Cars

I've seen street-legal bumper cars made out of vehicles from vintage amusement park rides, but this is the first time I've seen a real full-size car transformed into a giant bumper car. The well-named seller, bumpercarguy, is parting with his sweet wheels on eBay. There are only a handful of hours left for you to get your bid in.

The base of the unusual vehicle is a 1984 Dodge Colt 1.6-liter turbo. Yep, a turbo bumper car. What could possibly go wrong? The exterior has been customized from fiberglass to make it look like the outside of a big red bumper car. It even has the pole sticking out the back that would make the electrical connection in a real bumper car.… Read more

British TV series "Top Gear" is known for building some pretty outlandish automotive creations. The latest in that lineage is a Honda FH2620 mower. That doesn't sound very exciting until you learn just how heavily modified it is, from the tires to the engine.

"Top Gear" called in Honda racing group Team Dynamics to help turn the lawn mower into a lawn monster. The steering rack is from a Morris Minor. It got a fresh set of racing wheels and tires. They managed to stuff a VTR 1000cc motorcycle engine into the thing. The theoretical top speed is 130 mph.… Read more

While you cool your jets waiting for Grand Theft Auto V, take a walking tour of GTA IV's Liberty City -- in Google Street View.

Fan site GTA4.net has had a map of Liberty City based on the Google Maps API since early 2009, and it has been a pretty fun -- and useful -- piece of software that shows users where they can find health, armor, and weapons pickups, as well as pigeons, stunt jump locations, and window-cleaning platforms. But now it has received the ultimate upgrade: Google Street View. … Read more

We've all been there. We're out on the town, had a few drinks, and just wish Siri could tell us if we're over the legal blood alcohol limit for driving.

Of course, given her requisite levels of snark, it might be better to hear it from a voice other than Siri.

A company with offices in Italy and America is launching a product today called Floome that it hopes will bridge that dangerous gap between trying to guess if you're safe to drive and finding out later from the professional breathalyzer operated by a police officer that it turns out you weren't.… Read more

If Chitty Chitty Bang Bang were made now, it would probably look a bit more like something Batman or James Bond would drive, but we'd like to think it would look a little more like this.

Called simply "B," the toy, which is currently being funded on Kickstarter, is the creation of U.K. computational-engineering PhD student Witold Mielniczek. Unlike other remote-controlled toys out there, it's also a multitalented piece of gadgetry that's able to traverse both ground and sky.

Most quadcopters we've seen to date have four "wheels" at the corners, horizontally aligned with helicopter blades spinning inside. Mielniczek has tilted the wheels upright -- and made them functional for ground-based driving. … Read more

Back when a certain 1967 Karmann Ghia rolled off the assembly line, nobody could have expected that one day it would be gutted, filled with batteries, and turned into an electric car that runs thanks to social-media feedback. The car is part of the Minddrive after-school program, a Kansas City (both Missouri and Kansas) organization dedicated to working with at-risk students.

For Minddrive's latest automotive design project, students chose to refurbish an old Karmann Ghia, turning it into an electric car. The car will be driven from Missouri to Washington D.C. starting on May 31, but it will take a lot of help to get it there. The car is designed to run only if there is enough social-media support to keep it going.… Read more

It looks strangely like something Adam West's Batman might drive in 2013, but Aston Martin's 100th anniversary CC100 speedster wasn't designed with superheroes in mind, camp or otherwise. Instead, the yellow-and-blue-gray speedster is an homage to the company's heritage as a manufacturer of luxury sports cars.

The design is based on the 1959 Le Mans and Nurburgring-winning DBR1, with materials and design elements that look to the future, according to the company. "CC100 is the epitome of everything that is great about Aston Martin. Fantastic heritage, exceptional design, superb engineering and an adventurous spirit," … Read more

I wish I could tell you about driving the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse up to its record-breaking speed of 254 mph. Race car driver Anthony Liu did it. Of course, he drove the Veyron on a 5.6-mile straightaway at Volkswagen's test track in Ehra-Lessien, Germany, setting the speed record for a production convertible.

On the rural roads in Napa, Calif., the best I could manage was a few seconds of maximum acceleration, making all four wheels grab pavement with neck-snapping force from the engine's 1,106 pound-feet of torque.

With my foot flat on the gas … Read more

When motorcycle enthusiasts say "loud pipes save lives," I don't think are imagining the Red Baron, an insane two-wheel machine powered by an actual aircraft engine. It's a beast. A monster. A crazed marriage of sky and land. It's also incredibly loud.

German tinkerer Frank Ohle spent 18 months bringing the Red Baron from concept to reality. It's not like you can just pull the engine out of a regular bike and pop in an aircraft engine. Just about every part of the motorcycle had to be customized to make room for the Rotec Radial R3600, a 150-horsepower, nine-cylinder engine.… Read more