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What do you do if your car air conditioning system decides to break during a particularly hot summer? You probably suffer for a few hours on your commute, then go home and relax. But if you’re a professional driver, things get more difficult, as you might be on the track for a long while and the heat can get overwhelming.
The Club System 24 from Cool Shirt is basically a t-shirt with embedded water tubes. It comes with a 24qt cooling unit with an internal pump, which supplies cooled water to the shirt through 8ft of double insulated hose with automatic shutoff/quick disconnects. Drivers can also choose from several optional accesories, such as Temperature Control Switch, SFI-approved FireWear® fire-retardant Cool Shirt®, Universal Drain Kit, Emergency Pull-Release Connectors and Mounting Tray with strap.
The Club System 24 is designed for cars without a space problem, as the cooling unit takes up some room (H 13” x W 10 ½” x L 15 ½). The system is however pretty light, at only 4lbs total weight, and it offers cooling for more than 6 hours.
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After the Pro Race Trainer, we have another racing simulator for the pros (or for people with a lot of money).
The VirtualGT Personal Racing Simulator is designed for race training and home entertainment, and it apparently is as close as it gets to actually driving a race car.
It features a force-feedback steering wheel, a form-fitting MasterCraft racing seat, a fully adjustable chassis to accomodate any size, a loudspeakers system and a built-in hands-free intercom system, suspension components and electronic controls.
And it gets better: you can get a custom designed car or track, everything according to your specifications.
The price tag is not pretty, though: $16,995 for the base unit with no display, $19,490 for the unit with a 37″ plasma display and up to $22,490 with a 65″-82″ projection system.
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A couple of days ago we gave you the Force Dynamics 401 motion platform for racer-wannabes who can’t get near a racing car or who want to do a bit of training.
Today, we have the Pro Race Trainer simulator. This is designed for real race drivers, so no playing Need for Speed with it (unless you are a very hardcore gamer). It sounds like a very sweet tool for racers, as it saves lots of money spent on track time and it is highly customizable, creating precise models of the race cars and millimetre accurate re-creations of the race tracks.
Specifications:
* Light-weight, high-strength, aluminium tubular space frame chassis
* Cobra Monaco race seat.
* BRD Pro MT force feedback steering system
* BRD Pro Pedals
* BRD Pro Sequential Gearbox
* Adjustable Steering, pedal, gearbox and seating position
* Fully adjustable, integrated 21” TFT Screen
* Latest generation purpose built rackmounted PC
* Powerful in-built 5.1 surround-sound system with headphone output.
* Adjustable Keyboard Mount
Yes, it sounds like a great gaming device… But wait til you read the price tag. The Pro Race Trainer costs £9950 - that’s about $20,000.
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Someone at Renault thought of celebrating the return of the prodigal son Fernando Alonso by launching… salt and pepper shakers.
What nobody prepares you for, though (like anybody would prepare you for a salt shaker from Renault) is the price: approx. $2200, or EUR1500. What the… ? Why would anybody pay that much on pepper and salt shakers? OK, I know, they are made from gearbox oil filter housing of the Renault formula one car. I knoooow, but still… Or, is it possible that there is only one set? Or is Renault facing bankruptcy? And this makes it an exclusive offer?
See below where those pieces come from in the car: Read the rest of this entry »
I really think that if you are crazy about racing - crazy enough to buy your son a BMW-Sauber Formula 1 kids seat for the car - and you have around $4500 to buy it, this Racing Simulator Hot Seat should be what you dream when you think about the perfect Christmas gift. See more images and details after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Did you ever drive a Saab? If yes, did you ever drive a Saab Aero X? If yes, you are among the few ones. But for the rest of us, we can now “drive” the Saab Aero X inspired skis, by Salomon.
The price of the above ski set is at around $1000 in UK.
The only problem I have (the guys at carscoop have it also) is I fail to see the resemblance to the car whatsoever…
Benoit Saint Venant, Head of Design at Salomon said, “This collaboration is testament to the fact that Saab and Salomon complement each other perfectly and understand each other’s independent-minded target audiences. Both brands are celebrating their 60-year anniversary this year and together represent cutting edge design when it comes to sporty, activity-related products.”
Sure, why not?
Yesterday I used the third gear to start from the traffic light. A day before, I wanted to change the gear to 6th gear (but my car only has 5 gears). And I was thinking: I need something to show me the gear I use at every moment. Yeah, I am that stupid forgetful. The only thing I can drive correctly is the Remote Controlled Beer Bringer on my desktop. But I digress.
The Indy-Cator is a dream come true. It not only looks cool (well, don’t put it in your dad’s car, he might not think the same), but it really helps.
What’s even more important, the Indy-Cator can be used with any manual transmission up to 6 gears, for any brand of car. There are some small issues (like you cannot use it for gear levers with reverse gear locking mechanism), but it makes no difference to me.
More, “a light sensor in the INDY-CATOR adapts the brightness of the digital display to the surrounding light by means of an automatic dimming function, ensuring optimum readability at all times“. So much mambo-jambo. In short: the light will be as powerful as you need it, without creating any difficulties for you while driving.
Is it easy to install? Apparently so, since you have a full pdf manual explaining how to do it. So, go and buy it. You can find it here.
I don’t have my own kids yet, but I am the proud uncle of a 6 months old niece. And I don’t yet have a super car like the Aston Martin DBS, but I intend to buy one pretty soon (20 to 30 years soon).
So, what is the best investment I can do to assure that my niece has the smoothest ride possible? Of course, one of these Recaro seat for kids. No kid has ever puked in a more stylish seat than one of these seats.
I mean, the one in this picture is quite interesting: it’s in desert colors (so the kid will have no problem blending in while visiting Dubai, let’s assume), you can take it on the plane (nothing like the excitement of a Recaro seat while meeting some turbulences) and more, it’s adjustable with age, height and, of course, more important, weight.
All fun aside, I think I would buy one of those chairs for my kid. Really. Or one of these BMW Suaber Formula 1 Childseats
While others think of golf carts only as a way for getting from hole 1 to hole 2, the guys over at Berlinecart don’t seem to agree with that and tries to tell that golf can be more fun, so they came up with these custom golf carts, which include the Cadillac Escalade, the Smoothster and the Berline LS. They look good, right? Well, you haven’t seen the best part.
These cart feature Alpine AM/FM/CD stereo (speakers and removable face plate included), custom hard top and frame in matching color, chrome tilt steering wheel column, 15 inch custom rims, golf bag holder, Billet Grille (only for the Escalade models), fog lights and yes, an iPod adapter. Other features include 48 volt electric club car chassis, fiberglass body, upholstered seats, drink holders, storage boxes and the list could go on.
Now you may wonder how much this costs. Well, the prices range, with the most expensive one being the Escalade ESV (which has 6 seats) and is priced at $16,995, while the Smoothster, for example, is priced at $15,995. View more photos after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »