World Grand Prix Race Cars - part II

After a looong nights sleep I´m back! (Or, the nights don´t seem long enough nowadays. V and A wake up 5:30 in the mornings.)

We´ve been through the first five race cars of the World Grand Prix in Cars 2, here are the others (with the more and more anoying exception of Rip Clutchgoneski):

Number 7 is a great car - Shu Todoroki:

The car is based on a Le Motor Prototype, used in the American and European Le Man Series. Shu is from Japan and the car model is a Dome S102, a Japaneese sports car. I like it a lot, the Le Mans Racers are a type of race cars that deserves more attention, they are excellent on endurance events.


Number 8 is a Brazilian Race Car - and after watching Senna - that´s just great. Carla Veloso:

First of all - If you haven´t seen the documentary Senna yet - do that now. And return to this blog in 106 minutes. Ok. Done. Good.
Carla Veloso is also a Le Motor Prototype and the only female race car. That´s not good Pixar. You ought to have more than one female racer in a film like this.
I love the Pixar films a lot but they are not very good in portraying boys and girls in equal ways. In cars, almost all the cool cars are boy/men cars. They got all the action, the girls are spectators applauding the boys. With a few good exceptions: Sally in the first movie and Holly Shiftwell and Carla Veloso in the second. But surely you could do better Pixar!

There´s two countries with more than one car in the World Grand Prix, its USA and Great Britain. Number 9 is Nigel Gearsley:

Nigel is an exact copy of a Aston Martin DBR9, a British Le Mans race car. The name is from a famous British steem locomotive engineer, Nigel Gresley. While Raoul CaRoule and Lewis Hamilton has clear inspiration for the real cars they´re resembling, Nigel is an exact copy. There´s only one more car that is made in the same way:

Number 24 - the American classic - Jeff Gorvette:

The car is a Corvette C6.R - an American endurance racer, competing in the American and European Le Mans series. Jeff Gorvette is the car that is replaced by other specific cars in different countries. In the swedish film the scene in the beginning where Lewis, Jeff and Lightning McQueen talks is changed so that Flash and Lewis and Lightning are chit-chating. In germany it´s Max Schnell, in Brazil its Carla Veloso and so on.

Scince I don´t have number #10 Rip Clutchgoneski, the next car is a rather familiar one - #95 Lightning McQueen:

The number 95 is a reference to 1995 when Pixar first released a long format movie - Toy Story. The car is a mix of different stock cars and some Le Mans racers and I love the new wing and the new paintjob. You could see that this car is a whole different kind of car from the rookie that we saw in the first film (now he´s a celebrity, with four Piston Cup victories).

Here´s the McQueen from Cars, not a very solid looking back wing...

So my favourites are Fransesco, Lewis and Max - but all the others are great and it´s so much better than in the first film where we only had three types of cars (but with beautiful different paint jobs).

This is a World Grand Prix, and it shows in the vareity of models in the contest. Bravo Pixar!

World Grand Prix Race Cars

In my longtime running effort to take photos of each and every car in my collection I´ve come to the race cars in the second movie.

And... what a loveley bunch of characters it is!

I got them all...most. I still miss Rip Clutchgoneski but it´s just a matter of time! It was a smart move of Pixar to make 10 new different looking race cars. The first Cars-movie was not at all a big hit if you´re looking at the movie revenues. But it is the Super Smash Pixar Hit of all times when it comes to selling toys.
So when the sequel was planned Pixar made a lot of cars that... seems to be almost too perfect when it comes to make toys of them.

The race cars is maybe the best example of just that. First of all we have Fransesco Bernoulli:

An Italian Formula One Car that gave the movie team some problems to animate because of his lack of rims. Suddenly all the moves were a bit too exposed, the car  revealed too much in the beginning. In order to make the grand gestures with his wheels that John Lassetire wanted him to do, the car needed to be stretched and turned in some awkward ways. But eventually everything worked nicely and the diecast is one of the best ever made. No wonder they gave him the number 1.

The number 2 is also a tremendously cool looking car - Lewis Hamilton:

The car is based on the brittish Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, who´s also doing the voice acting. The model is a McLaren MP4-12C GT3.
At first this character was named Lewis Revington and had a grey color scheme. But when Lewis Hamilton got more involved the colors were changed.

There´s no car with the number 3. But the number 4 is one of my favourites - Max Schnell:

This car is not based on a real person although in the german version of the film it´s renamed to Sebastian Schnell and voiced by Formula One Champion Sebastian Vettel. The name means Maximum Speed in english and the car is clearly inspired by the german touring cars that races in DTM. That´s why I love it so much - and this body is used for the Swedish car Flash (and the other Ultimate Chase Cars as well).

