Flying Colors! Creative Paint on Airliners

The sky is blue, so why your plane should be simply white? Paint it in all the colors of a sunset... and pretty up the skies!

Some airline companies are clearly out-painting competition with their groovy air fleet. Often called aircraft livery, such special paint schemes can be exciting and even inspirational. Japan Airlines with their Disney jumbo jets comes to mind, in particular, plus Australian Qantas Airways has been commissioning famous artists to come up with exotic art for their "birds".

On this page we feature some particularly wild and even outrageous airliner paint schemes, from all over the world - send us more examples you spot in the airports or even if you had opportunity to fly inside one of these yourself...

source: DarkRoasted.com

REVIEWS: First Drive: 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG

We're flat-out on Germany's Sachsenring race track in the new Mercedes SLS AMG, chassis number 00045, a mildly camouflaged pre-production model. Ahead is an SL65 AMG Black Series--twin-turbo V-12, 670 hp, 738 lb-ft of torque--driven by Tobias Moers, head of AMG's r&d division, seasoned race instructor and today's pace-setter. Filling his mirrors, our red gullwing keeps pushing harder and harder, even though its normally aspirated 6.2-liter V-8 is rated at a comparably modest 571 hp and 479 lb-ft. The Sachsenring has plenty of slow corners, lots of climbs and descents, two long straights and two very fast and very blind fourth-gear
bends.

1954/57 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Coupe

click here:for more about the 2011 Mercedes- Bens SLS AMG

source: Automobile Magazine

Leslie Bennetts on Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal: "Beautiful People, Ugly Choices"

by Vanity Fair August 3, 2009, 12:01 AM

Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal were the Angelina and Brad of their day—dazzling sex symbol meets Hollywood hunk—until their stars were tarnished by drugs, infidelity, and family pathology. In the last days of Fawcett’s life, as cancer stripped the masks from an all-too-human drama, contributing editor Leslie Bennetts shared O’Neal’s vigil, learning the true struggles and breakthroughs of their 30-year romance.

For “Beautiful People, Ugly Choices”—one of two cover stories in Vanity Fair’s September 2009 issue (to preview the Michael Jackson cover story, click here)—Bennetts also spoke to dozens of Fawcett’s associates and intimates, from actor George Hamilton and agent Sue Mengers to Fawcett’s best friend, Alana Stewart, and O’Neal’s children Tatum and Griffin. The result is a definitive portrait of Fawcett’s meteoric rise, turbulent second act, and tragic final chapter.

The truth was that Fawcett had always been more complicated than the clichés, the realities of her life far darker than the sunny image she projected. The gap between her public image and private reality was wide: “I’m always more comfortable when I have on hardly any make-up, my hair is brown and I’m very unattractive,” she said.

The work that brought her solace in later years was a love of art that had nothing to do with fame, a private passion that inspired her to sculpt female nudes with an obsessiveness that seemed like an attempt to understand the world’s fascination with her own body. The documentary [Farrah’s World] that became her last appearance violated every rule of Hollywood image-making; no other star had ever exposed herself to a viewing audience while moaning in pain, vomiting, and losing her famous hair to chemotherapy. But Fawcett’s final triumph was to integrate the public and the private at long last, imbuing her death with a larger meaning and finding redemption in baring her head along with her soul.

Related: Visit the Charlie’s Angels set with photographer Julian Wasser.

Fawcett’s private reality was dominated by her three-decade relationship with O’Neal, an Oscar-nominated actor with a well-earned reputation as a Lothario. She and O’Neal met in 1979, split up in 1998, and then reconnected in 2001, when he was diagnosed with leukemia. “We pulled apart, but we never popped loose,” O’Neal told Bennetts.

O’Neal cites several reasons for his breakup with Fawcett, starting with menopause. “I believe Farrah was going through some kind of life change,” he says. “I didn’t have a change of life. I was always a jerk. But they’re hard work, these divas; I was sick of it, and I was unappreciated. I just don’t think she liked me very much. So I excused myself, and I was lucky enough to meet this young girl. She was more a daughter to me than a lover, and my own daughter had flown the coop, so here was this replacement.”

