cars

38 posts

How to Win at Driving

I love to drive. It is the most un-PC thing about me. You can have my car when you pry my cold, dead hands from the Hello Kitty steering wheel cover. How much do I like to drive? I own a car and I live in New York City, a place that would reduce Jeff Gordon to tears after 20 minutes behind the wheel.

This video has nothing to do with the post, but I have to embed it because I mentioned Jeff Gordon.

OK, back to business. Today I am going to tell you how to win at driving. After reading this post you will understand how to get around faster and easier than pretty much anyone else on the road. It is not hard to reduce the time and frustration on your road trips if you plan ahead and follow a few simple strategies. Why am I an expert? Because I am, shut up and pay attention. I can drive from NYC to DC in 3.25 hours without getting a ticket, causing an accident, or being a jerk to other drivers. Don’t you trust The Grand Inquisitor?

The car in the picture at the top is Candy. She is a 2001 Chevy Malibu. She isn’t much to look at, but she handles like a dream, gets good mileage, and has a zippy little V-6 that will get you up to 105 on the flat, lonely roads of South Dakota. She has faithfully taken me through desert heat and mountain blizzards. She is lower maintenance and more reliable than anyone I have ever dated. Part of the reason she is so reliable is because I take good care of her, and this is the first rule.

Always keep your car well maintained. If you don’t you can forget about getting good performance out of your vehicle, and you may end up in a burning hunk on the side of the road. Take your car to a reputable mechanic and take it to the same shop every time. My car is not exactly a dream ride, but my mechanic knows exactly how she works because he has taken care of her for 3 years. Also, he gives me better pricing because I am a repeat customer. Change your oil, fill your tires, and get tune ups. Otherwise just stay home.

Rule Number Two: Traffic is a team sport. Listen kids, we all want to get there first and win at life, but traffic is more than the sum of its parts. Nothing makes traffic go slower than a single asshole who insists that he (sorry guys, it’s usually a he) is going to go faster than everyone and spends the entire ride weaving in and out of lanes and cutting everyone else off. The point of being a team player in traffic is to optimize traffic flow and reduce congestion. If you keep switching lanes because the person in front of you is going 2 miles an hour slower than you want to, you increase the chance of congestion, which results in everyone having to slow down to 10 fucking miles an hour and I HAVE PLACES TO BE ASSHOLE, SO STOP IT! The reason for this because when you dart in front of someone they typically slow down to give you room to get in the lane. This causes what’s called a shockwave and increases the chance of overall congestion. So science proves that you are a total jerk when you disrupt the flow of traffic. To avoid this pick the lane that is going closest to the speed you want and stay in it. Do not make me get out of the car at the next light and beat you in front of everybody.

Rule Number Three: For fuck’s sake pay attention! We should all know this by now, but we don’t seem to. Put down your cell phone you ass wipe. I don’t even know where to begin with those of you who answer text messages while driving. You probably deserve to be maimed on a lonely stretch of state highway, but you will inevitably hit a bus full of handicapped school kids and kill them to, so I will just remind you how stupid it is to text and drive.

Rule Number Four: If you get pulled over, shut up and take your punishment. Look I love to drive really fast, but it is in fact against the law. If you get busted don’t whine like a little bitch. Give the nice officer what he or she asks for, but otherwise keep your mouth shut. Yes, the other drivers are speeding too, yes, speed limit enforcement is totally arbitrary, and yes, this is going to be expensive for you. However, you were speeding and you got caught. PROTIP: Cooperating with the police when you get pulled over will drastically reduce the chance of you getting a ticket or might get you a cheaper one. I get pulled over all of the time and I have only gotten one moving violation since I owned a car. Why? Because I don’t make life hard for the cop who pulls me over. If you are angry about traffic laws take it up with your State Senator, not the poor bastard who will have to scrape you off the road when you crash going 87 while sexting the new intern at your office.

