I just found something that solves one of my many irritations. See, I have home-theater-junkie tendencies. If it wasn’t for my limited economy, I would have a totally bitchin’ setup.

However, even on my relatively humble scale there is one thing that annoys me to no end. I have given my pain a name, and that name is “cables”.

I tolerate them around my computer, because it’s a messy area no matter how you turn, and thus it kind of disappears into the entropy. But I’ve thought long about how to solve the issue of making a neat theater-installation without having a bunch of cables running around the place.

(I should point out that I’m also very skeptical towards any wireless solutions. It’s not that I don’t like wireless, it’s just that in my experience they’re always too unreliable and while removing one annoyance they add several others instead.)

Managing cables and stringing them up in a neat configuration helps, but they’re still there. However, now I’ve found a product that is as ingenious as it is useful. It’s called Flat Wire and it is exactly what the name implies - a cable that is almost perfectly flat.

It’s beautiful. Attach them to the wall, then paint or wallpaper over them. They’re invisible!

The only drawback about these are probably that since they’re clever they’re also expensive. I haven’t found a price for them (even though I admittedly haven’t searched very hard) but that’s again my experience with smart solutions.

But isn’t it gorgeous?

Or: My Lovesong For A Fork.

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for a long time, but never quite got the grasp I needed around it. Plus, when I originally envisioned writing it I was still blogging in Swedish, and Swedish lacked the proper fullness to fully convey what I wanted to write about. Also, I really don’t know what the swedish equivalent to “over-engineered” would be. Probably something less elegant.

So, let’s continue.

Over-engineering. How do you define it? I did a search on Google but most of the websites listed there referenced it as something that’s been overdone, something that’s been designed to death. That’s not the term I associate with over-engineering.

Over-engineering to me is when something is just so much better than it has to be, so much better that regardless of what the item in question is you just have to stop and appreciate the beauty of it. Not only does it function better than expected, it’s more reliable and just perfected in a sense that’s difficult to describe.

A real-world example of this is classic Mercedes-Benz cars. Each detail on them is just simply better than need to be. A doorlatch will work thirty years later, and not look worn down. In the ’80s Mercedes discovered that this was rather costly, and that they could get away with not over-engineering their car to the same extent any longer.

Now, I’m not saying that modern Benzes are crap. They’re not. They’re very nice cars. They just don’t have that perfection to them that older Benzes have. A friend of mine once owned a vintage Benz, built from parts collected from two other Mercs. It was a thing of beauty in it’s pure function. Everything in it felt solid, everything in it oozed quality despite being 30+ years old and not properly maintained. Doors closed like the should.

Over-engineered items are a rare commodity today. Most companies only produce their goods as good as minimum needed. Sure, there’s a lot of quality merchandise out there, but the really nice over-engineered items are few and far between. Most consumer electronics for example are designed with a built-in obsolescence. Despite my generally favorable opinion to Apple-products I’m of the opinion that The Steve insists on this, since it’s more profitable for the company. Several other companies do this as well. Over-engineering is just not good for a companys margins, since it’s never in the best interest to manufacture things that last long.

Over-engineering isn’t cheap. If you want stuff that really lasts, just look at the requirements that militaries all over the world put on their equipment. There’s a good reason why pretty much anything in the army costs a lot - it’s been designed to take a beating for several years.

A good example of over-engineering in the military field is the Humvee. You know, that big clunker of a car that the US Army roams around in, and which you can buy in a civilian version for a silly amount of cash. I’ve heard about Humvees that are 10-15 years old and who have never seen any service except for a regular change of oil and gaskets, despite working in some of the most demanding applications a wheeled vehicle can be expected to do. I’ve heard of civilian Hummer-owners who put their own vehicles through the paces, and rarely do anything but refill oil and replace worn-out tires.

Over-engineering is almost a thing of beauty, especially when it’s a simple item that’s been so perfectly engineered. A Humvee is impressive, but it’s a complex machine and will eventually wear out no matter how much (or how little) maintenance it receives.

Which brings us to the heart of this posting. There is at least one item that’s so brilliantly engineered it will last practically forever.

I present you with:

Yup. This is a fork. But it’s also an awesome thing and a beautiful example of a simple thing that’s just Too Darn Good.

This is a swedish militar-fork. It’s a standard piece of equipment in any backpack carried by a soldier in the Swedish army. It’s made of stainless steel, is a rather heavy utility, and it’s practically impossible to destroy.

My particular fork was found in a drawer containing old cutlery at my parents place. I estimate that this fork is at least twenty or thirty years old, yet looks almost like new. The only tell-tale signs of age is that it has myriads of microscopic scratches almost invisible to the naked eye. In this photo they for some reason are clearly visible. Also, please excuse the poor photo. My digital camera got quite confused by all the stainless steel and messed up the white-balance.

So, why is this such a great example of over-engineering? First off, like I mentioned it’s virtually indestructible. I assume that the only thing capable of destroying this fork is a volcano or possibly throwing it into the sun. Or something.

