Lightning McQueen Volvo Rally Art Car

If you were 3 years old, what car do you want your parents to own? It's not an easy question to ask a 3 year old as there answers are limited. However, Lightning McQueen surely has to be one of the top. And, if you need a sporty looking vehicle to base your Lightning McQueen on - what would you choose? A Volvo 740 of course.

In this case, three grown adults made the car of their dreams, apparently. A Volvo 740 plucked from obscurity that had spent its life driving round the UK's home counties, was now made into an art car. And driven across Europe repeatedly on our events.

I've never actually worked out what the motivation to make this car was, apart from further capitalising on a Cars dvd they had obviously bought.

You may be wondering whether there are any similarities between this car and a real sports car. There aren't.

However, the side effect of being the proud owner of Lightning McQueen meant that the owner was constantly bugged by their kids to take them to school in Lightning, which included half the kids from the neighbourhood. As the owner lamented one day, we can do the school run in a brand new Mercedes, or Lightning. Lightning won every time.

So there we have it. How to impress your children. Make Lightning McQueen.

By Justin Clements Street Safari

Spaced out Moonraker Volvo Rally Art Car

From the deranged minds that brought you the Tank Volvo and Helicopter, we have a space shuttle theme.

Not sure what the background to the idea from these particular overachievers is, maybe Moonraker, but they decided to do a space shuttle theme, with a trailer tent (its like a tent, but on a trailer) with a world on it.

Obviously, making a space shuttle out of a Volvo just doesn't work (you need a BMW 1600 for that, which we shall show you in future weeks), so they made their own space shuttle, mounted two side boosters (SRBs) to the Volvo, and effectively made the Volvo into the external fuel tank.

Then, bolt a great big round piece of metal onto the trailer, paint the Earth on it, and hey presto, you have your very own horizontal Space Shuttle Program, with a diagram of the Earth on the trailer behind incase you forget what your home planet looks like.

The team (the overachievers) even put in some pyrotechnics so that the shuttle actually looks like it has an exhaust trail! We like. Partly because it's always fun to see a bit of thought behind these things, and partly because the chance of the whole thing catching fire is greatly increased.

The trailer tent deserves it's own 15 seconds of fame. It was possibly the mankiest tent you have ever seen in your life. They think the previous owners bought all the camping gear, went camping once, didn't like it, packed the tent wet (remember it's canvas), and let the whole thing fester and rot for several years.

When the team opened the tent for the first time in many years, there were literally bits missing from the canvas, large sections in fact.

But quick to their aid came some drinking aids. They installed a set of optics in the trailer for each evening, and as long as you got far too drunk, you didn't notice the howling gail in the car each night. Or at least, I think that's how that was meant to work.

By Justin Clements Street Safari

MFP Mad Max Lemon Art Car In Hot Pursuit

Today's StreetSafari car was prepared for our US event, BABE Rally (Big Apple 2 Big Easy).

Instead of the European limit of £150-£250, the US event has a limit of $500. In 2009 when these pictures were taken the price had been increased from $250 to $500 in fact. Apparently $250 were getting hard to come by what with scrap prices getting higher.

With a doubling of the allowable car price, something quite impressive happened - the car actually got worse. You see, people were now unleashed and could buy whatever car they had dreamed of. And yes, people do dream of buying some of the mankiest car's imaginable.

For whatever reason, this team bought this wreck, and then had the bright idea to give a Mad Max theme to the car. From a distance this car looks brilliant, from close up, not quite so brilliant. The team were even busted by the neighborhood agency for spraying this car in their front yard.

After driving the car across the 1,500 of some great US roads the event ended in a Louisiana drag strip. Here, deep in the south where the mosquitos are big enough to drag you away, we set about "racing" the $500 against each other.

You've heard of the story about the hare and the tortoise? This was more like two tortoises. So imagine the commentator with a deep southern drawl explaining to the crowds why on earth these crap heaps were on his track, and you will have captured a very special moment.

By Justin Clements Street Safari

Break Time

Drag Race Time

More Break Time

Hot Pursuit Time

The Sauna - Riding the Alps in Style

The Sauna was built from a Volvo 240 and taken on CzechWrecks 2009, a 1500 mile 4 day journey starting from Calais, France through Swiss and Italian Alps all the way to Prague, Czech Republic.

