Lightning McQueen Volvo Rally Art Car

If you were 3 years old, what car do you want your parents to own? It's not an easy question to ask a 3 year old as there answers are limited. However, Lightning McQueen surely has to be one of the top. And, if you need a sporty looking vehicle to base your Lightning McQueen on - what would you choose? A Volvo 740 of course.

In this case, three grown adults made the car of their dreams, apparently. A Volvo 740 plucked from obscurity that had spent its life driving round the UK's home counties, was now made into an art car. And driven across Europe repeatedly on our events.

I've never actually worked out what the motivation to make this car was, apart from further capitalising on a Cars dvd they had obviously bought.

You may be wondering whether there are any similarities between this car and a real sports car. There aren't.

However, the side effect of being the proud owner of Lightning McQueen meant that the owner was constantly bugged by their kids to take them to school in Lightning, which included half the kids from the neighbourhood. As the owner lamented one day, we can do the school run in a brand new Mercedes, or Lightning. Lightning won every time.

So there we have it. How to impress your children. Make Lightning McQueen.

By Justin Clements Street Safari

Spaced out Moonraker Volvo Rally Art Car

From the deranged minds that brought you the Tank Volvo and Helicopter, we have a space shuttle theme.

Not sure what the background to the idea from these particular overachievers is, maybe Moonraker, but they decided to do a space shuttle theme, with a trailer tent (its like a tent, but on a trailer) with a world on it.

Obviously, making a space shuttle out of a Volvo just doesn't work (you need a BMW 1600 for that, which we shall show you in future weeks), so they made their own space shuttle, mounted two side boosters (SRBs) to the Volvo, and effectively made the Volvo into the external fuel tank.

Then, bolt a great big round piece of metal onto the trailer, paint the Earth on it, and hey presto, you have your very own horizontal Space Shuttle Program, with a diagram of the Earth on the trailer behind incase you forget what your home planet looks like.

The team (the overachievers) even put in some pyrotechnics so that the shuttle actually looks like it has an exhaust trail! We like. Partly because it's always fun to see a bit of thought behind these things, and partly because the chance of the whole thing catching fire is greatly increased.

The trailer tent deserves it's own 15 seconds of fame. It was possibly the mankiest tent you have ever seen in your life. They think the previous owners bought all the camping gear, went camping once, didn't like it, packed the tent wet (remember it's canvas), and let the whole thing fester and rot for several years.

When the team opened the tent for the first time in many years, there were literally bits missing from the canvas, large sections in fact.

But quick to their aid came some drinking aids. They installed a set of optics in the trailer for each evening, and as long as you got far too drunk, you didn't notice the howling gail in the car each night. Or at least, I think that's how that was meant to work.

By Justin Clements Street Safari

Space Invaders Take Over Art Car

I love this space invaders art car from the UK. I takes me back to a time when life was simple and the video games were the same. The goal was easy enough to accomplish in one sitting and the controls were easy to manage: Left, Right, and Fire.

Volvo Tank and Helicopter Banger Rally Art Car

End2End is a Land's End to John O'Groats banger rally in the UK. The event is based around camping rather than hotels, although we don't mind teams doing guest houses if camping is too rough.

However, we do encourage caravans on this event. Its a Banger Rally meets Carry On Camping.

With that said, Team Atlantic Booze Cruisers took up the challenge of making a caravan theme for their art car and caravan. They took a perfectly good volvo with a camper and turned into a Tank with a gun turret of unknown fire power. The caravan was made to look a like a bloated RAF helicopter. Not sure if it will ever take to the sky's, but I am sure its very comfy on the inside. Bernard Montgomery would be proud of these troops.

Only the mind of a warped individual (Rob) could possibly come up with the Volvo Tank and Helicopter.

You decide:

a) we like how your mind works, Rob
b) we are actually quite disturbed how your mind works, Rob
or c) hey, I can do better than that!

Enjoy the build pictures!

Brits Get Limited Edition Toyota Hilux Invincible

Toyota launches a new limited edition range topping model of its Hilux pickup truck for the UK market. The model is based on Hilux Invincible 200 Double Cab powered by the 3.0-liter D-4D diesel engine which regularly pumps out 169bhp and 343NM of torque, this new Invincible limited edition model has a Toyota Motor Sport engine performance kit raising maximum power to 194bhp and 430 Nm of torque. Despite the power increase the fuel consumption and emissions remain the same.

Toyota has also made to minor changes to the look of the vehicle, the exterior gets a news stainless steel mesh grille and a black metallic livery with a set of metallic finish alloy wheels. The interior gets a new two-tone leather upholstery with heated front seats and a full-map touch screen satellite navigation.

Production is to be limited to just 500 units of the model with pricing to start from £21,540.

Gallery: Toyota Hilux Invincible Limited Edition

Brits Get Limited Edition Toyota Hilux Invincible

Toyota launches a new limited edition range topping model of its Hilux pickup truck for the UK market. The model is based on Hilux Invincible 200 Double Cab powered by the 3.0-liter D-4D diesel engine which regularly pumps out 169bhp and 343NM of torque, this new Invincible limited edition model has a Toyota Motor Sport engine performance kit raising maximum power to 194bhp and 430 Nm of torque. Despite the power increase the fuel consumption and emissions remain the same.

Toyota has also made to minor changes to the look of the vehicle, the exterior gets a news stainless steel mesh grille and a black metallic livery with a set of metallic finish alloy wheels. The interior gets a new two-tone leather upholstery with heated front seats and a full-map touch screen satellite navigation.

Production is to be limited to just 500 units of the model with pricing to start from £21,540.

Gallery: Toyota Hilux Invincible Limited Edition