You can’t bend it, I’ve tried. Maybe if you use something like a five-ton hydraulic press you can bend it, but with plain muscle-power it won’t budge a millimeter. It’s a bit heavier than a normal fork, but normal forks won’t withstand the abuse this one has and will take. The prongs are as sharp as when it was new, and you want to be careful not to chop yourself with this one. It’s really, really sharp. Have I sharpened it? Nope, never. I’ve just tossed it in the cutlery-drawer and used it as often as I can.

You can’t buy these forks in stores either. I’ve never seen them for sale anywhere, even though maybe at one time they were sold in surplus-military stores. I don’t know. As far as I know the only way of acquiring these forks is to do time in the Swedish army and then covertly stealing them with you when you leave.

In a pinch it can probably be used for anything required. I know of people in the army who use these to open canned goods. They simple use the fork to chop a hole in the can, then pry it open. I can imagine mechanics using it for some purpose. Perhaps when you run out of bullets and have lost your bayonet somewhere this fork can be used to stab someone in the kneecap? The possibilities are endless.

All thanks to some dude who took his fork-designing duty way too seriously.

I’m having a hard time thinking up things that are sold today that come even close to demonstrating the same durability and timelessness as this humble fork. In forty years, it will probably be just as usable as now. Even if the future is some kind of lawless Mad Max-dystopia this fork will still be useful as either an eating-utensil or an eye-stabber. Probably both, but hopefully not at the same time.

UPDATE: To give you all an idea of how durable and sharp this fork is, I’m going to tell you about this one time I was eating a particularly tough piece of meat. While I was trying to saw through this leathery piece of food I used that very fork to keep it still. Unfortunately, the plate I was eating on wasn’t up to requirement and shattered when the fork was pushed down in an attempt to keep the beef still. I was really frustrated with the stubborn piece of meat and didn’t discover the plate had cracked until I realized that the fork was lodged in the wooden table beneath, pinning the piece of meat along with it.

So, the other day I was playing Half-Life 2: Episode Two. Excellent continuation of one of my favorite games of all time. I’ve had a blast playing it so far.

Anyhoo. There’s a segment where Gordon (i.e. You) need to go through a lot of stuff to get to a car. The car is needed for the next part of the game. I went through that whole level and finally found the car.

When I found it I did a bit of a double-take. It looked oddly familiar. In fact, upon closer inspection it was quite clear why it looked so darn familiar. It was a Charger! As you can see from the screenshots down below it’s essentially a heap of junk, barely recognizable. But that rear end and the headlights are a dead giveaway. It’s definitely one of the original B-body chargers, judging from the brakelights and split grille a 1969 model.

(Click the images for full-sized screenshots)

This is just me needing a place to vent about two dumb things. Don’t worry, I’ve got something more philosophical lined up and ready to write about, but in the meantime I need to let off steam about two things.

—

The first dumb thing isn’t a thing, but a man. That man is named Anders Wahlberg and is in charge of IT in Hörby municipality here in Sweden. He recently got named CIO of the Month, and pretty much immediately after having been interviewed several commenters raised the issue that Hörby is exclusively Microsoft-dominated and also that Microsoft sits on the committee that decides on this matter. Many found this rather interesting, also considering that for some reason Hörby has been actively testing new and unreleased Microsoft-software, among them the new Windows Server 2008.

He responded to the criticisms. Or well, first he said that the comments were stupid and that he wouldn’t respond to stupid comments, then he responded anyway. One of the chief criticisms was why Hörby hadn’t invested in Open Source rather than proprietary software. Anders responded that:

Working with IT in a municipality is about finding systems to manage sensitive information, such as patient-journals and information about students in schools. It’s not a game, you can’t rely on open source alone. So we had to choose between Novell and Microsoft. We chose Microsoft.

(Translated by me)

He further goes on saying that the tesing of Windows Server 2008 was because he wanted to keep his IT-crew on their toes, and made some sweeping claim about them always being interested in new software and always ready for a challenge.

Allow me to retort.

First off: not only CAN you rely on open-source alone - you SHOULD rely on open-source alone. Free/Open Source Software might look like a toy because of it’s perceived lack of monetary value and percieved lack of accountability. Many naive persons believe that since there’s no company behind it, there’s no responsibility for the software. This is an illusion that Microsoft is very happy to propagate and nourish. In the real world, Microsoft themselves is very quick to not give you any help at all, unless you have a very, very expensive service contract with them in which case they will jerk you around unnecessarily long and then give you no help at all.

FOSS is accountable. It’s completely transparent and verifiable, as well as modifiable to better suit your needs. There are no guarantees about what goes on behind the pretty Vista-facade, or what happens behind the scenes in your Windows Server 2008. It’s my firm opinion that government counties should invest in Free Software rather than closed, proprietary software. It will save them headache in the long run, and end this stupid tradition of giving money to Microsoft.

