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From YourSITE.com Miscellaneous Features It’s that time of year again. While we may not all follow the same religion, many find a reason, religious or otherwise, to exchange gifts during this festive season. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a new list of interesting gifts you might consider adding to your own list, or the list of a loved one for 2005. Prices range, from very affordable to ones that are… not so affordable.
We love toys like Legos and Lincoln Logs. Play things such as these enable kids to use their imaginations as they go about their play. Mixing the thoughtful element of such toys with the automotive interest seems like a no-brainer, or at least it was for the makers of Automoblox. This new take on an old stand-by is part set of blocks and part set of toy cars. If you’re young or young-at-heart and have the bug for building a car or truck just the way you want to, Automoblox are a great outlet and look plenty fun to play with to boot. Kits include a sportscar, minivan, pickup, compact, sedan and SUV. With more than one kit, a child can mix or match to make their own creations. www.Automoblox.com 2. Christini All-Wheel Drive Mountain Bike
Christini’s all-wheel drive system can be controlled via a “shift on the fly” clutch located within the rear spiral gear and controlled by a lever located on the handlebars. With the clutch engaged, the gear locks with the rear hub and transfers power to a forward spiral gear via shafts that run within the bike’s aluminum tube frame. A gear set in the head tube, viewable through a service opening when the bars are turned fully to one side, channels the power down through a telescoping multi-spline driveshaft where it drives a free hub. Even with the clutch engaged, the front wheel of the bike is not powered under normal non-slip conditions due to gearing differential. Noticeable power transfer to the front happens either when the rear wheel slips or if the speed of the front wheel decelerates faster than the rear such as a front tire slipping out in a corner. It’s great technology, and it seems about time such a feature made it to bicycles. Further, Christini shared with us that he’s also working on all-wheel drive motorcycles. www.Christini.com 3. ‘Driving Forces’ by Peter Stevenson
Stevenson’s book opens with a young Rudolph Caracciola racing through the night on a borrowed motorcycle as he flees from certain arrest following a bar fight. Caracciola would go on to become a star driver in Mercedes-Benz’s prew-war driver lineup that dominated with the company’s famous silver arrows. The book goes on to detail the adventures and plights of the bigger-than-life characters that were the real people involved in pre-war Grand Prix racing. Other notable figures like Auto Union’s Bernd Rosemeyer and his pilot-wife Elly Beinhorn, Tazio Nuvolari and more take prominent parts in the story. If you’re looking for a race-by-race account with statistical analysis, ‘Driving Forces’ might be a bit of a let-down, but if you want a great story and an interesting social analysis of how the world of Grand Prix racing was slammed into the clash of axis powers at the time, this is a must-read. www.bentleypublishers.com 4. IKEA Bertby Cabinet For 1:18 Scale Model Display
Last time we checked, IKEA has little or nothing to do with cars. Still, look around with some imagination and you’ll be surprised at what you find. While picking up a black leather sofa and matching love seat with silver stitching for our offices, a look that resembles closely the stitching inside the Audi A3, we found this glass-door wall cabinet intended for CDs, Video Tapes or DVDS. When we looked at it though, we didn't see CDs or DVDS. We saw a great way to display model cars. With dimensions of 16.5” wide and 7.5” deep, the Bertby shelf is ideal for most 1:18 scale models. It comes complete with nine adjustable glass shelves, making room for ten cars. It offers a clean, framed look without any visible hardware once closed that might make that dusty collection of scale cars something your spouse will not wince at when you suggest placement in a prominent household room. And, it keeps the cars out of reach of small beady-eyed children looking at the cars with grand collision reenactment in mind. The Bertby shelf is available in black-brown, birch or silver and can be retrofitted (as shown) with one of IKEA’s affordable lighting kits for even more "ooh" and "ah" factor in your display. And, at $99, this shelf is relatively affordable. You'll blow much more on the cars you'll need to fill it up. 1:18 scale Audis are becoming more and more common. The TT and R8 are widely available, but we’ve seen everything from UrQuattros, Sport Quattros, vintage Auto Unions, NSUs and Horches to new models like Audi’s A3 Sportback. If you've been collecting for a while, you might even have rarer and now out-of-production models like the B5 A4 Touring Cars by also out-of-business modelmaker UT that would look perfect in one of these. www.Ikea.com 5. Kurgo Seasonal Tire Totes Are you tired of storing your off-season wheels and tires in garbage bags? Or worse yet, messing up your interior hauling dirty wheels home from the tire shop? The folks at Kurgo understand, that's why they created the Seasonal Tire Tote. Made of heavy-weight polyester, these totes not only protect your interior, they make moving your wheels and tires much easier too, thanks to their built in nylon straps. To prevent damage to precious alloys, Kurgo also makes Wheel Felts to cover the wheels while in storage. One size fits all passenger car tire sizes, and they are machine washable.
