Pininfarina is a well-known name in the field of automobiles and its representation as the zenith of automotive design firms cannot be ignored henceforth. Working for the past 80 years since its foundation was laid in 1930, this Itlaian firm has been working for great names such as Maserati, Alfa Romeo and Ferrari to design their bodies. Now it has come to the point of changing the course of work and rather than working for others, Pininfarina has decided to create its own car, the Sergio.

A sports car by nature, Sergio was first featured at the Geneva Motor Show to fulfill the great expectation that comes with Pinifarina and as a result got high appraisal ratings. While introducing the car, the Chairman of Pinifarina Group, Paolo Pinifarina, referred to Sergio as a car succeeding family tradition and said, “My father would be proud of this concept car because it expresses the aesthetic values that always inspired him: the purity of the lines, the harmony of form, and balance”. Paolo further added, “Furthermore, he would be happy with this latest concept on a Ferrari base, a brand to which we are related by a history that has helped define the most beautiful cars of all time.”





The Sergio has been built upon the structure of a Ferrari 458 Spider and considering the ravishing previews, Pininfarina has started to contemplate over running a small production line for the amazing sports car. The popularity was further confirmed at the Villa d’Este and a Pininfarina event held in London that showed there will be enough eager customers to get their hand on it, once it makes to the market.

Sergio is without a windshield and it replaced aluminium with carbon fibre in its composition; the addition of a set of air ducts in the front wheels take care of the downward force lost from exclusion of the windscreen. With all this, 3-6 Sergios are set to hit the market valuing at around $2M each. Critics say that the price of the car is not just for the innovative and stylized design but the legacy of automotive engineering that continues with it. For some big shots, even $2M is not a hefty price to pay.

General Info

Vehicle Type: Super Sport Coupe

Base Price: NA

Dimensions

Length: 179.1 in. (455.0 cm)	Wheel Base: NA
Height: 44.8 in. (114.0 cm)	Width: 76.3 in. (194.0 cm)
Curb Weight: 2822 lbs (1280 kg)	Ground Clearance: NA
Luggage Capacity: 3.88 cu ft	Maximum Seating: 2 people

Performance

Engine: V8 DOHC	Displacement: 4.5 Liter
Horsepower: 570 HP	Max RPM: 9000 RPM
0-60 mph: 3.4 seconds	Maximum Speed: 199 mph (320 km/h)

| Pininfarina #end.

The car parks, walking distance from the terminals, are meant for stays of three days or less. You pay dearly for convenient location, air conditioned walkways and covered car bays. That is, if you actually came back to collect your ride. Instead of costly convenience for frequent fliers, the parking lots at the Abu Dhabi airport are evolving into drop sites for unwanted wheels. Flat tires and sand-caked windows prove many have been there for months. These aren’t clunkers. Right now there’s a Jaguar XK8, a Camaro S5, and a convoy of BMWs and a mess of Mercedes.

“I’ve seen a few cars here that are covered with dust,” M.T. Hassan, a Sudanese public relations officer told The National. “Maybe some of the owners will return, while others may have already left the country. We really don’t know.”

Ramesh Menon, an Abu Dhabi government worker, suspects the latter. He visited the airport in mid-July. Returning weeks later, the same cars remained parked. “If the owner parked there by mistake, he or she will claim it,” said Menon. “If it’s deliberate, the car should be auctioned off to the public.”

Flat tires are a giveaway. “Abu Dhabi airport has tight security. I don’t think someone will go and puncture tires. The authorities should consider removing them to allow other cars to park,” Menon said. “These cars eat up a lot of space and it gives the city a bad image.”

Car dumping is happening all over the Emirates

Abandoned cars line streets and car parks in Dubai, too. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was badly bruised by the 2008 financial crisis. Projects folded, investments shrank, and jobs evaporated under the UAE sun. Many debt-ridden expatriates cut their losses and abandoned their cars en route to flights home.

A check on some of the plates revealed that most of the cars had racked up steep fines for traffic violations, unpaid parking fees and car payments and Salik fees and fines (Dubai’s electronic road toll system).

According to Dubai Municipality, 3,040 cars were deserted across the emirate this year, some found with keys in the ignition. Dubai International Airport is also haunted by these luxury ghosts.