So that’s it really. It’s just not that hard. Now since you have all paid attention so well I will give you a couple of really awesome driving songs for the next time you take a road trip. See you on the Turnpike.

Question of the Day: What Classic Car Would You Own?

Wouldn’t it be cool to have an eccentric, rich, childless uncle die and leave you something awesome in his will? Why don’t uncles ever turn out like that? I would love to be that one uncle who dies and leaves my nieces and nephews with all my awesome ~~toys~~ classic automobiles. Which brings us to today’s QOTD….

What classic car have you always wanted to own?

There are so, so many tough choices here. Would I love a Mustang GT Fastback like McQueen in “Bullitt”? FUCK AND YES. Would I thoroughly enjoy driving around in a Mercedes 300SL with the gullwing doors? GOOD LORDY I WOULD.

But there’s one car that I would murder an autistic child to get, and that’s a 1973 Porsche Carerra RS with the the classic Fuchs wheels. Here, I even found a picture. SHE SHALL BE MINE, SOMEDAY.

So what would you put in your fantasy garage?

How to Live in Los Angeles Without a Car

Do you want to know a dirty little secret? I don’t have a car and I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been behind the wheel of a car that wasn’t attached to a pole or a track. My sister claims to still have traumatic flashbacks to the time I once drove her car in a parking lot. I don’t know why she let me do that.

But I live in Los Angeles, car city!, have a regular 9 – 6 job and a semi-active social life when I’m not commenting in the IRC about how much I want Chad to be my boyfriend.

How is that possible? (To those of you who live on the east coast, please, just go with this.)

Well, and I’m asking you now to please stifle your laughter and/or incredulous looks—Los Angeles has a pretty sweet public transportation system. Remember, Los Angeles’ sprawl wasn’t built by the car, no matter what people tell you. It was the Red Car that spread LA out. Watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit? for more on that.

We’ve got trains, light rail, buses and a subway. Because our weather is lovely and our streets are relatively flat in the city-portions, it’s also a great city for bicycling. And if you believe our Mayor, we’re interested in improving the public transportation system we have and have committed money towards doing so.

Location, Location, Location

I live in the central part of Los Angeles near a Red/Purple Line (the subway) stop. It gets me quick access to downtown, Koreatown and Hollywood. I never have to think about parking or valet or any of those other supposed typical Los Angeles experiences.

The best way to choose a place to live that’s convenient to your job, your transportation choices and “necessities” is to research. I like Walk Score for grading the walkability and transit-ability of your new neighborhood. It’s actually how I first ended up picking my post-college apartment. It had the best walk score of the different places I’d looked at. This is also a good thing to do so you don’t end up being the human interest anecdote in an LA Times article about traffic.

Train, Bus, or Rapid

You need to familiarize yourself with the public transportation options in your city. One way to do that is via their website, Google transit, and of course, experience.

GoldLineChinaTown — Gold Line Chinatown Station from prayitnow's Flickr

I like to explain the way that LA’s transportation system works to n00bs as a series of levels. First, you have the train. This is easy. Everyone likes trains. It appeals to your inner 8 year old. The Gold Line is the cleanest and prettiest, going through Arroyo Seco. The Blue Line carries the most people and goes past and to some really awesome stuff. (Watts Towers, Long Beach.) The Red and Purple are the fastest (and the most underground. Yes, LA has a subway.) The first phase of the Expo Line will theoretically be opening in December and then we will get to visit Culver City, where the set of Cougartown is located.

The next level is the Rapid level. It’s hard to hate a Rapid bus—they’re so fast. These are the Red express buses that have limited numbers of stops. Depending on the route, they can be crowded. The 720 at rush hour going westbound on Wilshire can be a sardine can of attractive professionals commuting from downtown to the Westside.

