GM Announces U.S. Small Car Plant

It looks like the UAW (and Obama) took GM out behind the shed for a little talk... GM is announcing that the will re-tool on of their U.S. plants (not "North America") to produce a small car (maybe the Spark).

Actually, it was not just coercion, but negotiation. According to news reports, the UAW gave GM further concessions, such as broader job classifications, to allow a small car plant to be profitable.

GM was looking at a public relations mess, with Ford previously announcing that the European Focus would be built in a re-fitted Michigan Truck plant, and the UAW howling that taxpayers should not fund more off-shoring of vehicles. By bringing a b-car line to the U.S., GM leapfrogs Ford, which is going to build its Fiesta in Mexico.

The whole thing makes me wonder, though. Was GM's plan to import Chinese cars a business plan, or was it a bargaining stick?

Digging Into "Dealergate", Part II

Doug Ross continues to assert that the Obama administration chose to close Chrysler dealers based on their political donations, but he relies on some one-sided data, hanging a lot on the closing list.

For my second look at the issue, I thought I'd look locally. What I did was tabulate the Chrysler dealers in the greater Metro Detroit area which are on the closing list, and also the ones on the stay-open list and take note of their political donations. Here are the results:

Closing:
Dealer, Donations

FORTINBERRY R

MCDONALD R

MONICATTI R

PENSKE R

RUSSO R

TAMAROFF R

VIVIANO R

Remaining:

Dealer, Donations

DEEBY R

FISCHER R

MCINERNEY R+D

MEADE AFIT PAC

MILOSCH R

MOORE NADA PAC

PENSKE R

RIEHL NADA PAC

ROBBINS R

SCOTT R

SNETHKAMP R

VIVIANO R

Metro Detroit Chrysler dealers who donated did so overwhelmingly to the Republicans.

The only example of a Metro Detroit Chrysler dealer who gave money to Democrats was "Hoot" McInerny, who gave large amounts to both sides. It would also be very bad press for Chrysler to try to axe McInerny's dealership, because he is a well known local personality and a big philanthropist.

I don't think you can argue any political bias in Metro Detroit, based on the data.

NX-1337 Flame Thrower Art Car - SS Alpha Fox

NX-1337 Flame Thrower Art Car

NX-1337 Flame Thrower Art Car in action

by jurvetson
Don't know much about the NX-1337 Flame Thrower Art Car but It seems to be at every event. Its also the vehicle featured on the Maker Faire Button every hear so cudos to you NX-1337 Flame Thrower Art Car owner. Hopefully I will see you in about 9 hours and find out more about you.It sorta looks like a meter maid car out of a star treck movie or something. When you park your star ship illegally in dock 54 you get flamed.

Rock the Bike a Pedal Powered Music Stage by Fossil Fool

Paul the Fossil Fool's Bike

by xtracycleinc

Paul the Fossil Fool is the only MC who can rock a mic while he rides his bike. He is the inventor and producer of the Soul Cycle, an on-board audio system for bikes and the Down Low Glow, a neon lighting system that he designed and built. I met Paul two years ago at my first Maker Faire, where I saw his incredible bike for the first time. Last year he organized Rock The Bike a human powered music stage and this year will feature 10 local bands. Hey paul do you think I have enough links up for you? See you this weekend

Video from Last Years Rock The Bike

Scraper Bike - By Tyrone Stevenson Jr

Photos by Jacob Fenston



The scraper bike was birthed in Oakland by Tyrone Stevenson Jr., a 20 year old. AKA Baybe-Champ Da Scraper Bike King/Creator/Inventor. The idea came from cars that ride in Oakland called scrapers — basically an old model car, such as a Buick, that's painted a custom color to match the bright rims that are so big that they scrape the inside of the wheel well. Stevenson and his friends took those aesthetics and applied them to bicycles, fitting large wheels on small frames.The movement went viral when a video about scraper bikes when up and went global with 3 million views. Tyrone is right now working on getting his own store front and working in is his community to help keep the youth out of trouble and in a positive frame of mind.

"The Scraper Bike Movement seeks to capture the creativity of youth living within dangerous communities. It gives them a positive outlet that is fun, educational, and promotes healthy lifestyles. The Scraper Bike Movement offers youth a sustainable group of peers that is positive and motivating. They want to expand and enlighten young people's perspective on life through fixing and painting bicycles. Our goal is to support youth entrepreneurship and cultural innovation. The Scraper Bike Movement has been around for about 5-6 years and is now starting to get exposure worldwide."

-Tyrone Stevenson Jr

The Scraper Bikes will also be at this years Maker Faire

Porsche GT3

The Porsche GT3 car is the most powerful race car based on the Porsche 911, which last year scored wins at the 24 hour races of Le Mans and Spa as well as overall victory at the Nuerburgring 24 hours, competes in the GT2 class at international long distance races. The most distinguishing feature of the new GT3 RSR is the front end which received major improvements to the aerodynamics. The majority of innovations however are hidden under the weight-optimised body. The Porsche GT3 powered with 3.8-litre boxer engine. It delivers 465 hp (342 kW) at 8,000 revs per minute and delivers a maximum torque of 430 Nm at 7,250 revs. The rev limiter of the efficient six-cylinder kicks in at 9,400 rpm.

