jungplunga

When Ian Fleming’s novel Goldfinger was published in 1959, he provided James Bond with an Aston Martin for the first time. Prior to that, Bond had been driving Bentleys. In the book, he offered the following description: „Bond had been offered the Aston Martin or a Jaguar 3.4. He had taken the DB III. Either of the cars would have suited his cover – a well-to-do, rather adventurous young man with a taste for the good, the fast things of life. But the DB III had the advantage of an up-to-date triptyque: these included switches to alter the type and colour of Bond’s front and rear lights if he was following or being followed at night, reinforced steel bumpers, fore and aft, in case he needed to ram, a long-barreled Colt 45 in a trick compartment under the driver’s seat, a radio pick-up tuned to receive a radio station called the Homer, and plenty of concealed space that would fox most Customs men.” However Ken Adam, the production designer and John Stears, the special effects supervisor, were still not satisfied. In the autumn of 1963, they visited the Aston Martin works in Newport Pagnell, in order to discuss several modifications with a group of engineers. They chose what was then the fastest horse in the stall: a silver metallic Aston Martin DB 5 (silver birch would have been the factory standard). According to the script, Bond was to escape with the car and then defend himself with it. To make this possible, the following extras were installed in the vehicle with the license plate BMT 216 A:

Initially, the effects car, DP216/1 was the only car with the extras fitted by the film production company, DB5/1486/R was in effect just a standard road car. But such was the demand for the DB5 to appear around the world to publicise the films, the road car, DB5/1486/R and a further two cars that never appeared in the films, DB5/2008R and DB5/2017/R, had the 007 extras fitted by the Works. Below are the best pictures that I have found to illustrate the special features built into the cars. These have been taken from a 1965 brochure that Aston Martin produced to be given out when the cars were displayed to the public.

Both DB5’s also appeared in the 1965 James Bond film, Thunderball, with the addition of a Jet pack in the boot and rear firing water cannons. By 1968, DP216/1 still owned by AML was returned to the Works and all the film company fitted special effects were removed prior to sale as a normal road car. Shortly after DP216/1 was refitted with replica effects by a Kent coachbuilder before being sold to an American collector. DP216/1 went on to feature in the 1981 film ‘The Cannonball Run but was stolen in June 1997 from a hanger in Florida and I believe it’s whereabouts are unknown. It may never be seen again.

The other three Works modified DB5’s still exist but two are rarely seen in public. The Road car, DB5/1486/R is privately owned in the USA. DB5/2008/R was for many years on display in the Smoky Mountain Car Museum but was offered form sale by RM auctions in January 2006 where it achieved $2,090,000. And the last works replica, DB5/2017/R is part of the Dutch National Motor Museum, the Louwman Collection, in Raamadonksveer which I have photographed both in its home and at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in August 2007.

After it became clear that Goldfinger would become a huge financial success, and a flood of requests came to put the DB 5 on display, the company built two replicas of the car for promotional purposes. These cars had some additional equipment details. One of them had a telephone that was installed in the door on the driver’s side. It also had a special reserve tank and a very luxurious interior trim with antelope leather. All three vehicles (and two others which had been used during the filming) were exhibited at numerous motor shows and charity events; they turned out to be the best publicity-makers that the luxury carmaker ever had.

Sources:
['The Most Famous Car in the World' by Dave Worrall]
[www.astonmartins.com]
[www.carenthusiast.com]

Unique Buildings of Tomorrow I : Aqua Tower
Unique Buildings of Tomorrow II : Chicago Spire
Unique Buildings of Tomorrow III : CCTV Headquarters, Beijing
Unique Buildings of Tomorrow IV : Regatta Hotel, Jakarta
Unique Buildings of Tomorrow V : Residence Antilia, India

Unique Buildings of Tomorrow VI : The Russia Tower, Moscow

The Russia Tower (Russian: Башня Россия; Bashnya Rossiya) is a supertall skyscraper currently under construction in the Moscow International Business Centre ofMoscow, Russia. Construction began in September, 2007, and is planned to be completed in 2012. Upon reaching its final height of 612.2 m (2,009 ft.), it will be the third tallest building in the world, assuming completion of the Lanco Hills Signature Tower. Additionally, it will be the tallest building in the world with a natural ventilationsystem.

The total area of the structure will cover 520,000 m² (5,597,233.4 sq ft), of which 38% (200,000 m² (2,152,782.1 sq ft)) will be located underground. The tower will contain 118 floors, 101 elevators, and underground parking to accommodate 3,680 cars. Commercial retail shops will be located at the base of the building. The maximum capacity of the building is projected to be around 30,000.