Metro Rapid 720 Stop, Photo c/o thecourtyard

Lastly, you have the orange regular buses. Depending on the route, you can run into hipsters (the 2 or the 4 going through Echo Park and Silver Lake has a really high concentration of skinny jeans), grandmas, families of five or me. Wave to me. I’m cute. I’ll probably be reading a book, because I can, because I am not driving.

There’s also the DASH. Everyone loves the DASH once they’ve ridden it. This is actually a Los Angeles Department of Transportation system that runs small circular routes throughout the city and costs $0.35. (Full disclosure in the interest of being journalistic-y, I used to work at the LADOT and I cannot say enough good things about paying $0.35 because you just don’t feel like walking the last 3 blocks and it’s right there.)

Bicycling in Los Angeles

I have to admit; I’ve actually gone on only one group ride. I was previously a much more utilitarian bicyclist versus someone active in that community who did all of the fun social stuff like the crazy rides. Since the ride I did with C.I.C.L.E. was the most fun I’ve had fully clothed in months, I definitely am changing my tune on that.

Los Angeles has an incredibly active cycling community. I previously thought they were kind of crazy, but if you ever ride your bike on a lovely sunshine-filled Los Angeles day, you can identify with the kind of crazy that they are. And they have done a lot of good work in the city and county towards recognizing cyclist’s rights, getting safer bike paths and routes (4th Street Bicycle Boulevard!), and better amenities for bicyclists and pedestrians which benefit all residents of a community.

They are also the main force behind the creation of CicLAvia, a car-free festival in Los Angeles that is coming back on April 10^th. It’s closing down 7 miles of street in the heart of Los Angeles for people to walk, bike, play and basically interact with their community in a way that is impossible from behind the windshield of a car. It’s also a great way to positively experience neighborhoods people often have negative assumptions about: MacArthur Park and East LA, for example.

So I hope to see all of you LA-based Crasstalkers on the streets this Sunday. Next time, I’ll write a round-up of really great bars/restaurants that are accessible to public transportation. Because remember, if you take the Metro there, and a cab back, you don’t need a designated driver.

A $50,000 Steering Wheel Is Just the Beginning

Look at your steering wheel. Now look down. Look back up. Your steering wheel is now this thing.

I’m using an old-ass clichéd joke.

This is an Formula 1 steering wheel. It’s used to speak to the pits, adjust break bias, activate turbo boost (I am not kidding), move parts of the car around, even get you a drink. Like almost everything else on an F1 car, it is made of carbon fiber, and is ridiculously expensive. Why carbon fiber? Because it’s light, and absorbs impacts extremely well. The steering wheel has to be able to be removed in five seconds in case of a crash, since the seating area on this thing is so tight, you can’t get in and out with the steering wheel in place.

Here’s an Italian guy explaining how the steering wheel for last year’s Ferrari worked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6HFvF-QfTo

Now: all that stuff he said about how KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) isn’t in place anymore, and that makes the wheel easier to deal with? That’s no longer true. KERS is back in this year, in an effort to have more overtaking on the track. Just like in your wimpy Prius, it takes energy released under breaking, and charges a battery with it. That battery can then be accessed to provide 80 more horsepower. You can use it all at once, or gradually over a lap, but once the battery is drained, you have to wait until the next lap to use it again. It was tried in 2009 to extremely mixed results. Ferrari won the Belgian Grand Prix with it, but it also caused a fire in Red Bull’s factory, and shocked a mechanic for BMW Sauber. Bernie Ecclestone, the commercial rights holder for F1 believes that F1 isn’t more massively popular worldwide because there’s not enough passing. That’s a little like saying that soccer (or football, for those of you who actually watch it) isn’t more popular because the total score isn’t higher. As a result, KERS is back in, as is the button that enables it, and the display that shows how much charge you have left.

Also added this year is a moveable rear wing. The button for this opens a flap on the rear wing that stalls it out, reducing downforce, and increasing your straight line speed. This can only be used if you are within one second of the car in front of you, and if you deploy it, the car in front of you cannot. In the first race of the season, no one successfully employed this option to pass anyone, but a few people used it to spin out on turns. So, mission accomplished!

