Pilotos dão dicas para quem vai ser navegador em um rali pela primeira vez

Concentração e confiança no carro e na planilha são dicas importantes para uma marinheira de primeira viagem em um rali de regularidade. É preciso ter um bom cronômetro e um odômetro bem ajustado. Cada mudança de direção tem que ser marcada.

Pilotos dão dicas para quem vai ser navegador em um rali pela primeira vez

Concentração e confiança no carro e na planilha são dicas importantes para uma marinheira de primeira viagem em um rali de regularidade. É preciso ter um bom cronômetro e um odômetro bem ajustado. Cada mudança de direção tem que ser marcada.

Mecânicos têm 40 dias para aprontar picape S-10 para rally

Mecânicos têm 40 dias para aprontar picape S10 para rally na Argentina.

Acordo libera a exportação de frango para a China

Mecânicos têm 40 dias para aprontar picape S-10 para rally

Mecânicos têm 40 dias para aprontar picape S10 para rally na Argentina.

Acordo libera a exportação de frango para a China

Vespa rally badge from 1954

Happy day! I just got this one delievered by mail (old fashioned snail mail). A friend of mine from up north told me that he had an old Vespa badge from a rally. I met him in his home this summer, but he couldn't find it during my visit. But he promised to send it to me as soon as it showed up.
I've been waiting and waiting...thanx a million!
Right now I don't know so much about "Rally de Stockholm 1954", organised by Vespa Club Sverige. But I will found out.
The circumference is about five centimeters or two inches.

Questa emblema ha arrivata oggi!

Entenda o que é o rali de regularidade

A ideia é ter diversão com disciplina. É preciso ficar de olho nas médias de velocidade e elas mudam rapidamente. A velocidade estipula o horário exato que o motorista vai passar por cada referência estipulada pela organização.

Entenda o que é o rali de regularidade

A ideia é ter diversão com disciplina. É preciso ficar de olho nas médias de velocidade e elas mudam rapidamente. A velocidade estipula o horário exato que o motorista vai passar por cada referência estipulada pela organização.

Conheça os campeões do principal rally cross country do país

Ribeirão Preto recebeu a final da Mitsubishi Cup. São quase 30 quilômetros para testar as habilidades e o aprendizado de cada um. Os pilotos consideram a pista é bem complicada, com retas de velocidade e curvas bem fechadas.

Rally dos Sertões chega ao final após mais de 4.000 kms de muita aventura

Guilherme Spinelli venceu na categoria carros.

General Lee Rally Art Car

Every so often, someone enters a General Lee into one of our events, this was Cima Racing's entry into Home2Rome 2010. We generally see more General Lees in Europe than the US probably because of the politically correct thing that surrounds the Confederate Battle Flag in the US these days. The chances of an Italian throwing a brick through the window of a General Lee in Europe is marginally less than in New York for instance.

This car was originally sourced from a tv props department for a very famous TV programme about cars. I haven't seen the episode so I'm going on witness statements but the car was bought within budget (£150/$275) on the condition that it was made into a General Lee.

What is surprising is that this car was not at all perfect. You'd think that a 15 year old Lexus would be in fairly good condition, but not this car. It had a bad time getting through its MOT (yearly UK safety check), and despite the aerial on the roof, the CB didn't work in the slightest. Car to car communication involved shouting loudly whilst the windows were down (thats if they would go down). It also had other issues so I'm told.

The theme is obviously quite simple but it's important to be accurate.

And I don't mean the 01 or the Battle Flag on the roof, I mean, it needs a Daisy Duke. You see, any old person can paint their Lexus orange, and put a number on the side and put an accurate Confederate Flag on the roof.

But what sets this car out is the Daisy Duke it was sporting.

This ArtCar is for all the Daisy Dukes out there!

By Justin Clements Street Safari
Original posted on Art Car Central 

Cool Vespa rider in Pisa

Even the coolest cat in Italy wears a helmet today. On my first visit to Italy twenty years ago, no one riding a Vespa had head protection. The guy on the smallframe is riding in the old parts of Pisa, near the leaning tower. We were enjoing an espresso doppio and a gelato when he hurried past.
The condition and style of the Vespa 125 indicates that it's not only a commuter vehicle. Maybe a member of the Vespa Club Pisa? A club who started as early as 1949.

