Cosmagician

F1, Daniel Simon, HRT, Kamui and more.

Where to start? One post or many... we shall see. Sometimes worlds collide.

Let's start with Daniel Simon. I'll call him the cosmic magician.

A long time ago, I saw his design book called Cosmic Motors. Unlike Syd Mead's concepts, Daniel's use of very modern tools creates a totally different image thats's finished and incredible.

While I dable with design on paper and basic photo manipulation, the time to turn my designs to art doesn't eventuate. Maybe one day.
My scrap book is large.

Anyway. Somehow he has managed to carve a design career with cars. Recently he was linked to HRT f1 team to design Kamui and co's F1 Livery

The result is something very cool! I'm recently designing a few more vehicle liveries myself so I'm always interested in this kind of merging of artists and mechanics.

Maybe I'll post some sketches of the Bently LM I've been working on.

F1 recently has a lot of changes. Some I like, some I don't Some are useless. Maybe thats another post.

Russ.

Drift Hop a Reality

Check it out!

 

After Ebisu opened up the curvacious entry to the Minami Course straight. Drift hop has become reality.

 

I thought it would have to take some hydraulics, but it seems a good ramp will do.

 

http://re-xtreme-junk.blogspot.com/2009/08/drift-hop.html

Australia Terraforming Plan

Basically, Australia is a huge desert with some pretty bits around the outside and lots of expensive bits underneath. In the future there will probably be a resource war or for land space and UAE, India or China will take over. Even if the above doesn't occur there will be a population explosion sometime.

With thirst for creating usable land. It makes sense to terraform the worst bits into something usable. All the surrounding land should be effected and become healthy. So what are the steps.

Well,

1. Prepare the soil.

Dig a big trench up the guts and use that stuff to make a couple of mountain ranges extracting all the good bits along the way.

2. Seed

Build a few cities along the edges and connect them all to the rest of Australia's cities with air trains or maglev personal travel rails (more on these later)

3. Fertilize

Open an entry to the sea. This will allow for the solar EV boats to glide in carring all the good bits away. It should also combat the rising sea water issue a little. (more on that later too)

4. Grow

We don't actually need to do this part.

But you could bring in the people bots. Or just clone some. your choice.

Russ.

I can't decide which eco car to buy.

These are eco cars that somehow bends the definition a little.

Following on from my previous post. These cars screams "DIE EARTH DIE!"

But there is actually a lot of ECO friendly things about them.

This is an absolute monster. the a.d. Tramontana is F1 inspired fighter jet on wheels. And I want one! Looks can be decieving. Its a big car! those are 20inch Dymags its riding on.

http://www.tramontanagroup.com/adtramontana/adtramontana.php

Catalog

It is a 12 cylinder V60 Biturbo with 5.5liter displacement running Turbo pressure of 1.4 bar making over 720 Hp - 529 kW at 5.250 rpm  and Max. Torque 1100 Nm at 4.000 rpm Transmission is longitudinally mounted with a mid engine, rear wheel drive layout.

There can be two passengers sitting like the F1 ride along cars and the roof is removable for open top running.

Ariel is well known for the "3" and has announced the latest version of the Atom – the Ariel Atom 500, powered by a small V8 engine. With over 500bhp in a 500kilo package the Atom 500 will boast one of the highest power to weight ratios ever for a production car.

The Atom will have over 1000bhp per tonne (compared to a Bugatti Veyron’s 521bhp/tonne) and will be built in limited numbers.

 

So where's the Eco? They have less components made from earthly metals. therefore the extraction process damages the earth less.
They weigh almost nothing! so Theoretically, they use less rubber / fossil fuels etc when driven in a leisurely 40klm/h.
They are built by hand and not energy guzzling robots.
etc etc
etc etc
 
So I just have to come up with the cash now. Maybe I'll steal some eco friendly R&D money from a government by promising alternatives to the Prius. And build my own style Atom or Tramontana.
 
Russ.

Eco My Arse keting. (marketing)

I getting sick of all this eco junk. Almost all the wheel manufacturers have some kind of eco project to try to attract the only emerging car market left. What exactly is a Forged ECO wheel as opposed to a normal Forged Wheel. Why is it suddenly important.

YOU MUST WIN the PRIUS and INSIGHT consumers! For our financial survival. PANIC!

So hard fought is this message that even legendary BBS has created green hub caps to acnowledge the green movement. Like most (not all) They actually changed nothing else about their business except design a new lightweight forged wheel.

While this is fine. They ONLY fit prius and insight.

Ignoring every other potential customer on the road in the process.

Meaning. Unless you buy a Prius, you can't be eco friendly. unless your intelligent enough to ignore all this crap and buy something that is much better.

Dumb!

If you want to be serious about eco friendly benefits of lightweight design. I suggest you look past the marketing shite (oops) hype at the following!

DYMAG CARBON! or RS WATANABE MAGNESIUM!

 These wheels offer real benefits. less fuel required for the same accelleration. Less weight to flatten your grass.

And the two best benefits of all. They make you go faster and look Freaking cool!

Drift Hop

I first saw this FD Rx7 fitted with hydraulics in 2003 at Big X in Ebisu circuit. Very cool.


Recently I have been thinking.

Everyone loves the Xand Y drift angle you get at Nikko's last corner.

And the smoke from 600+ horsepower drifting.

These hydraulic beasts are off the charts.

And when they fly it's awesome.

So who's going to be the first to start the drift hop scene! come on go for it.

You know it's just a transition phase.... wait for the next post....

Russ.