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Sabine Schmitz Takes On Nurburgring In A Ford Transit

Posted on September 2nd, 2008 by William.
Categories: Automotive.

YouTube DirektSabine Schmitz In a Ford Transit

Sabine is my next wife.

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S2000.Life

Posted on August 21st, 2008 by William.
Categories: Automotive.

Here’s a two part video about the love that the honda S2000 stirs deep within it’s drivers. I’m the proud owner of a 2006 triple black S2000, so I can relate to these videos very well.

btw, yes I have spun the car… and 8,000 rpm is better, the engine has better mid-range punch (as well as the second generation came with a better suspension,a glass rear window and 17″ rims, and a outside thermometer - all features I enjoy)

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Radical Radial Engine Motorcycle

Posted on August 11th, 2008 by William.
Categories: Automotive.

YouTube Direkt

This is a video of a motorcycle with a seven cylinder radial engine, not to be confused with a Wankel designed rotary engine used by Mazdas. This is built by JLR Motorcycles and yes, you can buy one… if you’re willing to wait about six months. This beast has 160 ft pounds of torque, which doesn’t sound like much compared to many sports cars, but that’s twice the power of most Harley’s. It can do 100 mph in second gear and it’s got a five speed gearbox. It’s calculated top speed is 227 mph.

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Mercedes Car Show

Posted on May 10th, 2008 by William.
Categories: Automotive.

Walter and I went to the third annual Show and Shine at Park Place Mercedes in Dallas, near Love Field. There was around fifty nice examples of Mercedes from every decade since the 50’s. My trusty Nikon soldiered through as I took 291 pictures of the various cars, but now I need to carve out some time to edit the pictures and add a gallery of them. There was an odd badge of honor of who had the highest mileage, and several of the cars had the grille badge to indicate they were beyond the quarter million km mark, and a couple cars had earned their 500,000 km badges. The amazing thing to me is that they liked the cars enough to spend that many miles in them, but didn’t like driving enough to get a car with a manual transmission (read - BMW). Mercedes has been a big fan of the slushbox (automatic transmission), a great example is the impressive SL500 with a V12 and it only comes with an automatic. What??? They almost had it right, Enzo Ferrari felt the best design was a V12 out front, power to the rear wheels and a stick shift in the middle. Every real car guy knows that it takes a stick to stir the soul.

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2008 Dallas Auto Show

Posted on April 2nd, 2008 by William.
Categories: Photography, Automotive.

I made it down to this year’s Dallas Auto Show on opening night with a free ticket that Walter was able to pick up at the good ol’ VW dealer.  That night I filled the memory card on the Nikon D1, as well as several shots on the Canon point and shot SD1000. The following night, I went back with empty memory cards and did my best to fill them  up again.  Now I’ve got over four gigabytes of photos to sort through, adjust as necessary and crop before creating a gallery. Keep checking for updates…

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Car Spa - Fountain Of Youth For Your Car

Posted on January 6th, 2008 by William.
Categories: Automotive.

I knew better than to get a black car, but sometimes the car chooses you. When I was on the search for a Honda S2000, I really intended on bringing home one in silver with the black leather with red inserts (it looks far better than it sounds). Then I saw this triple black S2000 on the used lot and I was hooked. Having owned a black car years ago, a 1980 Dodge Aspen, I knew that black showed every little spec of dust, but when polished… there was no other choice. My little S2000 was looking a bit neglected, the funk of the first part of the winter wore on it’s wonderful lines, so I treated it to a polish and leather treatment at Car Spa. Wow, my lil’ buddy perked right up, looks simply wonderful and it’s like I dipped it in the fountain of youth!! Today was about 75 degrees and I was driving into the sunset and the glare off the hood was blinding… in a good way.

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ItalianCarFest in Grapevine

Posted on September 15th, 2007 by William.
Categories: Automotive, Event.

ItalianCarFest will be Saturday September 22nd, 2007

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Laps For Charity

Posted on September 8th, 2007 by William.
Categories: Automotive.

Saturday evening, the Texas Motor Speedway held another Laps for Charity event. At these events, you get to take your own car out on the NASCAR track for three laps for $30 and then $10 if you want a pic of your car in Victory Lane. I always enjoy going out there and seeing the various hardware that shows up, everything from classic Motown metal, German powerhouses, modified Honda’s, and the basic grocery getters. This time, my Michelle, Star and her two boys and Eric went with me. Since the S2000 only has two seats, Eric rode with me and the girls and the kids followed in Michelle’s Mazda Protoge.

I put Star’s sons in my S2000 so they would have a great picture to take to school to go along with the stories of the loud all motor T-Bucket, the Porsches, racecars, convertible Stingray ‘vette, and ‘69 rag top Camaro, among all the other cars.

I took Michelle out on the track first in the S2000 and had a great time. I took it easy and only briefly hit 105mph and I was so amazed at how well the S2000 handled and just begged to be unleashed, although this wasn’t the venue for an all out assault on the laws of physics, so I backed down and enjoyed the breeze.

Next up was Eric in the passenger seat as we hurled the car around the banked corners and had to be careful to leave the slow poke Lexus convertible ahead of us plenty of room to enjoy their Sunday drive. This time I kept it in the lower gears and was amazed at the traction getting out of turn two and out on the back stretch.

For the finale, the Mazda Protoge was put into service. Star got in the passenger seat and the boys piled into the backseat with Eric and we were off to circle the track again. The boys really enjoyed it as the grandstands ripped by in a blur as the Mazda did it’s best to get in touch with it’s inner Zoom-Zoom.

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Bug Swarm Highlights

Posted on September 8th, 2007 by William.
Categories: Automotive.

Saturday morning started way too early as I peeled myself off the bed and went over to Garland for the Bug Swarm to help Walter sell some of his VW memorabilia and to check out some of the VW’s on display.  His Michelle was there, so I didn’t stay too long since they seemed to have it all under control, and the temperature was rising and I was sans-Dr Pepper. I know, poor planning on my part.
There wasn’t too many cars on display compared to years passed, but the quality of what was there seemed extremely high.  I tried to take a few shots, but was having issues with my Nikon, it seems it’s having some issues and will need further investigation.  Some of the highlights were the two Herbie the Love Bugs that were there, one of them had incredible attention to detail.  Another set that demands attention was a VW bus and matching original bug in two tone yellow and almond - very clean and matching rims at every corner.

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VW Bug Swarm In Garland, Sept 8th

Posted on August 17th, 2007 by William.
Categories: Automotive, Event.

Bug Swarm XIII - North Texas VW Club at Rusty Wallis VW (12635 LBJ Freeway, Garland). Gates open 8am, Judging starts at 10. Judged Best 50 VW’s & Speciality awards. Awards around 3pm.

This should be a good place to go see some great custom and restored Volkwagens. Last year, both air cooled era and the water cooled were well represented.

Bring your camera, some sun screen and prepare to smile at all the cool and zany details. Be sure to look close for the tiny details, example, one of the New Beetles had a theme of Marvin the Martian and it would have been too easy to miss the tiny Marvins painted on the side, holding onto the side makers for dear life.

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