Category: News

HooliGhana is like Ken Block’s Gymkhana, but with a bike and BMW

If you've ever watched Ken Block's famous Gymkhana videos and thought, "This would be better with motorcycles," Andy DiBrino's HooliGhana is for you. DiBrino is two-time RSD Super Hooligan national champion and winner of the 2019 Nitro Games Super Hooligan flat track competition. These are dirt-track skirmishes similar to Outlaw or Legends races, but with two wheels instead of four.

However, DiBrino has taken his bike drifting skills to the pavement, showing incredible skill controlling his modified 2019 KTM 790 Duke with trademark zebra paint job. The Gymkhana videos, which started with a Subaru, then got Ford sponsorship, and now are passing the torch back to Subaru with Travis Pastrana at the helm, have garnered worldwide fame with its insane car stunts. DiBrino hopes to do the same for bike drifting.

HooliGhana shows just how insanely deft DiBrino is at sliding his motorcycle through decreasing radius spiral lined with cans of Rockstar (because of course there would be an energy drink sponsor). There are plenty of other stunts as well, like drifting around a slow-moving scooter and along wide sweepers at The Ridge Motorsports Park in Shelton, Washington.

But wait, there's more. Partway through the video it cuts to a 1997 BMW 328is with DiBrino again behind the wheel. He then shows off his car drifting chops, which are even more impressive when you consider the fact that he's only been sending four wheels sideways for four months.

According to Asphalt and Rubber, DiBrino was turned onto drifting when a local track of his accidentally double-booked his motorcycle track day with a drifting event. Seeing E36 BMWs and Nissan 240SX coupes sliding around, he was instantly hooked. Because the Super Hooligan calendar was cut short due to the COVID-10 pandemic, DiBrino spent his time practicing the art of the drift. Turns out, he was a natural, thanks to his 21 years of experience with dirt-track battles.

Drifting is hard enough in a car. Seems like it would be doubly difficult with half the number of wheels.

Volvo patent describes a steering wheel that slides from left to right

View the 4 images of this gallery on the original article

Volvo is leveraging by-wire technology to develop a system that allows the steering wheel, the instrument cluster, and a host of switches to slide from one side of the interior to the other. It's a clever invention that turns the definition of the driver's seat on its head, and the Swedish company was recently awarded a patent for it.

Published in September 2020, the patent describes a "vehicle having multiple driving positions" thanks to a steering wheel that's mounted on a rail that stretches across the entire width of the cabin. That means the driver can sit on the left side of the car, like in most countries, or on the right side of it, like in Australia, England, and Japan, among other nations. Oddly, someone could even choose to sit in the middle of a front bench seat.

Looking ahead, Volvo added that sliding the steering wheel out of the way can allow users to enjoy more space when they're traveling in a semi-autonomous car. For example, if you're stuck in traffic, you could bump the steering wheel out of the way and read a book while a properly-equipped car navigates the bottleneck on its own. It's far easier and cheaper than designing a concept car-like steering wheel that retracts into the dashboard.

Making this technology work would require replacing all of the vehicle controls with by-wire components; it's not as science fiction-esque as it sounds. Infiniti has notably used steer-by-wire technology for years, and brake-by-wire is slowly spreading across the automotive industry. Acceleration-by-wire is so common that's it's mundane. The digital instrument cluster and the various light-related stalks could simply slide with the steering wheel.

As for the pedals, Volvo explained they could be replaced by pressure-sensitive pads, hydraulically- or pneumatically actuated sensors, or something else entirely. Either way, they'd be installed in both front footwells, and the system would automatically activate the ones located on the side the steering wheel is on.

Volvo hasn't commented on the patent, and it certainly hasn't announced plans to put the technology described by the documents in a regular-production car in the near future. It's a cool feature, but it's important to keep in mind that it often takes years for something described in patent filings to end up in showrooms. What remains to be proven is that engineering this system with an eye on mass production and getting it approved by regulators around the world would cost less than building different cars for right- and left-hand-drive markets.

Splitting the difference

Carmakers have often tried to engineer their way out of having to manufacture left- and right-hand-drive cars, or at least make the conversion as cost-efficient as possible. Part of the reason why the original Mini's speedometer was installed in the middle of the dashboard rather than behind the steering wheel was because it could stay there regardless of where the driver was sitting. It was later placed in front of the driver, but it returned to the middle in the first BMW-developed model released in 2000. McLaren's epoch-shaping F1 put the driver front and center for a multitude of reasons: improved visibility, a better driving position, and no market-specific layouts.