Based on a geometry derived from a triangular plan with an open ‘green’ spine[vague] , the building’s primary structure comprises three ‘arms’ that taper as they rise. They create a slender pyramidal form that achieves the maximum stability with the minimum structure and allows the most effective distribution of space. The higher floors containing residential and hotel accommodation are designed as a series of modular units that can be configured individually. At the summit, a public viewing deck with cafes and bars creates an attraction for visitors and residents, while an ice-rink and shops add to life at street level.

The environmental strategy harnesses a range of passive techniques and controls. Strategically, mixed-use offers a strong starting point, allowing energy balance throughout the day as people move between office and home. Structurally, the tower’s slender profile creates shallow floorplates that maximise daylight penetration and increase the potential for natural ventilation. The triple-glazed, high-performance facade reduces heat loss; photovoltaics supply the building’s energy needs and feed electricity back into the city grid; energy recycling reduces heating demand by 20 per cent; and snow and rain water harvesting is expected to cut fresh water consumption for toilets by a third. Thus, socially and environmentally, Russia Tower offers a sustainable new solution to contemporary living.

Official Russia Tower Site

[Source: www.lambocars.com]

Very few people know that the Super car giant Lamborghini from Italy had its humble origins in tractors. I searched through their sites and in many forums and this is all i could muster.

After World War II, a mechanic in the Italian Army named Ferruccio Lamborghini started buying up surplus military vehicles and converting them into agricultural machines. He sold enough to build his own tractor factory in 1949, but even then, he and a handful of employees were building a single tractor a day. By 1958, the tractor company was building 1,500 per year and had the first fully diesel four-wheel drive and a crawler tractor in its lineup. Legend has it that Ferruccio was talking with his neighbor Enzo Ferrari and complained about the noisy gearbox in his Ferrari car. As the story goes, Ferrari told Lamborghini to stick to building tractors and leave the sports cars to Ferrari. Lamborghini didn’t like that idea and designed his own sports car. The legendary sports cars debuted 1963 and continue to be some of the most expensive and sought after models on the road. In 1973, Lamborghini sold his tractor business to a company known as the Same Company, they continued to build tractors while Ferruccio retired to make wine in Umbria. He died in 1993 at the age of 77.

Sig. Ferruccio Lamborghini didn’t start by building high-performance cars, he was actually born into a farmer family, so when World War II was over and Ferruccio returned to Italy, he began converting the military left-over engines into powerfull tractors, which were much needed at that time.

With his studies at a technical school, and his assigned during the war in the car park of the army, he was well cabable of building just about anything from scratch, and keep it running afterwards. The tractor business, which he started in an old barn, went extremely well, and soon Ferruccio was able to move into bigger premises in 1949, he built had a completely new factory built in Cento and founded Lamborghini Trattori SpA. At that time they built just one tractor each day with a rather small group of employees. But things only got better, and by 1958 Lamborghini Trattori SpA built 1500 tractors a year.

Lamborghini tractors were considered to be among the very best, in the beginning Ferruccio even organised tractor-pulling contests between his machines and those belonging to nearby farmers, just to show that his tractor was the most powerfull one. The Lamborghini tractors were very reliable and they were built in a very high quality, mainly because over 80 percent of the parts were made inside the factory at Cento, so Ferruccio could asure himself of the best possible quality.

In 1969 production went up to 5000 units a year, which caused Ferruccio to start thinking about moving into even larger premisses again. He moved the factory in 1971, at that time the Lamborghini Trattori SpA was the third best selling tractor manufacturer on the Italian market. But in 1972, after a fatal cancellation of an important order, Ferruccio lost confidence in his tractor business and sold his company to Same Co of Treviglio, but production still continued and by 1979, the former Lamborghini factory produced some 10,000 tractors a year, from which 26 percent was exported all over the world while 8 percent remained in Italy.

It should therefore be much easier to find a Lamborghini tractor than a Lamborghini car, because the total production of Automobili Lamborghini is nowhere near 10,000 units.

Source - www.porschetractors.com

Porsche’s interest in the manufacture of tractors began in 1934 and continued until the early sixties. In the early 1930’s Prof. Dr. F. Porsche started design work on the “people tractor” right along with the design work of the “people car”. Eventually, both designs materialized into historical products that are still enjoyed by thousands of people 60 years later.

Interestingly enough (and no surprise, if you knew “Ferdi”), the first design of the Volk-Schlepper hat many similarities to the Volkswagen. It certainly did not look like a tractor of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Yes, it had 4 wheels, but that is where it ended. This very early and unbelievable unique design from day one (1934) already included a hydraulic coupling between engine and transmission. This was a distinctive design criteria and requirement of all Porsche-Diesel engines used in tractors until the last model produced in 1963. There was a special reason for this requirement. Engineers in the 1930’s believed that farmers in those days were not able to handle a clutch properly when shifting gears. Interesting.

