In piecing together a reality TV show, producers have to find a way to attract the TV audience’s attention without turning them off immediately. One tried-and-tested method is to feature people whose backgrounds are completely detached from what they do for a living.

Now that we think about it, that’s exactly what TLC is doing with their new reality show “Family Armor”. In so many words, the show is about two Mormon brothers-in-law whose jobs involve making bulletproof cars. That’s right: Mormons making bulletproof cars, everybody!

If that isn’t enough to capture your imagination, consider the fact that these two guys are just about as ordinary as any two Americans can be, devoting most of their time on their families, their jobs, and their...religion.

So when they’re not at home being the ‘greatest dads in the world’, Trent and Jason – the names of the shows protagonists – are at their factory cocking their shotguns and thinking of new and ingenious ways of blowing up cars just to test how tough their bullet-proof creations are.

You can’t tell us that you’re not at the very least slightly curious now, because quite frankly, the whole plot of the show - "Cars, guns, and God" - is too crazy to be true, which, if you think about it, is precisely why we have reality-TV in the first place.

Press release after the jump.

Family Armor: New reality TV show to feature two Mormon brothers building armored cars originally appeared on ures.topspeed.com on Saturday, 21 November 2009 13:00 EST.

read more

The 2009 auto show season has pretty much come and gone and as the year continues to wind down, one of the last shows to happen will be the Los Angeles Auto Show.

One of the car manufacturers that are scheduled to participate is Toyota and the Japanese auto giants have begun releasing the fleet of cars that are scheduled to make their way to LA.

One of them is the all-new Toyota Sienna minivan, which will undoubtedly replace the existing model to become Toyota’s bet against the Honda Odyssey and the Chrysler Town and Country.

Toyota has yet to release further details regarding the new Sienna except for the fact that it’s scheduled to be rolled out to dealerships sometime in the next year.

Next-generation Toyota Sienna minivan to make an appearance at the LA Auto Show originally appeared on ures.topspeed.com on Saturday, 21 November 2009 10:57 EST.

read more

You would think that releasing a calendar wouldn’t become such a high-profile occasion, because really, who really would go out of their way to dress up for a calendar presentation?

Well, if it’s the launch of the world-famous Pirelli Calendar, then the answer is a lot of people.

To celebrate the 37th edition of the famed calendar, a host of celebrities from all walks of life were invited to attend the premier of the calendar at Old Billingsgate, a 19th century building on the banks of the Thames River in London.

To make the occasion all the more extravagant, the organizers of the event used Lamborghinis to chauffer guests to and from the destination. Among the Lambos that were used during the event included a Murcielago LP670-4 SV, a Gallardo LP 560-4 Spyder, and the automaker’s newest toy – the Gallardo LP 550-2 Valentino Balboni.

To pay homage to the 37th edition of the Italian tire maker’s calendar, the Lamborghinis in attendance were outfitted with LED lights under the wheel arches to illuminate the Pirelli insignia stretched across the rubber.

For this year’s Pirelli Calendar, the tire makers chose American photographer Terry Richardson to photograph the models with the theme of ‘Brazil’ and using his uncanny talent and eye for provocative yet classy photos. Among the models that were immortalized on the pages of the 37th edition of the calendar include Australians Catherine McNeil, Abbey Lee Kershaw and Miranda Kerr, Marloes Horst of the Netherlands, the UK’s Lily Cole, Daisy Lowe, and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Georgina Stojilijkovic of Serbia, Gracie Carvalho and Ana Beatriz Barros of Brazil and Eniko Mihalik from Hungary.

Lamborghinis used as chauffer cars during the launch of the 37th Pirelli Calendar originally appeared on ures.topspeed.com on Saturday, 21 November 2009 10:34 EST.

read more

We knew that the Bugatti Veyron incident from last week drew headlines from all corners of the world. But what we didn’t expect was that a lot of people would have a field day making jokes and and selling inane items at its expense.

Two of these items that we found include a ’Pelican Repellent’ and a Bugatti Veyron AquaticAvoidanceSystem. Before you believe the validity of these items, it’s wise to put some context into them and think of these two things as nothing more than just people having fun at Mr. Alan House’s - the unfortunate driver of the Veyron - expense.

First up, we have the ’so-called’ Pelican Repellent at the Car Guy Garage website. It’s not so much that it describes the product in this light: "When it comes to pelicans, you never can be too safe. Not only can they unload a nasty stain on your new paint job, but they have been known to swoop down on drivers of fancy French cars attempting to run them off the road." Care to venture a guess how much it costs? $2 million. That’s right.

Continued after the jump.

Internet community makes fun of Veyron-diving incident originally appeared on ures.topspeed.com on Friday, 20 November 2009 17:00 EST.

read more

If you can find a car manufacturer that has had a more successful time crossing over into making mainstream items than Ferrari, then we’d love to know who it is.

