Friday, 1 July 2016
This Chameleon Car Is a Stand-In for Any Car in TV Commercials
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Here’s the annoying thing about shooting an ad for a car: You have to have the car. That sounds like a pretty basic requirement but starts turning into a real hassle when it comes to minor model revisions. Suddenly, all those pretty clips you shot last year are useless. The solution? Just use the Blackbird, and no one will be any the wiser.
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July 1, 2016 at 12:48 pm by Eric Limer | Photography by YouTube/millchannel
Here’s the annoying thing about shooting an ad for a car: You have to have the car. That sounds like a pretty basic requirement but starts turning into a real hassle when it comes to minor model revisions. Suddenly, all those pretty clips you shot last year are useless. The solution? Just use the Blackbird, and no one will be any the wiser.
The Blackbird is not a looker, but with a wheelbase that can extend an extra four feet in length and a front and rear track that can pop out 1o inches in width, that hardly matters. Just get the wheels in the right place, tweak the suspension along with the electric motor, and worry about the rest in post. No, seriously.
The Blackbird was built by The Mill, a London-based VFX company that won an Oscar for its work on Gladiator back in 2001, and whose work with CGI cars is all over the release trailer for its new rig. The compositing process works not just by using the Blackbird’s adjustable wheelbase, suspension, and programmable electric motor to replicate the performance of any car you want; it’s also got a laser scanner mounted up top, which records the surroundings so the footage can be used to make sure that everything around the CGI car’s nonexistent edges looks just right.
Using CGI in car commercials isn’t a new trend. One producer for a post-production company told News.com.au that most car commercials were already dabbling with the tech back in 2009:
“In the higher-end market, I would say at least 80 to 90 percent [of commercials] would contain CGI. At least 80 percent of car ads would.”
The Blackbird just makes it easier. While the tech is certainly impressive, it is sort of unnerving to know that so many of the cars you see in advertising aren’t even there. So just keep in mind that you won’t have a real idea of how these things handle until you get a chance to give them a virtual-reality test drive.
This story originally appeared on Popular Mechanics via Digg.
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VW Says It Can Fix 3.0-liter V-6 Diesels, Looks to Avoid Buy-Back
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Volkswagen, which just announced a profit-crushing, $14.7-billion settlement for its emissions-cheating 2.0-liter four-cylinder diesel engines, is still holding out hope that its V-6 TDI models can be brought into compliance, thus avoiding another multi-billion-dollar buyback.
According to Reuters, a lawyer for VW made the assertion in court June 30. The emissions problems affecting the V-6 cars are less severe and smaller in scope than those with the four-cylinder models. The report states that while the 3.0-liter diesels can emit up to nine times the legal limit of pollutants, they do not have the cheat software that switched on emissions controls only for EPA testing, turning them off at other times, which allowed the smaller engines to spew some 40-times the legal level of nitrous-oxides (NOx).
“The company believes that we can fix the 3.0-liter to the standards to which those cars were originally certified,” VW’s lawyer is quoted as saying, and also that the fix would not be complicated or adversely affect vehicle performance. The 3.0-liter TDI was installed not only in VW’s Touareg, but was used also in the Porsche Cayenne, and Audi’s Q5, Q7, A6, A7, and A8. It’s not known whether the proposed fix would allow those models to once again be sold—all have been on stop-sale since last fall. The next hearing for an update on VW’s progress is set for August 25.
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Thursday, 30 June 2016
Tesla Driver Involved in Fatal Crash While Using “Autopilot” Mode
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Federal safety regulators opened a preliminary investigation Thursday into the performance of the Tesla Motors Model S after one of the vehicles was involved in a fatal crash while operating in semi-autonomous mode.
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June 30, 2016 at 6:02 pm by Pete Bigelow | Photography by Michael Simari
Federal safety regulators opened a preliminary investigation Thursday into the performance of the Tesla Motors Model S after one of the vehicles was involved in a fatal crash while operating in semi-autonomous mode.
The driver of a Model S was killed on May 7 in Williston, Florida, when the vehicle, with its Autopilot feature engaged, failed to sense a tractor-trailer that was making a left turn across a divided highway. The crash marks the first known time a motorist has been killed in a car while it was operating in a self-driving mode.
Tesla said it learned of the preliminary investigation late Wednesday. In a written statement, the company acknowledged that the fatal crash occurred in the autonomous mode. “Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor-trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied,” Tesla officials wrote. “The high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer.”
The preliminary investigation, conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, will examine the design and performance of the Model S and its components. Investigators could choose to upgrade the investigation into an engineering analysis at a later date, which could be the prelude to a recall.
Tesla introduced the Autopilot feature in late 2015. The company said the fatality is the first in 130 million miles of Autopilot driving. Company officials noted the feature remains in a “public beta phase” that requires its users to acknowledge they remain ultimately responsible for the vehicle and its performance. “Autopilot is getting better all the time, but it is not perfect and still requires the driver to remain alert,” the company said. There have been no statements from any representatives of the driver.
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First-Ever Shelby Cobra Could Bring $10M at Auction
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Interested in buying a legend? The original Shelby Cobra, the very first car that Carroll Shelby hand-built, the one that kicked off the Shelby legacy that still carries on today, is going up for sale at RM Sotheby’s Monterey Auction on August 19. We have a feeling this car is going to generate some intense bidding.
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Interested in buying a legend? The original Shelby Cobra, the very first car that Carroll Shelby hand-built, the one that kicked off the Shelby legacy that still carries on today, is going up for sale at RM Sotheby’s Monterey Auction on August 19. We have a feeling this car is going to generate some intense bidding.
When we say original, we mean it. This is the very first of the Cobras—created in 1962 when Carroll Shelby shoehorned a 260-cubic-inch Ford V-8 between the wheel wells of a British-made AC Ace roadster. When that engine met that body, a legend was born.
The car, known as CSX 2000, served as the development prototype for what would become the Shelby empire. And it never left the founder’s hands—Shelby maintained this car as his personal Cobra from day one. It is truly a one-owner car.
That’s not to say it was pampered, though. In a tale that is now legendary, Shelby pulled a little scam on the car magazines that tested this car. After the Cobra was made public, CSX 2000 was sent out to every major car magazine for testing. But Shelby, wanting it to seem like he’d already built a fleet of Cobras, had the car repainted a different color before each magazine test. The magazines each thought they’d gotten a different car, and Shelby’s legend was sealed.
“It is the actual pen with which he signed his declaration of war and the idea upon which he built his company and revolutionized American racing—and the greater auto industry as a whole,” RM Sotheby’s writes. “It is, without exception, the single most important and history-rewriting sports car ever offered at auction, after over 50 years of ownership and without ever leaving the care of its founding father.”
Hyperbole? Maybe not. It’s hard to think of a single automobile that changed the course of sports-car history as definitively as the Cobra. This was the car that sealed Shelby’s career, that led Ford to become a 1960s racing powerhouse, that founded the American tradition of front-engine, rear-drive, hairy-chested roadsters that still beats in our veins today.
And among all the immensely collectible Shelby products of skyrocketing value, this will assuredly be the most coveted. Dave Kinney, publisher of the Hagerty Price Guide, estimates that this Holy Grail Cobra could bring $10 million—or more. Carroll Shelby had an unerring sense of the value of his cars; no wonder he held onto this one.
A version of this story originally appeared on Road & Track.
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