The scooter premiere in Stockholm was covered by lots of photographers. One was Fia-Lotta, check her pics, who happened to capture another cool cat. I didn't colour match the old helmet with the Vespa 125 U, the one guilty is the former owner who obviously had some blue paint left after spraying the "utilitaria".
Now? The Vespa World Days 2011 in Gjövik, Norway, is not far away...

Italian Job Police Rally Art Car

Today's delectable car is a lowly Fiat Tipo Polizia cop car look alike.

This car deserves a mention because it really was beautifully executed as a replica, so well done, that every time we saw it on an event our hearts ran cold "uhoh cops". You see we never like meeting local cops on the events, cops mean trouble for the most part. We simply want to pass through a town, not get arrested and locked up, waiting for "Fair Trials Abroad" to come to our rescue.

The team (who built Thunderbird 4 the following year) took a picture of a real Italian Polizia Tipo and copied it absolutely perfectly. Graphics were copied, they even had a blue light on the top (highly illegal), siren, they even dressed up as Italian cops.

If you saw this in the corner of your eye, it really did grab you, in a bad bad way. It was only once you focussed on the two faux Policemen larking around that your heart would drop from it's 300 beats per second and you'd remember "thank god, it's only Team Maestro Masters".

It has to be said that we did get revenge on them - they did not want to be seen one morning when some real Italian cops would be in attendance. Copying foreign cops probably isn't wise, and the Maestro Masters team were bricking it. But we assured them, that nothing untoward would happen to them. In all honesty, we didn't know what would happen to them, we just knew that we were safe.

But after they had spent 3 days scaring the life out of us, we were willing to take the chance they wouldn't be arrested.

In a wonderful twist, the cops actually loved the Tipo, and apologised that literally, 2 months ago they retired their identical Fiat Tipo Polizia car.

This was an unexpected high point, with a significant low point to come.

The car was seized in Rome and dragged to a police station. When the team went to collect the car they were promptly arrested and interrogated for a few hours. Only after chatting up a hot Italian woman, who happened to be a senior detective were they released from custody with no charges.

The car was not released, and we can only think was eventually crushed by the Italian authorities.

Farewell Fiat Tipo Polizia, but you do live on on the internet.

(If you are wondering why we have a picture of a toy car of the original - it's because we couldn't find an original picture of a real Polizia cop car).

By Justin Clements Street Safari
Original posted on Art Car Central

Mangled Madness Rally Car - The Duck By Jaryn part 2

In the last installment of a StreetSafari ArtCar we showed you the Citroen 1CV. We even left a cliff hanger! How's that for blogging?

The long and short of it is that Mr Ducks, owner of the Duck, knows these cars like the back of his hand. Which he should since he hand builds these things from scratch.

So whenever he goes missing on an event we don't unduly worry. He's probably in some town somewhere repairing the Duck. Doesn't matter what it is, he can repair it 9/10. No problems at all.

Even when teams tell us in the evening "it looked terminal", short of the car being on fire, we tell them that he'll make it, and most times he turns up late into the evening looking worse for wear, looking a bit grimier, but with a great story to tell (we think - as we don't know Czech).

On this particular event, he had genuinely gone missing though. But again, we weren't too concerned as he'll pop out somewhere. Which is exactly what he did. At the end in Prague, in a proper Citroen 2CV. Which was odd. He was sporting a rather large plaster on his head as well. This can only end well.

He then proceeded to show us the following pictures. He even brought a translator for the evening.

The outcome was that when a crate fell out of the back of an Italian lorry, all the cars dived left and right, including the Duck.

But with a suspension travel in excess of 12 inches, the car simply flipped over, rolled 4 times, and spilled it's contents across an Italian Autostrada. As he was off the main route, no one on the rally had actually seen what had happened.

The Italians put him in hospital overnight before flying him back to Prague the following day. The day after he drove into Prague (not far from his home) to see us, and tell us about his great adventure.

