A Chinese man, Han Yue, broke the world record for squeezing a car into the tightest parking space. With little more than an inch and a half of space on either side, Han Yue slid his Mini 3 Door Hatch into the tiny space with style. The gap measured just 3.15 in longer than his car. The record was set at the China Drift Championship held in Chongqing, China on November 14.
The tightest parallel park is 8 cm (3.15 in) and was achieved by Han Yue (China) using the MINI 3 Door Hatch during the China Drift Championship held in Chongqing, China on 14 November 2014.
In our never-ending quest to bring you the best or the strangest events from the world of Motorsport we present this instant classic that promises to claim sixty-one seconds of your life that you will never get back.
Bruce Meyer’s Highboy was the first actual hot rod to grace the cover of Hot Rod Magazine – and now it’s immortalized on a Forever Postal Stamp!
At the turn of the century, it was arguably the Honda Civic that best defined inexpensive performance tuning, and in the ’50s it was the Tri-5 Chevys. One of the earliest platforms to gain a huge following among young people looking for a cheap way to go fast was the classic ’32 Ford Highboy Roadster. This week, Jay Leno’s Garage looks at one of the very first vehicles that defined the look of the hot rod heyday.
This ’32 Ford was built in the ’40s and graced the cover of the fourth issue of Hot Rod Magazine back in 1948. All of the hot rods that you see shining at car shows today owe a serious debt of gratitude to this roadster. It bears all of the cues that define the look, including a notched frame and hidden door hinges. Under the three-piece hood is a flathead V8 boasting all sorts of period modifications, including copper cylinder heads. It was seriously fast in its era too, and proved it by reaching 112.21 miles per hour on a dry lakebed in 1947.
These days, this hot rod is on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum. Although, if you can’t make it to California to see it, the United States Postal Service is celebrating this Ford with one of its two hot rod Forever stamps. Like Jay says in the video, in terms of hot rodding, “it all comes back to this.” Check out the video to learn more about this rolling piece of tuning history.
This is a good BBC documentary on why Germany is the economic powerhouse it is today. Good labor practices, second-to-none engineering and exemplary efficiency.
Documentary examining Germany’s economic power and the automobile industry at the heart of it. Across the world, the badges of Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and Mercedes inspire immediate awe. Even in Britain, where memories of Second World War run deep, we can’t resist the appeal of a German car. By contrast, our own industry is a shadow of its former self. Historian Dominic Sandbrook asks what it is we got wrong, and what the Germans got so right.
Jay Leno test drives a twin-engine MINI Cooper (TWINI). It’s exactly what it sounds like, a Hatch that has a Cooper S engine on the front axle and one on the rear one.
Enjoy!
Jay Leno is no stranger to bizarre cars — this is the man who finds room in his garage for the Blastolene Special, a.k.a. the Tank Car, after all. So you might think it’s odd that he’s devoted an episode of his “Jay Leno’s Garage” web series to a 2002 Mini Cooper. These cars typically aren’t that crazy, even if they’re wearing racing livery and an aggressive body kit.
But this isn’t just any boy-racer Mini: It’s Jacques Andres’ boy-racer Mini, and he’s done a number of special modifications to the little car. See, it’s been converted to a rear-engine, rear-wheel drive model, which already sets it apart from the pack. Except that the front engine, which drives the front wheels, is still there. Each engine does 250 hp for a total of — if our math is correct — around 500 hp.
There’s two of almost everything drivetrain-related, including tachometers, ignition systems (the car can be run with just one if need be) and even front suspensions (one’s repurposed for the rear). Thanks to drive-by-wire components like the throttle, which replace troublesome mechanical linkages, “it’s actually worked out quite easily,” Andres explains.
Yeah. If you say so, dude.
Anyway, Andres built didn’t build his Twini — enough of these have been built since the original Mini debuted for the type of vehicle to have a name — to serve as a curiosity. He built it to run down much more expensive cars on the race track.
Leno gives it a bit of exercise on the road, calling it the “ultimate canyon carver.” Unfortunately, it’s not quite street-legal at the moment, but we’re sure it’s a blast on the track.
