AutoMotto

When I was a kid I used to think micro cars are basically toy cars meant for kids but since my parents were too prudish to allow me to have one, they intentionally made up the story about them being small cars for grown ups! Of course, the passing years took the layers off from that bit of misunderstanding but my fascination for the cute micro cars remains. Which is why the Bruce Weiner Micro Car Museum really, really attracted me with its post WWII sensibilities. The museum has a large collection of micro cars developed in the 1940’s through early 1960’s with under 700cc engines and 2 doors or even less. Simply astounding!

The boffins at Volvo’s Monitoring & Concept Center have got together to conceptualize the Tandem Vehicle Concept platform. This vehicle platform is primarily aimed at crowded urban areas where traffic congestion is one big problem. To get around this problem, Volvo’s designers have come up with a design that seats the Tandem Concept vehicle’s occupants one behind the other like in a conventional motorcycle. This will provide the Tandem Concept with motorcycle-like agility with the safety of four wheels.

A delightful combination of a moped and a sidecar, the 1990 Honda Caren is a true modern microcar with its all-enveloping body shell that is thoroughly pimped out with heady spot lamps, funky stickers and neon lighting around the windshield. The microcar provides sufficient seating for a single person and thus, only features a single door. With single full-width chrome spinner on the “sidecar” wheel, multi-tone horn and a monster sound system, the petite car is the perfect example of retro modern design. The car is powered by a 50cc, 3.8 horsepower single cylinder engine and has over 1931 miles on the clock.

The IDEA Institute headquartered at Turin has been dishing out car designs which are a heady mix of Italian curvy oomph with ultra-modern functionality. IDEA has just turned thirty and what better a way to commemorate this occasion than launching one more masterpiece. Doing just that, IDEA has come out with the Era concept car. This concept also marks IDEA Institute’s foray into Brazil. Like all Italian masterpieces, the Era too has a smooth, sinewy form that screams out Italian blue blood. This stunning piece of automobile art is a two seat roadster that uses an existing monocoque chassis from the M2. Engine options will be either a four cylinder or a six cylinder mill driving the front or the rear wheels. We’d definitely like to see a V6 driving this beauty’s rear wheels. This car, which will weigh in at around 1500 to 2000 kilos, will also have plenty of cutting edge electronics and other features in it since it is the flagship model of the IDEA Institute. We’ll bring you the full details once the Era is completely built. Until then, stick around.

Diesel cars have come a long way from being slow, crude oil burners to cars capable of some real high performance, albeit in a clean non-polluting way. Audi has been at the forefront of modern diesel technology and continuing in this vein, it has unveiled another performance diesel, this time in a hatchback version called the A3 TDI Clubsport Quattro. This car is one very hot looker with the big Bulgarian beard grille up-front, flared wheel arches and a smart roof spoiler at it’s rear. True to it’s clubsport moniker, this Audi belts out a class topping 225 horses from it’s 1998cc turbo diesel engine. This gives the A3 Quattro a stupendous 112.5bhp/liter putting it bang in the high performance car segment. All this power will let this Audi comfortably breach the 150Mph mark but will give it a rather slow nought to sixty dash time of 6.6 seconds. This can be attributed to the car’s tall gearing and the turbo which will take a few moments to get up to steam. That said, expect this A3 Quattro to have some scorching midrange performance that can whip any petrol car’s butt. Overall, a very smart and sporty diesel that is a fitting addition to Audi’s range of performance diesels.

Via: news.windingroad

Taking minimalism to crazy heights, here is a concept car by designer Matthias Pinkert, that turns the very concept of a car completely topsy turvy. The single seater Slide concept car looks more like a scooter and drives via an electric motor that sits up-front, under the huge front hood. Rather than sitting in the car like other conventional cars, you’ll be treated to a bar-stool like spindly seat that sits right at the rear of this “car”. To make it one very light option, plenty of carbon fiber goes into this motorcyclish, bare basic car. Driving this car around will be through a drive-by-wire joystick system that sits at the tip of the spindly bar stool, er, chair’s armrests. The small size of the Slide will definitely make it a hoot to get around the urban maelstrom but safety still looks like the weakest link in this entire package. Though outlandish, this car looks like a nice little option to trot around the city.

Via: TheDesignBlog

The revolutionary, ultra-low cost Tata Nano is seeing more than a few imitators with the South Korean auto major Hyundai Motors joining the bandwagon to announce its own low cost car which will debut in 2012. Hyundai is planning to price this car at $3500, a whole $1000 more than the $2500 Tata Nano. Looking at the way inflation is spiralling, Hyundai will have a major challenge on its hands to keep the price down to the projected $3500. Apart from the price, Hyundai is tight lipped about what features the car will have to offer. As this car is being launched in 2012, we expect it feature an unconventional source of propulsion like electricity or even hydrogen fuel cells. Also, a modular approach to building the car cannot be ruled out as it still remains the best way to keep costs down.