Leslie Stefanson, a beautiful actress less than half his age, may have been a daughter substitute, but she and O’Neal were in bed together at his Malibu home when Fawcett made a surprise Valentine’s Day visit and walked in on them. “It was terrible,” O’Neal says. “I didn’t expect to see her down there. I tried to put my pants on, but I put both legs in one hole.”

While it’s clear that O’Neal is no angel, he’s at least willing to cop to his own flaws. At one point, he describes himself as “a hopeless father” and offers as evidence this anecdote from Fawcett’s funeral:

“I had just put the casket in the hearse and I was watching it drive away when a beautiful blonde woman comes up and embraces me,” Ryan told me. “I said to her, ‘You have a drink on you? You have a car?’ She said, ‘Daddy, it’s me—Tatum!’ I was just trying to be funny with a strange Swedish woman, and it’s my daughter. It’s so sick.”

“That’s our relationship in a nutshell,” Tatum said when I asked her about it. “You make of it what you will.” She sighed. “It had been a few years since we’d seen each other, and he was always a ladies’ man, a bon vivant.”

Leslie Bennetts, who has profiled everyone from Jennifer Aniston to Michelle Obama, offers many more revelations in “Beautiful People, Ugly Choices.” To read the whole story, pick up a copy of the September 2009 issue of Vanity Fair, available on newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on August 5 and nationally on August 11.

Left, photograph by Bruce McBroom/Mptv.net. Right, photograph by Jonathan Becker.

Lisa Robinson on Michael Jackson: "The Boy Who Would Be King"

by Vanity Fair August 3, 2009, 12:02 AM
Before his onstage crotch grabbing, his plastic surgeries, his rumored addictions, and, at the lowest point, his child-molestation accusations, Michael Jackson was known for his talent, not his troubles. And for years, Vanity Fair’s Lisa Robinson followed his career, getting to know a singer she describes as “one of the most talented, adorable, enthusiastic, sweet, ebullient performers I’d ever interviewed.”

Video exclusive: Hear clips from Lisa Robinson’s interviews with Michael Jackson

In her article “The Boy Who Would Be King,” one of two cover stories in the September 2009 issue (to read about the other one, on Farrah Fawcett, click here), Robinson recounts numerous interviews with Jackson, beginning with their first meeting at his family’s home in Encino, California, in 1972, when Michael was 14.

L.R.: So what do you like to do in your spare time?
M.J.: Swim … play pool … We don’t go much out of the gate because we have [everything] here. When we lived in the other house, we would go to the park to play basketball, but now we have it here.



(Michael asks me more questions than I ask him; there are discussions about my maroon nail polish, buying antiques on Portobello Road, the Apollo Theater, Madison Square Garden.)

L.R.: Do you ever get scared onstage?
M.J.: No. If you know what you’re doing, you’re not scared onstage.

Jackson was always electric onstage, but over the years Robinson continued to press him about his offstage life. In 1977, she interviewed him over the phone.

L.R.: Do you go out with girls? Any dates?
M.J.: No, I don’t date, no. I’m not really interested right now. I like girls and everything but [laughs] ... Oh, you think I’m one of those? No! I’m just not that interested right now.

Related: VF.com presents a photo retrospective of Michael Jackson’s early years. Above, Michael Jackson at home in Encino in the 1970s. By Neal Preston/CORBIS.

In another phone interview the following year, she asked about his relationship with fans.

L.R.: As for reality, do you still enjoy meeting your fans?
M.J.: I enjoy all that sometimes, seeing people who love me, or buy my records. I think it’s fun, and I enjoy meeting my fans and I think it’s important. But sometimes people think you owe your life to them; they have a bad attitude, like “I made you who you are.” That may be true—but not that one person. Sometimes you have to say to them, If the music wasn’t good, you wouldn't have bought it. Because some of them think they actually own you.