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Box truck drops box, box jumps back into truck — twice

This is a story of a box truck and its bouncing baby box. An automatic transporation-focused Twitter bot named @tw_kotsujiko run by @90ntyan posted an amusing video this week of a storage box falling out of a moving truck and bouncing back into the truck's cargo area. What seemed to be a trick or prank of some sort was likely the result of a perfect blend of air flow and pressure that directed the box back to its home. 

Via Jalopnik, the video was filmed on a highway in Asia. The box truck is seen driving with the rear door open and several pieces of cargo inside. Specifically, there appears to be at least three mid-sized boxes made of cardboard or styrofoam. 

At six seconds in, the box falls, hits the pavement, does some flips, and drops right back into the truck. Then it falls off again, bounces again, and perfectly places itself in the corner of the truck, aligned with the other boxes. Despite the opportunity to venture into the great outdoors, the young box simply coudn't muster the will and might to leave the nest. 

The text attached to the video roughly translates to, "certainly there is a Karman vortex behind the truck." A second translated comment reads, "Some people are debating Kármán vortex and slipstream, but they both mean the same phenomenon. The former is the 'vortex' that can be formed behind, the latter often refers to the act of using it." According to NASA, "von Kármán vortices arise when winds are diverted around a blunt, high-profile area," a phenomenon first described by physicist Theodore von Kármán in 1912.

We're not qualified to detail the exact science behind it, but basically the box, which apparently has nothing remotely weighted inside, falls out, is kicked up by one air stream, and is kicked back in by another. *Aaron Paul voice* Yeah, science! 

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5G could make your mechanic’s life easier by teaching your car to diagnose itself

In the automotive world, low-latency 5G is often trumpeted as a way to put more safety and entertainment features into the car. Samsung-owned Harman is one of the companies working on bringing the next-generation mobile broadband to your commute, and it has identified other potential uses for it, including teaching your car how to diagnose its own problems and instructing it to warn its owner if it detects an issue.

"5G can improve vehicle analytics. The car will be able to listen to wave forms or vibrations that can be analyzed on-board and uploaded to cloud-based systems," Roger Jollis, Harman's director of product management, told Autoblog. He added the technology can warn a motorist or a fleet operator when a part is about to fail, which would save time and money. It can even make an appointment with a dealer to get the problem fixed.

Humans already do this. When your engine sounds like it's about to leap out of the car, you think "that's not good," pull over, and pop the hood. And, this technology is commonly used in the aerospace sector (notably in the helicopter world), so it's not 100% new, but 5G would play a key role in automatizing it and allowing the car to communicate with a repair center in real-time by letting it send a vast amount of data in a matter of seconds.

Bringing this technology to production would require putting together a library of what common failures (like a wheel bearing, for example) sound like. Engineers would also need to strategically place sensors around the car so they can monitor what noise the timing belt makes without interference from the stereo. None of these obstacles are insurmountable; what remains to be seen is whether there is a demand for this feature.

Jollis stressed making vehicle diagnosis more accurate is merely a potential use case his team identified for in-car 5G, and Harman is not actively working on bringing it to production. It has other priorities, like helping BMW launch its first 5G-compatible car (the production version of the electric iNext SUV) before the end of 2021. Samsung announced its partnership with the Munich-based company at CES 2020. Details about what they plan to achieve remain vague, but they hinted at zero-delay streaming which opens the door to in-car gaming (including virtual reality-based experiences) and movie streaming at resolutions up to 4K. The partners also cited the ability to download high-resolution maps and to unlock vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology as advantages.

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Watch a Suzuki Swift go straight when the road doesn’t, fly 209 feet into a church

In rural Poland, an unidentified motorist celebrated Easter by launching a third-generation Suzuki Swift off a roundabout and into a building owned by a church. The jump was captured by a security camera.

Polish news site Remiza published the 20-second video on its official Twitter account. The resolution is on par with what you'd expect from a security camera, but we can clearly see the gray, four-door Swift approaching the roundabout way too fast about eight seconds into the clip. The driver seemingly tried to make an evasive maneuver, but it was too little, too late. He went straight where the road didn't.