Prof. Dr. F. Porsche produced three prototype tractors in 1934, all equipped with gasoline engines. Prof. Dr. F. Porsche had designed 4 basic models, 1 cyl., 2 cyl., 3 cyl., and 4 cyl. versions, all have individual and interchangeable cylinders and heads. Another interesting fact is, that Prof. Dr. F. Porsche also had a 4-wheel drive tractor on the drawing board as early as 1946. Obviously, way ahead of everyone else.

After World War II only companies in Germany who were producing farm tractors during and prior to World War II were allowed to continue producing those tractors. Since Porsche was not one of these companies, that had a very modern and unique design, it signed licensing agreements with the German company Allgaier GmbH and the Austrian company Hofherr Schrantz. These two companies used the Porsche engine design and called their tractor: Allgaier – System Porsche and Hofherr Schrantz – System Porsche.

By 1956 Mannesmann AG decided to get into the tractor business and bought the license for the Porsche diesel engine design and the Allgaier tractor design. They rebuilt and expanded the old Zeppelin factory just west of Friedrichshafen on Lake Konstanz to a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility with the most modern machine tool and assembly complex available at that time. Porsche-Diesel tractors were produced in this facility until the end of 1963 by a division of Mannesmann AG, called Porsche-Diesel Motorenbau GmbH. At the end of 1963 an international “arrangement” was made with Renault to service the Porsche-Diesel tractors worldwide. Between 1956 and 1963 over 125,000 Porsche-Diesel tractors were produced, many of them still in daily operation on farms and ranches all over the world. Today, the number of Porsche-Diesel tractors in North America has increased drastically due to the fact that collecting and restoring Porsche-Diesel tractors is becoming a unique and affordable hobby. Fully concourse restored Porsche-Diesel tractors are being traded in the $15 – 20,000 range, however, un-restored examples in good running condition usually sell between $5,000 and $6,000.

Here are some interesting dates that high-lite the history of the Porsche-Diesel tractors:

1934 Initial design stage and production of 3 test vehicles with gasoline engine

1937 Official order by the German government to develop the “Volks-Tractor”

1950 Allgaier starts production of the famous AP17 aluminum tractor with the Porsche designed 2-cylinder, air-cooled, diesel engine developing 18 hp.

1951 Death of Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche

1953 Start of the now green Allgaier – System Porsche tractors. Product offering of 11hp, 22 hp, 33 hp, and 44 hp. Allgaier discontinues the manufacturing of their old, water-cooled engine design.

1954 High sales volume requires larger manufacturing facilities. Registration of Porsche-Diesel Motorenbau GmbH, wholly owned division of Mannesmann AG.

1956 Start of the production of the new line of PORSCHE-DIESEL tractors in red. The new product offering consisted of 4 models: JUNIOR, STANDARD, SUPER, and MASTER., (14 hp, 25 hp, 38 hp, 50 hp).

1957 Domestic sales were about 11,000 units and export about 6,000 units. Agreement with Deutz to share technology and purchasing of specific parts.

1958 Production of approx. 20,000 tractors.

1959 Introduction of newly design product line with 15-20-26-30-35-55 hp.

1960 Domestic sales about 10,000 units and export about 6,000 units. Introduction of the newly developed Bosch-Hydraulic lifting and regulating system.

1962 By the end of 1962 Mannesmann AG decided to discontinue the manufacturing of Porsche-Diesel tractors in the near future.

1963 The last Porsche-Diesel tractors were produced at the end of 1963, however, a large number of units were still assembled in early 1964. They had to be assembled out in the open since the manufacturing facilities were now used by MTU producing high-speed, light-weight diesel engines for the NATO tanks.

Thereafter, no more Porsche-diesel tractors have been produced.

The concept motorbike is the work of Israeli designer Amir Glinik, who centered his design around the theoretical application of the Ferrari Enzo’s V12 engine, chopped down to four cylinders and modified to drive just one wheel in a motorcycle frame. Around the V4 engine, Glinik has designed a fluid shape that may appear more futuristic in its styling than inspired by current roadcar designs, but certainly catches your attention. Glinik has even planned out the theoretical controls, which blend elements from an F-16 fighter jet (more common in his home country than Ferraris, anyway) and the Scuderia’s high-tech Formula One steering wheel, supplemented by a weatherproof touch-screen LCD atop the fuel tank.

“Vintage and modern Ferrari projects influence my design,” notes. “It’s a mix of what I find to be the best Ferrari lines with the latest technology I could think of in terms of engine, gear and driving management.” He has also made a version in bright yellow. As far as how fast it goes and how much the bike would cost, we can only speculate about very big numbers in both cases. We have no idea if Glinik’s V4, which he’s been working on for the past few years, will ever reach the production stage, but we think he’s got a real winner here.