In the ensuing years, Jackson would take control of his career to a degree readers may find surprising. Even more surprising, perhaps, was his declaration in 1984 that the original mix of Thriller, his hit 1982 album, had “sounded like crap.”

L.R.: What?
M.J.: Oh, it was terrible. And I cried at the listening party. I said, “I’m sorry—we can’t release this.” I called a meeting with Quincy [Jones], and everybody at the [record] company was screaming that we had to have it out and there was a deadline, and I said, “I’m sorry, I’m not releasing it.” I said, “It’s terrible.” So we re-did a mix a day. Like a mix a day. And we rested two days, then we did a mixing. We were overworked, but it all came out O.K.

To read “The Boy Who Would Be King,” pick up a copy of the September 2009 issue of Vanity Fair, available on newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on August 5 and nationwide on August 11.

Photographs by Annie Leibovitz.

Honda: The Power of Dreams

Everyone has a dream, some goal or activity that gives their life deeper meaning and sparks passion.

When we pursue our dreams, we feel empowered. This power, in turn, connects us to others who share the same dreams. It gives us the strength to overcome great challenges. It inspires us to spread the joy of our dreams to other people. Ultimately, the power borne of a dream is a creative force, capable of producing revolutionary ideas.

excerpted from http://world.honda.com/ThePowerofDreams/

2012 Lamborghini Estoque

After years of casting around for a third model, Lamborghini has settled on what Manfred Fitzgerald, head of brand and design, rather presumptively calls "the world's first supersedan." The dramatic Estoque, revealed in concept form at the Paris auto show, isn't called a four-door coupe by its makers, but it certainly would travel in the extrawide tire tracks of cars like the Porsche Panamera and the Aston Martin Rapide, both of which it would follow to market, in 2012.

read the entire article here: Automobile Magazine - September 2009

2010 Porsche Panamera

"Is it understeering much?" I howled out to the driver of the $133,550 500-hp Porsche Panamera Turbo, as I braced for a ninety-degree left that was approaching with comical speed. "Oh, naaaa. It just goes where you point it" responded the Zen-calm Porsche test driver. Nuts. Our technical introduction to Porsche's new four-door hatchback sedan at the autoamaker's Weissach think tank had concluded with an unexpected series of flying laps around Porsche's kart-tight test course -- but with we journalists as passengers only. No driving, and hence no driving impressions. Porsche has planned that for later. And now my clumsy attempt to dupe the driver into just giving me a hint of what he was feeling had been greeted with a diplomatic, but uninformative, answer.

Or was it? Actually, the car did seem to be going exactly where it was aimed. And moreover, while producing utterly improbable, face-twisting lateral g loads for a car that weighs 4344 pound and stretches 195.7 inches. This is a big, big car, and it's snaking around the track's narrow ribbon of asphalt fast enough to give Captain Bligh motion-sickness. Maybe a trio of g-hardened test pilots could stand this for awhile, but otherwise it's essentially a car that's faster than mortal passengers can endure.

The Panamera's weight (4101 lb for the 400-horsepower all-wheel-drive non-turbo Panamera 4S, and 3903 lb for the rear-drive S) is deceptive. Porsche has been fanatical in trimming unnecessary pounds and has extensively employed lightweight materials up front to offset the engine's mass. Much of the car's nose structure is composed of aluminum (including the hood, front fenders, doors, rear hatch, and an almost Brancusi-like cast engine cradle), with even magnesium making an unusual appearance near the nose. Moreover, there are occasionally even bits of nothing -- for instance, the engine bay's normally closed sides have large cutouts as if something's missing. Porsche realized that the front wheel's plastic wheel housings were sufficient. Why waste material?