Secondly, I’ve known a lot of sysadmins in my days, and if there is one thing they don’t like it’s getting new stuff dumped in their lap and expected to play around with it. Sysadmins are by nature conservative and believe that if things aren’t broken there’s no need to fix it; this goes double in the UNIX/Linux-community. Only the most naive, freshly-baked MCSE will still be willing to play around with new software.

Sysadmins are always overworked and under-equipped. They rarely have the time, interest or motivation to play around with new things when they already devote most of their waking time making sure that the ship doesn’t all of a sudden spring a leak and sink without a trace. Even when they sleep, they often dream of datacenters going down in flames because they weren’t there to make sure the fecal matter didn’t hit the oscillating unit. I imagine that admins in datacenters based on Windows sleep even less and are even more neurotic, since Windows by nature require several times more cuddling with in an Enterprise-environment.

So Anders, I’m completely convinced that you’re just another Microsoft-podperson and I take no stock in anything you say.

—

The second dumb thing actually is a thing. It’s the new phone from SonyEricsson, called the T303. I don’t know if it’s been released yet (and I really don’t care either way) but after reading the specs for the thing it just seems very retarded.

I mean, who in the blue blazes comes up with the great idea to make a phone WITH NO MEMORY and then slap a camera and MP3-player into it and market those two as “features”. Well, alright, the phone has memory - 8 megabytes. With no slot to add flash-memory to it. So those 8MB are what you’re stuck with, and that’s expected to not only hold stuff needed by the phone (such as contacts, phone numbers, ringtones) but also whatever you photograph with the 1.3mpix camera and music you want to listen to.

To quote Ellen Ripley: “Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?”

I got a little creative and whipped up this simple wallpaper based on a macro-zoom of the (surprisingly dusty) F4 graciously given to me by my father. In a neat technical loop the camera I used to take the picture is his much-newer Nikon D40x.

It’s always a bit tricky making wallpapers of very detailed photos, since they have a tendency to becoming very “busy” and distracting. A good wallpaper should in my opinion be pretty but not too heavy on the details. This one seems to work.

On a sidenote, I’m becoming really fascinated by the sheer sturdiness of the F4. It’s an almost 20-year old camera, yet it works as well as the day it was new. Apart from some minor scarring it’s difficult to tell that this camera has seen a lot of action, being dragged through all kinds of weather from heat to cold. Also, it’s lightning-fast when snapping off a shot - provided that it’s all setup beforehand, since the interface requires virtually both hands to operate.

You can download the wallpaper from my gallery. Enjoy.

I’m a fairly big proponent of modern digital technology. This contrasts strongly with my respect and admiration of old technologies and how inventors solved problems in imaginative ways. Add to this that I have a hobby-level fascination with photography.

There’s very little doubt where this fascination comes from: my father. All through my childhood one of the many threads was my father and his various photography-related enterprises. Admittedly I’m somewhat biased, but I’d say that he’s among the best and most productive nature-photographers that northern Sweden has produced. He’s also an excellent portrait-photographer, and he’s always pushing the envelope of the medium. At least, that’s the way he was in my childhood. He still takes a lot of photos, but the passion for photography has somewhat mellowed. None the less, he’s as skilled as they come.

-END OF PLUGGING-

Anyway. He’s purging out a lot of old equipment from before he “went digital” and two of the items being purged was a Hasselblad of to me unknown model, and a Nikon F4; a F4s to be precise. He asked me and my brother if we wanted either, and since my brother is way more photography-interested than my own fairly casual interest I let him have first pick. He went for the Hasselblad, and I got the Nikon F4. My father opted to keep the Nikon F2 out of what I guess is mostly sentimental reasons.

Each camera of course came with whatever accessories was collecting dust alongside it. In my case, that meant a 35-70mm Autofocus lens and a Nikon Speedlight SB-24 Flash. I’m a bit foggy on the exact details, but that’s what the print on them says.

My first impression was that, man, these things are HEAVY. The F4 has the added battery-pack and weighs a ton. It’s very solidly constructed and gives a very professional feel when holding it. The flash is also heavy, and I’m impressed that daddy-o would lug this hunk of metal around taking pictures. Compared to his new D40x dSLR this thing is barely liftable. Anyone who wields this thing during longer shootings is sure to develop some impressive arm-muscles.

As for the qualities… well, I’m not competent enough to give comment on that, but I’m gonna put some film in it and try out the Old-Skool method of photography some day. It’ll probably be fun.

(I took this photo with a Canon A520 digital compact. The perspective got kinda funky, the camera is actually a lot larger than the flash)

Gone In 60 Seconds

Cult-classic from 1974.

—

Maindrian Pace leads a double life. By day he is an insurance claims investigator, and by night he runs an illegal chop-shop and makes big money stealing cars. One day he takes it upon himself to deliver 48 different luxury vehicles to a South American druglord. Almost all of the cars are delivered without a hitch except one - a yellow 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1 which proves difficult to acquire…

—

This is one of those cult-movies from the 70’s that everyone who’s into car-movies talks a lot about. It’s usually mentioned together with two other legendary movies; Vanishing Point from 1971 and Bullitt from 1968. I’ve seen both of those, and personally I think Bullitt is a long boring winding road towards a chase-scene that ends way too quickly, while Vanishing Point is a white-line masterpiece virtually defining this now dead era of movie-making.

