Autoblog

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We truly do appreciate the custom-car scene, in all of its various guises. There is, however, a problem with the custom Prius you see above and in the video embedded after the break. Generally speaking, the goal of modifying a car is to either A) make it go faster or B) make it look better.

When Classe Gustafson, Elvis Häggbom and Kenny Kyrk from Sweden had finished spending $184,000 customizing a Toyota Prius, they had accomplished neither. This Prius-trocity, which was modified for a television show, is anything but subtle. It lost two doors during its transformation from mild-mannered hybrid eco-mobile to whacked out sport compact that just happens to get good fuel economy, though it did get scissor-style portals that are nearly impossible to open in the process. And it also gained a huge honkin' stereo and the body-kit from a Volvo SUV. The over-the-top paint-job is the final touch. The Hybrid Synergy Drive powertrain, however, went untouched save for the obligatory fart-can exhaust. Nice.

[Source: Wired]

Click above for a gallery of the VW Caddy Carrera Cup Edition 2.0 TDI R.

The link between Volkswagen and Porsche is about to get stronger, but VW's Swedish contingent has already created a special edition to honor the alliance. The VW Caddy has lived a staid life as a popular work truck in Europe, but the Swedes apparently think it could be so much more. So it's releasing 250 Carrera Cup Edition Caddies outfitted with black, 17-inch wheels wrapped in 225/45 R17 rubber, a new body kit, red-on-white paint scheme with Porsche's signature "Carrera" text, two-tone leather sport seats, a leather steering wheel and shifter. The 2.0-liter TDI mill is putting out 140 hp and 236 lb.-ft. of torque and with a fire extinguisher mounted on the diamond-plate floor boards, we think we might have found the perfect track-day accomplice to join that GT3 RS we've been building in our dreams.


[Source: Carscoop]

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Volvo has been making automobiles since April 14, 1927, and while most of us know Volvo for its safe and sometimes fun-to-drive vehicles, the Swedish automaker's history is of course more complicated than that. For instance, Volvo earned its reputation as a safe automaker before it sold a single car by getting in a head-to-head accident with an American car, which totaled the domestic while only scratching the Volvo. Volvo also featured the first standard three-point safety belt and was the first automaker to have a catalytic converter. Hit the jump to catch up on Volvology. It's a very solid nine-minute Volvo history course, even if it fails to mention current owner Ford all-together.

[Source: YouTube]

Vehicular lighting is a crapshoot. Some vehicles offer a great swath of even coverage from their headlamps, while others make you feel like you're squinting through welding goggles at night. I went through the trouble to retrofit one of my cars with Cibié lamps running overwattage H4 bulbs. That effort required a couple hundred dollars of parts, a good amount of labor to wire up relays and triggers, and not everyone is willing to expend such time and money, even if it means you won't overdrive your lights so easily. Sweden's Visualeyes has trotted out the Rayzer, an auxiliary lighting system that mounts from the inside and projects a beam through the windshield. We're taking the product's SEMA appearance as an indication of legality in the US. From the amount of end-user modifications we see on a daily basis, nobody's enforcing the rules on lights, anyway. The system has been patented and was developed by former race car driver Lars Svelander after a close call with a deer.

The line-of-sight position is purported to be more effective and has the benefit of leaving the outward appearance unmarred. We'd be worried about throwing light spill onto the hood, or too close to the front of the car, for that matter. Too much light in the wrong place is a detriment to night vision, but putting more lumens down the road could improve your chances of not overdoing it. The Rayzer uses a pair of HID bulbs and is wired into the car's lighting system to illuminate when the high beams are in use. There's also a fail-safe circuit that will shut the Rayzer off if oncoming vehicles are detected – a good thing when you're blasting light through your windshield. No price has been announced, but trading the hours of cutting, crimping, and snaking wires for the ease of a 15-minute installation by a non professional sounds good to us, especially if it works as well as the pictures make it appear.

Thanks for the tip, Andreas!