All this weight reduction hasn't rendered the Panamera a rackety drum inside. In fact, it's remarkably quiet as the driver flat-foots the direct-injection 4.8L twin-turbo V-8 and it begins that throaty bellow that's so characteristically Porsche (credit a body shape that's been carefully crafted from the get-go for low-hiss acoustics). Oddly, you don't hear much whistle from the turbos; that's been deemed more appropriate for the sports cars and largely muted from the Panamera's sonic vocabulary.

source: Motor Trend Magazine - September 2009

Palm Springs Air Museum Got Cars Too.

1925 Rickenbacker Super Sport

featuring

An inline, 8 cylinder, "L" head, valves in the block, 4.4 liter engine dual carburetor and dual ignition, producing 104 hp @ 3000 rpm, powering the rear wheels trough a 3 speed gear box. The 4 wheel drum brakes and a unique engine oil/water separator device were far ahead the competition. Custon designed wire wheels, and all external bright works are copper plated. The bumpers and interior trim items are made of teak wood.

Note the Miniature Monoplane Radiator Cap: A tribute to Capitain Eddie Rickenbacker's Fame as an Aviator and National Hero.

Blue Devil x Blue Angel

The Corvette that eats Ferraris for breakfast, Lamborghinis for lunch and roasted Porsches for dinner.

We race a Corvette ZR1 against a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet, because... we'd already made all the Ferraris turn red. ( Arthur St. Antoine - Motor Trend Magazine/August 2009)

Fizemos competir um Corvette ZR1 contra um F/A-18 Hornet da Marinha Americana, porque...já haviamos feito todas as Ferraris tornarem-se vermelhas. ( Arthur St. Antoine - Motor Trend Magazine/Agosto 2009)

* All-new LS9 supercharged 6.2L V-8 targeted at producing at least 100 horsepower per liter, or 620 horsepower (462 kW), and approximately 595 lb.-ft. of torque (823 Nm)
* 4/25/2008: The supercharged 6.2-liter V8 in the forthcoming Chevy Corvette ZR1 cranks out 638 horsepower, 604 ft-lb torque. Top speed 205 mph.
* Six-speed, close-ratio, race-hardened manual transmission
* New, high-capacity dual-disc clutch
* Higher-capacity and specific-diameter axle half-shafts; enhanced torque tube
* Specific suspension tuning provides more than 1g cornering grip
* Twenty-spoke 19-inch front and 20-inch rear wheels
* Michelin Pilot Sport 2 tires – P285/30ZR19 in front and P335/25ZR20 in the rear – developed specifically for the ZR1
* Standard carbon-ceramic, drilled disc brake rotors – 15.5-inch-diameter (394-mm) in the front and 15-inch-diameter (380-mm) in the rear
* Larger brake calipers with substantially increased pad area
* Standard Magnetic Selective Ride Control with track-level suspension
* Wider, carbon-fiber front fenders with ZR1-specific dual vents
* Carbon-fiber hood with a raised, polycarbonate window – offering a view of the intercooler below it
* Carbon-fiber roof panel, roof bow, front fascia splitter and rocker moldings with clear-coated, exposed carbon-fiber weave
* ZR1-specific full-width rear spoiler with raised outboard sections
* Specific gauge cluster with boost gauge (also displayed on the head-up display) and 220-mph (370 km/h) speedometer readout
* Only two options: chrome wheels and a “luxury” package
* Curb weight of approximately 3,350 pounds (1,519 kg)

source: Motor Trend Magazine

1950/51Talbot - Lago T26C Grand Prix

The Formula 1 Car that won Le Mans

Despite being largely pieced together by pre-war components, the Talbot-Lago T26 raced for six years and took many victories. Most of these were taken with the striking T26C in Grand Prix, but the most remarkable achievement was an overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a thinly disguised T26C in 1950.

Apesar da maioria das peças usadas em sua montagem ser da época pre-guerra, o Talbot-Lago T26 competiu por seis anos e foi vitorioso em diversas oportunidades. A maioria dessas conquistas foi conseguida com o modelo T 26C. No entanto, sua mais impressionante conquista foi na 24 Horas de Le Mans de 1950, com um modelo ligeiramente "disfarçado".