Number five is the first car that I don´t have an instant crush on. Or... that was maybe to much... Well you can decide for yourselves - # 5 Miguel Camino:

In the spanish version of the film this car is named Fernando Alonso. Camino is a spanish word for road. Migu(-)el Camino could be a reference for the CHevy El Camino but only to the name, the chevy cars don´t look like this at all.


The next car is a hit - and a real nice looking diecast as well - #6 Raoul CaRoule:

Raoul is a Citroen Hymotion4 WRC - the same car as the 8 time world rally champion Sebastian Loeb drives. They´re both french and have the same type of career so the car is absolutely based on Loeb. CaRoule is french for "to go fast".

The rest of the cars will have to wait to my next blogpost, it´s bedtime in Sweden!
You can see all my photos of the race cars here - and all my other cars that I´ve managed to get on pictures here.

The true wonder of new techology

I spent last weekend in the very north of Sweden - Kiruna. It´s a really cool place, the whole city was founded after the discovery of a large ore resource. Yes, it´s the city you may have heard of that will have to move it´s center because of the mines new reach.

We´re a couple of friends that meet once a year to hang out, most of us are college friends.

And - It was great. Some beers, some hiking, some sauna and some wine. And good food too. And the company, as always, excellent.

On the way home I sent a video message to the kids. I remember back in 2003 or something when I first heard about this technology. Sending and recieving moving pictures with your phone! Wow!

But it has been a disappointment for several years. Too bad screens, too slow, too low resoulution, too few pixels...

But now it´s finally working!

My wife told me that V was very proud when he saw me on that little screen doing sign language and talking to him and A.

Yes, it is truly a great thing for me to be able to communicate with sign language over the phone.

Thank you all you communication engineers out there - your helping people more than you think!

Long Ge - now in a garage nearby!

I went shopping in my favourite flower/disney Pixar Diecast Cars-shop the other day. And in a pile of ordinary cars as Jeff Gorvette, Mater, Finn McMissile and Shu Todoroki - suddenly Long Ge appears!

I felt like Charlie when he finds the golden ticket to the chocolate factory!

Only, this time the ticket was expensive.

Superovanlig - Swedish for the Chinese signs in the green bubble to the top right. Or Super Chase Car - plain and simple. Long Ge is the second car to be released in this rare series. Only 4000 Flash and 4000 Long Ge has been made. The third car out is Vitaly Petrov (named by a Russian Formula One-driver)

56 USD - and now Long Ge has a new garage!




UPDATE ON MY GOALS:

Goals reached:

35 out of 35 Rubber Tires Piston Cup Race Cars

100 % 

11 out of 11   Team Chiefs from Cars 1

100 %

Goals left:

80 %

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

23 out of 28 Pittys from Cars 1 to collect - 5 left







10 out of 11 Rubber Tires World Grand Prix Race Cars
from Cars 2 to collect - 1 left

95 %

1 out of 10 Team Chiefs from Cars 2 to collect - 9 left

10 %

2 out of 6 Ultimate Chase Cars from Cars 2 to collect - 4 left

35 %

7 little lemons sittin in a tree...

Or... not. They´re sitting in my garage!

I love these characters. They´re not shiny or streamlined at all - quite the opposite. And they´re known for being hated through the history of cars. But they are beautiful!

From the Trunkov family - Petrov and the boss Vladimir

And from the Gremlin family - Grem and Don Crumlin

Only one from the Pacer family - Acer

The leader of the Hugo-family - Victor H.

And the true leader of the Lemons - SPOILER ALERT - Miles Axelrod

Wanted - die... or cast...

On my wish list this year Santa:

 

Number 84 Apple iCar - superexpensive, 1 in 1000 in total, please give me one!

Leak Less wide Pitty. Not so expensive. But hard to find.

Same for this one - No Stall Pitty. The issue is not about money, it´s finding the damn thing!

 

Pit Crew Member Guido. Yes I still count this one, even though I got "My Name is not Chuck" as the team 95 Pitty. I simply just have to have them both.

Shiny Wax Pitty. Also known as Nebekenezer Schmidt. Hard to find.

Tank Coat Pitty. Should be a bit more easy. I think I know a page that actually got him. Maybe my next taget!

More pics

The work continues - I´ve decieded to take photos of all my cars so I can watch them without sneeking out to the garage (the winters in Sweden are cooooold!)

And speaking of coooool - Santa is one of the coolest die casts ever. He´s not in the official movies but he appears in a X-mas special with Mater and McQueen. So collecting him isn´t what I supposed to do... but who can resist a car/sleigh like this?

Check out the rest of the pics here.