A Photo Tribute to the Ladies of the 2011 Wörthersee Show

Having brought you all the automotive-related news from the 2011 Wörthersee Tour including the Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet in GTI and R formats, the 503HP Audi A1 and the Skoda Fabia RS2000 Convertible, now it is time for us to share with you something related but far more spicier if you catch our drift…

Yes, that is right; we are talking about a photo gallery of the booth professionals and ladies who made their presence felt in full force at the world’s largest annual Volkswagen Group meeting, which took place in Austria from June 1 to 4. Hop over the break to get a taste of what you missed at Lake Wörthersee in our photo set that includes more than 70 images.

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Jump Fail: Can You Guess What Happens Next?

Here’s one jump that won’t buff out. For reasons beyond logic, the driver of a fairly new Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck decided to impress his buddies (and his….insurer) at a meet on the sand dunes of Silver Lake in Michigan, USA, by performing a high-speed jump stunt. The laws of physics pretty much explain what happens next.

If you're still wondering, follow the jump to watch the video and leave your comments below.

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Ad Watch: Land Rover Defender Passport

The clever minds over at RKCR/Y&R, a UK-based advertising agency, have created this new print campaign called ‘Passport’ for Land Rover’s rugged Defender 4x4. The ad shows an open passport with the airport stamps outlining the shape of the short-wheelbase Defender. Without using any words, the ad clearly conveys the message that the original Land Rover model is a vehicle aimed at adventurous travelers. Very clever indeed. Read more »

Yuhan Zhang’s Aqua is the Personal VW Hovercraft Concept of Tomorrow

Before budget airlines and the Channel Tunnel, the faster way to get from Britain to France was by hovercraft. The largest of these was the SNR4, a 300-ton behemoth capable of carrying 380 passengers and 40 cars at a speed of 70 mph (113 km/h). In the 1950s and ‘60s, magazines like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics were predicting a future where we’d all be cruising around in affordable, personal hovercrafts. Sadly, it was not to be.

Now, some 11 years after the last SNR4 was retired, 21-year-old industrial design graduate Yuhan Zhang has resurrected the personal hovercraft in the form of her Volkswagen Aqua study.

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Decorative Overkill on a Porsche Cayenne SUV

While never mainstream, car decorations in the broadest sense of the word have always appealed to certain people. However, this is something you expect to see on an old, probably run down, conventional vehicle and not on a fairly new upscale model like the first generation Porsche Cayenne SUV….

The absurdly decorated German SUV with the Ontario license plates is covered in stickers, badges, chrome add-ons, reflectors and toys. We even managed to discover a few LED spotlights on the SUV's hood. Talk about overkill… More photos in the gallery after the jump.

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BMW and Cundari Produce the World’s Longest Internet Ad

In what’s either a clever bit of marketing or an epic jumping the shark moment, Canadian ad firm Cundari has produced what it claims to be the longest banner ad ever for the BMW X3.

The ad, which measures 300 by 18,000 pixels (!) when fully extended, contains some 5,500 words of text and just goes on and on and on. So much so that I just skimmed through, trying to figure out if there was a point to it. It certainly didn’t make me want to buy an X3, but maybe that’s not what Cundari was trying to achieve.

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Did Audi Import Its New A6 Avant Commercial from Detroit? Chrysler Thinks So

It’s not uncommon these days for certain companies to reproduce (or at least try to) the styling and/or the available technology features of Germany’s finest carmakers but this time we have a story that turns the tables the other way around. In mid-May, Audi aired a new commercial for the just launched A6 Avant in its home market. The ad shows the executive station wagon model cruising through streets of a German city as a version of Eminem's "Lose Yourself" song plays in the background.

If you watch the commercial in the video after the jump and it reminds you of Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit” ad for the new 200 sedan from this year's Super Bowl event, rest assured you are not alone.

"It is absolutely shocking," said Joel Martin, manager of Eight Mile Style, the company that handles the song licensing for Eminem. "We believe Audi not only used 'Lose Yourself' to sell their product without permission, but their spot actually feels inspired by elements of Chrysler's commercial campaign,” Martin added.

