What’s Next: An Electric Trabant?

Nope, that’s not a joke: The New York Times is reporting that the venerable East German crap-box is set to return as an all-electric car. IndiKar’s Ronald Gerschewski says the new Trabant will “Be simple, practical, and in the old tradition of the original, but it won’t be a retro model.” The concept isn’t set to be revealed until the Frankfurt Auto Show, but if we read between the lines, we can determine that the modern vehicle will have updated styling—courtesy of model making firm, Herpa—boast dismal performance numbers, worse reliability and be assembled by uninspired, paranoid workers under the careful eyes of the Stasi. Unfortunately, it will be unavailable in North America. Head over to the New York Times for more info.

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Has the Artsy Drift Montage Jumped the Shark?

Before I begin you should know that as the executive editor of StreetFire.net I love me some drift montage videos. And it should be noted that I did not ask the question presented in the title of this entry – believe it not, it was one of the filmmakers who produced these videos. I will protect his identity to spare him from the potential of a beat down with a sock full of P2 cards, some pursuit bars from a fixie, or whatever it is these artistic types use to submit beat downs.

With all of this in mind allow me to present the first (and potentially only) StreetFire Fab Friday Formula D Film Festival. I have three short form videos all from the some of the biggest names in drift video filmmaking (these guys are bigger than ever, its the monitors that got smaller!). All were shot at the latest FD Seattle stop. Our first submission is from Will “Cheesecake” Roegge, arguably the Quentin T of this genre. He also gets to go first because we worked together and he knows where the bodies are buried. Hit the jump to see a couple more deep and moody clips from FD Seattle and vote for your favorite in the comments. Or you can just tell us you hate these kinds of videos.

Skylar “No Known Nickname” Smith has been rockin’ the cam and Final Cut for Falken this season and he’s quickly come into his own. You can see more of Skylar’s sexy videos on Falken’s StreetFire user profile.

Last but certainly not least is Ross Fairfield, the Dead Pirate. I used pull Dead Sailors on my MXB with aplomb and I can only assume a Dead Pirate is a cooler version. Or it could be a Turd Word that I don’t know about. BTW, one of the Fab Four FD filmmakers is MIA. With apologies to Josh “Hobo” Herron, but he lagged and didn’t get his edit up in time for this post. Maybe he’s not in “the mood” to edit a clip. You know how temperamental these artsy types can be.

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Car Feature: Audi RS6

It has taken one week of driving and a few days of reflection, but I have come to the conclusion that the Audi RS6 may well be the best all-rounder money can buy. The first day I picked the car up from Audi Japan I headed straight down to the Hakone Turnpike for a day of hard driving. One quick blast to the top of the summit revealed an immensely powerful car, one that was maybe trying to play supercar too hard, given its obvious limitations in other areas.  Based on the A6 the RS6 (RS stands for “Renn-Sport”) is offered as both a sedan, like the test car you see here, or the slightly more practical Avant version, wagon to you and me. The test car sported a “Sepang Blue” body color, one that I though matched the sporty intentions of the car rather well. Continue reading over at Speedhunters…

By Dino Dalle Carbonare

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Formula Drift Vegas: Goin’ Big and Crappin’ Out

Triple digit temps and a new course configuration lit up the drivers at the fourth round of the 2009 Formula Drift series at Las Vegas. So far this season has been a real wild child. The odds of two-time defending champion Tanner Foust three-peating are greater than getting Megan Fox to wash my car. Here in Vegas Rhys Millen could not even score high enough to qualify. Another shocking DNQ was current points leader Darren McNamara whose Saturn Sky expired it’s V8 engine during practice. In an effort to keep him in the points Falken unceremoniously unseated Calvin Wan from his S15 but DMac couldn’t put a solid qualifying run together. The Falken crew did manage to score a big win after they somehow managed to tape JR Gittin’s Mustang back together in quick fashion after he hit the wall hard in practice. JR rode the wrinkled Ford to a 19th qualifying spot. Take a jump with me to see more from Las Vegas.

Coming into Vegas Samuel Hubinette is fourth in points. Couple his sixth place qualifying run with the DNQ from points leader DMac and the Toxic Swede looks to be in good shape. Except for one thing. He has no sponsor. Hubinette, a two-time FD champion lost his Mopar money in the wake of the Chrysler carnage. While it’s not what he wanted I think his Viper’s new body in white has a sort of pure and purposeful vibe. Let’s hope he finds some support. But then if guys like Patrick Mordaunt (21st on the grid) and Joon Maeng (29th) can do it, maybe Samuel, Shaun Carlson and the Nuformz crew can bootstrap the rest of the season as well.

While all of this drama was unfolding Robbie Nishida quietly stole the spotlight in Hankook 350Z topping all others with his 96 point score. Hatchi hero Katsuhiro Ueo followed in the Drift Speed S15 and Justin “JTP” Pawlak took third in his Bergenholtz Racing RX-8. Check out the Wrecked Magazine blog for more news from Vegas and we’ll have our full video up on StreetFire.net next week. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to continue hydrating before heading back to the track for tonight’s finals.

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Kid Sits on Hood of SRT-8 Jeep During Burnout

So what’s a teenager to do when his parents leave the McMansion and head off to the links? Why not sit on the hood of the SRT-8 Jeep while the driver does burnouts? Of course! Now, I wouldn’t have posted this if I didn’t think it was funny, and it’s not like I didn’t do things just as juvenile or dangerous when I was a kid. But if my blogging this clip gets homeboy grounded, I wouldn’t be upset.

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