China Opens World’s Longest Ocean Bridge Measuring 26 Miles in Length! [with Videos]

China opened today to the public not just one or two, but amazingly four of the world’s longest over-sea bridges. Three of the bridges are part of the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway, which made its maiden trip today.

This project began in 2008, cost around US$33 billion and employed approximately 10,000 workers. It is expected to carry double the number of passengers than before (80 million versus approximately 40 million), whilst also reducing the time it takes to make the journey from 10 to less than 4 hours!

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New Toyota Yaris Wears a Sport Kit for its Australian Debut at the Melbourne Motor Show

After its world premiere in Japan last December as the Vitz, Toyota is gradually introducing the new generation of the Yaris in other markets around the world. Now, with the European version out of the way, it’s time for the Yaris to make its first appearance in Melbourne at this week’s 2011 Australian International Motor Show (AIMS).

Revealed in show car form, the Yaris is fitted with a TRD-like sports kit comprising of a honeycomb grille, a restyled front bumper with larger openings and a chrome trim around the lower grille, side skirts, chunky alloy wheels and a new rear bumper with a diffuser plus a roof spoiler.

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Kia Hooks its Belgium CEO up to a Lie Detector to Dispel Doubts About 7 Year Warranty

If there’s one thing South Korea’s Kia does better than any other automaker, it is offering especially long warranties. In Belgium, for instance, the warranties across their entire range of vehicles extend to seven years.

That’s no mean feat, though intriguingly Kia Belgium have found that a lot of new car buyers believe the seven year warranty scheme is too good to be true. Either there’s a catch, or it doesn’t cover all Kia models, or there’s some extra charges that need to be paid first.

To counteract these rumours, and gain some additional customers, Kia Belgium hooked its General Manager Benoit Morrene up to a polygraph (lie detector) and let the general public ask him questions in an online, streamlining environment.

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Revised McLaren MP4-12C GT3 Racer to Debut at Goodwood

The MP4-12C GT3, McLaren’s first race car outside of Formula 1 since the legendary F1 GTR, will make its debut in front of the public at this weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. Based on the new MP4-12C, the GT3 will appear in a revised form after McLaren’s team further honed the supercar. Read more »

Missing Link Tries to Climb Tree with Honda Chopper [Video]

Take a good look at the picture posted above. Now raise your hand if you know what’s going to happen next. If the first thing that popped into your head was that the tree is going to fall down, well, let's just say that you may want to see if this cultural motorcycle club is accepting new members.

If your thoughts involved a flying chopper inflicting a lot of pain to the biker, give yourself a pat on the back and head over the jump for a few good laughs.

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BMW Takes Leading Car Role in New “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” Film with i8 Concept and 6-Series

Tom Cruise’s return for another impossible mission as Ethan Hunt also marks the BMW Group’s return to Hollywood, as the Bavarian automaker will be the main automotive partner in the fourth installment of the Mission Impossible franchise.

BMW’s product placement in the “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol” film comes in the form of the concept version of the upcoming i8 Hybrid Coupe, the Vision EfficientDynamics study while the latest 6-Series Convertible will also play a role in the movie.

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Сбоить: Russian President Medvedev’s Mega Driving Gaffe Caught on Video

The man behind the “Forward Russia!” movement, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, took his campaign motto a smidgen too seriously when he almost...forwarded a Mercedes M-Class he was driving into a crowd of people cheerfully waiting for him on the side of the road.

While we can’t be 100 percent sure, from the video it looks like Medvedev either forgot to put the SUV’s handbrake on or even worse, didn’t shift out of drive and into park before jumping out of the vehicle to meet his voters.

Fortunately, Medvedev’s security was alert and managed to stop the Mercedes before it hit the crowd. The incident allegedly occurred in the city of Kazan on Monday. The video, which you can watch after the break, went viral and has already more than 200,000 views on Youtube in less than 24 hours.

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Video: Fifth Gear Pits McLaren MP4-12C against Ferrari 458 Italia

The 458 Italia, Ferrari's V8 supercar, is the default choice in its category. Sexy, with a fabulous design and the latest in automotive technology, it is a pure driver’s car to be enjoyed by anyone who can afford it.

Yet McLaren plans to spoil Ferrari’s party claiming that its own brand-new supercar, the MP4-12C, can beat it. On paper, little separates them. But the question for car fanatics remains: which one is better?

To find out, Channel 5's Fifth Gear presenters Tiff Needell and Jason Plato decided to pit the Ferrari against its new challenger from Britain. Their verdict? To find out, just follow the jump and watch the video…

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Meet the Most Happy-go-Lucky Driver in the World [Video]

Upon viewing this accident that was caught on a security camera for the first time, the initial reaction is shock: a large bus (seemingly) drives through a red light and crashes with an oncoming bus at the intersection.

Take a closer look at the footage though and shock is quickly followed by bewilderment when you notice a small green vehicle, which looks to be a three-wheeler tuk-tuk (or rickshaw), passing between the two busses milliseconds after the impact and just as the second bus falls onto its side!

From what we can tell, the green tuk-tuk came from the park and turned right on the central road. The accident reportedly happened in Bangladesh on Monday. Check it out for yourself in the clip after the break.

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DARPA Selects XC2V to Replace HUMVEEs [with Video)

The trusted HMMWV (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle), or as the troops (and everyone else) understandably calls it, Humvee, is getting a little long in the tooth, having entered service for the first time in 1984.

