were too cheap to get a paint job, so they used grille paint to create it!
But either way I find it an interesting solution. I have never really encountered a ‘wrapped’ car in person close enough to inspect, but i’d be interested to watch them wrap a car to see how they do it. Also what happens if a car gets hit? does the wrap rip up/shred a bit and expose the original car underneath?
I started a new job towards the end of last week—-and my time has been quite consumed over the past week. Apologies for little to no IEDEI updates. To make it up to you, here is a megapost with plenty of things which have been consuming my daydreams all week.
I’ve always hugely admired the (rare) Lancia 2000 Coupes (and here)…The 70s were full of some decent coupes….but none arguably nicer than the superbly underrated Lancia 2000 HF Coupe——hell i think this may be one of THE classiest and prettiest coupes made in the 70s. Sure it was an ‘evolved’ Flavia, and it wasn’t accompanied by the rally pedigree of its smaller Fulvia HF counterpart—-but as a cruiser with elegance, i’d choose this over most everything else from that era.
As you probably realise, my ‘holy grail’ dream car (in ANY price range) is the Alpine-Renault A110 1600s. This has been the case for approximately the last 5-6 years. However in that 5-6 years I have watched the selling price of the A110 start to soar from about $40-$50k back then to ranging from $80k to well over $150k for excellent 1600s examples these days. I’ve been told the market for A110s really soared a couple of years ago when the Japanese started buying them up and taking them back to Japan. Sure there are cheaper versions like the 1300s which can be had for less, and the 1100s which can be had for even less—-but it is getting harder and harder to find good A110s on sale, and i’m just hoping that by the time i get in the market for one (i hope this DOES happen), that prices haven’t soared to even more rocketing avenues. The ‘other market’ versions of the A110 such as the mexican-built Dinalpines have also kept the market value down, as many have been unearthed and sold outside of Mexico in recent years—-adding to the total # of A110s in circulation.
My mostly ignorant, non-professional estimate is that the prices have now ‘capped’ for the A110 for the time being. I don’t think “Alpine-Renault” rings a bell with the collector market the way “Ferrari” or “Maserati” or “Porsche” does, so i really can’t see these moving too much further upmarket. Here’s hoping they stay in this range, or even start falling a bit when the nostalgic rally fan from the 60s starts giving up their cars.
my friend Bradley over at Automobiliac recently went to the Pebble Beach Concours and Monterey Historic races—-and took some great livery-only photographs.
click on the ‘full gallery’ in his post to see all the pics:
IEDEI 
