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Human beings are competitive creatures. If there’s a thing to be done well, people will forever vie to be the best at it. We’re certainly not strangers to it in the automotive realm, so it doesn’t surprise us when we come across another niche motorsport. Look no further than NYS FD‘s motorized ladder drill, in which a truck carrying a ladder team races from a dig to reach a gantry, where the ladder team drops from the still-moving truck to erect a ladder which one of its members must then climb to reach the gantry and complete the run.

It’s drag racing meets American Ninja Warrior. Things go wrong about as often as you’d expect, but it’s all in the name of friendly competition, and perhaps keeping sharp in the event of a real emergency. Either way you look at it, it’s spectacular.

But don’t take my word for it. NYSFDRacing posts runs from its ladder competitions (along with its other events) all over the internet. You can see all of the absurdity for yourself:

Quick Shot: Westbury C-Ladder, 2022 NYS Drill

Live on the second floor without an escape ladder? Fear not; they’ve trained for this. Although this approach certainly seems problematic for the driver in a real-world situation—not to mention the structural integrity of the home you’d be hoping to escape were this a real-world scenario. Fine, so the practical applications are limited. Who cares when it’s this objectively awesome?

C-Ladder is just one of many events in a typical competition, and while finding lay descriptions of the events is tough, there’s a published rulebook that would put your regional SCCA inspector into a tizzy. In the organizers’ defense, these people are tossing each other off the back of a truck. It would be no stretch of the imagination to think this could descend into buffoonery.

Obviously, these aren’t anything approaching “stock” ladder trucks. The rulebook requires them to have some of the basic features of an actual vehicle (brakes at all four corners, etc.), but they bear little resemblance to any modern firefighting equipment. There are limitations on vehicle length and tire size (and no duallies), and you can have only one(!) engine up to 440 cubic inches.

And no wheelie bars allowed, so please think of your friends’ dangling appendages when you launch that thing, OK?

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You don’t see a Lamborghini Reventon wandering the streets every day. But there have been quite a few spottings of this ultra-rare supercar lately. One of the 20 coupes built was spotted at Monterey Car Week, and just days later, another coupe was captured on the streets of Monaco.

The Lamborghini Reventon made its debut in 2007. Despite its age, this supercar looks so fresh and turns heads everywhere it goes. In fact, some of the modern limited-edition models don’t feel as special as this 19-year-old supercar.

The Reventon is based on the Murcielago LP-640 and is inspired by the F-22 Raptor. It features an all-carbon fibre exterior finished in matte grey, just like the fighter plane.

At the heart of the Reventon is a 6.5-liter naturally aspirated V12 that delivers 641 hp. A single-clutch automated gearbox handles shifts, launching the car to 62 mph in just 3.4 seconds and on to 211 mph.

Lamborghini also made 15 Reventon Roadsters, and one of them was spotted in Hamburg, Germany, earlier this year.

Source: @monaco_luxurystyle

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Mad Max: Fury Road is a great car film, not only because it’s basically one long chase, but because the production team built a fleet of post-apocalyptic vehicles that were fully functional despite looking utterly freakish. Many of the star cars were auctioned off a few years ago, but if you missed out on that (or just didn’t have the budget), there’s another opportunity to own a Fury Road car—as long as you’re willing to settle for an extra.

One of the leftover cars built for the movie is currently up for auction on eBay. It’s a Frankenstein creation combining the rusted body of a 1948 Hillman Minx with the chassis from a Mitsubishi L300 van. Even if it wasn’t a movie car, it would be a unique addition to your local cars and coffee. You’re unlikely to see a Minx—or any Hillman, for that matter—in the U.S., and Mitsubishi hasn’t sold any work vehicles here in decades.

People are unlikely to recognize it from the movie, though. The listing claims that it was shown being transported on a car carrier, which can be briefly glimpsed near the back of Immortan Joe’s convoy. But the carrier itself is so peripheral that it’s hard to identify the Minx riding on it. According to the listing, the car was used in some scenes that ended up getting cut. When it was previously offered for sale in 2024 by Propstore Auction, the listing identified it as one of the buggies used by the Buzzards that attack Imperator Furiosa’s War Rig early in the film. The Buzzards’ rides were all covered in metal spikes, so perhaps the Hillman was originally built for that scene and not used, and then the filmmakers couldn’t find another worthwhile role for it.

This is nonetheless a pretty cool build in its own right. Like the other Fury Road cars, the body is the real deal (it’s hard to imagine someone going through the trouble of making a fake 1948 Hillman Minx body), and the Mitsubishi chassis is pretty stout. The jacked-up rear end, giant tires, and exhaust exiting from the rear wheel well give it a cartoonish look that’s part off-roader, part patinated custom, and part 1970s Street Freak.

