Saying goodbye!

So, after some posts here on this blog, it's time to say goodbye, because it's the end of this project. The time the blogs have been going on has been an interesting period. I, for one, have never ever touched a blog, so to start like this was an experience. It wasn't always easy to come up with stuff to write, but I found something I could write about.

Well, you've probably got your total dosage of car information for the next 100 years, but for me I'm going to continue researching and continue to find out more about this passion. I don't want to work in the car industry for some reasons. Working with cars in Norway isn't as popular here as, for example, in the States. Most people who work with cars here work at dealerships or in tire shops or something. I, for one, don't want to stand in a workshop in a dealership changing oil and fixing dents in Fiestas my whole life, if I was to work with this, it would be at a special shop that specializes in something, fabrication for a turbo setup or working on high-performance race/drift cars. If I want to work with this, I would have to move to the US and I want to live in Norway, because when you get the chance to live here, take it. So that is why I'll keep cars as a hobby. 

So with that, I would like to round off this blog and hope you've enjoyed reading it and I'll leave you with a beautiful 1971 Nissan Skyline 2000 GT-R. 

- Cheers

The New Top Gear!

As you've probably heard, the British television program "Top Gear" was shut down mid-season earlier this year. This was because Jeremy Clarkson (former Top Gear presenter), had a "fracas" with one of the producers. This wasn't just an agressive push, it was a full on punch in the face. This happend after the three presenters (Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond) just got off a long flight and they were very drunk. Jeremy then allegedly landed a punch on one of the producers because there was no food when they arrived.

Many thought that this was just a minor bump in the road, since the series was only suspended for a couple of weeks, until they cancelled the whole show mid-season. Now, many thought that this was the end, maybe they'd do one or two of their "Clarkson, Hammond and May Live" shows and it was over. No, although they did their live shows, they were not so long ago bought by Amazon for £300 million! That's alot of money for three middle-aged men who long on about cars. Netflix and Amazon were the potential buyers, but Netflix pulled out of the deal because they said the group wasn't worth, so they were probably sold for a bit more than their worth.

Now then, it's just to wait and see if the new show will be any good. The show was rumored to be called "Gear Knobs", according to Jeremy Clarkson's Twitter, it is no longer the case. I really dont care what they name it, what matters is that we get the best car show in the world back on it's feet again.

Picture from Jeremy Clarkson's Twitter. The recording has already started and will most likely air on Amazon Prime in 2016, we can already see that they brought in the three hybrid cars Ferrari LaFerrari, Porsche 918 and McLaren P1. They struggled to have all of these cars at the track on the same time on Top Gear, so to see all of them so early is very good. 

Will this new megacar be able to hold up to it's older brother?

Earlier this year, early march to be exact, the annual Geneva Motor Show was held in Geneva, Switzerland. This is where the "big dogs" show off their new cars and concept cars. Manufacturers like Lamborghini, Ferrari, Mercedes and Koenigsegg are just some that you can find at the Geneva Motor Show each year.

The Aston Martin Vulcan at the Geneva Motor Show 2015

However, there is one car that I wanted to talk about today. This car has always been known as the fastest road car ever, although some have beaten the record later on in the years, but you have to consider that this car was set in production in 2005. The car I'm talking about is the Bugatti Veyron. With it's quad-turbo 8 litre 16-cylinder engine ranging from 1001 to 1200 horsepower. This powerhouse does 0-100 km/h in 2.3 seconds. Bugatti was to Volkswagen in 1998 right after the production of the Bugatti EB110 went out of production.

The Bugatti Veyron will always be remembered as one of the fastest cars on the planet

Well, I'm not here to talk about history. The reason I brought up Geneva Motor Show earlier in this post, was because this year Bugatti launched the last ever Bugatti Veyron, the Bugatti Veyron "La Finale" they called it, because Bugatti was originally French before it was bought by Volkswagen. This was of course sold to an Arabian oil shiek. This was the 450th Bugatti Veyron. But don't cry for long, since Bugatti is long into it's production on the successor. The Bugatti Chiron. This will feature the same W16 engine combined with hybrid technology, it's said it will have around 1500 horsepower! That will get you to the shops in ludacris speed.

This is the Bugatti Vision Gran Turisimo and was made for a video game. This is just a one-off for a "thing" for a Play Station video game that involves car manufacturers making one-off's for a video game.

We have no confirmation on how it will look, but it is rumoured to look like the Vision Gran Turisimo above, without all the fancy spoilers. It will go on sale around 2016/2017. 

