Russian Car Enthusiast Builds Functional Mercedes G-Class SUV Out of Ice Blocks

A motorist from the Russian city of Novosibirsk teamed up with a local ice sculptor to create a unique Mercedes G-Class SUV using blocks of ice mounted on a metal chassis and powered by an old engine.

Vladislav Barashenkov, the host of Garage 54, a popular YouTube channel focusing on cars, recently went viral for an invention that’s as outrageous as it is cool – a budget version of the Mercedes G-Class luxury SUV made largely out of clear blocks of ice. But Barashenkov wanted it to be more than just a cool looking ice sculpture, so he simply had the sculptor create the body out of ice, which he then mounted on the chassis of an old UAZ 469 military utility vehicle. That made the ice SUV drivable, although riding in it isn’t as smooth as a real G-Class.

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Farmer Buries His Faithful Truck After 48 Years of Service

Alcides Ravel, a farmer from Uruguay, bought his Ford F-350 in 1969, when he was 35 years old. Recently, the 83-year-old man finally put his faithful vehicle to eternal rest, after 48 years of service, by burying it on his farm.

For most people, trucks are mere tools to be used and sold when they outlive their usefulness, but that’s not the case of Alcides Ravel. Although his old truck had been broken down for over four years and mechanics had told him that it was beyond fixing, he couldn’t bring himself to sell it to the scrapyard. Instead, he kept it safe from the elements in a shed on his farm, near the town of Barker, until he was finally ready to part with it. Three weeks ago, he buried his faithful companion on his land, a “small gesture” in honor of nearly five decades of service.

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Hot Wheels Collector Decorates His Jaguar S-Type with 4,600 Colorful Toy Cars

Ever since he decorated his prized Jaguar S-Type with 4,600 colorful toy cars from his Hot Wheels collection, a Malaysian businessman has been turning heads in and around Kuala Lumpur.

Reports of an unusual-looking Jaguar S-Type limousine covered in thousands of miniature cars driving around the Malaysian capital had been circulating on social media for a few weeks, but no one knew anything about it, who the owner was or if it was just some sort of marketing stunt. Luckily, the Harian Metro managed to track down the owner and get to the bottom of this mystery.

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Woman Kisses Brand New Car for 50 Hours, Gets to Take It Home

Dilini Jayasuriya, a 30-year-old woman from Austin, Texas, recently won a brand new 2017 KIA Optima LX after kissing it continuously for 50 hours in a “Kiss a KIA” contest.

Sponsored by iHeart radio station 96.7 KISS FM, the Kiss a KIA contest started on Monday morning, with 20 people gluing their lips on the new car for the chance to win it. The rules were pretty straightforward: the last person to be smooching the sedan after 50 hours would be declared the winner. If multiple contestants reached the 50-hour mark, the winner’s name would be drawn in a raffle. Participants had a 10 -minute break every hour, so they could visit the bathroom, have a drink of water and stretch, but other than that, their lips had to be touching the car or they would be disqualified.

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Russian Man Fills Wife’s Car with Concrete, Films the Whole Thing

A resident of St. Petersburg, Russia, decided to teach his wife a lesson for legally changing her name without his permission, by having her precious car filled with concrete.

In a bizarre video filmed with a mobile phone, the man, whose name has not yet been revealed, can be seen directing a cement truck as it backs up towards his wife’s car and positioning the chute through the window, before ordering the driver to fill it up with concrete. The video quickly went viral online, transcending Russian borders and leaving viewers wondering what on Earth made this guy do a thing like that.

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Danish Museum Encourages Visitors to Scrath a Beautiful Lamborghini Gallardo to Send Powerful Message

If you’re the kind of person who shrugs at the mere thought of finding the tiniest scratch on their car, these photos are going to hurt, a lot. So if you’re the sensitive type, proceed at your own risk!