He hit the stone embankment, which was luckily sloped rather than perpendicular to the road, and it pelted the Suzuki into the air at an angle we thought was only possible in Grand Theft Auto. He snapped a tree in half, allowing the local fire department to calculate he got about 23 feet off the ground, and flew for 209 feet until he hit a building that's part of a church. It was sturdy enough to end his impromptu flight.

Suzuki didn't design the Swift to fly, so its landing was about as rough as it sounds. First responders used the Jaws of Life to cut open the hatchback and extract the 41-year-old driver. Remiza wrote police officers said the man smelled like alcohol, though the results of his breathalyzer test haven't been published. He was hospitalized, and the mangled, cut-up Swift was hauled away to the nearest junkyard. No one else was injured.

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Spanish legend Toni Bou does a motorcycle trials ride in his house

Those who know what's good for them, including much of the world population, are staying inside right now. As a result of the spread of the coronavirus and the resulting COVID-19 sickness outbreak, many cities, states and countries are under lockdown orders from various levels of government. It's the perfect time to get creative and find alternative ways to stay busy and self-entertained. For legendary Spanish motorcycle rider Toni Bou, that means doing a trials ride inside the house. 

Asphalt & Rubber came across this fun clip of multiple-time world champion Bou, who A&R calls the greatest of all time, turning his house into an obstacle course. The Repsol Honda Team rider uses what appears to be a Honda Montesa Cota 4RT motorcycle to complete his morning routine. Once he gets up, and puts on what look like Crocs as shoes, he flicks his bike toward the bathroom, and does a wheelie to put the front wheel up on the counter while he brushes his teeth. 

While mostly maintaining an even balance on the motorcycle, he then goes to the closet to get his full riding gear. After taking a ride downstairs in his elevator (none of this would be possible without a sprawling abode), he grabs his espresso and temporarily gets off his bike to build a couple quick obstacles. He uses his kitchen stools as bunny hop props and shows off the incredible control he has with his motorcycle.

Bou then takes his talents outside to use a small walled-in patio for some wall rides and more hops. For his last trick, Bou drives the motorcycle down a set of stairs, including a 180-degree turn, and puts it away on an elevated bike stand in his garage. Pretty amazing stuff. Check out the full video above and enjoy the resulting motorcycle trials YouTube hole you'll inevitably fall into. 

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Just a video of dogs driving Subarus

Apparently, seven out of 10 Subaru owners have dogs. Since the brand has been catering ads to the many such demographic niches that tend to find it appealing since the 1990s, it's no surprise that dogs have been featured prominently for the last decade. 

Subaru even has a video vault of all its pet videos dating back to 2009, but as you can see, it was in 2014 when Subaru really leaned into the dog thing. That was when the Barkleys were introduced, a family of golden retrievers who own and drive a Subaru. Additional campaigns followed in 2016, 2018 and 2019. Some are poignant, many are funny and all are adorable. 

So, although you can certainly peruse that Subaru Loves Pets video vault, you can also just watch the compilation put together on the YouTube above. Or, alternatively, watch some behind-the-scenes outtakes below.

SnowRunner off-roading simulator will be available April 28

The creators of SnowRunner, the long-awaited sequel to the off-roading simulator MudRunner, released a four-minute trailer that shows what the game has in store for adventure-seeking gamers. It's even more realistic than its predecessor, it gives players a wider choice of vehicles, and it takes them to new places on the virtual map.

The plot hasn't drastically changed, meaning the goal is still to complete different missions while tackling treacherous terrain like mountains, rivers, axle-deep mud, blizzards, and bridges that are past their prime. The tasks include towing vehicles out of mud pits, building the infrastructure, and making long-haul deliveries in 11 open-world maps set in Michigan, Alaska, and a particularly cold part of Siberia named Taymyr.

View the 6 images of this gallery on the original article

This isn't the kind of game you can beat by driving flat-out. Focus Home Interactive, the French publisher that created SnowRunner, explained it went to great lengths to take factors like vehicle weight, tire spin, and water currents into account. You may need to lock the rear differential or shift into the granny gear to complete a job, and you'll get swept into a river if you don't choose the right vehicle to cross it with.