Whether you swap wheels out seasonally or simply carry your competition tires with you to the track, enthusiasts will find the Seasonal Tire Tote the ideal solution to this annoying problem. Kurgo also produces the Tire Garage, an eclosed "tent" for your wheels and tires designed to withstand the rigors of outdoor storage. Seasonal Tire Totes sell for $22.00 for a pair of storage bags. Wheel Felts sell for $18.00 per pair. www.Kurgo.com 6. Piloti Driving Shoes
Since 1999 Piloti has produced the coolest line of driving shoes that can also be worn daily. The lineup now includes several collections, but their low-top models make the perfect shoes for a long road trip, a weekend autocross, or justa day in the office. One of the newest models is the G16. Like all Piloti shoes, the G16 features the patented Roll Control heel to make heel-and-toe footwork a snap. The Piloti G16 is available in a handful of color combinations for $80 per pair. www.Piloti.com 7. Pumgo Land Surfer All-Wheel Drive Skateboard
What’s that you say? Skateboards aren’t driven by any wheels. True, but the Pumgo Land Surfer isn’t exactly a typical skateboard. It doesn’t look all that traditional either, with its oversized wheels and drive system that appears more like a suspension, even though it’s not. Through a leg-pumping surfing action, the Pumgo drives all four wheels and propels its passenger along. www.Pumgo.com 8. Rosendahl Tom Kristensen Watch Time pieces and motorsport go hand-in-hand. It’s not uncommon for watch companies to join with race teams or drivers to promote a new model of watch, so it was with particular interest that we listened when we heard that Audi’s star driver, the Danish-born Tom Kristensen has joined with Danish watch manufacturer Rosendahl to create this signature watch. The look, penned by watch designer Bo Bonfils, emphasizes the feel of the 24 Hours of Le Mans with which Kristensen will be immortally tied. The 24-hour dial of the watch symbolizes the 24-hour nature of the world’s best-known endurance race, while T.K’s signature adorns the face, as do four red and green dots at the top of the face that symbolize the starting lights at Le Circuit. The casing is also race-inspired with tire tread-like grooves on the crown and a strap that is made to resemble both racing gloves and/or automotive components.
The watch itself is Swiss-made with Swiss ETA movement in a stainless steel casing. In addition to time movement, the watch also features an alarm and 24-hour stopwatch. www.Rosendahl.com 9. Scosche Bluetooth Streaming Kits for iPod and other MP3 Devices
Specifically, the company has several fitment kits packaged for a range of OEM car applications that already feature harnesses that work with the factory head unit. They also have a generic kit that can probably be retrofitted to work with most factory and aftermarket stereos set up with an auxiliary input such as one for a CD changer. As explained to us, the kit’s receiver is installed much as a CD changer might be to a factory head unit. Once done, and switched to CD changer, an iPod connected to Scosche’s Bluetooth transmission attachment can stream audio to the car from up to 30 feet away. www.Scosche.com 10.Snap On Mini Air Ratchet
With 30 ft/lbs of torque available, the 7.5-inch long ratchet won't bust loose lug nuts, but it will tackle most underhood jobs with ease, and thanks to a ten-position power paddle, RPM, speed, and torque are all easily adjustable. It weighs less than one-and-a-half pounds and consumes a scant 1.6 cubic feet per minute of air - much less than many of the bigger, more bulky air tools. http://www.snapon.com. 11. Total Audi Magazine
Magazines dedicated to the Audi brand are in short number. We’ve always been fans of Audi Driver Magazine out of the UK, and were ecstatic when we were approached by newcomer and also UK-based Total Audi Magazine. With an approach of spanning all generations of Audi and covering more than just the UK market, Total Audi’s first issue went on sale last month with news and features relevant to North American readers as well as UK Audiphiles. This aggressive new player, with monthly format, is now offering subscriptions to the United States. www.TotalAudi.com 12. VintageArte Race Posters
In last year’s guide we mentioned VintageArte.com and their reproduction vintage race posters. The website is constantly adding new posters to their selection, and we found a few more that grabbed our attention. Our favorite of the new selection has to be this 1928 Nurburgring Grand Prix Poster, with Auto Union D-Type in the foreground. One of our editors had the great idea to buy some of these in their largest canvas format (32” x 44”) and build a wooden frame from 2x4s sourced from Home Depot, stretching the canvas print overtop, resulting in a more affordable alternative to buying expensive frames and matting with a very clean finished look. www.VintageArte.com
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