…the van is back, and it’s gonna cause some trouble! hey now, hey now, the van is back!

…for the Greenwood Car Show! One block from our house, every year near the end of June. Interesting batch this year – lot more Corvettes than usual (although my fave ’54 of years past hasn’t been here for a few years now); the Mini group just keeps getting bigger each year somehow; good selection of oddball electric and Soviet cars; the Hawaiians normally not seen until later in July at the Shoreline VW meet were here in force this year, nearly an entire block for aircooled VWs. And a few choice Japanese cars (old and new), and a Pantera but only one Ferrari, surprisingly. And my usual gripe – *way* too many lame muscle cars (most of which now sadly are ‘classic’ too….again, argh.)

– the kids in the Jeep were cute – and I loved the ‘Jurassic Park’ Wrangler pair they had – too funny. There were many old military Jeeps this year and a couple vintage Dodge Power Wagons, too.

– also, that ‘Porsche’ seen first wasn’t in the show, that showed up later parking across from our house. When the guy pulled up in it, i asked him ‘is it real or Memorex?’ – he said ‘Memorex!’ – so not sure if this was a replica or a real one, but it was sure nice either way….!

– you can click on a pic to enlarge considerably, btw.

Enjoy!

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The Lancia Stratos Was Born to Rally

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Truly amazing stuff….

Le Mans 2030: Car designers with eye on future tackle Michelin Challenge Design

2017: Showcase of Selected Entrants

I think the ‘Bentley 9’ was my fave:

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always a good day with a Gremlin sighting – especially one withOUT AI?! 🙂

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pretty dadburn weird…..even for a hardcore VW nerd like me….:)

People Impersonate The Internet’s Funniest Cats In This Absurd VW Spot

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Discovered they finally finished Initial D – and watched the last four episodes (Final Stage). Very glad they kept with it. These start a bit slow and go a bit overboard on backstory, but all the things we love about Initial D are still there:

– ridiculous, over the top posturing (although less than in past Stages);
– crazy mountain driving without apparently any hint of fear, parental control or police;
– ‘mental monologuing’ throughout where people are constantly explaining things to each other out loud (or through narration);
– and last but certainly not least – Takumi Fujiwara and his amazing AE86 Trueno…..

Enjoy. I am not supplying a link because if you simply do a search, you’ll find it. 🙂 In case you missed Fifth Stage (immediately precedes Final Stage, there are 14 episodes) – you’ll want to search for and watch that first. And if you haven’t watched ANY of them, what were you thinking (and get to work – Funimation has Stages 1-4 online!

According to Wikipedia, there is also a three-part movie remake coming….woo hoo!

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Love it!

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Finally got a chance to watch 2010’s Senna this past weekend with my father (the original car nut – I am only a pretender :)) This was a very interesting movie – although if you don’t care about car racing or F1 in particular, you may find it somewhat the opposite – be forewarned.

The movie details the rise of one of the world’s most famous and skilled car racers, Ayrton Senna of Brazil – who ultimately climbed to the top, claiming the F1 world title 3 times before his sad crash and death a few years later in the early 90’s. He was only 34 years old at the time.

Having been a perennial car mag subscriber at that time, what I mostly remember is that the press largely loathed Senna and constantly came to the aid (deserved or not) of his established rival, French driver Alain Prost. So as a result, I largely remembered Senna as a ‘bad guy’ who was hypercompetitive but largely an enigmatic jerk. I’m glad I watched this movie, because although it’s fairly pro-Senna in outlook, it’s a better look at the man himself, his era, the races and his rivalry with Prost.

While Senna, unlike some racers, did not come from poverty or even the middle class – his family was pretty well off before he started his career – he has to have been one of the most ‘driven’ [sic] car racers in history. There is even a scene in the movie where he all but tells off Jackie Stewart to his face about a controversial race, and manages to advocate for driver safety at the same time (which ultimately was his undoing in the crash, but inspired Stewart and others to force F1 to take safety seriously, and there have been no fatalities since).

What the movie also brings out (and the wikipedia article here) is that Senna had his causes too – he wasn’t just a rich playboy driver with the trapping of wealth to keep him amused (although he had some of that, too). He was an intensely personal man with strong religious beliefs, and it later turned out that he had donated literally millions to help poor children in Brazil throughout his career, especiallly when he became so famous and successful – but he did it very low-key, obviously because he cared about the cause and not the notoriety it would gain him.

And as observed by my dad – it’s kind of amazing the amount of footage in this movie – you’d think he had a camera crew on him the entire time he was in F1 nonstop – weird.

The movie doesn’t paint a positive picture of Prost – arguably he’s just as fierce a competitor – but he also reminded me of whiny NBA players complaining all the time when they don’t get their way – there are at least two major examples in the movie, one of which Prost actually managed to get a Senna victory overturned. It didn’t help (Senna) that the chief guy running F1 at the time was French – not at all (smirk). But as noted on wikipedia, even Senna forgave Prost in the end.

His end was pretty sad – but he certainly passed doing what he wanted to do, and ONLY what he wanted to do. It’s patronizing in some ways to say Senna was a complex man – because that’s what such personalities are always described as when we don’t completely understand them. But I’ll bite – he definitely was, and the sport was far poorer for his passing. Great movie!

R.I.P., Ayrton.

other voices:
Rotten Tomatoes
Metacritic
Christian Science Monitor

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