Source: Autocrust

The German car makers have been relentlessly pushing the performance envelope further with every power car launch. This time around Mercedes Benz’s in-house car mod outfit, AMG, has given the SL65 some real heavy power treatment to end up with the SL65 Black Series pumping out a nausea inducing 670 thoroughbred German horses. All this happens courtesy the SL65’s twin turbo V12 engine which surprisingly drives the rear wheels with a five speed automatic gearbox. This is simply because the new seven speed auto is just not capable of taking the train pulling torque of 1000Nm the SL65 Black Series manages to grunt out.

There could be nothing wilder on the roads of Chicago than good ole’ Billy on his Road Dog. One that William Bill Gelbke was himself a free spirit that gave him the ersatz Wild Bill and two that the machine he manufactured was wilder than most animals . By profession he was an engineer, or for that matter, even by birth as he affixed his bicycle with a washing machine motor when he was a kid. Wild Bill eventually started his own bike shop and then created what went on to become the first motorcycle with automatic transmission. He dubbed it the Road Dog and his clear intention to manufacture it was to create the biggest motorcycle on road that people had ever seen. To his credit it well and truly was a sedate machine leaving people gasping to eventually ask questions regarding the way it was made.

The MIT Car is a car concept that will leave you gasping for it’s futurism. As you might have guessed, this concept is the handiwork of students from the hallowed portals of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in collaboration with General Motors. The MIT Car turns around the very concept of motoring with it’s radical bits of engineering that will leave you breathless. How about a car with an inflatable body made up of ultra light advanced composite which can then be hung on wires for parking? Yes, this car is designed to do all that and more.

The iconic Fiat 500 is one sweet handling pocket rocket that can be hustled around narrow city roads at thrillingly insane speeds. Now, a team of Abarth engineers and designers have gotten together to make the diminutive Fiat 500 race ready. The Fiat 500 now becomes the Fiat 500 Abarth Assetto Corse and this little car packs in a very mean punch. For this, the original 1.4 liter turbo engine gets some serious mods to deliver two hundred galloping horses and three hundred Nm of tyre burning torque.

It isn’t about the goddess of truth as most of you would associate the name with but a company that dreamt of making supercars back in the mid forties. They could only pursue their dream with 75 products after which the company came to an abrupt end. To the odds, Veritas would have never staged a comeback, but to every retro supporters delight, it indeed has managed to resurface with its latest offering the RS3. Veritas was in news in the year 2001 for the prototype of the same car which then was powered by a 6.0-litre BMW-sourced V12 beast capable of rounding 670bhp. RS3 this time around has been doing the rounds at the famous Nurburgring circuit but nothing has been revealed about its current details barring the revived looks from the Era when the first Veritas came into reckoning.

Driving around in a canary yellow Lamborghini Gallardo is bling enough to get loads of attention. But somebody has gone a massive step further to trick out a Lambo with a trailer. If that isn’t audacious enough, a bright in-your-face yellow chopper motorcycle sits on the trailer. The chopper with a big V-Twin engine even has a Lamborghini badge sitting snugly on its tank and leather seat. We don’t think the boffins at Lamborghini would be too impressed with their badge on homebrew choppers. Whoever made it for sure has plenty of nerve to match his/her audacity. By the way, this combo was seen scorching up the streets around Miami Beach. Take a look at the pics we’ve lined up for you.

In case the production of bio-fuels wasn’t already taking a toll on food prices across the world, here’s another idea that can potentially drive the cost of another essential food through the roof and it might just drive your car as well! I don’t know who came up with the idea of trying to run a truck on coffee grounds first but the important thing here is that it actually worked. Using a method called gasification, the Cafe Racer Truck pictured here uses heat and a controlled amount of oxygen to convert the coffee grounds into flammable vapor which is used in place of gas in the vehicle. Pretty neat. On a side note, I wonder if the flammable coffee vapor can also give you a neat caffeine kick, ‘cause when all the vehicles in the world are gonna be running on coffee, we sure as hell won’t be getting any for our daily cuppa!

Source: Mental Refugee

The range of future vehicles from Toyota is simply amazing. Bringing in style, comfort and very innovative environ-friendly designs seems to be the new mantra of the automobile company. The new Alessandro Volta from Toyota, which has been dedicated to the great innovator Volta, shows off some very up-to-the-minute features.

Volta, who had designed batteries, would have been proud of this future vehicle. This high performance hybrid car features a carbon fiber body with a Giugiaro design. The car has a 408-hp Hybrid Synergy Drive engine, each axle has a 3.3 liter V6 electric motor, upto 60 miles acceleration in only 4 seconds and drives up to 435 miles with 13.7 gallon fuel. Its out of the box features include a drive-by-wire control.