[Source: Visualeyes]

I don't think we've said this since at least yesterday, but when it comes to cars, Europe gets the best stuff. What you see above is only a concept, but it was dreamed up by Daniel Paulin, the gent who created Ford's C-Max -- which is a Europe-only offering -- as well as the original Focus concept and the FAB1 ship from the Thunderbirds film. Paulin left Ford, moved home to Sweden, and started the Paulin Motor Company. Its first product is this, a 2-seater called the VR Concept. Part Speed Racer, part sea creature, it's swoopy and planed at the same time. The lifting canopy is a pretty nifty evolution of Saab's Aero X jet fighter-style raising canopy. With that and the scissor doors, ingress and egress should be simple by even the most supercar-challenged body shapes. It would also make ejector seat installation a snap. Paulin is looking for partners to help put the car into production, and in the mean time will be producing three concepts per year, as well as an actual model for a motor show. As far as the VR goes, Mr. Paulin, we'll take it.

[Source: Auto Express]

Old Audis are cool, and old racing Audis are even cooler. A Swedish Audi fanatic seems to think so, too, and has gone to extreme lengths to transform a workaday Audi 90 into the IMSA GTO version of that car. Not wanting to go the stripe-and-bodykit route, this Audi's flares were painstakingly constructed from many pieces of metal, intricately tacked into place. Replica body pieces like splitters were created in composite after measurements of an original car were taken, and the authentically nutty looking rims are custom-modified VW pieces. The doors still open, despite 8 additional inches of width, and the amount of work that went into the body modifications is truly incredible. It looks like a scale model was built first, and once the form was perfected, it was "blown up" to the actual car - we don't know Svenska, and translators aren't terribly useful. Motivation is provided by an A8's 4.2 liter V8, which must make the replica pretty zippy, but probably not as fast as those IMSA cars were. Still, though, it's a hell of a thing to see lurking in your rearview, and the handiwork is truly impressive. We see the most insane stuff coming out of Sweden – must be something in the water aquavit. AudiMotorSport's got galleries of the build here.

[Source: AudiMotorSport.se via German Car Scene]

Someone with a video camera obviously spent quite a bit of time tracking the Porsche development engineers in Arjeplog, Sweden. At least three different Panameras are visible in this video -- one blue example and two black copies -- and they were filmed in various locations. One feature that may not have been apparent before is the Panamera's hatchback, which is clearly visible as the car is being loaded up.

[Source: MotorAuthority via GermanCarBlog]

Click on the photo for a gallery of high res pics showing the new Saab 9-3

Our friends at Auto Motor & Sport in Sweden just gave us a heads up on some new photos they found of the revamped Saab 9-3. They found both the convertible and wagon models completely devoid of camouflage roaming the roads and back alleys of Sweden. Like the wagon, the new convertible also gets clear lens taillights and the front gets an Aero-X look that we've seen in previous photos. If any of you can read Swedish, feel free to translate in the comments.

[Source: Auto Motor & Sport, pics used with permission]

If you want to get spy shots of vehicles that will soon be showing up in European dealerships, the place to be every year from December to March is the area near the Arctic Circle in Sweden. One person of apparently hardy stock captured a pair of Porsche Panamera prototypes heading out to a frozen lake for some more testing. We've all seen stills of the Panamera on the Nordschliefe, but now you can see (and hear) the car in full motion video.

[Source: YouTube]

click above image for high-res version of the Saab 9-3 Convertible on ice

Saab has put the chill to one of its 9-3 Convertibles to celebrate its 60th year in the automobile manufacturing business. The display is located at Sweden's ICEHOTEL, which itself is made out of pure ice. At first glance, we thought an entire 9-3 Convertible had been dipped into a giant vat of H20 and frozen, but the press release reveals it's actually parked in an ice garage comprised of 60 ice blocks harvested from the nearby Torne River. The structure weighs an impressive 30 tons and the blue-lit Saab can reportedly be seen from a kilometer away. About 500 people will attend the Saab Ice Experience at the ICEHOTEL, including customers, VIP guests and select dealers, until the whole thing melts away on March 18th.

[Source: Saab]