Gone in 60 Seconds is the ultimate low-budget car-chase movie. It’s got a story wrapped around it somewhere, but it’s paper-thin. The acting is awful and the editing up to the final chase is lackluster and mostly serves to confuse the viewer. You can find some shred of story, but it’s mostly just foreplay to the grande finale - the spectacular car-chase the movie is known for.

As far as a movie is considered this is a pretty crappy one. But as car-porn it’s absolutely spectacular. Totally recommended to people who like me is into cars from the 60’s and 70’s.

When I was a little boy I read a lot of the classic french/belgian comics. Lucky Luke, Tintin, Asterix and Spirou. I was especially fond of Spirou, and in later years I learned that it was the Franquin-helmed albums that most appealed to me. One of the more exciting things about Franquins Spirou was the car that Spirou and Fantasio drove around in. It was called “Turbot-1″ (pronounced as “Turbo 1″ with a silent t at the end) and what made it particularly unique was it’s powerplant - unlike most normal cars it was powered by a gas-turbine, essentially a jet-engine. This was the cause for the cars name and it’s impressive top-speed, it had absolutely no problems at all achieving up to 200 mph. Franquins comics mostly took place in the ’50s and early ’60s so for this time it was most impressive. The vehicle also had this extremely cool styling with typically ’50s design cues such as white-wall tires and chrome hubcaps. The Turbot-car was a constant in the Franquin-comics, and even though it was later superceded by the Turbot-2, it was always my favourite.

(The image showing Turbot-1 is borrowed from this page, where all of Spirous more or less exotic cars can be seen.)

A few days ago I took a walk down memory lane and re-read all of the old Spirou-albums published. While perusing them I started thinking about gas-turbines. Why do we never see gas-turbines in ordinary cars, and did the corporations ever do any development on such a vehicle? Is it even possible to power a car using a turbine, and what would the advantages/disadvantages prove to be, compared to a conventional engine? My experience with turbines is limited to seeing them in various flying machines such as airplanes and helicopters, but cars?

After lots of googling and a lucky find on Wikipedia I had read up on the subject. Fact of the matter was that the Chrysler Corporation spent a lot of money and time on a fairly succesful project involving turbine-powered cars that started at the end of the 1940s. The project was however cancelled during the ’70s without much ado. The reasons for killing it was primarily political and financial, but the project none the less had proven that it was somewhat possible to build turbine-powered cars.

Chrysler was very ambitious with this project, and it culminated in a public prototype where the company built 55 turbine-powered cars. Five of these vehicles was retained for internal testing purposes, but the other fifty cars were distributed to a very exclusive selection of drivers. This was the first time in history that anyone beside the engineers had access to a prototype for an extended period of time, and Chryslers intent with this was to gain broader experience and input with this new type of propulsion. This would in turn be used for the evaluation of the project. Chrysler was very selective about those fifty drivers, and an extensive application process was used to determine them.

When the project ended 46 of the vehicles were destroyed in order to avoid import-tolls on them - the bodies had been built by Ghia in Italy, and thus were considered imported vehicles. It was also done to put a definite end to the prototype project. Nine of the vehicles were however kept and most were donated to car-museums after having made the turbine inoperable (by removing a vital part). All nine of these are still in existence, and four are in running condition after Chrysler gave the missing part to the current owners. One of the nine has been lovingly restored by its owner, is in perfect running condition and regularly tours exhibitions and car-shows around the USA. Anyone who drives it has to sign a logbook.

The styling of these prototypes was extremely futuristic and incorporated a turbine motif. Among the more unique aspects was the wide range of fuels that the engine ran on. It would happily run on pretty much anything that burned - diesel, kerosene, regular gasoline or even jet-fuel made no difference. Unlike earlier turbines the engine didn’t need adjusting for each fuel-type either, all you did was gas and go!

The feedback from the drivers was interesting. Among the positive things mentioned was the extremely smooth ride, since a gas-turbine has almost no vibration. Among the negative aspects was the engines thirst for fuel, especially when idling or driving in a city. Many drivers also complained on the noise, a gas-turbine sounds like a jet-engine with a high-pitched whining much like a vacuum-cleaner rather than the smooth rumbling of a conventional engine such as the V8’s that most american production-cars were equipped with back then.

Chrysler wasn’t the only company though who experimented with turbines. British Rover also experimented with turbines, although on a much smaller scale during the 1950s. Rover JET1 was the product of their project, and even though it also proved possible to use turbines in cars it suffered from the same drawbacks as Chryslers later project - high fuel-consumption and various mechanical issues.