Once a car is suspected of being abandoned, municipal inspectors slap on a warning notice. Fifteen days on, if the owner doesn’t respond, the vehicle is confiscated and taken to a scrap yard where it can be reclaimed for about $200. Most are never reclaimed.

Last year Abu Dhabi auctioned off 400 abandoned vehicles. To date, Dubai hasn’t gone the public auction route.

The splashiest derelict to date, a limited edition Enzo Ferrari, was dropped in a car park when it’s debt-ridden British owner fled Dubai in 2010. The red hot rod, one of only 399 in the world and one of the fastest cars ever made, was impounded last year. It’s thought the owner was being chased for unpaid traffic fines. The car, not quite as pricey as Abu Dhabi’s solid gold Mercedes, was valued at $1.6 Million.

Being in debt in Dubai is a crime

The United Arab Emeriates has no bankruptcy law to protect debtors. Post-dated checks are frequently used as a guarantee by UAE businesses, banks and individuals for everything from apartment rentals to multi-billion dollar business deals. Bouncing a check is a criminal offense in the UAE, punishable by fines or jail terms.

Last May, five expats jailed in Dubai went on hunger strike to protest against lengthy prison sentences handed down for rubber checks. The men, mostly real estate developers and businessmen working during Dubai’s boom years, fell into debt when the emirate’s property bubble burst.

I’ve found no follow-on news as to the outcome of that strike, nor was it reported if these guys bailed on their cars. But you see a probable motivation for ditching luxury cars.

But don’t pin the trend on expats only: a recent batch of Abu Dhabi pound cars included ten belonging to Emiratis, seven to Europeans, one to a Russian expatriate and the remainder were owned by local companies.

Police collected nearly $3 million in the last five auctions for cars and motorbikes. Seems some crime pays out after all. | DailyMail / greenprophet#end.

Super cars with the super technologies - that’s the battle currently waging in the automobile arena. Audi has confirmed loading a 7.7″ AMOLED display in Audi e-tron instead a rear-view mirror. It makes sense as the car doesn’t have a back-window, and to fix the issue, LED display connected to the camera in the back is a pretty good idea.

Audi is planning to add some other functionalities to the display as well, such as speed, temperature and fuel measurements. Moreover, the company says that the display will be supplied by Samsung and we assume it to be the same as Galaxy Tab 7.7″ slate’s. Audi preferred AMOLED display over LCDs because of its thinness and power efficiency. The company also confirmed that such type of displays will also be available in other vehicles once the technology gets cheaper.






| Audi #end.

Think your daily dose of public transit is commuter hell? Try taking a double-decker bus for a Sunday drive in the Australian Outback, Jack! You don’t have to be Crocodile Dundee to know that’s one trip that WILL end in tears and WON’T end back at your starting point. It’s been tried, as this mellow, yellow, slowly rusting relic of 1950s Sydney now standing out back in the sands of the Outback so beautifully illustrates.

Bus Da Move… NOT

Permanently parked in Australia’s inhospitable Strzelecki desert, just off the road near Cameron Corner stands one of the most incongruous objects you’ll ever see: a cheery though weary yellow 1952 Leyland double-decker bus – or to be precise, the abandoned remnants thereof.
Time hasn’t been kind to this former commuter-carrier that, in a previous life decades ago, trundled through the peaceful, tree-lined streets of Sydney and Newcastle along with dozens of its ilk. Then again, time works in strange ways out in the outback, preserving some things well beyond what might be expected while accelerating disintegration in others.
But back to the busted bus… how did a veddy-British “London Bus” end up all alone at the end of the Earth, antipodean-style? The answer lies entombed in Australia’s history and that of Sydney in particular. According to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, “about 2,000 mechanically powered double deck buses have operated in Australia since 1905.” The last one was withdrawn from service in May of 1986 as new, more-reliable, articulated “bendy” buses were introduced.
New South Wales is world’s apart from the blistering deserted desert of Australia’s “Red Center” but if one wishes to get away from Sydney’s rat race, the only choices are into the Outback or out to the ocean. Obviously, inland is the way to go but getting there is half the fun and by “half the fun” we mean “all the fun”: when the bus eventually, inevitably stops, so does the fun.