Lamborghini Sarasota!

Last Christmas when we went to the US, we didn't just visit "regular" dealerships. We also visited Lamborghini Sarasota. This was one of the coolest experiences I've had in my life.

Lamborghini Huracan

We turned up to the dealership in a white rental minivan full of people and I was over my head with excitement. The first cars we saw was the once on the outside. I still can't understand how they just kept cars that were worth over four hundred thousand dollars outside. They were even dirty and some were even sold.

You can see in this picture that the car is very dirty. This is a Lamborghini Aventador which is worth new around $425 000!

We went around outside and looked at the cars there, but there weren't many there, so we went inside. There were many more supercars in there. Including Ferraris, Porsches and more Lamborghinis. Some were even gift wrapped, now that's what I call a Christmas present. 

We walked further in to the dealership and saw a Lamborghini Aventador Roadster (convertible). This was an expensive convertible. 

After a while glancing at the expensive Christmas presents, we walked to the back of the dealership. Here we saw a legendary Lamborghini Diablo SV. This was a very cool sight. 

A Trip to the US!

This Christmas, my family and I spent the holiday in the States, Florida to be exact. We have family down there so we visit them from time to time. Although the weather is nice and there’s a lot to see, there were a few specific things I looked forward to the most. That was the cars, in the US the cars are some much cheaper because they don’t have the taxes on them as they do in Norway. Florida is a good place for car spotting also, since there are many that bring their cars down to Florida for the holiday. 

Here are some of the cars that I photographed in different places: 

This thing is a Subaru BRZ. It is very popular now because of the low price and the pure driving pleasure you get for your money. It's based on the same concept as the MX-5, front engine, rear wheel drive, manual gearbox and affordable.

This, now this is something else. This is a BMW M5. It has a 4.4L Twin-Turbo V8 which produces 560 hp. This is an expensive car, even in the US.

Here I barely managed to snap a picture of a Chevrolet Corvette C7. This thing is one of America's greatest cars. It is affordable as well, for the American's that is.

Here's another angle of the car. This is from a show car that was placed inside Chevrolet's attraction: Test Track.

This is taken outside the BMW dealership in Sarasota, same place I took the white M5 picture. This is essentially the same car, but in my opinion, I think this looks heaps better with the blue paint and the black wheels.

When we exited the BMW dealership, we drove by a Lotus dealership with brand new Lotus Evora's on the outside. beautiful little cars. 

We then entered into the more luxurious part of the dealerships. This place sold Maserati's anbd Jaguars. What you see in this picture, is a Jaguar F-Type with one of the best sounding engines put in a car. If you want, here's a soundclip: https://youtu.be/f58d-ng8ow8?t=1m34s

These Maserati's were as common as Toyota's here in Norway, they were everywhere! Not quite my taste, but I'd gladly take one :)

One thing I'd like to point out is that the pictures from the BMW and Jaguar/Maserati dealerships where taken on a main road in Sarasota that had alot of dealerships. 

Dieselgate!

As you may have heard in the news, Volkswagen has "cheated" emission control in the US. I may be a little late to the party here, but I'm going to write about it anyway. 

So, what essentially happend, was that VW faked emission control on a majority of their cars delivered to the US to get away from the strict emission laws in the US. These weren't regular VW's, but diesels or TDI (Turbo Direct Injection), as their called. 

But how did they do it, you may ask. Well, it's kind of clever actually, (well, it's german engineers what did you expect), the car senses when it's on the road and when it's in emission control. When cars are emission tested, they are put on a dyno or a rolling road which messures the power output the vehicle puts to the ground. When they put the cars on the dyno, the car "de-tunes" it self down from about 140 hp to 115 hp, same with torque. This makes for lower CO2 emissions. 

Volkswagen Golf 2012

The reason VW did this, was to save from 5-10 billion US dollars. This wasn't the smartest move, since they now have to pay a 18 billion dollar fine to the US government. That is just the fine alone, think about how much it will cost to recall 11 MILLION cars!! That's one bill I'd want to stay out of. What VW has to do, is replace the catalytic converter in the car, which is made from zeolite. When this metal heats up, it releases more toxic gasses and is harmfull for the enviroment. What they will most likely do, is recall all the vehicles, and replace the catalytic converters with others made from Palladium. There isn't alot of this here on earth, but VW has already bought around 15 tonns of Palladium. These prices are going to go straight through the roof! 