Last year, McLaren employed a genius system to gain more speed on straights. They installed an air intake port in the cockpit that the driver could block with their knee. When blocked, air traveled over the car normally. When opened, air bypassed the rear wing, reducing downforce. Like every genius interpretation of the rules of car construction, this was kept secret until the first race, and then every other manufacturer simultaneously complained it was a breach of the rules, and came up with their own. Ferrari’s required the driver to activate it with his hand, which became a safety issue. While barreling down the track at almost 200 miles per hour, the driver had to take one hand off the steering wheel. This year, drivers are making the same complaint about the steering wheel itself.

There’s so much going on with this year’s wheel, drivers feel they are close to becoming too difficult to operate. Nick Heidfeld feels that the wheels have reached a saturation point, and the fuck up levels are extremely high, while Fernando Alonso thinks that he needs to stop being a pussy.

The argument could be made that if everyone has the same access to KERS, then the average speed of all cars would increase, leveling the field and defeating the purpose. Also, the argument could be made that Sebastian Vettel smoked everyone in Australia without even having KERS installed on his car (this is actually true).

Here’s a link to a detailed explanation on what each button did on BMW’s 2009 wheel. There was no KERS button, because after they shocked a guy, BMW decided not to run it.

Also, here’s another video, this one in English and from Lotus, explaining how their wheel works.

The Most and Least Expensive Everyday Things

Some of the items we use everyday come in a staggering array of choices from the downright affordable to the laughably expensive. Let’s look at the most expensive and least expensive item in some common categories of items you might buy.

Production Automobile

The lease expensive new car in the US is the Hyundai Accent GL. You can pick one up for $10,735 or less if you’re a master haggler. It comes with a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty and those old fashioned cranks that let you roll the windows up and down even when the car is off. It’s a 2 door hatchback that will zip you along with all 110 of its horses.

The Bugatti Veyron on the other hand will set you back $1.7M. That’s roughly 158 times the cost, but you do get ten times the horsepower. The Veyron does have power windows and a dual automated manual transmission that shifts faster than any person could ever hope to get the clutch down and the lever thrown.

Median Single Family Detached Home Price

When you’re looking for a place to park your Hyundai Accent there is no more fitting place than the lowest priced metropolitan statistical area to buy your dream home, Youngstown, OH. The median price of a plot of land with a roof over your head in 2010 was $67,200. Before all you fancy NYC people tell me about how you can’t buy a doormat for that much, this is for single family detached homes so condos, coops, townhouses and other attached structures don’t count. Real Americans have a yard to mow and live in the heartland.

If you want to get your Veyron to the most expensive place to buy a home you’ll need to have it shipped by boat, unless you own an airplane that can accommodate a super-car. Honolulu, HI has a median home price of $607,000 which is down considerably from the peak of the housing bubble. You’ll get to live on Oahu, go surfing, complain about the people from the mainland and maybe become a private detective in your fancy sports car.

High Definition Television

Everyone has a HDTV already right? If you’re one of the holdouts and you’re going shopping then be prepared for a confusing number of options. If you’re starting at the low end though and want to make sure every room in your mansion is stocked with a HDTV then you’ll want to head on down to budget street and pick up a Coby 15″ LCD TV for a very modest $84. Sure the colors are washed out, the screen is tiny and the remote only has 4 buttons, but it’s not like you’re going to be watching Blu-ray movies on this thing.

But nothing goes with your lifestyle quite like the PrestigeHD Supreme. This 55″ television is literally encrusted with diamonds and accented with alligator skin. It will set you back $2.2M. I’m sure The Donald is the target market for this gaudy beast. Now, if you want to find a TV that your local electronics retailer can sell you then the most expensive is the Pioneer 60″ Kuro class for $5,995.