Outback Mistake House

You’d think there’d only be one dummy dumb enough to drive a double-decker bus into the hotter, dryer, ever more isolated Australian Outback but that would give down-under dummies too much credit. Indeed, there’s an identical, yellow, abandoned double-decker bus moldering away behind the Betoota Hotel between Windorah and Birdsville.
Yet another abandoned double-decker bus stands within shouting distance of the main (OK, only) road from Karratha to Port Hedland near the northwest Australian coast. This ragged survivor of the transit wars now fights a losing battle between gritty desert winds and salty sea breezes yet still proudly bears patches of pale blue paint and the number 2159.
One abandoned double-decker bus to an article, however, and we’re focusing on the bare beauty beached in the shifting sands of Cameron Corner. The “corner” refers to the junction of the Australian states of Queensland, South Australia, and New South Wales. It’s located about 1,400 km (870 mi) west of Brisbane and approximately the same distance west-northwest of Sydney. That a clapped-out double-decker bus whose best days were long past could have managed to travel that far over mainly miserable roads is a miracle in itself.

Gimme Bus Shelter

Miracle or not, there it stands amidst a copse of struggling trees just off a much-beaten path (actually the Lyndon Station track). It’s not certain which came first, the bus or the trees, but word has it the bus was used as a temporary out-camp for cattle workers who called it “Jack Camp”. Anything to get out of the blazing Outback sun, son!

The bus is better known as the living space and home base of Australian artist Joshua Yeldham. Born in 1970, Yeldham set out one day in the early 1990s in his VW Combi van, searching for inspiration along the sprawling Dingo Fence. By chance, his van happened to break down near Cameron Corner and as a Kombi doesn’t offer much living space, Yeldham co-opted the empty bus: he ended up staying there 6 years.
Alone with the ghosts of bus-riders past and emboldened by the spirit of Eliza Kennedy, whose grave lies nearby, Yeldham enjoyed one of his richest artistic periods. A book of his paintings entitled“Solitude’s Bride,” possibly after Eliza, was published after Yeldham and his career moved on. The epitaph on Eliza’s tombstone reads “Her charity covereth a multitude of sins,”which certainly says much in just a few words.
The abandoned bus also attracts artists of a different sort: photographers. Australian native Dirk Spennemann is one of many who’ve been entranced by the Cameron Corner double-decker but one of only a few who’ve creatively captured its essence for the ages on film.

Spennemann’s strikingly ethereal images, several of which are showcased above, do justice while paying homage to the rare set of circumstances that have taken this bus where no bus has gone before.

The Outback Waits, Dreaming

As for the Cameron Corner bus, its remains remain in situ long after the cattlemen and creative types have come and gone. Passersby do occasionally leaves their marks, however, though the practice is frowned upon. Take Ken Duncan, a defender of culture who “prepares to wage war on a growing threat to the pristine nature of our precious outback icons: idiots with spray cans.”
“Talk about the last bus stop,” relates Duncan. “When I first saw it, there was no graffiti – but over the years dipsticks have felt the need to add their names. While standing there recently, ready to take a new photo of the bus, I was pondering the worst of the fresh graffiti, a scrawled name: “Wishbone”. I was thinking, “What would possess someone to do that?””

“And guess what? I got my answer. At that very moment, a guy pulled up in his Ute with the big aerials, driving lights, bull bar and fluffy dice on the rear-view mirror, and jumped out with his girlfriend. He headed over to the bus and said proudly, “Look, darling, there’s my name. Wishbone. I did that – isn’t it great?” His girlfriend just giggled nervously, not really knowing what to say. They were both right near me and I overheard this profound dialogue. I couldn’t believe I had actually now met the owner of the graffiti.”
“Wishbone looked over at me, clearly so proud of his ability to spell his name, and announced once more, “That’s me,” awaiting my approval. I like to be as friendly as I can, but I just looked at him and said: “If you did that, then you are a dipstick. Why did you do it?” The poor fellow just looked at me with a vacant stare – obviously not the sharpest tool in the shed.”
Sixty years after it rolled off the factory production line, chrome gleaming and exuding the aroma of New Bus Smell, this solitary people-mover now silently observes the overhead transit of sun, moon and stars. As a man-made consumer product its life has been unusually long and curiously eventful but the spirits of the Outback simply smile and wait their due. Weathered by the elements and vandalized by the Wishbones of the world, the bus is doomed to deteriorate into rust and become part of the Outback’s relentlessly scouring red sands. Sic transit gloria indeed. | WebUrbanist #end.