Please be careful with your Art Cars!
By Justin Clements Street Safari 
Original posted on Art Car Central

Crazy Chopped Czech Citroen Rally Car - The Duck By Jaryn

One of StreetSafari's events is called CzechWrecks. We take our colorful cars to France, rag them down to Switzerland and over the Swiss Alps, into Austria, and then up into Prague in the Czech Republic. (Not Czechoslovakia, as after they got independence the Czechs and Slovaks decided that they really didn't like each other, and went their separate ways, hence Czech Republic and Slovakia today.)

This vehicle is from our first ever CzechWrecks, entered by a slightly mad Czech guy called Jaryn.

Now, we've never actually had a full and proper conversation with Jaryn as he doesn't speak a word of English, and we don't speak whatever he speaks. So we talk via translators when/if they are around. Jaryn can be best described as an artist, and a very talented one at that. We think he makes stained glass windows for churches, and he does more or less come from Bohemia which is quite fitting.

One day, (we're not sure when) Jaryn took delivery of a Citroen 2CV that had had a head on into a tree. It was a in a bad way; he did what any perfectly normal person would do, and cut it down the middle, and welded it all back together to create a Citroen 1CV. You were thinking that right?

So what we have here is possibly a one off creation, although we think he may have made a few before this 1CV, although he definitely made a few afterwards as we'll show you next week.

If you know the 2CV you will know that it has very wallowy suspension in the first place. Imagine what it's like when it's half the width! On a hairpin the suspension has over a foot of travel! Even a Ford F150 Raptor doesn't have a foot of suspension travel. As Jaryn takes a hairpin corner, he can put his hand out of the window, and literally drag his hand on the tarmac road surface! See what angle your car has to be to do the same thing!

This car also has a party trick - stick the steering on full lock, put it in gear, and jump out of the car. The result is an impressive car that drives itself in circles. Trouble is that the circle moves and its not before long that you will see a very slightly mad Czechman running after his car before it piles into something solid.

Enjoy the pictures!
By Justin Clements Street Safari 

Thunderbird 2 Rally Art Car Takes to the Streets For Kids with Cancer Fund

Today's StreetSafari special is team Lucky Day and their venerable Thunderbird 2 theme.

We always liked this theme because of its simplicity, simple designs are often the best.

To make your own Thunderbird 2, simply buy a car with the vague shape of Thunderbird 2, or a Mercedes if you can't think of anything. Slam three bits of wood together to make a great big tail wing (remember, this will aid you fuel consumption), then paint the whole thing green, find a free font off the internet and get a friend to cut up some white vinyl letters.

Final job, and most important, is attaching 2 red buckets to the rear bumper. Job done.

You can of course go the extra mile and buy some eBay sourced Thunderbird costumes. Remember that the different members of Thunderbirds had different colored sashes, so don't buy a blue sash and call yourself Virgil - cause you'll look an idiot. Everyone knows blue was Scott Tracey and Virgil was had a yellow sash.

Thunderbird 2 completed 3 events in the end before being retired at the end of 2010.

By Justin Clements Street Safari

Lightning McQueen Volvo Rally Art Car

If you were 3 years old, what car do you want your parents to own? It's not an easy question to ask a 3 year old as there answers are limited. However, Lightning McQueen surely has to be one of the top. And, if you need a sporty looking vehicle to base your Lightning McQueen on - what would you choose? A Volvo 740 of course.

In this case, three grown adults made the car of their dreams, apparently. A Volvo 740 plucked from obscurity that had spent its life driving round the UK's home counties, was now made into an art car. And driven across Europe repeatedly on our events.

I've never actually worked out what the motivation to make this car was, apart from further capitalising on a Cars dvd they had obviously bought.

You may be wondering whether there are any similarities between this car and a real sports car. There aren't.

However, the side effect of being the proud owner of Lightning McQueen meant that the owner was constantly bugged by their kids to take them to school in Lightning, which included half the kids from the neighbourhood. As the owner lamented one day, we can do the school run in a brand new Mercedes, or Lightning. Lightning won every time.

So there we have it. How to impress your children. Make Lightning McQueen.

By Justin Clements Street Safari

Spaced out Moonraker Volvo Rally Art Car

From the deranged minds that brought you the Tank Volvo and Helicopter, we have a space shuttle theme.

Not sure what the background to the idea from these particular overachievers is, maybe Moonraker, but they decided to do a space shuttle theme, with a trailer tent (its like a tent, but on a trailer) with a world on it.

