It was wickedly crowded at HIN Los Angeles. Yours truly and the WebRidesTV.com crew were out in full force, covering the event from both a video and photo perspective. It’ll take us a bit of time to get our coverage ready for your consumption, but here are a few bits to tie you over ’til then. Enjoy!

 

 

Even with the recent evidence that suggested that the probability of Global Warming was no more likely than a Global cooling effect, the X prize foundation is still pushing their competition to find the most efficient and practical car out there.  At the New York Autoshow, they announced that Progressive Auto Insurance will be the corporate sponsor of the competition.

The rules allow for two types of entries.  One group of entries will compare 4 wheeled vehicles that seat 4 or more and the other group encompases 3+ wheeled vehicles that only have to seat 2.  The general guidelines are a car that gets over 100mpg or equivalent of another energy source such as electricity.  Oh yea, did I mention the winner will get a sweet prize of $10,000,000 +.

Currently they have about 64 entries from 22 different countries.  If you think you have what it takes to build an uber efficient car, then check out the details on ProgressiveautoXprize.org.

I never imagined that being a serious auto enthusiast and a hard core gamer would ever amount to anything life altering, except carpal tunnel syndrome and continuously suspended driver’s license. Until the day I got a call from SCEA asking me if I would like to produce a documentary on the latest version in the Gran Turismo franchise, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

Hmm, let’s think about it for a second, cars and games, I thought I had died and gone to Heaven! Of course, I was stoked to be involved in the project and especially since the game was Gran Turismo. GT is my all time favorite racing game “simulator”, so much so that I had two custom full size driving cabinets built, so I could get the full on race experience. I was really excited to get over to Japan, capture the vibe of PDI and especially meet Kazunori Yamauchi, the creator of GT. I had heard that he was a huge car fanatic and that we would get to film his collection.

Well after four months of filming and editing, the HD video documentary is finally complete. I believe that we were able to capture the passion, the ambition and the dedication of man who has revolutionized both the gaming and auto industry. Thus the documentary is aptly named “Beyond the Apex.” I do not want to give too much away but if you thought you knew what goes into creating a Gran Turismo game, think again. Check out the teaser trailer above, it’s a little sampler of the goodness that awaits you exclusively on the GT5 Prologue Blu-ray disc.

Enjoy the ride!

Howdy Webriders! Dr. VW here. LOTS of things going on lately! What with the sweet items in the schwagmart and the brand new forums opening! With all these cool new additions to the Webridestv community, it’s easy sometimes to miss out on some of the cool things that slip in onto the site under the radar. One of these was SO cool, I decided to deviate from my normal adventures and do an exclusive Auto Adventure Profile. Introducing:

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Today’s the day folks, we’ve finally gotten our heads out from under our hoods and we’re restocking the SchwagMart! Expect a restock of the SchwagMart every other Friday beginning @ 5pm PDT on March 28th!

Schwag will probably go quickly this time, so I’d highly advise to be around when it starts so you can try to get dibs on your Schwag! Twice a month we’ll make sure there’s more goodies in here for everyone. It wasn’t until after I told all my friends that I realized nobody can know this. Nobody…

 

In August of 2007, Nick Hogan, the son of famous WWE wrestler Hulk Hogan was in a horrible accident joy riding around town with a friend of his whom is still in the hospital. As you’ll see in the following photos, they are both lucky to be alive. Apparently Nick didn’t inherent any of his dad’s brains. Oh wait, he didn’t have any to begin with. Well Hulk, i guess this is what happens when your 17 year old gets behind the wheels of a modded Supra that looks to have over 500 HP and NO airbags. Oops.

Nick decided to write a blog post after the accident which went a little something like this:

“omggggg its been forever since i blogged…hell i dont even know what blog means but i guess its where you write stuff for people to read

anyways my last one was before i even drove for mopar, if you check my pics youll see that i did end up driving for them for my amateur season and most of my pro rookie season. i recently left the mopar team tho…things didnt work out to well

but!….i picked up a new title sponsor…POLAROID! and started my own team with twin 350z’s pretty cool i know

anyways id like everyone to wish my luck for my 08 season and keep john graziano in your prayers”

…Genius material all the way.

Click here to see the full gallery of Nick’s Crash.

I had the pleasure of rolling in an RX-8, 40th Anniversary Edition, for five days, both in the city and in the canyons of Southern California.

Driving a 1300cc rotary powered four door sports car with only 238bhp at 8500rpm is unique to Mazda as the RX-8 is the last of the Mohecans and at first look would seem to be underpowered. Mazda redesigned the rotary in the RX-8 by locating the exhaust ports on the side of each combustion chamber instead of at the edge of the rotary housing. This change yields better economy, more power and lower emissions.

Okay, that’s enough about the technology, how is the RX-8 to drive?

The cockpit is coccoonish, comfortable seats nice finishes, zoomy design, with fuel and temp gauges on either side of a large central tach. What, no speedo, the speedo is a small digital window in the lower right of the tach. The Boise Audio system is top of the line with satellite radio. My car was missing a GPS which is a must event if you don’t need one as they look dope. The six speed manual, the only way to go, is operated by a short shifter that is as good as it gets.
This ride is all about RPM. It has decent torque off the line but around 5000rpm the engine starts to buzz, right up to the 9000rpm red line. The zero to sixty is 6.5 seconds.

But drag racing is not the RX-8’s thing. The RX-8 is a canyon runner at 3000lbs and a 50/50 wieght distribution. A stiffer chassis for 2009 with revised rear suspension make for some fun runs at the limit. I haven’t driven a street car that didn’t under steer of over steer or both. The RX-8 is completely neutral. Turn in is sharp and the car goes where you point it.

Ride quality is firm but not objectionable with enough suspension compliance that it doesn’t get upset easily by rough road surfaces.

The back seat, roomy enough for two six footers for a half hour trip or an eight year old with an Nintendo DX forever, is easily accessed by the rear doors.

The price for all this is around $32,000. I liked the car so well, and we drive them all, I have asked Mazda for one to test for a year with all the Mazda Speed accesories including the lightened fly wheel, cold air intake, front air dam, side sill moldings, adjustable rear spoiler and Mazda Speed Ben Hur wheels. I want one!

OK, so it’s not a Scion, but Scion’s big brother company is releasing a tasty new addition to the sport compact market, and we got a chance to check it out before it came out in mid-February!

Peep this video and get your fill of a sporty little hatchback from Toyota!

Our resident artist Zak has created a few pimp-ass wallpapers for everyone to enjoy! We’ve got them posted over in three separate WRTV Photo Galleries, sorted by size. The image above is just a sample of the mad skillz Zak brings to the table, and is available for download with the rest of our killer wallpaper images!

Peep the Wallpapers arranged in Galleries by desktop size:

1280×800 WebRidesTV Desktop Wallpapers - WIDESCREEN
1920×1200 WebRidesTV Desktop Wallpapers - WIDESCREEN
1280×1024 WebRidesTV Desktop Wallpapers - STANDARD
1024×768 WebRidesTV Desktop Wallpapers - STANDARD

Tim “Maverick” Porter, the organizer of the annual Cannonball Run, has just released a few photos of his next “Ultimate Bad Boy” Mustang. Similar to the GT500KR in looks, but blacked out just like the previous Bad Boy. Under this bad boy’s hood lurks a whopping 1070 BHP and according to Mr. Porter, it will out handle a Porsche GT3 at the track. He plans on building 25 this year.

Thanks for the update Tim! We’re looking forward to the possibility of a shoot-out between them in the near future.