Built in 1926 alongside the connected 13-story Michigan Building office tower, the 4,000-seat Michigan Theater has been left to decay, another casualty in Detroit’s long decline since its heyday as a car-manufacturing mecca.

“It is not merely a theatre for Detroit,” John H. Kunsky, the theater’s owner, told The Detroiter in August 1926. “It is a theatre for the whole world. It is designed to be the great showplace of the middle west.” It was described in the press as “a jewel”, and “the world’s finest”. The auditorium featured 10-foot crystal chandeliers that hung eight floors above the seats, and the mezzanine was open to black-tie guests only. But by the mid-1960s, the Michigan Theater was among dozens in the city to close due to dwindling profits, and though it was saved from the wrecking ball in 1967, its glory days were over.

Ironically, one of the factors that forced the closure of the opulent theater was a lack of parking. The theater faced stiff competition from modern nearby theaters that offered plenty of parking space. After a brief interlude as a music venue, during which it drew some of the industry’s biggest names, the Michigan Theater was gutted. While the shell of the building remained intact, it was filled with a three-level, 160-space parking deck.

One perk to the theater’s latest incarnation is that one need not be an intrepid urban explorer (which often includes law-breaking and physical danger) to get a good look at these modern ruins. A paltry parking fee will get you up-close-and-personal with peeling gilded walls, a crumbling ticket booth, the remains of an upper balcony and a shredded bit of red curtain.














| WebUrbanist / Foro: detroitderek, Flickr #end.

Are the United Arab Emirate states being over-the-top extravagant when purchasing super luxury cars? Word has it that an Abu Dhabi billionaire is the proud owner of a Mercedes V10 Quad Turbo sports job that has a body made of white gold! Not gold paint, but gold alloy sheet metal. Do these kinds of luxuries find any parallel with the similarly over-the-top “eco” projects happening in the region, like The World islands and Masdar City?

The specially made car features a newly developed V10 quad turbo with 1,600 horsepower and 2800nm of torque. It is said to be able to go from 0-100km/h in less than 2 seconds, and can go a 1/4 mile in 6.89 seconds running on biofuel. But seriously folks, is it even relevant to talk about biofuel in the face of such an item?

Cost of this “jewelry store on wheels” is reported to be $2.5 million USD – or enough money to feed the poorer populations of many Arab countries for months.

Oil rich Emirates in the UAE have been known to spend large sums of money on all kinds of extravagant projects including what has been billed as the largest and most expensive indoor ski complex in the world, Ski Dubai, the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa Tower (all 158 stories of it) Abu Dhabi’s now being constructed luxurious Al Reem Island (said to be a playground for the wealthy); and what may be the only truly environmental sustainable project, Masdar City, which is also in the early stages of construction.

Luxury at the expense of poorer Arabs

All of these, including the car of course, are at the expense of millions of people throughout the Muslim world who go to bed hungry every night; and many of these people (from countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, and even Jordan) work in the UAE on these construction projects for incomes ranging from as little as $4 a day.

It appears that only the wealthy can afford to purchase properties in these places, or spend the night in hotels that can run as much as $25,000 a night for a luxurious suite in Dubai’s Burg Al Arab ultra luxurious hotel tower. It makes us wonder what good could be done if just some of the money spent on these projects had been used for the good of the regional environment.

And while the much touted Masdar City is being marketed as “an example for other countries”; other projects, especially Dubai’s island community extravaganza The World, may turn out to be the region’s economic and environmental downfall, due to severe problems from both aspects.

Getting back to the “solid gold Mercedes” it does have one redeeming quality; its 1,600 HP engine is designed to run on biofuels. But throwing in words and ideas like LEED-certified building and biofuel does not make a construction project or car environmental friendly. It’s just using the good deeds of the environment movement to get some good PR.

Want to convert your Mercedes to biofuel? No problem. Follow this handy resource “converting diesel mercedes to biofuel” and save yourself $2.5 million dollars.

| Green Prophet #end.

D eep Forrest near border with Ukraine. Nobody Know exactly when and why these military vehicles were abandoned in the woods. Peoples say, They've been sitting there since the mid 90's seeing the lack of rust or flat tires. Some of those are probably gummed up with bad fuel or were left with water still in them so the whole engine might be seized.





























| MB #end.