Players will have no less than 40 off-roaders to choose from, and they're all licensed from their respective manufacturer. The trailer shows a Hummer H2T, an early International-Harvester Scout, a Chevrolet C/K 1500, numerous semi trucks, plus odd-balls like a Lada Niva dropped on a generously lifted suspension. Each car can be customized with add-ons like snorkels, tire chains, and bull bars that help them venture further off the trail.

SnowRunnerwill be released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on April 28, 2020. Additional content like new vehicles, maps, regions, and activities will be added to the game in the months following its release.

Autoblog video week in review | Feb. 9-15

The video roundup post is your weekly landing spot for all things Autoblog video. This week we tour the show floor of the 2020 Chicago Auto Show, get a look at Volvo's new all-electric semi, and play some NASCAR Heat 4 and Rocket League. And on this week's episode of the Autoblog Podcast, the editors discuss Chicago plus the four-cylinder Supra, the new Hyundai Sonata and the fate of VW's pickup. 

Monday, February 10th - Senior Producer Chris McGraw takes us around the floor of the 2020 Chicago Auto Show for some show and tell. See his favorites here:

Tuesday, February 11th - We presented the 2020 Autoblog Technology of the Year award to Kia for their Blind Spot Monitoring System. Check out the award presentation from the Chicago Auto Show with Autoblog Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore and Kia's Corporate Communications Director James Bell: 

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The Twitch rerun we featured on this day was gameplay from NASCAR Heat 4.  Oh, we should also mention that we're no longer live streaming exclusively to Twitch, you can also catch us live on the Autoblog YouTube page, how 'bout that?!

Wednesday, February 12th -  Senior Editor, Green, John Beltz Snyder took the 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Coupe out for a POV drive. Check it out here:

Thursday, February 13th - Volvo trucks launched an all-electric semi. See it here:

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Yo! Our Twitch host, Multimedia Producer Erik Maier, actually played well today! He should maybe retire while he's ahead. Skip to the last game to see an absolutely epic Rocket League goal.

Friday, February 14th - Episode #614 of the Autoblog Podcast features Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by News Editor Joel Stocksdale and Road Test Editor Zac Palmer. The big event they're discussing this week is the 2020 Chicago Auto Show. They run down the big reveals and interesting things they saw at the show, as well as this year's Editors' Picks. They follow up by hitting some quick topics, including the new Hyundai Sonata, throwback liveries on new cars, the fate of the VW Atlas Tanoak, the four-cylinder Toyota Supra, and Jaguar XE vs. Alfa Romeo Giulia. Next, they talk about driving the 2020 Chrysler Pacifica and 2020 Lexus RX 450h. Lastly, they take to the mailbag to help a listener replace a BMW 135i with something more winter-friendly in the "Spend My Money" segment.

Autoblog may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Pricing and availability is subject to change.

Autoblog video week in review | Feb. 2-8

The video roundup post is your weekly landing spot for all things Autoblog video.

Monday - Senior Producer Christopher McGraw went to the 2020 Outdoor Retailer show in Colorado. The winter show featured some cool gear and a bit of automotive stuff, but perhaps the most interesting info to come out of OR 2020 was the carbon footprint calculator and offset tool developed by The North Face in a partnership with Protect Our Winters. In this episode of Behind The Wheel, we show you how to use it to offset your next road trip:

Tuesday - We got NASCAR Heat 4, and host Erik Maier is already making enemies in the game. Broadcasted live on Twitch and rerun on YouTube -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/autoblog:

Wednesday - Experience the view from the driver’s seat of the 2020 BMW 840i xDrive Gran Coupe:

Thursday - Broadcast on Twitch  — Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/autoblog — Erik played TT: Isle of Man on this stream because we couldn't figure out why in the world the base price of this game is $71.99 in the Xbox Store. The pricing somehow made even less sense after we played it and could barely get through the first half-hour. After that, we jumped over to Lonely Mountains Downhill (super fun, but probably not all that fun for you guys to watch) and then finally to NASCAR Heat 4, which is great for all parties involved:

Friday - Editor-In-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by West Coast Editor James Riswick on episode 613 of the Autoblog Podcast to chat about driving the Volvo V60 Cross Country, what they thought about the Subaru Outback, and even this year's crop of Super Bowl commercials.

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