The listing doesn’t specify what engine is under the hood, but it’s likely the same small-displacement gasoline or diesel motor from the donor L300 chassis. It’s connected to a five-speed manual transmission that you shift with your left hand because this car is right-hand drive. The interior is fully set up for stunt work with an easily accessible hand brake, roll cage, and battery kill switch. The listing claims everything works, but with the disclaimer that this car is “not intended for driving.”

That’s a bummer, because this movie extra looks like it might be a lot of fun to rip around in. It would also be a lot of fun to watch someone else try to explain it to the DMV.

Lamborghini is changing course with the Lanzador. Originally planned as the brand’s first fully electric model, the four-seat coupe will now arrive with a plug-in hybrid powertrain instead.

The Lanzador remains scheduled to become Lamborghini’s fourth model line in 2028, but its planned dual-motor electric setup producing 1,341 hp has been dropped. Lamborghini confirmed earlier this year that the production model would instead combine an internal-combustion engine with electric motors. Now, CEO Stephan Winkelmann has put a nail to it.

“We decided to change the Lanzador from full electric to plug-in hybrid, and this was very well accepted by the customer. They’re very happy about that,” said Winkelmann.

Lamborghini has yet to reveal the Lanzador’s new powertrain. One possibility is a system similar to those used by the Revuelto and Temerario, where electric motors work alongside a V8 or V12 engine. However, packaging such a system into the Lanzador’s four-seat coupe body could require significant changes.

Another possibility is a version of the Urus SE’s electrified twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8. The production Lanzador could comfortably exceed 800 hp, while matching the 907 hp output of the Temerario would make it a particularly formidable grand tourer.

Source: Car Buzz

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Ford has a pretty deep catalog of factory accessories and performance upgrades for its current-gen vehicles, and right now it’s running a sweet 20% off promotion on items under $1,000. That means you can score a great deal on all kinds of stuff, from horsepower-increasing engine tunes to pink Bronco emblems. And since it’s all straight from Ford, you can get this stuff installed at a dealership while keeping your warranty intact.

The promo code is “REDEEM20.” Open the Ford Accessories catalog, check out what you want, and add the code at the beginning of checkout to get the deal.

I can confirm it works as of this writing—I mock-ordered a Bronco 2021-2026 2.7L EcoBoost Performance Calibration kit (adds 30 horsepower and 33 lb-ft of torque, with its own three-year warranty), which is normally $850, and the promo knocks it down to $680. That’s a lot of extra oomph for that little money and effort, considering you won’t even have to get your hands dirty to install this.

Those performance tunes are available for almost every EcoBoost Ford, too (Ranger, Explorer, and more). If you don’t need extra power, the Ford Accessories page has everything from truck parts to decorative pieces to stickers and wheels. Take a look!

Get 20% Off Ford OEM Accessories

See It

Full disclosure: This promotion was active at the time of publication, but may change without notice. See full deal details and exclusions on Ford’s site.

Volkswagen is following Audi and Mercedes-Benz in reversing one of the biggest interior trends of recent years: replacing traditional buttons and knobs with touch-sensitive controls. The company is now bringing conventional switches back to several of its newer models.

The change is already visible in Volkswagen’s latest products. The ID.3 Neo brings back more traditional buttons while removing the unpopular temperature and volume sliders. The ID. Polo and ID. Cross also feature individual switches for the windows, rather than relying on touch-sensitive controls.

Volkswagen has now offered an unusually candid explanation for why it moved away from physical controls in the first place. According to the company’s Head of Quality Assurance, Andreas Krepp, “What seems obvious to you or me today may well be viewed quite differently at a certain point in time. Then someone says, “People won’t want that at all in the future.” And when there’s a lack of reliable customer data, a lot of things are simply tried out.”

However, Volkswagen eventually found that customers did not necessarily want their electric cars to operate like futuristic spaceships. Buyers wanted the benefits of an electric drivetrain without having to relearn basic functions such as adjusting the climate or changing the audio volume.

“With electric vehicles—including here at our company—there was this idea: Something new is beginning [electric vehicles], so the controls must also change significantly and be particularly modern. For example, we said, “Let’s install sliders instead of traditional rotary knobs. That’s the future.” Then we learned that customers who buy an electric vehicle are primarily looking for a different type of powertrain. They don’t automatically want to buy a spaceship.”

Source: Motor1

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“It’s the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girl dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day.”

“Goodyear?”

“No. The worst.”

