(Credit:
Carrera International)
Long before RC toys began terrorizing household pets, there was the slot car. They still exist today, of course, but have become more of a hobby akin to model trains than something that would occupy kids for hours on end, pre-Nintendo.
But now that Speed Racer has been resurrected--"the movie event of the century," as Craver Caroline McCarthy puts it--the venerable slot car may make something of a mild comeback. Carrera is coming out with a new package that includes a Mach 5 (of course), a Racer X Street Car, 20 feet of track, and endless bouts of nostalgia, according to Gadget Lab. Scoff if you will, but it sure beats that lame flash drive.
The Mach 5 was on display at the Detroit auto show.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Somehow, a reporter for Road & Track got to test the Mach 5, the car from the upcoming Speed Racer movie. We got to see the Mach 5 at the Detroit auto show, although the one we saw looked like a nonfunctional mock-up. Some of the features and specs covered in the Road & Track article seem fictional, such as the "crampons" that are supposed to wrap around the tires for better traction. But the article includes pictures of things such as the saw blades that pop out from the front, so we're not really sure what to believe. The car in the article is supposed to be powered by an 8-liter quad turbocharged V-12 putting out 1,700 horsepower. According to the spec sheet handed out at the Detroit auto show, the fictional car only has 1,000 horsepower. The article also points out that Yokohama designed special tires for the Mach 5, and the car's builder says that most of the film's budget was spent on the car. But when we see stats such as 0.6 seconds to 60 mph, we have to assume that the entire article is fictional.
(Credit:
Warner Brothers)
Ladies and gentlemen, start your salivating. Those of us silly enough to go to Detroit in the middle of January to look at cars will be able to gawk at the super-cool Mach 5 from the Wachowski brothers' remake of the classic 1960's 'toon. The car is slated to be on display at Cobo Hall in Detroit during the 2008 North American Auto Show, beginning Jan. 13 for press and Jan. 19 for the public.
Although, like most Hollywood prop cars (and more than a few Hollywood people), it will probably be just an empty shell.
The real-life version of the Mach 5 was first revealed back in June, around the time production plans for the movie were announced. Sadly, previous reports say the driving scenes were filmed with the Mach 5 on a crane, and most of the effects were computer-generated. Still, it's fun to imagine tearing down the road in that sweet little road rocket. If I were Trixie, I'd insist on driving.
Why, yes. Double down, even. If not for the intense feelings I had for Intellivision (you never forget your first), I may have ended up a PC gamer instead of strictly a console guy.
(Credit: Digital Press)Let me start with a disclaimer: I'm a console gamer. Always have been, since my friend down the street in Minneapolis got an Atari 2600 in 1979, and I trumped him a year later with Mattel's Intellivision. (Along with George Plimpton, we found Intellivision's Major League Baseball to be clearly superior to Atari's Home Run baseball. Intellivision baseball, hockey, and skiing were pretty much all I cared about in 1980.) Like Larry King with wives, there's long list of consoles that I traded in for newer models over the years: Intellivision to Intellivision 2, to NES, to Sega Genesis, to PlayStation, to Xbox, to Xbox 360. As I moved from console to console, I never did find the need to plunk down for a gaming PC, and thankfully any old PC can run an Intellivision emulator.
If I were a PC gamer (and I happened across a pile of money), however, there are five systems that would definitely be on my list. Since May, we've reviewed one gaming PC each month that has really impressed us. These five desktops are all overclocked, and all but the AVADirect system feature a quad-core processor, so you know your investment--prices of our review units range from $3,600 to nearly $6,600--is well equipped to stand the test of time. Three of the five earned an Editors' Choice, including the HP Blackbird 002, which is only the highest0rated desktop we've ever seen at CNET--at least since Rich Brown and I have been here. (The other two award-winners came from Maingear and Velocity Micro.)
For a specs comparison, videos, and the reviews themselves, I've assembled this page for your viewing pleasure.
(Credit:
Warner Bros.)
We extend our thanks in advance for your indulgence of our trip down memory lane this morning. Honest, we've tried to shake this nostalgia bug, but it keeps coming back--and this time we're not going to fight it, and you'll see why.
The Speed Racer car is real. That's right. The "Mach 5" has been brought to life in full glory from the '60s animation version (at least the body, anyway) for the Warner Bros. movie scheduled for release next year, according to Gizmodo. And thank goodness for that, because it's probably the only thing that's remained faithful to the seminal anime show. Christina Ricci as Trixie? Matthew Fox as Racer X? Please. We'll stick with the original series on DVD.
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