When this scandal happened, The CEO of Volkswagen, stepped down from his position. To take his place was the CEO of Porsche. This isn't a bad thing since Porsche has done very well over the past years and if he passes that on to VW, it will not be so bad. 

Many have said the VW will go bankrupt, but having a 225 billion dollar revenue will hold up pretty nice. 

Source (for the catalytic converter part): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jQ3Swai4Ts

The story of the Mazda MX-5 and a look on the brand new one

You may not have heard to much about this car, but in the car world it's considered one of the automotive legends in history. It's the Mazda MX-5 (or Miata as it's called in the US). The reason it's so popular is because Mazda did everything right. Put a small and efficient engine in the front, rear wheel drive, a manual gearbox in the middle, low weight and 50:50 weight distribution. This recipe makes for a light, cheap and fun car, in which it is.

Nothing is perfect, so there has been some complaints about the MX-5's over the years. The main ones are it's underpowered and it's to "girly". The MX-5 has always been looked at as one the cars that your male hairdresser might be driving around in, that may occure because of the big, happy smile on the front, but that may have changed now. 

The new MX-5, (which is made in colaboration with Fiat), has a whole new look. It doesn't look like it's smiling anymore. It's not just the outside that has changed. The engine, the suspention and the whole drive train in modern technology. As always, you have two engine choises, in the new one, you have the option to choose a 1.5 liter four-cyliner engine producing 130 hp and 150 N/m of torque. You also have a 2.0 liter engine producing 160 HP and 200 N/m of torque, althought the 2 liter will most likely only be sold in the US. 

The Miata has always been a popular car because you get what you pay for and that doesn't often invold huge power and major suspention upgrades. Mazda has made a solution to this problem, sort of. They've made a "Mazda MX-5 RS" special version that features Bilstein shocks, various upgraded suspention parts and Recaro seats with a full Bose speaker system. This model will not feature power upgrades, but rather making it faster around the corners. The only down side to this is that it will not be sold outside of Japan. I, as a student, would never ever be able to afford something close to this car, but it's kind of sad that only one country gets special editions like this. 

DIY Sim Rig!

Last week I started a project I've been wanting to do for a long time. I've watched videos and done my research, but now it was time to build it. You might wonder what a "Sim Rig" is, well, that's not weird, because they aren't the most usual thing somebody talks about. It is essentially just a frame in which you can mount a racing wheel and pedals to and have a TV in the front and a seat in the back to kind of simulate a car. 

 So, I started with my dad's old office chair, (which was broken btw). I took the bottom-end off and did some minor modifications involving a hammer and some clever engineering...ish.

I then layed out all of my planks that my dad supplied me with. Him being a carpenter, his access to planks is not as limited as others. Then I started to arrange them. This was all I had to work with and some other small pieces I found laying around.

I then mocked up how I wanted it to turn out, and screwed it all together. I had a plan in my head before I started working on this, but that quickly changed because of the lack of materials, but I made it work just fine. 

Now we can see that this thing really starts to take shape. The long planks sticking up from the base are the ones I'm mounting the steering wheel on. And we can see in this image that i've figured out how to attach the back to the rest of the rig, with a little help from my dad this wasn't as hard. 

After some time of sanding and mocking up where everything was going, we were nearing the finish.

And then, by the end of the day I started to paint the rig. It only took 2 layers of some cheap black paint, which was nice. 

And voila, here it is in all of it's glory! Although this thing really fills up my room, I think it was worth it, because I'll be having a lot of fun in this thing. The seat isn't mounted directly to the base, it is just sat down on to small planks which makes it able to move back and fourth depending on your size. 

Here is another close up of the rig. And I would like to thank my dad for helping me with this fun little project, because without him it would have been much worse and probably alot more inconvenient. 

The whole thing was built in one day and it turned out better then I expected :)  

Autoslalom Part 2

Although many of the people with more "outstanding" cars than normal people come to race at "Autoslalom", some just came to watch and brought with them some interesting cars along the way.

The cars I have pictures of here, are cars that I photographed, but there were some others that I didn't get to take a picture of, such as a Ford Mustang GT and a Lancia Delta HF.

Firstly, here we have a Subaru Impreza WRX. The WRX's are most famous for their huge success in rally. Petter Solberg won the World Championship in Rally in a car like this. Fun fact, these models are often called "Blobeye", because of their "big" eyes. 

