Dino-Palooza

As Longtime Readers will know, one of my favorite — perhaps my absolute favorite — sports car of all time is the (Ferrari) Dino 246 GT from the 1969-1975 period.  I’ve written before about the rights and wrongs of the thing, but all that aside, I am in love with the Dino simply because it is so drop-dead beautiful to look at.

Which is probably why Fiend Reader Darrell M. (who should know better) sent me a video of a Jay Leno’s Garage  episode which featured a modified Dino — modified not with a Porsche Cayman engine (as I’d thought about), but a Ferrari F40 V8.

Oh be still, my beating heart.  Go away and watch the video now, and when you come back, there’ll be some Dino eye-candy from my personal collection of pics filched from all over Teh Intarwebz.  (My only quibble with David Lee’s Dino is the color.  Black is beautiful, but not as beautiful as some of the others…)

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Future Models

I made fun of the new Ferrari Monza SP1 yesterday, but on a more serious note, it’s one of Maranello’s “Icona” series which, as the name suggests, will be cars based on iconic Ferrari models of the past.

Needless to say, only super-rich Ferrari fanbois will be able to afford them, but I have to say that if I had the dough, I’d not only buy the re-release of the 1959 Ferrari 250 (SWB) California, I’d kill anyone who stood in my way:

…as long as Ferrari produced an exact  replica of the old 250’s body shape, that is, and not some bloated modernist excrescence that looked like a 10-year-old’s Play-Doh model.

Contrarian

You should never plant a sandbox tree. It is too dangerous to have around people or animals, and when planted in isolated areas it is likely to spread.

Why is it that a warning about this murderous tree makes me want to plant a circle of them around my house?  (Found via the Knuckledragger, thankee.)

Seriously:  who needs those loud, messy (and illegal) Claymore thingies when you can get Mother Nature to provide this little party?

Sandbox tree fruits look like little pumpkins, but once they dry into seed capsules, they become ticking time bombs. When fully mature, they explode with a loud bang and fling their hard, flattened seeds at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour and distances of over 60 feet. The shrapnel can seriously injure any person or animal in its path. As bad as this is, the exploding seed pods are only one of the ways that a sandbox tree can inflict harm.

They even look  badass:

Is it just me, or does this look like a spiked collar around the neck of an angry Rottweiler?  It speaks to me, and what it says is:  “Mess with me, motherfucker, and I will kill you.”

Want.


Afterthought:  in the interests of Saving Mother Gaia, we should plant a ten-mile deep line of these bad boys along our southern border;  I mean, who can be against reforestation?

Then And Now #468

Seems as though Bugatti has made a one-off for some rich fart, based on the classic Bugatti “Atlantic” of the 1930s:

Leaving aside the price of the thing (which is of course insane because Bugatti), Loyal Readers will not be surprised as to which model I prefer.  Both look like Batmobiles, of course, each for their respective era (assuming Batman was around in the 1930s, which he wasn’t), and both have amazing power (once again, for their respective eras).

I’d bet that the older one is easier to park, though, simply because the modern one looks like a bloated sow by comparison.  And in a real-life setting, the Atlantic looks even more toothsome:

Stunning

If you like gorgeous photographs, look at these.  My favorite is this one: it’s a detail, not the full thing (which wouldn’t have fitted on the page).

The last time I saw lighting like that, it was in a Rembrandt painting.  The photographer is Chris Fletcher, who apparently first picked up a camera in 2011.  (I’m not an envious type by nature, but there are limits…)