Apart from these two interesting historical projects I also found a bunch of Swedes currently building a custom turbine-powered Dodge Charger. Their homepage is however very sparse on details, but there’s some pictures and two interesting movies to enjoy.

Below is two pictures of Chryslers turbine-powered prototype built in 1964. This was the 55-vehicle prototype program. Personally I think this is an extremely cool car and it’s visual styling reminds me a lot of the mid-60s Thunderbird with it’s elegant and thin body. There’s plenty more pictures of the Chrysler turbine-car (especially the one that’s been restored) over on Allpar and I highly recommend a visit there if you’re the least bit interested in it. Make sure to check out the really neat interior with it’s dominating turbine-motif.

(These images have been borrowed from Allpars page about the Chrysler turbine-car, which also has plenty more detailed information about the same.)

UPDATE (080221): I recently discovered that General Motors also built three concept-cars called the Firebird (I, II and III respectively) in the 1950’s. These were not intended for production, but rather as a proof-of-concept. There’s more info about them on Wikipedia, complete with photos of their futuristic styling.

—

(This is a translation and slight update/rewrite of my earlier Swedish-language posting from almost a year ago. I feel that there’s a lot of writings in my previous three years that might be enjoyable to people who don’t understand the language. Postings that I’m a little extra proud of, and thus I’ve started translating a few of them for your questionable enjoyment.)

There are several really cool cars in the world of movies. I decided to list the top ten in my opinion coolest cars that ever thundered across the screen. The criteria set was that it had to be a car (no motorcycles, boats or such) and that it had to be contained within the world of the big-screen - no TV-series cars! This quickly turned out to require quite a lot of thinking and consulting my movie-collection in order to find the top ten cars of movies - but I succeded and here they’re presented in reverse order.

Buckle your seatbelts, here we go!

10. 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 (Essentially every Sam Raimi-movie ever produced.)

Unfortunately I couldn’t locate a decent picture of this car, but it’s well-known to fans of Sam Raimis movies. As most people know, Sam started off directing somewhat weird horror-comedies (Evil Dead) and gradually upgraded himself to hollywood-blockbusters such as the Spider-man-movies.

Back to the car though. We who have loved Sams stranger works are well acquainted with the beige Olds for many years. It’s first appearance was as the car that brought Ash and his girlfriend to that evil little cabin in the woods. The car itself belonged to Sam Raimi himself, and rumor has it that the same exact car (or at the very least the same model) makes appearances in every movie Sam has directed since then. Personally I haven’t been able to confirm this, but I know for a fact that it has cameos in many of his movies - among them Spider-Man from 2002.

Trivia: The third and so far last part of the Evil Dead-series of movies (Army of Darkness) told the story of how the powers of the Necronomicon transports Ash to the dark ages. He didn’t go there alone, however - the beige Olds was also sucked into the vortex. There’s a very memorable scene in which Ash opens the trunk of the Olds, and it is briefly shown to contain everything from chemistry-books to bottles of Coca-Cola. What makes this extra hilarious is that word around the campfire has this to be the actual contents of what was in the trunk at the time of the filming.

9. Lotus Esprit (The Spy Who Loved Me)

I know that this skirts the definitions (no boats, etc) I laid out in the beginning, but this is such a cool car I had to include it. The Esprit is in my opinion one of the truly classic sportscars from the ’70’s, but Bonds version is of course not just a car - it’s also a submarine! My personal opinion is that this car is the only reason to watch an otherwise rather forgettable Bond-movie. Keep in mind though that it’s just my personal opinion, so all you James Bond-fans don’t have to flame me all at once!

Lotus is these days one of the few car-makers who have managed to avoid being swallowed by one of the multinational conglomerates and thereby stay independent. Even Jaguar and Aston-Martin got swallowed by the corporations. Jaguar is as far as I know still owned by Ford, Bentley is owned by VW and Rolls-Royce by BMW!

According to what I’ve managed to find there were three vehicles used to film the famous going-into-the-water-scene. The first one was an Esprit that had been modified to allow it to drive into the water without damaging the driver or the car. This vehicle was used for the scenes showing the car going into our out of the water. The second was built to show the transformation from car to submarine and served no other purpose than as a special-effect. The third was a small submarine by the name of Margie Dixon who had undergone surgery to look like the Esprit in submarine-version. The car was nicknamed “Wet Nellie” by the filmmakers, in a reference to the autogyro that Bond received from Q in “You Only Live Twice“.

There was also a completely normal Esprit used for road-scenes, which Roger Moore would drive between takes.

8. Ford Crown Victoria (Men In Black)

I found the first movie about the Men In Black very enjoyable. Contrasting to many other I found the sequel equally and even more enjoyable, I felt that it kept what “worked” and discarded everything else. Tommy Lee Jones is wonderful as the terse and laconic agent working for a organization monitoring and policing legal aliens on planet earth.