Production Motorcycle

In your leisure time you probably like to get out and feel the wind in your hair and the bugs in your teeth. For that you’re going to need a motorcycle. If you’re looking for something that gets great mileage and has a name you’ve never heard of then you can’t go wrong with the cheapest bike, the American Lifan LF 200 Sphinx. This Chinese made machine sells for $2,095. It has a top speed of 75 MPH and can only carry 330 pounds so check the scale and speed limit before you head out to look for a dealer.

You’re probably not the kind of person who likes to limit their potential so you may want to look at the Ecosse Titanium Series RR Limited Edition instead. As the name implies this motorcycle makes use of titanium everywhere it can. Titanium is a very strong yet light metal often used in aircraft. Other areas use carbon fiber to reduce weight. All of this gives the rider a great power to weight ratio for the bike’s 200 horsepower engine. If you have $275,000 laying around and a need to impress bike-geeks then meet your new ride. It should be noted that the Dodge Viper inspired V10 does cost more, but was never a production bike.

Elements, of the Periodic Kind

All this talk about titanium makes one wonder what element can you pick up on a budget and which one should you dream about hoarding. Sure you can go grab a hand full of dirt or breathe in some air, but what if you want your stuff pure? At $0.20 per gram, calcium is the most affordable and has the added benefit of not killing you on contact like some less friendly elements.

But the most expensive element is something you might find in a nuclear reactor. Californium-252 was forced into existence at the University of California, Berkeley in 1950. It’s thought to perhaps exist in nature but nobody is sure. If you want to buy some (you probably can’t buy it) it will cost you $1,000,000,000 per gram.

$1,000,000,000

Indifferent Military Wife Theater

I’m a military spouse. A really bad one, if all the “manuals” on this theoretical occupation are to be believed.

Sample quote:

“Some women think they’re cool by driving over the speed limit on base, dressing like prostitutes, and getting drunk at command functions…You are socializing with your husband’s bosses and colleagues, and you need to behave as such. You may be harming your service member’s career prospects- and therefore your income potential- by acting wildly. So grow up already!”

I don’t want to give you all too many good tips about being part of the “silent ranks” (seriously, that is what they call it) at once, so just digest that one for now.

In most ways, Airman Nerd’s job is like an accountant’s, in that it affects and interests me only tangentially. But in other ways, it is definitely a lifestyle we’re not used to. And here’s a little snippet of how things went when we got his first base assignment:

When he found out where we were going to live, our friends asked if we were going to live on base when we were at dinner.

“Oh, hell no!” I shrieked, liberally splashing wine on someone. “Does anyone think I’d get along with those bitches? They’d all be going, ‘Oh, that girl with the unbrushed hair and dirty yoga pants is screaming again. Look at those dogs, biting each others’ necks like vampires and digging their way to another base. This is the sixth time this week the Chinese food delivery guy has been to their house.'”

With that preconceived (and possibly judgmental) notion of military wives in my mind, Airman Nerd wisely decided I could pick where we lived. And, anyway, our very dangerous dogs would not be allowed in base housing. Tell that to the Chihuahua that bit me at work a few months ago.

So we rented a house. Actually, a cute little house, and the bonus of military life is that people assume you’re good for the rent money. We paid no security or pet deposit. This was hopeful on the part of our landlords, as the entire yard will need to be reseeded when we move out and the 25-year-old linoleum doesn’t stand up well to copious amounts of drool and water-bowl spillage. Sorry, Landlord Bruce!

I got the job I was hoping for, as we listed our base preferences in order of where I had the best chance of working in a progressive animal welfare organization. Too bad it was twenty-five miles from where we live, and we have one car.

Once, my husband got a ride home from work with one of his officers (same age, single). “You shouldn’t have to give her the car,” he told my spouse. “How much does she even make, anyway?”

My husband allegedly kept his mouth shut (even if he didn’t, he told me he did, and that’s the important half).