I fly a lot. It’s part of the gig. I’m also a deeply curious person, and that curiosity has often led me on deep dives into aviation accidents—frequently the night before or the day of a scheduled flight. Don’t ask me why, but reading about inescapable death doesn’t trigger anxiety in me the way it can in others. Chalk it up to a childhood of watching educational disaster porn on television, but if there’s a way for a plane to fall out of the sky, I’ve probably read the NTSB report describing it in full. What can I say? I find closure satisfying.

But as a millennial who grew up in the peak CD-ROM era, I have a very weird relationship with blimps. What could one possibly have to do with the other? If you also happened to live through the 1990s, you may have had a copy of Microsoft’s Encarta. Taking advantage of the greater media space offered by the format, CD-ROM editions contained video (gasp!) of select entries. Among the small number of included clips was Hindenburg disaster footage. I can’t tell you how many times I watched that loop as a kid. I’m no doubt a contributor to the zeitgeist that helped propel “Oh, the huge manatee!” to peak memedom.

But do I have a flaming zeppelin on my mind as I’m boarding Goodyear‘s “Wingfoot Two”? No. It’s that stupid line above from The Naked Gun. And I’m chuckling at it because I’m genuinely giddy about getting to ride in an airship.

Despite what you may have heard about this business, the vast majority of my time airborne is spent deep in steerage. The Wingfoot Two seats seven; there ain’t a bad seat in this house.

The “ship” part of airship is something to be taken seriously. If you think about it, a blimp is really just a submarine turned conceptually inside-out. The skin keeps the helium in rather than keeping water out (though, strictly speaking, it does that too), but the general principles of buoyancy still apply. To study the wind is to study fluid dynamics.

And since it behaves like a seafaring craft, it’s treated like one. Boarding the Wingfoot Two is like boarding a ferry that is already underway. The gangway ladder is fitted with wheels so that it can move with the blimp as it pivots about its mooring cable. The blimp may be drifting at anything from a gentle amble to a spirited jog, and that pace can change in an instant. Fall down in front of the ladder, and you risk being run over by a 20,000-pound party favor.

Moreover, because the Wingfoot Two is nothing more than a giant gas bag with propellers on it, its natural inclination (so to speak) is to go up. Because the Goodyear team is trying to run through a packed schedule of passenger rides, they never truly “land” the thing in between trips. The passengers themselves serve as ballast, and new riders board before the previous ride’s passengers disembark, to err on the side of keeping it too heavy. All the while, the pilots are effectively flying the ship into the ground just to keep it from floating away.

With the last of the previous ride’s passengers off and the boarding hatch shut (window open for comfort; there’s no AC onboard), there’s a quick safety briefing, and then we’re cleared for takeoff. The ground crew casts us off and the ship noses up immediately as the pilot rotates the props to send us vertical.

A plane glides. A helicopter beats the air beneath it into submission. A blimp… floats. It’s eerie; you feel every thermal and wind gust. The whole thing occasionally drifts sideways on a whim. But it’s gentle—muted by the sheer size of the helium bladder holding you up. We’re cleared to move about the cabin at our “cruising altitude” of 1,000 feet, but we’re encouraged to hold onto the various rails and purchases until we find our “sea legs.”

Since the Wingfoot Two’s props are only there to provide thrust and not lift, they’re not terribly noisy. One of the crew members stands facing us throughout the flight to present the standard “tour” and never once needs to raise his voice, even with the windows open to provide ventilation. It’s not silent, but it’s not intrusive either.

It’s no stretch to imagine that this was once the peak of luxury travel. The ride is smooth and the views are spectacular. But even a gentle gust reminds you just how much you’re at the mercy of the weather. Muted though the effects may be, there’s no getting around the sheer physics of it. Wingfoot Two may be shaped like a torpedo, but it might as well be a sail; it’s about as aerodynamic as anything else originally conceived over a century ago—which is to say, not very.

The low altitude and surface-street pace tend to draw attention to the big airship too. At both lift-off and landing, cars stop along the side of the airfield and curious onlookers emerge carrying phones and cameras. That’s a sign that Wingfoot Two is doing its job. The first Goodyear blimp was a vanity project conceived as an airborne yacht for landlocked gentry.

Goodyear isn’t selling these to Sam Altman as pleasure cruisers in 2026, but they still perform the same basic function they did more than a century ago—spreading the word. Goodyear calls these “exposure” flights. In this case, the company wants to bring attention to the new flagship store it just opened off Woodward Avenue in Detroit proper. We can’t quite see the skyline through the haze, but it’s out there, somewhere to the southwest.

