The famous Dakar off-road rally is followed by off-road enthusiast worldwide. Not exactly the euro-scene, or is it? X-Raid’s new entrant to the 2011 Dakar rally in Argentina and Chile is a Mini Cooper Countryman, on crack. Pushing out 315 horsepower, this thing is huge. Aftermarket suspension, beefy shocks, wheels and tires, off-road lighting; this is a force to be reckoned with.

It’s the perfect marriage between off-road prowess and euro-styling. I have long been a fan of the Mini Cooper. I must admit that this one is fairly odd looking with its lifted suspension and off-road looks, but the utilitarian nature of the beast appeals to me. It can tackle anything you put in front of it, including (hopefully) its American competition.

On behalf of the staff here at Rezmoto, I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year. 2010 has come to a close, and a new year is beginning. It’s a good time to reflect back upon all that happened in the past year, and to look forward to the coming year. What did you not have a chance to accomplish that you can make a plan for in 2011? Where did you plan to visit that you did not get a chance to? Who did you mean to catch up with that you never got around to?

Treat 2011 as a new beginning and you shall have a happy, safe, and successful New Year!

Apparently a pretty popular web segment, I just stumbled upon this YouTube video and was wrapped into watching many of Autocar’s clips as they are quite entertaining. It looks like they take a variety of different cars and wheeled objects and whip them around a skidpad to answer the question, Will It Drift?

Well I don’t think there was any question whether or not an LP640 would go sideways, especially with stability control turned off. Put enough horsepower behind something, wet the pavement, and mash the gas to the floor and you have one hell of a recipe for sideways. It gives me the idea actually, to start our own sub-section of the blog: Will It Float?

This is a pretty amazing story about how BMW created an advertisement that they screened for a closed audience that featured subliminal advertising. They did this on purpose to see what the reaction from the crowd would be. The video pretty much explains it all.

It’s videos like this that really make you wonder how often subliminal advertising occurs in our day-to-day lives. How many brands are hiding images and branding in their commercials, signs, banner, and logos. Think about some of the stuff you buy all the time and you may begin to wonder; Why do I choose this brand? Have I tried the competition or do I just always buy this one? Why Pepsi and not Coke? Why BK and not McDonalds? Perhaps there is something you are not seeing…

So really what is the ‘new car smell’ everyone speaks about? I have been on the hunt to find out what the smell really is, and to my surprise, I have discovered that there is some debate over whether this odor is safe to breathe in or not. It’s really a combination of smells that come from the brand new parts in your car. Word is that it’s a combination of smells coming from sources such as cleaning and lubricating compounds, paint, carpeting, leather and vinyl treatments, latex glue, and gasoline and exhaust fumes. Great!

(Source: SamHorine.com)

Kind of funny that millions of dollars have been made by companies selling air fresheners that smell similar to that ‘new car smell‘. It’s almost as if they made poop smelling air fresheners. Take a bunch of things that smell bad on their own and should not be inhaled by a human, mix it all up, and soak a piece of cardboard in it that you can hang from your rear-view. Nonetheless, it’s one of my favorite smells. Along the same lines as my preference for the smell of oil based paint and gasoline. I’m probably a few brain cells shy by now. It begs the question, is there a Certified Pre-Owned Smell too?

As a throw back to the rat rod days, many guys are fitting their cars with flame thrower kits so they can spit some fire when they smash on the gas. Obviously unsafe for a variety of reasons, I can’t stop watching videos of it when I stumble upon them. I thought I would share with you a few of the ones that I like best.

Makes me want to strap one of these kits up to my tail pipes. I would just be afraid I’d hit it at the wrong time and light up the neighbors cat or melt the front bumper of a car behind me. More than likely I would just end up killing some driveway weeds, but better safe than sorry.

I thought I would share with you guys a few posters that I had hanging on my walls growing up. Automotive posters are where many car nuts get their start. It’s rare to actually have a Lambo in your garage, so the wall-poster was the most us kids got to see of these euro-autos. Laying up late at night staring at posters like this is what ignited the fire within.

I’m sure many of you guys can relate to this kind of stuff. Tons of Lambo and Porsche posters were floating around showing various views of the Countach and 911 icons. I even had a posted that showed Steve McQueen driving a red Porsche. It seems like the poster has fallen by the wayside with the invention of the internet. Desktop wallpapers have taken over the traditional poster. In some ways, I feel like the automotive poster was an art form. Something worthy of framing and putting up on the wall. Now we just download images and rotate them through our screensavers and desktops. In some ways, this seems like a step back to me.