Last September, Danish museum ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum invited visitors to scratch a black Lamborghini Gallardo that had been placed on display, as part of the “No Man Is an Island” exhibition. For three weeks, everyone was allowed to leave a destructive mark on the expensive Italian sports car, and even though people were skeptical about the whole thing in the beginning, once they were convinced that there would be no consequences to their vandalism, they really did a number on the poor thing.

ARoS planned to leave the car at the mercy of total strangers for longer than three weeks, but the damage became so extensive during that time that they realized it would eventually go from black to completely white if they allowed the vandalism to go on any longer. They wanted to preserve the messages that had been scratched into the paint job up to that point, so they posted a guard in front of the exhibit and announced that the artwork was now complete and interaction with the car was no longer allowed.

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Meet the Female Mechanic Challenging the Male-Dominated Auto Repair Industry

Sick of being taken for a ride by male car mechanics whenever she went to an auto repair shop, Patrice Banks became a certified mechanic herself. The ambitious woman is now educating other women on car maintenance and running an all-female car repair business in Philadelphia.

Born poor to a single mother, Patrice Banks has done very well for herself. She was the first in her family to graduate from high school and after engineering at Lehigh University, she went on to work as an engineer in a cellular analysis lab at DuPont for over a decade. It’s safe to say that she was a very ambitious and confident woman, but there was always one thing that made her feel insecure – having to take her car to a repair shop. The mechanics would either try to overcharge her, be condescending or make her wait simply because she was a woman.

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Turkish Farmer Spends $2,000 on Custom Sound System for His Tractor

When Murat Karlıoğlu rolls into town in his tractor, his neighbors can literally hear him coming from a mile away. The 30-year-old farmer has spent over 7,000 Turkish lira on a custom sound system for his farming vehicle, which he uses to pump out his favorite music wherever he goes.

Karlıoğlu, from the town of Nazilli, Turkey’s Aydın Province, loves listening to music as he works in the fields. He had a decent sound system installed on his tractor a while back, but was never really satisfied with the output, so after saving a bit of money, he decided to invest it in a custom sound system you would expect to find in an expensive sports car or a tuning project from the likes of West Coast Customs.

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Man Sleeps in His Car for a Month to Catch Serial Car Scratcher

A Belorussian man who had had his car scratched over 20 times in the last six months, finally managed to catch the perpetrator in the act after sleeping in the vehicle for a month.

Finding your car scratched is unpleasant, but definitely not uncommon, which is why Kot Matroskin, a driver from Minsk, Belarus, didn’t pay much attention when it first happened to him, about six months ago. But after noticing subsequent scratches on the fender of his Volkswagen Polo, in a relatively short period of time, he started looking for clues about who might want to scratch his car and why. He was soon able to deduct that the scratching occurred only when he parked his car near a pedestrian walkway at the entrance of a park, and seemed to be done with the same object, as the scratches all looked very similar.

In a story posted recently on automotive forum Scooter Club, Kot points out that he only parks in that particular spot when there aren’t any other places available near his apartment building, and always makes sure not to leave his car on the grass or block pedestrian traffic. But that didn’t seem to matter to whoever had it in for him, as new scratches kept showing up on his vehicle. He started thinking about people he might have had conflict with recently, but revenge didn’t seem likely, as scratching only occurred when he left his car near the park.

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Chinese Drivers Try to Deter Nighttime High-Beam Use with Scary Decals

Sick of getting temporarily blinded by drivers using their high-beam headlights at night, more and more Chinese are equipping the rear windows of their cars with scary reflective decals featuring ghosts, vampires or monsters.

Dozens of shops on large e-commerce sites like Taobao are selling scary rear-window decals with graphics ranging from ghostly figures and women with bloody mouths to vampires and yellow-eyed werewolves, and judging by the number of photos currently doing the rounds on Chinese social media, people are actually using them to deter drivers from keeping their high beam headlights on when driving behind them. The bizarre stickers are apparently barely visible in the dark or normal lighting conditions, but light up when a bright light is shone on them.