What we have here is about 1/3rd of a ton of wood paneling being applied to the Volvo.

If you are wondering whether this wood had any impact on performance, I am assured it did. What performance they had to start with, remember that Volvo 240 are agricultural at best, that performance was soon zeroed.

Chris and Tom and their team built this car to raise money for charity and an opportunity to travel in their bath towels riding the sauna over some of the highest passes in Europe.

StreetSafari Rally Art Cars from the UK Now a Regular Feature!!!

StreetSafari, organizer of the world's best banger rallies, has teamed with Art Car Central to showcase some of the countless creations of our teams over the years.

For those unfamiliar with banger rallies, here is a quick introduction: buy a car on a budget (£250 or $500), repair it, make it legal for the road, take it on a journey across Europe or the States with other like minded people. Whether the car will end up in a foreign scrap yard or be taken back home is up to the team and is usually anybody's guess.

As one might imagine, part of the challenge is simply getting the car to the finish line. For most teams, the challenge starts much earlier. What seems to happen between buying the car and getting it ready for the start line is subject to paint, imagination and -- probably -- alcohol.

We get to see everything. You name it, we've seen it. If there was ever a famous car on television or cinema, we've seen at least five examples of it on our events. General Lee, Starsky & Hutch, the A Team, Ghostbusters, all done to death. We see rally themes from Audi, Skoda, Martini, Pink Pig, and just about any other you can think of. The quality of the theme seems to vary with the quantity of what the team has drunk, as much as with their creative ability.

Sometimes a team will just paint or decorate the car to a theme they made up. That's where we get the stand out cars.

Today's fabulous art car is a 1992 Volvo 480, with possibly the most intricate design we have ever seen in all the years and events that we've done. Its nickname on the event was simply "the Rorschach car" and everyone knew which that meant. When we first saw this car we made enquiries that it was being brought back to the UK after event, as it would be a crying shame to send this car to the crusher before it had enough time to be appreciated for the masterpiece that it was.

The story behind this art car is that two friends had bought it but had no idea what to do for a theme until they bumped into a rather talented artist friend. He then proceeded to draw all over the car and took about three weeks to do it. We believe the car was then sealed in a lacquer to give it a lasting finish, and we think the car is now in Glasgow somewhere.

From a distance, the drawing appears as one giant doodle. The closer you look, however, the more diverse and detailed the images become. A real piece of car art if ever we saw one.

By Justin Clements of StreetSafari
 

Ford and M-Sport have presented Fiesta S2000

Ford Motor Company and M-Sport have shown created by them new rally car Ford Fiesta S2000. It is the first car for the international rallies, constructed by efforts of the given alliance. Fiesta S2000 will participate in variety of competitions, beginning from Intercontinental Rally Challenge and finishing S2000 World Cup.

It is a high time to recollect technical characteristics. Together with a safety cage racing bolid 1197 kg weigh, thus it is equipped by the two-litre atmospheric four-cylinder motor I4 Duratec S2000 developing 280 h.p. of capacity and 260 Nanometers of a twisting moment which are transferred to four driving wheels through mechanical sequental gear box with clutch from AP. Brake plates Brembo can be changed on approaching on diameter depending on a line.

This car is planned for January, 2010.

Ford and M-Sport have presented Fiesta S2000

Ford Motor Company and M-Sport have shown created by them new rally car Ford Fiesta S2000. It is the first car for the international rallies, constructed by efforts of the given alliance. Fiesta S2000 will participate in variety of competitions, beginning from Intercontinental Rally Challenge and finishing S2000 World Cup.

It is a high time to recollect technical characteristics. Together with a safety cage racing bolid 1197 kg weigh, thus it is equipped by the two-litre atmospheric four-cylinder motor I4 Duratec S2000 developing 280 h.p. of capacity and 260 Nanometers of a twisting moment which are transferred to four driving wheels through mechanical sequental gear box with clutch from AP. Brake plates Brembo can be changed on approaching on diameter depending on a line.

This car is planned for January, 2010.