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Ad Watch: Renault Wind Roadster and Lexus CT 200h Hybrid

Selling a car through advertising isn’t as easy as you might think. What good is it showing your product nimbly taking on Alpine twists and turns when your competitors are doing the same thing? Here are two ads that don’t really break the mould, but try something a little different. Read more »

Hail Fail: BMW 5-Series Owner Tries to Save His Car by Dressing it Up…

Unless you are able drive into to an enclosed garage nearby, there’s not really much you can do to protect your car -or anything else in danger for that matter- if you are caught out in a severe hail storm. However, this doesn’t mean that some people won’t try to prevent the inevitable like this owner of a previous generation BMW 5-Series sedan.

Said to be a Croatian tourist on a visit to Slovenia, the owner of the Bimmer attempted to save the body of his beloved car by covering it up with whatever he could find. In this case, the only available items were some clothes he had in a plastic bag. Somehow, it doesn't seem like such a great idea... Watch the clip right after the break.

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VIDEO: Giant Pothole on Bridge Swallows Lorry in China

We have all encountered them, but as with anything else in this life, there are potholes and there are potholes. The one that opened in the city of Changchun, which is the capital of China's Jilin province, is what you would call a supersized pothole, and to make matters worse, it occurred on a road bridge as a large lorry was passing over it.

The giant hole, which reportedly measured close to 50 feet long (about 15 meters) and 16-feet wide (around 15 meters), literally swallowed the commercial truck which then plunged down to the river. Chinese media reported that there were two men inside the lorry and that both were injured. Hit the jump for a video report of the incident.

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Disney and Pixar to Bring Cars 2 Characters to Life at Goodwood Festival

Continuing the assault of promotional material for the second installment of the Cars animated movie franchise, Disney and its Pixar unit announced today that two characters from the film will jump into life at the upcoming Goodwood Festival of Speed, which will be held at the Goodwood House from 30 June until 3 July. Read more »

More Screaming Passengers from the 2011 Red Bull Car Drift Event in Lebanon

We don’t know about you, but we certainly enjoyed watching the video of a male passenger freaking out during a ride around a drift course, so we decided to do a little bit of online research to find out what it was all about. We discovered that the joy ride was part of the Red Bull Car Park Drift 2011 event and it took place in Lebanon.

The man behind the steering wheel of the Subaru Impreza WRX STI is 34-year-old Abdo Feghali from Lebanon. He is a professional rally driver who also participates in drift contests and events such as the one organized by Red Bull.

If you liked the first video we showed you, then follow the jump to watch the reactions of the same male passenger, this time sitting at the back between two women (oddly enough no one was wearing seat belts…), as well as some new footage of other people that took a ride including the beautiful lady you see pictured above.

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Simply Epic: Pro Drifter Brings Out the Female Side of Male Passenger

In life, there are moments you wish you could bottle up and savor forever but there are also moments you wish never happened. A few seconds into the follow video are more than enough to find out which of two statements mentioned above are true for the man sitting in the passenger seat.

The poster of the video claims that the “Middle East man” was all shook up by a “professional drifter after he claimed to be a pro drifter too”. Understandably, there’s no way of being sure about the claim if we don’t understand a word they’re saying, so if you any of you guys or girls speak the language, we would be much obliged if you let us know what’s going on in the comments section below.

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Honda Canada Hacked: 250,000+ Customers Affected By Security Breach

Less than a month after Sony’s Playstation Network was compromised by hackers seeking personal information, a similar mishap has struck the Canadian arm of Honda / Acura. In a notice to its customers, the Japanese automaker revealed:

“The incident involved the unauthorized access of information as held in our records in 2009, specifically name, address, Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), and in a small number of cases, Honda Financial Services account numbers.”

It is believed that as many as 283,321 have been affected by the security breach. Honda Canada Executive VP Jerry Chenkin released a statement saying: “The information was limited and is not typically used for the purposes of identity theft or fraud. We would like to sincerely apologize to our Canadian customers for this incident. Honda and Acura are working diligently to protect our customers' personal information and improve our data security procedures on an ongoing basis.”