The latest brainchild of Ferrari – and one that is quite a ways away from supercars – is a carbon fiber guitar, which it created in partnership with Blackbird.

The Blackbird Rider Ferrari Edition carbon fiber guitar was created by Joe Luttwas, who, incidentally, spent some years working for Ferrari. In addition to being lightweight, compact, crisp sounding, the guitar comes with some pretty noticeable designs that are well and truly inspired by the Prancing Horse, including a red interior, a red A string, and obviously, a Ferrari insignia on the head of the guitar.

Before you start fawning over this guitar, we do have to say that, unfortunately, all of the guitars – which, by the way, was autographed by Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa - have already sold out. Don’t worry though; we do have a video of the Blackbird Rider Ferrari Edition carbon fiber guitar in all its musical glory.

It’s not a lot, but hey, at least it’s something.

Press release after the jump.

Blackbird ties-up with Ferrari to create carbon fiber travel guitar originally appeared on ures.topspeed.com on Friday, 20 November 2009 16:00 EST.

read more

Waiting for Santa Claus is always more fun when you have one of his babes around. That’s how you know it will come to you first and, hopefully, leave without the girl and this extremely low chopper.

Biker chick waits for Christmas originally appeared on ures.topspeed.com on Friday, 20 November 2009 15:49 EST.

read more

Nine-time World MotoGP Champion Valentino Rossi has organized the Motocross dei Campioni event at Cavallara in Italy and participated at the charity run in order to raise funds and help treat children suffering of leukaemia at a hospital in Pesaro, Italy.

The event gathered more than 10.000 people, among which Andrea Dovizioso, Julian Simon, Marco Simoncelli, Loris Capriossi and Marco Melandri were the other names associated with motorcycle racing.

Looks like The Doctor is no stranger to dirt riding either, as the attached video shows.

Valentino Rossi rides dirt bike for a good cause originally appeared on ures.topspeed.com on Friday, 20 November 2009 15:19 EST.

read more

Now we here at top speed have a bit of a thing for the Cadillac CTS-V ever since we had the chance to get well acquainted with the supercharged four door sport sedan. Now when we first saw the CTS Coupe concept we couldn’t help but dream that one day General Motor’s luxury brand would incorporate all of the same high performance stuff you don’t see that makes the V Series car so great into the two door version. Well Cadillac made our dreams come true when they confirmed the future CTS-V Coupe and things are looking up even more because they have just announced when we will see the 556 HP M3 obliterator. There is no better venue to show off Detroit’s finest than at the North American International Auto Show, and that is exactly where the CTS-V Coupe will make its debut.

Cadillac CTS-V Coupe to debut at the 2010 Detroit Show originally appeared on ures.topspeed.com on Friday, 20 November 2009 15:00 EST.

read more

It takes a single look at the GP racing concept bikes designed by Art Center College of Design student Jeremy D’Ambrosio to know that they’re in for some serious controversy. To begin with, they all feature leading arm front suspension and tubular aluminum cradle frames in their creator’s attempt to get rid of the patterns.

But wait to hear the interesting part: Jeremy has thought at a 250cc, four-cylinder, vertically opposed engine or even at a two-stroke class. Hit the jumps to read the designer’s statement on the 250GP concept bikes.

250GP concept bikes look awkward but interesting originally appeared on ures.topspeed.com on Friday, 20 November 2009 14:32 EST.

read more

One unlucky Audi R8 owning Californian learned what it feels like to be a piece of meat in when he unexpectedly taken from behind by a BMW 6 Series and sandwiched between it and a much larger (and heavier) Range Rover SUV. Unfortunately for the four ringed super car driver his dream car now looks like it was chewed up and spat out like a rotten piece of salami. The good part is that the Audi’s aluminum skin took the brunt of the impact and everyone inside was fine, however the worst part is that the R8’s aluminum skin too the brunt of the impact and even a slight fender bender looks like quite a bit of damage.

On the upside, if the red R8 owner’s insurance is any good and the adjuster is a nice guy, this just might be the perfect excuse to upgrade his wheels to the new 5.2 Liter V10 powered aluminum super car. Honestly there is no excuse for 4.2 Liter FSI owners to trade in their perfectly good mid engine machines, if it is a bump in output that they are after then the aftermarket already has a plethora of forced induction options that makes the old car even more powerful than the new car and combined with the V8’s weight savings should make for a more nimble machine. That is if you aren’t provided with an opportunity like this guy. This is just another silver lining on a very ominous dark cloud, it just depends on how you look at it.

Audi R8 crashed originally appeared on ures.topspeed.com on Friday, 20 November 2009 14:00 EST.

read more