Camatte car child’s play to handle
Toyota’s wonderfully utilitarian and nicely Japanese-weird Camatte line of child-sized (but still fully-functional) vehicle concepts has just taken another step in its intended concept of “seeking to break the traditional boundaries of the way children play and tinker with vehicles” at this year’s Tokyo Toy Show.
The brilliant mix of McLaren F1 and Willys Jeep that is the Camatte Vision will allow children (and parents) to interact with it, not only in a physical sense — while it is fully functional, it won’t be drivable at the show — but also in a virtual sense.
Children and parents can hop into the Camatte, play with the controls and have their photo taken. They can then grab a tablet and customise the car with a number of body styles (ambulance, crane, hot dog truck, plus many more) and colours, before holding the tablet over the model driving course, where the customised car will appear, complete with the family on board.
Intended to install children with a hands-on approach to vehicles, the Camatte concept has been through a number of iterations, including the original Sora and the sporty 57 and 57 Sports that featured at last year’s show.
Famed track limits speed
Record-breaking laps at Nurburgring could be a thing of the past, after management introduced restrictions.
The days of judging a supercar by its Nurburgring lap time may be over, if a current restriction stays in place.
Apparently the management of the legendary German track has place a number of speed limits in place at various points on the circuit following a crash that saw a Nissan GT-R flip into a spectator area, killing a spectator.
This made life somewhat awkward for the crew that flew in to film the Koenigsegg One:1 take a crack at the ’Ring record; when they arrived they were informed that the restrictions will stay in place, meaning that breaking (or even coming close to) the lap record would be impossible.
While it isn’t exactly an outright ban on lap record attempts, the limits mean that sub 7 minute times are unachievable. So don’t go expecting to see any lap records anytime soon.
We are the world
■Not so much from the “Only In America” file, but more the “It Actually Happens in America Quite Often” file we have a story of a young gentleman who tried to steal a car, only to realise he couldn’t drive it because it was a manual. Just to make things even stupider, 19-year-old Alexander Katz’s female passenger DID know how to drive a manual, but instead of just doing the driving, she tried to teach him. In a car they had just stolen. Unsurprisingly, the attempt was ultimately unsuccessful, so they did what any utter moron would do and called a taxi at a nearby convenience store. Unfortunately for them, the police arrived first.
■In an unusual twist on the way these things usually go, 26-year-old Christopher Stewart recently had a wee bit too much to drink, hopped into his car, drove himself to his local police station and requested he be arrested for drink-driving. On the way to the police station in Hopkinsville, near the Tennessee border, he nearly hit a police cruiser. Stewart approached officers and said he was ready to go to jail for DUI. He seems to have got things a bit the wrong way around ...
Boomerang concept comes back
The unique Maserati Boomerang was the inspiration for other supercars.
Got a spare few million lying around doing nothing? Then you could possibly own one of the most unique cars in the world — the one-of-a-kind Maserati Boomerang.
Designed by the legendary Giorgetto Giugiaro, the wedge-shaped Boomerang concept car first appeared at the 1971 Turin Motor Show, but had sprouted a 224kW V8 and become a fully drivable car by the time of the 1972 Geneva Motor Show.
Maserati never put it into production, but rather unsurprisingly, not long after its appearance the BMW M1, DeLorean DMC-12, Lamborghini Countach and original Lotus Espirit all appeared.
The Boomerang is to go up for auction at Bonhams on September 5, but you had better start checking for loose millions under the couch cushions now — a spokesman told US website Autoblog that its pre-sale estimate range is a staggering €3-4 million ($5-6.5 million).
The Good Oil has actually seen this car in the metal at the Paris Motor Show last year — and can honestly say it was one of the most incredible looking cars we have ever seen.
Your chance to own a Le Mans 24-hour winner
A Porsche 956 like this one recorded the all-time fastest lap of the famous Nurburgring track (6 min, 11.1 sec) in 1983, with Stefan Bellof at the wheel.
Porsche has an enviable racing pedigree, and now — for a small price — you can own a special piece of it.
That piece of history, a 1982 Porsche 956, is about as good as it gets in terms of awesome collector cars.
Being produced under Group C means that it’s fast — taking the all-time fastest lap of the Nurburgring in 1983. It also won Le Mans in the same year.
The car goes up on the auction block in August, so you’ve got plenty of time to scratch together the US$9 million ($13 million) it’s expected to sell for.
Number Crunching
6:48 MINUTES
Nurburgring lap record held by the Radical SR8 LM.
6:47.5 MINUTES
Lap record set by the Pagani Zonda R.
6:11.1 MINUTES
Lap record set in the Porsche 956.
16 MINUTES
Lap record set by a Trabant P50.