The Aston Martin DBS

It is about time that I say a thing or two about my favorite car. It is pictured at the top of my blog with what I believe to be Paris in the background. This behemoth of a machine is a car that most of you have probably seen, but may not know much about, and this car is the British Aston Martin DBS. The styling of the car, is completely unique and it has a plethora of luxury tied into the engineering. Its stylish decide allowed it to be the car of choice for the most recent James Bond flicks, a throwback to the early days when Sean Connery drove an Aston Martin DB5. However, you may recognize the DBS from here:

It's so beautiful. There are many more things to love about this car than its raw sexiness. It has a low growling V12, which I much appreciate since a lot of prestigious cars are attempting to make their cars sound higher pitched and more like a race car.

High end cars are always the best cars to read about since they have so much technology that goes into them and sometimes you hear a feature and go, "Wow, I didn't know they could do that." For instance the DBS has an Adaptive Damping System which allows the suspension to adjust its stiffness to weather and road conditions as well as the manner in which the driver is driving at. Also, the car is made of mostly aluminum and carbon fiber. The floor mats even contain carbon fiber just so the driver can say the floor mats have carbon fiber. Also, it has carbon ceramic breaks (those really strong/brakes I talked about earlier) and a 13 speaker sound system from Bang and Olufsen. The car is more built for practical driving than a lot of Ferrari's which are built to be street legal race cars. I find the Aston Martin DBS to be the best of all world, and thus, the greatest vehicle ever.

The Famous Nurburgring

Nurburgring 24 Hour Race HD

The Nurburgring is the most famous race track in the world. While you may have never heard of it, it famous and is the focus of most high end car engineers. The Nurburgring is used as the place where car companies test out their latest cars built for speed. The track is used because it has straight aways that test a cars high end speeds as well as the handling and suspension in those cars. Car companies put a lot of effort into the race technology that they will use so that they can get quick times when their car is tested on "The Ring." This video shows various parts of the Nurburgring as well as great cinematography. You can get the gist of the Nurburgring and all that happens there through the video.

A car is simply just a compilation of data and tests before it has something to compare it to. Horsepower may seem good, but in a big car, the horsepower may have less effect since it is moving a car. Its 0-60 time may tell you how fast the car is in a straight line, but when a turn comes, what happens? The Nurburgring is phenomenal in that it tests many aspects of a car. As each part is tested, the final score of the car is the time that the car takes to complete one lap. A question that is always asked is what a car's time was on the Nurburgring because there are thresholds based on the times and if your car goes as fast or faster than a car famous for its speed, then you get a lot of respect as a car company. One of the best examples of this was the Corvette ZR1. Everyone knew that it was a fast car but when it posted one of the fastest times for a production car, the ZR1 became a lot more prestigious. It was faster than any Porsche ever built and was almost as fast as the Ferrari Enzo which costs about $1.3 million. The ZR1 only costed about $100,000. The ZR1 got its fame through exemplifying how great the car was built when it was all put together. This is the type of fame that a single lap on the Nurburgring can bring and is a must know place in the car world.

At Least He Lives in Russia

This is a little different of a video from last week since it is from the camera of an amateur and is also about motorcycles. The point however, is still kind of the same with that "wow, these people are somehow dumb and at the same time talented." I think that this video is thoroughly nauseating and spectacular. Simply put, the Yamaha R1 is a street legal racing motorcycle. It took most of its technology from its racing motorcycles and was built based on input from the hugely famous motorcycle racer, Valentino Rossi.

However, this video isn't so much about what the motorcycle is capable of as much as it is regarding the balls that this rider has. It starts out in a not-so-dramatic manner with him driving the motorcycle at a pretty standard pace for someone with a motorcycle, but then as he approaches traffic the video goes from another motorcycle video on YouTube to a hit for people who love adrenaline. This is a phenomenal video in that it strongly attracts the viewer to physical emotion from watching. I kind of have this feeling to sneak in to an IMAX theatre and play the video on the screen. Someone needs to do that as soon as possible. This is more entertaining and takes advantage of the true IMAX qualities, instead of those normal movies that they take and put on IMAX to charge more.

I think that it can be safely said that everyone is glad that this motorcycle rider is a whole ocean away so that we don't have to worry about driving on the roads with him. If one car had done a lane change, the video would end drastically different. That is also the main part of this video that makes it so entertaining to watch, and how it is able to excite a viewer. Apparently the rider hits 50 mph while going tightly between those cars and this is another moment where you ask, "Did he really do that?" Yes, he just did.

-I'm assuming he's male, sorry.

Gymkhana Driving, with Ken Block

This video is straight up bananas. Ken Block exhibits whip game that isn't anything but vicious. The video demonstrates a mash up of car technology and driving expertise. It is probably my favorite car video of all time as a result.

The car is far from a stock vehicle that would be found on the road. It was clearly assembled for the sole purpose of being thrown around. The stock version of Ken Block's car looks like this:

However, when you have companies like Monster Energy and DC Shoes willing to pay for you to do dumb shit, the car becomes what is seen in the video. It has an incredibly powerful engine that is simply needed to make the video even possible. It has 660 lb-ft of torque, which is unimaginably violent. Torque is the twisting motion in the car, which is pretty hard to explain, but basically that says how hard you get pushed against your seat when accelerating.

Along with the feisty engine, there are some pretty wicked brakes on this Fiesta. At 6:50 in the video you get to see the breaks, and they're pretty much on fire. This leads to the belief that those are probably carbon ceramic breaks that are found on cars like Ferrari and other elite cars. Carbon ceramic breaks are lighter, stronger, and can keep up with high temperatures created through strong breaking at high speeds. To put things in perspective, the carbon ceramic breaks on a Porsche are an $8,840 option.

The video is amazing and simply makes me feel suddenly hyper and ecstatic. It shows what is possible with car technology and with a driver at the top of their game. When all those things, and a shit ton of money, are put together, it can make a video that is beautiful and violent at the same time. The most amazing thing about this is that even if a person knows nothing about cars, they can watch the video and be amazed by it. Everyone knows what it is like to drive a car and what the car they drive can do. They also know what they are capable of doing as a driver (if you can't parallel park, Ken Block probably blew you're mind even more). So this video is able to be appreciated and exciting to everyone that watches it.