At one part in the film Jay (Will Smith) makes wise-cracks about how MiB has access to all the advanced technology from around the galaxy yet insists on cruising around in a “Ford P.O.S” (P.O.S. of course being in reference to the slang-term “piece of shit”). These jokes take an abrupt end when Jay is instructed to press the little red button, and the otherwise ordinary and mundane Ford transforms into a rocket-powered monster surging through the city at the speed of sound while Kay listens to old Elvis-songs.

Memorable quote:

Jay: You do know that Elvis is dead?
Kay: No, he’s not. He just went home.

(Apologies for the quality of the image)

7. Eleanor (Gone in 60 Seconds)

“Eleanor” is the nickname of the heavily modified 1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 who is one of the cars in the remake of Gone In 60 Seconds from 2000. In the original movie from 1974 she was a Ford Mustang Mach1 Coupe, but I always like the remake-version much better.

The movie was a fairly big success among the fans, even though it proved to be a disappointment financially. Eleanor managed to become both a cult-car as well as a big celebrity. The demand for Eleanor-mustangs after the film was released was enormous, and this was made even worse that the car only existed on the movie-screen. Several Shelby GT500’s were custom-built for the movie, and all of them were destroyed when filming ended to prevent unauthorized sales of the cars.

Unique Performance realized the potential and developed a system where they bought old Mustangs and converted them to Eleanor-replicas. You can call them up and order one, provided you’re loaded with cash and have a lot of patience - each replica is hand-built to order. The price of a replica is unknown, but as the saying goes - if you have to ask what it costs you probably can’t afford it.

6. Bluesmobile (Blues Brothers)

It should be pointed out that the movie establishes that this car isn’t really the actual bluesmobile. Elwood traded it away for a microphone before the timeline of the movie, and according to the movie it apparently was a black Cadillac of unknown year or model.

But for every other fan of this movie this is the real deal, and the only Bluesmobile to ever exist.

According to what I’ve managed to dig up a grand total of 14 (!) black-and-white Dodge Monaco ’74s were used. This was needed since the movie had several spectacular stunts and each vehicle had to be built for a certain purpose. Vehicles that went fast, vehicles that could jump high - all were needed. In fact, one of the cars was built only to literally fall to pieces when so required!

Blues Brothers held the record for number of cars smashed in one movie for several years. It wasn’t until it’s own (somewhat less excellent) sequel was released that this record was broken. The main reason behind the over-the-top car-chases was partly based on the attempt to create really outrages chases, but also in order to lampoon earlier movies such as Bullitt or The French Connection.

Apart from the stunts this the movie is extremely entertaining thanks to the numerous musical numbers and cameos from famous musicians.

5. ECTO-1 (Ghostbusters)

ECTO-1 is the car that Ghostbusters cruised around in. It served as the company car for their business providing service of the same name. Occasionally referred to as the “Ectomobile”, although I’ve always felt that the correct name is ECTO-1, just as the license-plate says. The name is a derivative of the substance left behind by supernatural beings - ectoplasm.

The actual vehicle is a Cadillac Miller-Meteor with a loading dock in the rear. It’s a 1959 year, and this type of car mostly serviced as either ambulances or hearses. In the movie it’s bought by Ray Stanz for the ludicrous amount of US$4800 - completely absurd considering this would be about US$10.000 for a car that barely runs under it’s own power.

But after some heavy modification it became an 80’s icon. Almost anyone who lived during that decade remembers the Ghost Busters and their white car with the funky equipment.

Currently there’s a Ecto-1 replica for sale, asking price is around US$150.000. This is not the original car, but a replica built by renown car-customizer George Barris. Barris is among others the man who built the original Batmobile, used in the campy series from the 60’s, and he’s also well-known for falsely claiming to be involved in building and designing the original Ecto-1.

Trivia: Ecto-1 was originally supposed to be jet-black, but since a majority of scenes take place at night this meant the car would be almost invisible. The crew instead chose to go with the white paintjob and the red wings.

4. Batmobile (Batman, 1989)

The first time I saw Tim Burtons take on Batman I was 11 years old and watched it in the local grindhouse. Almost immediately it became one of my most loved movies ever, and the Batmobile presented in the movie was a major contributor to this fact. Previously I had only seen the Batmobile in the cheezy 60’s series, and even though that vehicle had a certain charm it couldn’t compare to the roaring beast in Tim Burtons interpretation.

No, this was a radically different kind of car. It was long, dark and voice-controlled. The looks combined the sleek elegance of sportscars from the 30’s with a jet-black exterior and extreme performance. Just like the Gotham City presented in the film it was dark, powerful and dangerous.
Various rumours insist that every single gadget on the car was fully functional - this included the extremely powerful gas turbine powering the vehicle. According to this rumour the gas turbine consumed fuel at such a rate that the car could only be driven for about 15 seconds. Personally I’m very skeptical to the validity of these rumours, but it would’ve been neat if it was true.

A few years ago I read an article about some guy in Stockholm who was building his own exact replica of this Batmobile. He constructed it on a custom chassis with a Chrysler V8 for power and some kind of rocket-engine for looks. This vehicle was of course completely road-illegal but apparently it never stopped this guy from occasional night-time cruises around the city preventing crime.