Aerodynamics In Car Racing

Aerodynamic efficiency is the goal of all race car designers. It is the most important element in developing a competitive race car.

1. Car Development

2. Racing Physics

3. Front Wing Assembly

4. The Chassis

5. The Rear Wing Assembly

6. Design and Test

7. Future Designs

8. Glossary

9. References

Mercedes Pens Art Car at Maker Faire 2009

Costas Schuler aka The Pen Guy is a graphic designer, artist, motivational speaker comedian, husband and proud father of three beautiful girls. Life has always been interesting but never quite the same ever since he started working on his Mercedes Pens Art Car now covered in 10,000 pens that was inspired from reading a book called "Art Cars" by author Harrod Blank. Now that the car is pretty much done he has set his sights higher and want to collect a million pens in the next five years to make more pen art.

Lunapillar Mutant Vehicle - Human Transport at Maker Faire

Lunapillar Mutant Vehicle

The Lunapillar is a mobile kinetic sculpture created by Jeff and Lisa Hannan insired by the whimsy of recycled and found materials. This mutant vehicle will transport groups of people around the Maker Faire this weekend in comfort and bliss, I can't to get my ride in style.

Hennepin Crawler by Krank-Boom-Clank

Hennepin Crawler at Burning Man

Hennepin Crawler at Handcar Regatta 2008

This four wheeled pedal powered monster is called the Hennepin Crawler and created by a group called Krank-Boom-Crank . They are a kinetic industrial arts collective located in Santa Rosa, CA, who made this giant mutant vehicle from about 90% recycled material, such as:

• Discarded lawn furniture
• VW Bug & antique Cadillac parts
• Old wooden furniture
• Industrial culvert pipe & aviation wire
• Plenty of old bike bits
• Other minor found parts

No Obvious Political Bias In Chrysler Dealership Closings

Update: Blogger Marla Singer at Zero Hedge did some actual statistcs on the entire dealer open and closing list, and found a small correlation between open dealers and donations to Hillary Clinton's campaign, but not a very significant difference between Democrat and Republican giving overall (0.93 vs 1.05 odds ratio of being closed, D vs R).

The blogger Doug Ross did some digging, and discovered that very few of the Chrysler dealers on the closing list gave political contributions to the Democrats in the last election cycle, and most of the ones that did give gave to Republicans.

In his original post (here), Ross found that out of a collection of 39 dealers he checked, 4 gave half or more of their contributions to Democrats (10%)

As much as I would like to believe it to be true, I don't think it is. There is a major flaw with his analysis: he didn't bother to check the dealers that are staying open to see how their political contributions broke down.

My hypothesis is that Chrysler dealers, being small businessmen, are more likely to donate to Republicans than Democrats, for predictable reasons. Like any small businessmen, car dealers want lower taxes, a lower minimum wage, fewer regulations, etc.

The list of Chrysler dealers that are staying open is here. This is a list of the dealers whose contracts will be assumed by the new Chrysler-Fiat.

What I did was go down the list and copy names into the search box at OpenSecrets.org until I got a clean hit. I did this until I got 25 dealers with donation records for the 2008 election cycle. The results can be considered randomized, since we don't expect a correlation in the alphabetical name of the dealership with their political affiliation (or geographic location).

Result: 23 dealer principals donated to Republicans, 2 donated to Democrats, or about 10%.

If you run these numbers through a binomial distribution, you get a 2-tailed P-value of 1! That means that the hypothesis that the two distributions are identical is correct. Chrysler dealers (and probably all auto dealers) who donated for the 2008 election cycle overwhelmingly supported the Republicans.

Here is my "raw data", if you want to spot check me.

DEEBY	R
AKINS	R
SMITH	R
MELLOY	R
SANZI	R
MCKAY	R
SIX	R
UDD	R
ANCIRA	R
ANDERSON	R
NOKES	R
HOSSLER	R
MAROONE	R
MORELAND	R
HADDAD	R
ALBRO	R
THOMASON	D
WYANT	R
BAUMANN	R
LANPHERE	R
SPITZER	D
BENSON	R
BERGERON	R
BERGSTROM	R
GERBAZ	R

Maker Faire 2008 - Vehicles , Art Cars and More

Whirlygig Emoto - Battery Powered Steam Punk Electric Scooter

More photos via flickr

Tom Sepe is the creator of Whirlygig Emoto Art Bike, a Battery Powered Steam Punk Electric Scooter. And if you think that's a mouthful, lets break it down for you one piece at a time. Yes this is a scooter that looks like its steam powered but in fact runs on a couple of batteries. Its also made to look like something made in the early 19th century around the Victorian era called "Steam Punk", look it up because its too long to go into it. Tom is also a multidisciplinary artist, performer, video editor and chef who also worked on Draka the Dragon, a 140-ft Flaming Metal Dragon, and The Runamock Fishvan. He also does custom fabrication work that can be seen in clubs, restaurants and private homes throughout the Bay Area. Check out Whirlygig Emoto in action.