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London Mayor to Whack President Obama’s Motorcade with the Congestion Charge

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week or so, you’d have seen that hi-larious [sic] video of one of the Barack-mobiles getting stuck on a ramp outside the U.S. Embassy in Ireland. The U.S. President’s eight ton, “Beasts” are monsters of cars, built to withstand bullets, bombs and probably reporters’ shoes (yes, I went there).

In a cute footnote to this story, notorious car-hater environmentally-conscious London Mayor Boris Johnson is considering levying a congestion charge on each car in President Obama’s motorcade, the cost of which would be £10 (US$16) per vehicle. A spokeswoman has stated that they will not be paying the charges if billed.

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Study Says Men Seven Times more Stressed than Women in Traffic Jams

A new research by satellite navigation company TomTom reveals that men’s stress levels rise seven times higher than a women's when stuck in heavy traffic. British psychologists reached this conclusion after testing volunteers for the rise in stress chemicals in their saliva when caught up in a traffic jam.

The study found that women's stress levels increased by 8.7 percent, while men's soared to 60 percent in the same traffic jam scenario. According to UK specialists, this could prove unhealthy as it puts pressure on the heart and causes dizziness and breathing problems. However, many of the volunteers had no idea they were experiencing stress. 67 percent of the women and 50 percent of men said they did not feel any stress after 20 minutes in heavy traffic, even though the readings showed otherwise.

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FAIL: Ferrari 599 GTO in Reverse hits a Pole

Bumping into or even just scraping against an object while pulling you car out of a parking space has probably happened to everyone at least once or twice. However, you would expect an owner of a spanking new Ferrari 599 GTO worth north of €260,000 or close to $400,000 to be far more careful that usual when attempting to reverse out of a parking space. Apparently, being careful was not in the nature of the owner of this blacked out 599 GTO in Cologne, Germany. Video follows after the break. Read more »

VIDEO: Chilean Stunt Rider Leaps into Abyss on his Bike

Riding a motorcycle off a 3,300 ft / 1,000 meter high cliff is not something you see every day. Julio Munoz, a Chilean motocross rider, performed this daredevilish stunt in May 2011, as part of the 'BASE Project Los Andes' to promote the natural beauties of his country.

Rigged with special cameras, the 37-year-old paratrooper raced his 450cc motorcycle towards a specially prepared ramp and literally flew into the air before starting his descent. The bike crashed onto the rocks while Munoz successfully opened his parachute some 200 feet from the ground.

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Hoon Crackdown: Two Anti-Hooning Ads from Different Ends of the Spectrum

In Australia and New Zealand, “hooning” is a term applied to any anti-social and often dangerous behavior behind the wheel of a car. Burnouts, car surfing and illegal street racing all fall under this rather broad definition. And it’s an ever-growing problem. Each year there are more reports like, “Hoons kill innocent driver in Dandenong, say police” and, “Man killed in Burwood Highway 'hoon' crash.”

So it’s obvious that cracking down on hooning is very important to the governments of both nations. Here we have two adverts, one from Oz and one from Kiwiland, that use tactics both old and new to get their message across. The Aussie one plays on that, “If you hoon, you’ll lose your car” message while the NZ one plays on the, “If you hoon, you’ll lose your life” vibe. Who knew that New Zealand’s roads were covered with hidden landmines?

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British Study Reveals the Most Popular Hairdresser’s Car in Real Life

And no, despite what you may have heard or read, the Audi TT ain’t the most popular car among hairdressers – or at least not in Britain. According to a new study made available today by UK women's car insurance specialist Diamond, that title goes to…*drums please*…the one and only, MINI One hatchback. In fact, the BMW Group’s MINI brand had two vehicles in the top five positions.

The UK insurance firm came to this conclusion after looking at data from over 18,000 hairdressers in Britain. The company said the MINI One is three and a half times more likely to be driven by someone working as a hairdresser than everyone else.

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