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Ukrainian Motorist Builds His Own Lamborghini Reventon

Oleg Hrycak, a sports car enthusiast from the Ukrainian city of Lviv, spent four years building his very own limited edition Lamborghini Reventon. He admits it was a lot of work, but it beats having to pay over $2 million for a real one.

Having worked as a designer at a Ukrainian bus factory, Oleg says he had some experience modelling fiber glass and one day decided to use this knowledge to build himself a drivable luxury sports car replica. He took the chassis of an old Audi A8 sedan and modified it to fit the fiberglass body of a Lamborghini Reventon. He also moved the Audi’s 4.2-liter, 300hp engine to the back of the car to power its rear wheels and even built the iconic Lamborghini scissors doors. Hrycak says he did all of the work on the DIY sports car himself, in his spare time, to prove that anyone can build their own luxury automobile if they set their mind to it.

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Indian Man Rents Car, Sells It Online, Then Steals It Back on the Same Day

A 28-year-old man from New Delhi was recently arrested for selling a rented car online and then stealing it back from the new owner on the same day. His scheme actually worked the first time, but he was apprehended when he got greedy and tried to pull it off a second time.

Mintoo Kumar, son of a retired Army captain and struggling entrepreneur, was looking for a way to make some money after his businesses failed, when inspiration struck. He rented a used Mahindra XUV 500 and soon also started looking for an identical one in New Delhi. Once he found it, the conman spent the next couple of months trying to get the registration details of the car and used them to forge a registration certificate for the rented vehicle. Once the paperwork was ready, he posted an ad for the car on an eCommerce website and waited for gullible buyers. He actually managed to sell the car pretty fast, but in order to complete his grand scheme he needed to steal it back again, fast. Using a GPS device, he managed to track down the rented vehicle to its new location, and since the owner hadn’t had time to change the locks, stole it using a duplicate key.

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Inventor Creates Wheels That Let Cars Roll in Any Direction

Omnidirectional wheels have been around for a while, but they are mostly used on utility vehicles like forklifts. London-based inventor William Liddiard has created a special set of omni wheels that can be bolted on to any car, allowing it to move in any direction, spin 360 degrees and slide into a parallel park with ease.

“Unlike other omni capable wheels, my wheels do not require the vehicle to be built around them. This is a world first bolt-on application for anything with wheels,” Liddiard wrote in the description of a YouTube video he uploaded to show how his invention works on an old Toyota Echo. “They are stronger, faster, and more accurately controlled than prior art. They can take a beating. The tires can have the same build characteristics (siping, grooves, rubber compounds etc.) as regular tires. Now you can drive in all directions, and turn on the spot, when needed.”

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Man Spends Small Fortune on “Lucky” License Plate, Gets Pulled Over 8 Times in One Day

A Chinese man recently decided to spend more money on a set of special license plates that he did on the actual car they were installed on, in the hopes that it would bring him goof luck. The idea instantly backfired on him, as he was pulled over by police on the first day sporting the new plates.

After getting his license and buying a car for 30,000 Chinese yuan ($4,500), the man, surnamed Liu, decided to splurge on his license plate, spending a whopping 1 million yuan ($150,000) on a lucky license plate that he hoped would keep him out of trouble on the road. His plan didn’t go exactly as planned – he got pulled over by police on his very first day behind the wheel. And it wasn’t because of his driving, either.

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Bumper Cars a Unique Driving Opportunity for Women in Saudi Arabia

In a country where women are not allowed to drive, bumper cars have become an unlikely alternative to real automobiles. Unlike men, most of whom love nothing more than to bump each other when using the popular amusement park attractions, Saudi Arabian women prefer to cruise beside each other while honing their driving skills.

For reasons that are hard to understand in the Western world, women in Saudi Arabia are still forbidden to drive. Despite moves towards rights for women under King Abdullah before his death, current crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud recently said that the Saudi community “is not convinced about women driving”. It’s hard to predict if things will ever change in that regard, but in the meantime, Saudi women have found an ingenious way to practice driving – riding bumper cars.

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