How to Reduce Oil Dependence Costs

Today, over half of the oil we use is imported (58%), and our dependence will increase as we use up domestic resources.

Most of the world's oil reserves are concentrated in the Middle East, and about two-thirds are controlled by OPEC members.

Oil price shocks and price manipulation by OPEC have cost our economy dearly—about $1.9 trillion from 2004 to 2008—and each major shock was followed by a recession.


Solutions

We may never eliminate our need to import oil, but we can reduce cartel market control and the economic impact of price shocks by reducing our demand.

Congress recently passed legislation to decrease our dependence on oil by increasing corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards on new cars and trucks to 35 mpg by model year 2020. This could reduce our petroleum use by 25 billion gallons by 2030.

Ultimately, the solution to this problem lies in technological progress:

* Developing advanced vehicle technologies that use energy more efficiently
* Creating new energy sources that can replace petroleum cleanly and cost-effectively

Lego Jeep Art Car - On the road again headed to Maker Faire 09

LEGO Jeep at Maker Faire almost done

by bonniegrrl

LEGO Jeep Art Car with climbers

by Paula Wirth

LEGO Jeep Hood Close Up Art


I cant believe I have not posted the famous Lego Jeep Art Car on ACC. Here in all its glory entertaining kids of every age, who are all over it having fun. Legos are for everyone and Kevin Mathieu creator of the Jeep Lego Car has apparently not left his inner child behind. How awesome it is to be able to just pull over any time and play with your legos. Those famous Bay Area traffic jams seem less insane now that the lego car is on the road headed to this years Maker Faire.

Hand made bikes of a very unusual nature

Office Chair Bike

Wood Bike

Drift Wood Bike

Wood High Wheel

Compact Bike

Triangle Bike

Scooter Bike

photos via woodenbikes.com

Tom Kabat is a former serious cyclist who still loves bikes. An engineer, 30 year bike commuter and bike tourer (Trans America 1976), Tom was inspired to build bikes after seeing other great home built pedal machines at Kinetic Sculpture races and a wide variety of antique bikes on display in museums. I had the weird pleasure of riding on a few of these bike at the maker faire last year and trust me, they don't ride like a "regular" bikes. But the beauty of these strange contraptions is that you get to see your life flash before your eyes over and over again. Once you get the hand of it then you are free to ride around maker faire as much as you can take. I know I am going to try it again this year.

Neverwas Haul - Self-propelled 3-story Victorian House

Neverwas Haul at Burning Man



Its the week before Maker Faire and I want to dedicate this week to all the cool art vehicles that will be attending. The first is the Neverwas Haul a self-propelled 3-story Victorian House inspired by the works of Jules Verne. Its made from 75% recycled equipment and materials. It measures 24 feet long by 24 feet high and 12 feet wide and is built on the base of a 5th wheel travel trailer. It was created and designed by Shannon O'Hare, and will be appearing at this years Maker Faire in San Mateo California. Whats amazing about it is that it is mobile as you can see from the picture above. You can also go inside and be instantly transformed into another world.

Flower Art Car For Sale - Plenty of Grass, Plants and a Running Waterfall

Flower Art Car For Sale

Flower Art Car For Sale Waterfall Close Up

via

Wow, this Flower Art Car definitely takes best of flower show, a Ford Torus that was for sale last August in North Hollywood. It has a running waterfall, real live grass, plants, flowers, tiki torches, and a interior fish tank. Apparently its a great rental for the movie industry, business promotions, and parties and has received some media attention in the local news. When buying an art car its always good to have had media attention and have built a good reputation around town. The more famous the car the more you can expect to pay.

Wooden Art Car Called Gunner By Incredible Sculptor Michael Cooper

Wooden Art Car Called Gunner By Michael Cooper


Gunner Top View

Gunner Wooden Wheel Close Up

Gunner Pipe Close Up


Gunner Rear Disk Brakes Close Up

all photos via Michael Cooper Sculptor

This wooden art car called "Gunner" was created by amazing sculptor Michael Cooper who resides in Sebastopol CA. It was created in 2007 and made up from 65 different types of hard wood. is 120"x60"x39" and is owned by a private collector in Napa CA.

Not only does he live just down the street from me but I took my first 3D art class in college with Michael Cooper who inspired me to take more classes for the next four years that lead me into Graphic Design. He also encouraged us to start keeping art journals and 19 years later I have completed 23 of them.

Any ways Michael Cooper is simply amazing in the way he is able to combine wood and metal to create art that is simply mind boggling. I look at his works and cant for the life of me wrap my wind around his ability to twist and bend wood and metal in such a way. His art defies the laws of nature and has somehow tapped into a parallel universe where wood and metal naturally look this way.

Gunner is just one of the many pieces he has created and has been doing this since 1968. His portfolio is a must see, but we warned, give yourself plenty of time to browse and then come back for a second and third look. I guarantee you will never get tired of looking at his art.

Thanks Michael, its an honor to have you here on Art Car Central:)

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