Next up, we've got the legendary Toyota Supra. If you take on look at the internet, this will come up all over. This is one of the 90's classics from Japan, along side cars like the Honda NSX, Mazda RX7 and the Nissan Skyline GT-R R34. Although this car may not look as aesthetically pleasing as a Ferrari, it will always appeal to true petrolheads. 

This car I don't know so much about, since every german car looks alike. The things I know about this is that it is a BMW 3-series. These, as most german cars, came with a huge number of engines to choose from. You could have a 1.6 Liter diesel engine that struggles it way uphill or a sinister 3.2 liter Inline-6 producing over 330 horsepower. This guy may not have the biggest engine, but he doesn't probably need it because he can only go about 50 without scraping his whole undercarrage. 

The classic Volvo P1800. This was the car that featured in the James Bond movie. I have very little knowledge of this car, mainly because when this car was build my dad wasn't even born yet. Still, a very sleek car. 

Autoslalom Part 1

This saturday, me and my dad went to another car event hosted by the same people who set up the rally in Larvik. Only this time, it was better. 

We went up there at 11:40 something and it had already started 11:30 and there were no bicyclists who could ruin this event, since it was on an old runway. Well, what this was, was an event where people raced their cars around cones and the goal was to be the fastest one. There were many interesting cars on the grid, such as Porsches, a lot of BMW's, and Miatas and so on and so forth. 

(95' Miata taking the corner like a boss)

There were two types of people who raced; people who went all out and put their car on the edge and people who just did it for the fun. One of the contestant who really impressed me, was someone who didn't get the best time, but put on a great show. He was a lithuanian man in a Honda S2000. He drifted every corned and still got a great time. 

(If you haven't got the fastest car, you might as well put on a show)

There were also some older cars there, including an older Porsche 911, an Alfa Romeo from the 60's, an old Ford Cortina and a Ford Escort RS2000. These didn't get the best time, but looked very good fighting their way around those cones. 

(Old Porsche 911 hurdling down the straight)

So all in all, I had a great saturday on Torp. The cars were cool, the people were nice and the weather wasn't warm. I would conclude that as a pretty perfect week-end :)

(Some cars weren't there to race, so to speak)

- Anders

Rally Weekend!!

This weekend, or this saturday, my dad and I went to Andebu (30 min North of Sandefjord) to look at the annual rally called "Larviksprinten", which means the Larvik sprint, I guess.
Well, the race was scheduled to start at 11:30am, but when we came up there, no cars were flying by, only people standing and talking to each other. We later spoke to one of the leaders there, and he said that the race was delayed until 02:30pm, because of a bicycle race on the same road.

We realized later, since it was a gloomy day, that it was going to rain, so we went home to pick up some raincoats and kill some time.

We came back a little over 02:30pm, and there was no cars there then either. We realized the place we wore, was the place where the cars started the race, so we got in the car and continued a little longer down the road, until we came to the finish line, where we got to see the last leg of the race.
There were some professional race cars there, but mostly "amateur" Volvo 240 and BMW's and they all made a significant sound.

All in all, it was a great saturday to spend outside. Instead of taking a nice stroll in the woods and listening to the birds, I was out listening to these I-4 Turbos whistling through the forest.


- Anders

Trying something new! [repost from lollikandersen.blog.com]

This Saturday, I did something a little terrifying. I tore the family car apart. Not the whole car, just the dash.

Ok, the story is that we have an ’07 Mazda 6 and it didn’t come with an AUX Jack from the factory. An AUX Jack makes you able to play music on almost any sound system, it’s just a 3,5 mm cable that you connect to the back of a stereo system and connect your phone to. Well, I had done some research on this and found out that our car had a connector on the back of the radio were you could plug in a 3,5 mm AUX jack. So, about 3 weeks ago, I went on eBay and purchased a simple, little thing that cost me $10. It had a 16-pin connector on one end, and a 3,5 mm AUX jack on the other. It arrived in the mail this saturday, 8/30-15. So, I decided that I’d install it. I first started by taking the cupholder out and I moved forward towards the shifter. I took the shifter off and underneat the plastic covers sat 2 screws, I removed them, because I wanted to get the whole dash assembly out. I then proceeded to remove the glove box and unscrewing a 10mm bolt and voila; after some yanking on the radio, it came out. I then plugged in the thing from eBay and tested it out, routed the wire out of the glove box and screw everything back together. After an hour or so, I was finished. I was pretty proud that I didn’t break anything and finally I can listen to some good tunes in the car!

(These images are taken from YouTube, since I didn’t take any pictures when I did the installation)