Autoblog

Now that it's all hip to be green, you may look at your hybrid car with its properly inflated tires and Love Earth bummer sticker and think "what else can I do to help the environment?" Turns out the answer is to drink beer out of recycled windshields turned into pint glasses. These glasses from Uncommon Goods are handmade in Colombia from old car windshields. The green tint that once protected your eyes from glare now protects your beer from harmful rays.

Not a beer drinker? They also sell recycled windshield wine glasses. And of course, you'll want to protect your sustainable-wood coffee table with drink coasters made from recycled road signs. Then you can sit back and relax in your one-of-a-kind Speed Chair made from recycled speed limit signs.

[Source: Uncommon Goods]

We'll avoid the trite jokes about Jack Kirby's Mustang sculpture being a "nice car, bud." Ouch. There, it slipped out anyway. Now we can just move on. Rather than just stack up the red, white, and blue swill cans to the ceiling, as would most college students, the art and design scholar built a car instead. Kirby's chef d'oeuvre came to be when Budweiser rolled out its UK-only "Budbucks" promotion this summer – grand prize, a 1965 Mustang, Jack's favorite car. Whether or not he wins the contest, we bet it was one heck of a good time to consume the 5,000 beers that donated their containers. Then again, being a college student, he probably drank them all in one night, alone.

Thanks to tipster Marsh

[Source: CAR, Metro.co.uk]

click the pic above to view a gallery of Year One Bandit Trans Ams

Every now and then when I'm hammering to make time on a road trip, this is what goes through my head: "East bound and down, loaded up and truckin'..." Second only to Star Wars in 1977, Hal Needham's iconic Smokey and the Bandit also seared itself into popular culture like the Space Opera. Thirty years on, a black 2nd-generation Trans Am still makes us think of bootlegging Coors.

To commemorate the Burt Reynolds vehicle, Year One is teaming up with the veteran actor and building a limited number of Bandit inspired Trans Ams. These cars won't be highly suspect like those that pop up on eBay from time to time, or aftermarket kits like those made by Trans Am Specialties and Choo Choo Customs back in the day. No, they'll be the real deal, and Year One isn't taking the easy way out, either. Since the Bandit car was a T/A, all of the Year One cars will be true T/As, and titled as such. You could get away with a Firebird as a basis, but that's not how Year One rolls.

There will be three variations on the Bandit theme, BAN1, thru BAN3. All cars have full body restorations first. Floors are replaced, as are other needed panels, so that the hi-po Ponchos have the best basis to build from. Flush-mounted glass, smooth fender flares, custom projector headlights and LED taillights update the basic car. Chassis mods firm up the structure with subframe connectors, tubular control arms and high performance bushings and springs. The interiors get pimped out in the same custom fashion, with "Bandit" inserts on the door panels, modern seats, a race-inspired gauge cluster and the requisite CB radio. It wouldn't be a Bandit car if you couldn't pick up that mic and say "Snoman, gotcher ears on?" BAN2 and BAN3 packages get increasing amounts of performance from monster aluminum 455s or LS-derived engines, as well as further chassis tweaks and more toys inside the cockpit, like a nav system and race harnesses.

Some history, and Year One's press release after the jump

[Source: Year One]

Gallery: Year One Bandit Trans Ams