Continuing on, Staff Sargeant Sexist said, “I mean, she doesn’t have to work.” (Ohhh…hell…)

Airman Nerd extricated himself from this discussion and relayed it to me later.

Is rage-laughter a thing? If it is, that’s what I was doing. Rage-laughing. “HE DON’T KNOW ME! STAFF SARGEANT DOUCHEBAG, I SAY! WHAT WOULD I DO ALL DAY?”

I continued ranting at a capital-letter volume until Mr. Nerd pointed out that he wasn’t the one suggesting I stay home and take care of the house and…the dogs, I guess, since I’d rather own thousands of scorpions than even one child.

So we continued on, with his helpful boss suggesting things like, “You should get another car,” and “She should find a job that’s closer,” which we hadn’t thought of before, naturally, because Airman Nerd is an adult with a degree in his field and I’m a lady.

Still, we soldier on (get it?) with one car amongst two people who both have careers. We’re pioneers in that way; two kids just tryin’ to figure out how to have a dual-income-no-kids household.

Cheatin’s Still Winnin’- The Story of Toyota Racing’s Best Cheat EVER

In motorsports, if you’re not cheating, you’re probably not winning. Safety regulations have really made it so that from F1 to NASCAR, the best cheaters DO win. Cars are so similar that minute changes will oftentimes determine whether or not you’re placing 1st, or 15th. Lots of times these minute changes come from creative interpretation of the rule book. (That’s not to say that sometimes teams will completely chuck the rulebook away. Remember: its not cheating unless you get caught!)

In the early 1990’s Toyota Team Europe, TTE, was winning. They were racing in rallysports and they were winning. They had a pretty decent car, a Celica GT-Four. The GT-4 was a car that had got them through about six years of racing, and was winning more races every year. They had won the manufacturer’s championship and driver’s championship every year since 1990. For a world-wide company like Toyota, this translated in to MAJOR sales for the Celica. There’s an old NASCAR motto: “Race on Sunday, Sell on Monday.” (This only applied up to the 1970’s when NASCAR cars were actually some semblance of being the ‘stock’ models you could purchase at a dealership.) Toyota needed to maintain their edge, at all cost.

Rallying is inherently a dangerous sport. Drivers race around unpaved roads, through treacherous terrain, trying to beat the clock. Rallying fans stand inches away from cars making hairpin turns around blind corners. There’s always a fight between racing governing boards who want cars to be safe, and everyone else who wants them to be fast. Oftentimes this results in cars having their speeds artifically restricted. You can’t tell a racecar driver “Hey man … could you please not drive over 120 mph?” You need a piece of technology (or anti-technology) to artificially limit the speed of the cars.

In 1995 the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the major governing body for motorsports) decided that cars racing in the upper echelons of WRC would be fitted with “restrictor plates” on the turbo units of cars. All combustion engines produce power when they combine gasoline with oxygen. A spark ignites the gasoline and oxygen mixture which pushes a piston that drives a shaft that drives the wheels. Limiting the amount of oxygen taken in by the engine will limit the theoretical amount of power a car can produce. Thus restrictor plates. They are literally plates, a piece of metal that partially blocks a pipe that draws air in to the turbo part of an engine. A turbo is basically a fan that blows air in to an engine, so it would be like putting your hand in front of a fan … it blocks the air from reaching you. The restrictor plates, in theory would block a standard volume of air from reaching the engine. Restrictor plates were mandated for every car, and after the race officials would take apart certain components to make sure no one was cheating. This in theory would limit the top speed of the cars but do so in a way that every team would have the same exact limitations imposed.

Toyota has some of the best engineers in the world. Every car is inspected before the race by the governing body to make sure that the restrictor plate is installed. Toyota engineers figured out how to allow air in to the turbo intake that completely bypassed the seals around the restrictor! In addition, when the car was moving and the turbo was engaged, the restrictor plate would be moved back a couple of inches completely nullifying the effect of the restrictor plate. Some of the best judges and techs had gone over the car to make sure shenanigans like this weren’t taking place. In fact, the engineering was so good that when the turbo was disassembled post-race for inspection, judges couldn’t find any evidence that extra air had passed through the turbo. Toyota had manufactured special springs and clips that would move the restrictor plate back from the air intake, but when the turbo was disengaged the springs would pop it back in to position making it appear that everything was kosher. Like a sprinter, the more the engine could breathe, the faster it could go.

Max Mosley, the president of the FIA at the time said this: “Inside it was beautifully made. The springs inside the hose had been polished and machined so not to impede the air which passed through. To force the springs open without the special tool would require substantial force. It is the most sophisticated and ingenious device either I or the FIA’s technical experts have seen for a long-time. It was so well made that there was no gap apparent to suggest there was any means of opening it.”

The device gave the car an estimated 25% extra air coming in to the turbos, which added an extra 50 BHP (brake horse power)to the car. The cars raced in WRC at the time had about 300 BHP, an extra 50 BHP gave the car a HUGE advantage. The FIA quickly moved to ban TTE from racing that year. Toyota lawyered up, but they were eventually banned for the rest of the 1995 and 1996 season.

In 1998 TTE placed second in WRC, and in 1999 they won the manufacturer’s championship. That was the end of Toyota’s rallying history, they soon moved on to a pretty lousy F1 team.

With rallysports starting to get big in America, it kinda makes you wonder what cool technology is driving those brutish cars. Companies like Toyota use events like WRC as a testbed for new technologies that eventually make it in to their production cars. When your odometer clicks over to 300,000 miles in your Camry, a lot of that durability comes from testing in extreme conditions. I know that the guy in the Monster energy hat probably doesn’t seem like he’s got anything worthwhile to society, but engineers are going to tear his car apart after the race and find out how to improve upon their existing designs. They may not have anything as mechanically sophisticated as a cheat designed by Toyota engineers, but he’s probably got something if he’s winning! If its as good as their previous hacks though … we may never know …

Geneva Motorshow Round-Up

The 81st International Motorshow in Geneva is kicking off this week. Auto manufacturers are showing off new cars and concepts. As with most auto shows it is a mix of stunning, ugly, practical, affordable and those that we can only wish to own.

If your dream has always been to own a $1M electric car then Rolls-Royce has just the limo for you. It’s every bit as handsome, or ugly, as previous RR machines but it will get you 125 miles down the road without a recharge. Suicide doors are standard but Grey Poupon is not included.

RR Electric — Rolls-Royce Phantom Electric - DailyMail

While the Rolls-Royce styling may not be for everyone, it’s not the ugliest car in the world. That title now belongs to the AstroBionix Thor. Marketed as an “Ultimate Deployment Vehicle,” this UDV is U-G-L-Y. On the up side it does rock a 600 horse power 7.0L V8 in case you need to escape escape a mob of pitchfork carrying peasants.

An electric coupe with a bit more style and affordability is the Nissan Esflow concept. The Esflow is a rear wheel drive machine meant for two and uses the same battery pack as the Leaf that you can’t buy. It will get you through 150 miles of driving bliss and at least a dozen nods of acceptance from anyone you pass on the street.

A less practical coupe is the Wiesmann Sypder concept. If Speed Racer were to choose a car from the show this would be it. It has air intakes big enough for a 737 and headlights that could belong to an insect. It uses a V8 with 420-horse power and has no windshield. Bring a helmet and goggles.

But the car that you’re most likely to want to take on a camping trip is without a doubt the VW Bulli. Get your prescription card ready because the Micro Bus is back and it’s a hybrid! Hippies everywhere are rejoicing.

Top image here. VW Cnet. Wiesmann AutoBlog. AstroBionix Jalopnik. Rolls-Royce DailyMail via Consumerist. Nissan Esflow AutoBlog.

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