When watching the movies it seems as if the Batmobile is more like driving a boat than a car since it has a gas-throttle instead of a shifter. The car also makes an appearance in the sequel from 1991, where it’s nefariously sabotaged by The Penguin.

Unfortunately the Batmobile descended into a swamp of silliness when Joel Schumacher took over the helm. At least until…

3. The Tumbler (Batman Begins)

Yup, that’s right! Until Chris Nolan took over and re-invented the franchise. The Batmobile is the only car to nab two spots on this list, and this is solely thanks to it existing in so many different incarnations.

The vehicle presented to us in Batman Begins is more inspired by the vehicle driven by Batman in the “Dark Knight Returns” comics by Frank Miller. In that comic the “Batmobile” is more of an ironic and darkly humorous description for a huge tank. Rather than wheels it’s equipped with gigantic caterpillar tracks and easily crushes everything in it’s path.

So, it was obvious to most Batman-fans that was the catalyst for the re-invented Batmobile. In this movie the Batmobile is the result of a secret project conducted by Wayne Enterprises prior to Bruce Wayne becoming Batman. It was designed as a bridging vehicle, to jump across rivers and quickly erect bridges. They never got the bridge-part to work, but the Tumbler worked just fine. Bruce Wayne acquires the vehicle and presto! The new Batmobile is ready - even though it’s never referred to as such in the movie.

Chris Nolan was very specific about how he wanted to shoot the vehicle. He wouldn’t accept any CGI since he felt it wouldn’t look authentic, and thus a total of six cars was built for the various stunts. Two of them were full-scale and completely drivable, these were used for the road-scenes. The other four were built in smaller scales to shoot the jumps and roof-top chases.

Memorable dialogue:

Radio dispatcher: “What street is he taking?”
Cop in cruiser: “He’s not on a street, he’s flying on rooftops!”

Confused cop in patrol-car to dispatcher: “Could you just tell me what it looks like?”
(Tumbler roars past)
Cop: “Uh, never mind!”

2. Pursuit Special (Mad Max)

In 1979 a young Mel Gibson made his debut on movie-screens across the globe in what would become a cult-movie. That movie was Mad Max and painted a dystopian vision of an Australia in a not-too-distant future where the bad guys outnumbered the heroic cops. Mel Gibson portrayed Max, the terse and somewhat bitter cop who makes himself an enemy of a motorcycle gang, and loses not only his family but also most of his soul and purpose in life as a result.

Mad Max and especially it’s two sequels are well-known for two things - amazing car-chases and outrageous stunts. Even if the first sequel (The Road Warrior) introduced a slightly deeper western-derived story the car-chases were always the main attraction for viewers. Right in the middle was Max and his legendary vehicle: the black Pursuit Special.

The Pursuit Special (or as it’s sometimes called: “the last of the V8 Interceptors”) started it’s life as a fairly ordinary australian musclecar from the early 70’s. It’s a Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe, but it wasn’t until it got transformed into the Pursuit Special that it began it’s life in fame. Several modifications were made to the car, and during filming of The Road Warrior it was extensively modified as well, with among other things huge gas-tanks to fit into the fuel-starved australian desert where the movie takes place. Several of the modifications were however completely estetic and served no other purpose than looking badass. The huge supercharger sticking out of the hood is the most visual example of this, since it was completely non-functional.

The Mad Max-trilogy set most of the standard for many movies taking place in a post-apocalyptic future. Practically every movie in this genre since then has emulated some aspect of Mad Max or it’s sequels. The most obvious is Kevin Costers watery epic “Waterworld” which by many (including me) is essentially The Road Warrior but on water rather than in the desert. Unfortunately it also lacks everything that made the Mad Max-trilogy so awesome.

Pursuit Special served in two movies. Originally sold after the first movie wrapped it was re-acquired and showed up in the first sequel. The second sequel has no Pursuit Special in it, unfortunately. After that the car survived various tours among private collectors and then ended up in the Cars of the Stars-museum in the UK, where it can be seen together with among others the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard.

****DRUMROLL****

1. DeLorean DMC-12 (Back to the Future-trilogy)

That’s right! Doc Browns car from the Back To The Future-movies is without a doubt the coolest movie-car ever! This is not the first time that car receives that accolade, various other polls and such around the net concurs with my opinion. Personally I cannot think of a car that beats this one - not only does it look amazing but it also travels through time as well!

In the movies the time-machine is based on a DeLorean DMC-12 from 1981. When BTTF was in pre-production the original plan was that Doc Brown built his time-machine into a refrigerator! This was scrapped when the producers got worried that kids might try to mimic this, climb into their fridges and then get locked inside. The obvious replacement was a car of some kind.

Like Doc Brown himself also points out:

“The way I see it if you’re gonna build a time-machine, why not do it with some style!?”