Obviously, making a space shuttle out of a Volvo just doesn't work (you need a BMW 1600 for that, which we shall show you in future weeks), so they made their own space shuttle, mounted two side boosters (SRBs) to the Volvo, and effectively made the Volvo into the external fuel tank.

Then, bolt a great big round piece of metal onto the trailer, paint the Earth on it, and hey presto, you have your very own horizontal Space Shuttle Program, with a diagram of the Earth on the trailer behind incase you forget what your home planet looks like.

The team (the overachievers) even put in some pyrotechnics so that the shuttle actually looks like it has an exhaust trail! We like. Partly because it's always fun to see a bit of thought behind these things, and partly because the chance of the whole thing catching fire is greatly increased.

The trailer tent deserves it's own 15 seconds of fame. It was possibly the mankiest tent you have ever seen in your life. They think the previous owners bought all the camping gear, went camping once, didn't like it, packed the tent wet (remember it's canvas), and let the whole thing fester and rot for several years.

When the team opened the tent for the first time in many years, there were literally bits missing from the canvas, large sections in fact.

But quick to their aid came some drinking aids. They installed a set of optics in the trailer for each evening, and as long as you got far too drunk, you didn't notice the howling gail in the car each night. Or at least, I think that's how that was meant to work.

By Justin Clements Street Safari

MFP Mad Max Lemon Art Car In Hot Pursuit

Today's StreetSafari car was prepared for our US event, BABE Rally (Big Apple 2 Big Easy).

Instead of the European limit of £150-£250, the US event has a limit of $500. In 2009 when these pictures were taken the price had been increased from $250 to $500 in fact. Apparently $250 were getting hard to come by what with scrap prices getting higher.

With a doubling of the allowable car price, something quite impressive happened - the car actually got worse. You see, people were now unleashed and could buy whatever car they had dreamed of. And yes, people do dream of buying some of the mankiest car's imaginable.

For whatever reason, this team bought this wreck, and then had the bright idea to give a Mad Max theme to the car. From a distance this car looks brilliant, from close up, not quite so brilliant. The team were even busted by the neighborhood agency for spraying this car in their front yard.

After driving the car across the 1,500 of some great US roads the event ended in a Louisiana drag strip. Here, deep in the south where the mosquitos are big enough to drag you away, we set about "racing" the $500 against each other.

You've heard of the story about the hare and the tortoise? This was more like two tortoises. So imagine the commentator with a deep southern drawl explaining to the crowds why on earth these crap heaps were on his track, and you will have captured a very special moment.

By Justin Clements Street Safari

Break Time

Drag Race Time

More Break Time

Hot Pursuit Time

Volvo Tank and Helicopter Banger Rally Art Car

End2End is a Land's End to John O'Groats banger rally in the UK. The event is based around camping rather than hotels, although we don't mind teams doing guest houses if camping is too rough.

However, we do encourage caravans on this event. Its a Banger Rally meets Carry On Camping.

With that said, Team Atlantic Booze Cruisers took up the challenge of making a caravan theme for their art car and caravan. They took a perfectly good volvo with a camper and turned into a Tank with a gun turret of unknown fire power. The caravan was made to look a like a bloated RAF helicopter. Not sure if it will ever take to the sky's, but I am sure its very comfy on the inside. Bernard Montgomery would be proud of these troops.

Only the mind of a warped individual (Rob) could possibly come up with the Volvo Tank and Helicopter.

You decide:

a) we like how your mind works, Rob
b) we are actually quite disturbed how your mind works, Rob
or c) hey, I can do better than that!

Enjoy the build pictures!

The Sauna - Riding the Alps in Style

The Sauna was built from a Volvo 240 and taken on CzechWrecks 2009, a 1500 mile 4 day journey starting from Calais, France through Swiss and Italian Alps all the way to Prague, Czech Republic.

What we have here is about 1/3rd of a ton of wood paneling being applied to the Volvo.

If you are wondering whether this wood had any impact on performance, I am assured it did. What performance they had to start with, remember that Volvo 240 are agricultural at best, that performance was soon zeroed.

Chris and Tom and their team built this car to raise money for charity and an opportunity to travel in their bath towels riding the sauna over some of the highest passes in Europe.