The open windows make for great photo opportunities, but despite what appears to be a leisurely pace, we’re reminded that the blimp is cruising along at 40 knots—about 46 miles per hour. That’s quick enough to snatch a phone out of your hands if you’re not being careful, and our flight from Oakland County Airport to the Woodward corridor takes us over quite a few of Michigan’s prime lake communities. One mistake and “blooper” simply becomes “bloop.”

Forty-six mph may not sound like much, and even compared to some of the more affordable general aviation options, it isn’t. Some consumer-grade drones can run circles around Goodyear’s airships. If getting there quickly is your priority, even a car may be better, though our crew tells us that they could make the run from the northern Detroit ‘burbs to the company’s Airdock in Akron, Ohio, in about three hours at their typical cruising speed. You could nearly double their pace in a car, but the ships get to take a shortcut over Ontario and Lake Erie, while the automobile has to take the long way around via Toledo.

Huh. That sounds like the makings of an interesting race. How ’bout it, Goodyear? First one there gets bragging rights and a victory lap around the test track? I’ll bring the car; you bring the ship.

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Dartz Vehicles is building a real-life version of an SUV from GTA Online. Fans of the franchise will recognise this as the HVY Nightshark. The car’s unveiling will coincide with the release of Rockstar’s GTA 6.

We don’t have the exact details of the real-life version. However, those who have played Grand Theft Auto will know that the Nightshark is a heavily armored SUV inspired by the Dartz Prombron Black Shark. This vehicle was famously featured in the movie ‘The Dictator’, starring Sacha Baron Cohen.

“The client did not ask us to copy pixels. The client asked us to build what the pixels were trying to become,” Dartz RFE Leonard F. Yankelovich said. “The game world assembled one monster from our entire family. Now a customer has sent that monster back to Riga with a bank transfer,” he added.

Last year, Dartz Vehicles announced that it would be building the bulletproof Prombron Black Stallion in the USA.

Source: Dartz

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Thanks to decades of racing experience, the Brembo name is synonymous with performance. But what the company claims is its most powerful brake caliper ever for road-going vehicles was designed for an application that has nothing to do with lap times.

The Boldika (pronounced bohl-DEE-kah) is a six-piston caliper intended for use in large pickup trucks and SUVs with both electrified and straight internal-combustion powertrains. As those heavy vehicles—particularly the all-electric ones—get more powerful, stopping power is becoming more important than ever. This is why the Boldika can clamp a rotor with 8,500 newton-meters, or 6,269 pound-feet of torque.

To deliver that force consistently, the Boldika (the name is a blend of “bold” and “like,” according to a press release) features a three-piece design with aluminum components sandwiching a cast-iron bridge. This is the first time Brembo has employed this type of construction in a six-piston caliper. Benefits include lighter weight compared to an all-cast-iron design, greater stiffness, and maximum braking power (naturally).

The Boldika also has Brembo’s Enesys anti-drag technology, which ensures that the pads return to their resting place after braking. This eliminates residual friction between the pads and rotors when not under braking, helping improve fuel economy and EV range, while also prolonging pad life.

In the press release, Brembo talks up the caliper’s “muscular” design and how it was engineered to maximize pad surface area, but also claims it’s compact enough to fit inside 20-inch wheels. That may not seem like much of a boast until you hear where Brembo plans to stick those calipers.

The first confirmed application is the Chevrolet Silverado EV RST Stars and Steel Edition, which will get a set of Boldika calipers in Torch Red when it arrives at dealerships later this year. This is an all-electric pickup that rides on 24-inch wheels and weighs around 9,000 pounds. But it’s also likely to have over 700 horsepower, similar to the last RST, which Chevy said could do zero to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds. Even with regenerative braking, getting that much mass (unsprung or otherwise) stopped as quickly as it goes is a challenge worthy of Brembo’s mightiest caliper.

Dutch boutique automaker Spyker Cars is back at The Quail during Monterey Car Week with a new hand-built flagship supercar – the C8 Preliator XXV Coupe.

According to the company, the new C8 Preliator is an entirely new car conceived from a clean sheet of paper. It is based on an in-house spaceframe wrapped in hand-built aluminium bodywork.

It takes around 2100 hours to build a Spyker. The steering wheel is stitched with two needles at once, by one craftsman, over four hours. Even the dashboard is hammered from aluminium. Each chassis number is stamped by hand into the aluminium space frame, so that no two impressions are quite alike. The car on display at The Quail is chassis number 270.

At the heart of the C8 Preliator XXV Coupe is a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 engine that delivers 800 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque. The engine is paired with a proper manual transmission for a proper old-school driving experience. The car can reach a top speed in excess of 217 mph.

Only 25 examples of these hand-built exotics will be produced, each personalised to the customer’s preference.

Source: Spyker Cars