Also, again according to Doc Brown, the cars stainless steel-body was advantageous for the flux dispersal. That’s always nice.

The choice of the Delorean was also influenced by the movies plot combined with how the Delorean looked. The producers felt that if a Delorean went back to the ’50s the futuristic styling of the car would make it look like a spaceship, and this added to the anachronistic tone of the film. The numbers for how many cars were used varies depending on source, but according to the comments track on the DVD’s a total of four were used. Three of them were built and used during filming, of which one got smashed in front of the freight-train. A fourth got chopped open to allow filming inside of the vehicle.

In the three films the time-machine goes through several changes. At the end of the first film it’s undergone hover-conversion and equipped with a fusion-reactor since providing plutonium for each trip proved to be a giant headache. In the second film it got stolen and used to alter the timeline, and in the beginning of the third film it was discovered in an abandoned mine after having rested there for more than 70 years. It also got struck by lightning several times, as well as being chased by both indians as well as the cavalry.

The sad fate of the time-machine was however to be smashed by a freight-train, but before that happened it gave us three wonderful movies filled with paradoxes, time-travelling, comedy and plenty of insanity.

Despite it’s own coolness the DMC-12 was never very successful as an automobile. It was heavily plagued by several engineering errors and planning mistakes. In the movie Marty bumps his head repeatedly on the gullwing doors, something that also was common for real-life owners. Add to this that the car was equipped with a badly under-performing engine which in the US version didn’t exceed more than 130 BHP. It was a common problem as well that the heavy doors (filled with stereo-components, electronics and airconditing equipment) would lock it’s owner out of the car due to the pistons holding up the doors being under-engineered. Another common occurrence was the draining of the cars battery if said doors were left open too long; this was due to the decision to use halogen-lights for doorlighting, and the thirsty bulbs would quickly drain the battery giving the driver a nasty surprise.

Trivia: The original script used a test-demolition of a nuclear bomb as the means by which Marty manages to get the 1.21 gigawatt required to activate the flux-capacitor. The Delorean would drive into the explosion, and this would charge the circuits and send Marty back to 1985. Steven Spielberg and the other producers felt however it would be unreasonably expensive to film, as well as difficult to produce convincingly as a special effect. Instead the producers opted for the lighting-strike.

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Contender that just didn’t make the cut: the APC from Aliens. That was also a really nifty car - the neatest feature probably was that it was bigger inside than outside!

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There, that summarizes my top-ten list of the most amazing movie-cars ever. The overwhelming deduction one can make from this list is that most of the really cool movie-cars appear in films from the 80’s.

Disclaimer: This list is almost exclusively based on my own personal opinions. I’ve tried to research the facts presented here to the best of my ability, but any errors or omissions is my own fault. Most of the facts come from my own personal trivia-center inside my head, and I’ve tried to confirm them as best as possible. Others come from around the net, but apart from chasing down the producers of each film and asking obscure questions this is most likely as good as it’ll get.

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(This is a translation and slight update/rewrite of my earlier Swedish-language posting from back in May ‘07. I feel that there’s a lot of writings in my previous three years that might be enjoyable to people who don’t understand the language. Postings that I’m a little extra proud of, and thus I’ve started translating a few of them for your questionable enjoyment.)

I hadn’t really planned on writing anything more here today, but I just found something that warranted a warming-up of the blog editor.

(cue the nostalgic music)

A little background information: One of my earliest interests was music, and with that interest followed an interest in hifi-equipment. This grew to a slight obsession in my teens, and I built a pretty impressive subwoofer with the help of my father when I was fifteen. After that the passion slightly mellowed, and in later years my fascination for hifi has been coupled with my interest for movies and morphed into an interest for home cinema-systems.

Ironically though I’ve never owned a high-class system since I’ve always been short on one of many required things, the first and foremost a steady cash-flow. I own an almost decent home cinema-system now, and I assure you that if money wasn’t a problem for me I would invest heavily in more of that. I really enjoy listening to music on a good system as well, so I definitely still have a deep interest in hifi.

And thus I was greatly intrigued when I read about a speaker system called simply “Planets” from a company called Duevel. They’re very non-traditional in their design, and apparently they’re designed to spread the sound evenly through a room. This is one thing I’ve noticed with many speakers is that they sound awesome when set up properly and when you’re sitting in the right place, but anywhere else they sound rather washed out. The Planets apparently want to correct this, and they bill themselves as perfect party-speakers as well as excellent home cinema-speakers due to the way they distribute the sound. Also, they’re fairly cheap as far as hifi-equipment goes; a pair of them will set you back about US$1300. Hell, if I saved a bit that would even be within my range.

But the first thing that you notice about them is the way they look. They sure don’t look like conventional speakers.

I’d love to have a listen to them. If they sound half as good as they look I’d happily invest in them somehow. For the fashion-conscious they’re available in different colors. I didn’t care much for the more garish colors (bright red? wtf?) but the black or gunmetal-gray looked pretty decent in my eyes. Check out their page for a picture of all the available colors.