Hot Wheels nails big boy world record corkscrew jump

Seyth Miersma — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 19:30:00 EST

Filed under: Etc., Marketing/Advertising, Videos, Off-Road

If you're anything like us (adult men with a love of cars, reasonable amounts of disposable income and way too much time on our hands during the day) you might have anywhere from five to 500 feet of orange Hot Wheels track in your basement. If you do, you've likely twisted, suspended, stapled and/or taped that track around your living quarters, trying to make tiny cars do amazingly sweet tricks.

What you haven't done, nor we, is ramp up (heh) the whole business to life-size scale. That's why the good folks at the Hot Wheels Test Facility have jobs we suppose - where else would we get videos like the one below?

A huge Hot Wheels track, a pretty wild-looking dune buggy and driver Brent Fletcher flying 92 feet in a corkscrewing fashion to claim a world record... it all sounds like a pretty great day job to our inner 10-year-old selves. We'll shut up now and let you watch the video below the fold.

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Hot Wheels nails big boy world record corkscrew jump originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 13 Sep 2012 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Metropolis II diecast kinetic art installation gets the mini documentary treatment

Zach Bowman — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 19:58:00 EST

Filed under: Etc., Technology, Videos, Toys/Games

For us, one of the few nice parts about commercial flight is being able to look out of the window shortly after takeoff and see just how small and genuinely insignificant we all appear from just a few thousand feet in the air.

One glance can swallow the whole of a thousand families and all of their innumerable multitudes of problems. It's the difference between trying to make sense of a photograph by the pixel and stepping back to appreciate the whole. That and the fact that all of the cars and trucks look like Matchbox toys.

You may recall the kinetic sculpture Metropolis II by Chris Burden. The work, which took four years to complete, features 1,500 Hot Wheels diecast cars and a host of electric trains all bustling around a matrix of steel and plastic. If that sounds like a snapshot of your morning commute, you're not alone.

Burden recently sat down with directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman for a quick chat on what's behind Metropolis II and what it means to the artist. Those of you in Southern California may be able to see the exhibit in person at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the fall of 2011. For the rest of us, the mini documentary is well worth checking out and can be seen after the jump.

Continue reading Metropolis II diecast kinetic art installation gets the mini documentary treatment

Metropolis II diecast kinetic art installation gets the mini documentary treatment originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 03 Aug 2011 19:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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