Automobiliac Videos of the Week: 250 Testarossa hoonage on camera

Any Automobiliac worth his salt knows the Ferrari 250TR is one immensely valuable machine, commanding millions at any auction. But that doesn't seem to prevent some enthusiastic owners from having some good old "drive it like ya stole it" fun on public roads with these magnificent machines and their intoxication exhaust note!

I had one other video --the best of the bunch-- of a guy driving flat out on public roads like a true maniac, but sadly the guy pulled it off youtube before I could share with you. He's probably in jail now!

Fortunately someone cloned the video on youtube, but added some HORRIBLE music over that V-12 symphony! Still, the video is a must-watch!

Lancia Stratos Prototipo by Stile Bertone: Where is the future we were promised??

I don't think car design ever really surpassed the extremes to which the styling houses of Italy went in the early 70s with their space-age wedge designs. And perhaps the most extreme example of that archetype was the Lancia Stratos Zero by Marcello Gandini, which actually did lead to the renowned Stratos production car.  This clip is really cool because I had never seen any footage of this earth-bound spacecraft in motion before-- and the synth music just makes it even better! Those of you know me personally know that this video is so right up my alley!

Automobiliac Video of the Week: Toyota 2000GT Speed Trial vintage footage

I probably should have posted this earlier for you to watch while you digested your turkey, but better late than never...

I always think of the Toyota 2000GT as a swingin' Grand Tourer with incredibly beautiful lines, but I had never really seen one race-prepped at full song before. Here is some wonderful vintage footage of Toyota's 72 hour speed trial at Yatabe test track, back in 1966. The music is hit or miss, and the editing could be a lot tighter (it's also entirely in Japanese), but there is some truly awesome footage with gorgeous composition in there that will reward close viewing of this 9 minute video. If you don't have time for the whole thing, I might suggest the dream-like night sequence starting at 3:01, and the mesmermizing clip starting at 7:04 which almost looks like a Wes Anderson film!

Crank up the speakers when the 2000GT wails by, looking almost like a Cobra Daytona Coupe on a fish and rice diet!  Click here for more info about this car, with photos!

Truth in Advertising: the 2011 Mediocrity

Last month, Subaru unveiled a series of hilarious videos poking fun at mainstream family sedans. If you haven't seen them yet, you have to at least watch this one, which features earnest, hardworking designers articulating their vanilla-tinted vision of motoring ordinariness. The ads are funny, but they do sort of dance around the hard question of why it is that mediocrity is so pervasive in corporate design culture --even at Subaru. Sorry guys but the B9 ("benign" like a tumor that won't kill you?) Tribeca is nothing but warmed over Alfa 147 design cues stretched to grotesque proportions.

In reality, designers usually don't sit down and figure out how to make an intentionally bland car, but somehow at the end of the process a bland car is what results. If only it were a question of just setting out with the right goals from the start, but in truth mediocrity is a result of an insidious and self-destructive corporate culture that warps otherwise talented individuals into collectively ruining the fruits of their own labor -- a non-process that twists good notions into bad results.  What I love about this campaign is to see the truth of it all so perfectly labelled: Mediocrity is the only way to describe it.

Automobiliac Video of the Week: Alfa Romeo Montreal Tribute

This amateur video is surprisingly well done, and features some really cool sounds and camera angles. If only the driver would quit it with all the unnecessary short shifts and let the car have its head! Enjoy that sonorous small displacement V8, and Gandini-penned sheet metal!

Hat tip to Rob for the link!