So it’s reasonable that DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) started looking for a suitable, and more up-to-date replacement with the Experimental Crowd-derived Combat Support Vehicle project –or, in civilian-speak, “the first crowd-sourced, military relevant vehicle design”.

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VIDEOS: “Monster” Tajima Breaks 10 Min Record at Pikes Peak with 910-hp Suzuki SX4

Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima has broken his own record at this year’s Pikes Peak Hill Climb, completing the 12.42-mile (19.9 km) “Race to the Clouds” in just 9:51.278, demolishing the 10:1.408 time he set four years ago.

“Monster” Tajima, who has being racing at Pikes Peak every year since 1988, accomplished this extraordinary feat driving an extremely modified Suzuki SX4 with 910-horses. Second fastest was Rhys Millen in the modified Hyundai PM580, with a time of 10:09.242.

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Fail: Wile E. Coyote’s Long Lost Cousin goes Rock Climbing

When common sense goes out the window, you can usually expect one of two things to follow: tragedy or comedy. What you’re about to view in the video after the break could have turned tragic, but since it appears that no one was seriously hurt, we’re going to categorize it as comedy. Read more »

Greenpeace wants to Turn VW Away from the Dark Side, Launches Spoof Star Wars Ads

The rebel alliance from…Greenpeace launched a coordinated attack against the Volkswagen Group this morning by airing spoofs of the German firm’s now famous mini Darth Vader commercial, taking over advertising hoardings to install their own banners on billboards located in London and unleashing “eco-storm troopers” to protest on London's Old Street.

Greenpeace went ahead with the attack to draw attention to its concerns over the German company’s ecological record.

The environmental activist group claims that the car giant is “spending millions of Euros every year funding lobby groups who are trying to stop Europe increasing its commitment to greenhouse gas reductions from 20% to 30% by 2020” and calls Volkswagen to turn away from the Dark Side.

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Mazda’s Legendary 787B Le-Mans Winner to Race at Goodwood

It’s been 20 years already, yet it feels like yesterday when Mazda in 1991 became the first, and to date, the only Japanese manufacturer to win the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race. The weapon of choice was the rotary-engine-powered 787B, which sported a carbonfibre body, an output of 700 PS and a 210 mph (338 km/h) top speed. Read more »

Yes Please: Porsche 911 with GM LS1 V8 Power [Videos]

By taking a kitbashed GM-sourced LS1 V8 engine and slotting it into an AWD Porsche 996, LS1tech forum member “1dirtyZ” has set out to create something truly unique. Sure, it’s unconventional and perhaps a little sacrilegious...but just look at the Porsche donor car.

It’s a wreck, the victim of a catastrophic engine fire. It has a ruined interior and a body that’s been damaged both by fire and rust. It would have spent the rest its days rotting away in a car wreckers yard if 1dirtyZ had not rescued it.

And even though this confabulation of All-American grunt and German precision engineering is not yet finished (it doesn’t have a rear bumper, for one), it certainly runs and can even be driven around a dirt race track. You can check out our gallery of in-progress images below and a handful of videos showing the V8-powered Porsche 911 running.

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Sacha Baron Cohen gets Glitzy Gold Dartz for the Needs of his New Movie The Dictator

After becoming worldwide known for his portrayal of the fictional character Borat from the Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, and the lesser successful flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion show presenter, Brüno, English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is returning to the big screen with a new movie called The Dictator.

And what may that have to do with a car site, we hear you ask? Well, for one, we’re going to see him facing off three Lamborghinis with his camel on the streets of New York, but most importantly, we learned that the dictator he portrays will ride in an “all-gold Dartz” armored truck.

For those of you with a weak memory, the Russian maker of the Dartz Prombron had made headlines about a year ago when it introduced a special version of the armored truck with its interior slathered in…whale-penis leather.

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Ferrari’s World Design Supercar Contest: Detroit College Video

A few days ago we reported on the seven finalists of Ferrari’s World Design Contest in which the best design schools from all over the globe submit their proposals, both in Autodesk 3D software and in actual 1:4 scale models.

Their goal? To envision the Ferraris of the future or in the words of the Italian supercar company, “design a pure supercar with technology and materials from the latest generation, a car with an extreme architecture, while functional in every aspect”.

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VIDEO: Lexus LF-A Nurburgring Edition Laps the Nordschleife in 7:22.85

A Carscoop reader from Japan tipped us off about this video showing the new Lexus LF-A Nurburgring Edition (or at least that’s what the Youtube poster claims we’re seeing here) lapping the famous Nordschleife circuit in 7 minutes and 22.85 seconds. The poster videotaped the run from a video screen set beside the LF-A Nurburgring Edition.

According to the person who shot the clip, Lexus raced the car just before this past weekend’s 24-hour Nurburgring endurance race kicked off.

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Subaru in the Midst of Saudi Women Driving Uproar

Last month, a 32-year old woman named Manal al-Sharif was arrested in Saudi Arabia for committing the crimes of… driving and posting a video on Youtube urging other women to drive too.

This is strictly forbidden by the Wahhabi sect of Suni Islam which is Saudi Arabia’s religion, as women are not allowed to apply for a driver’s license or mix with men (e.g. in service or gas stations) or even leave the home without male company.

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Top Gear Season 17 Episode 1 Starts with a Blast: Forget about the Hummer, Meet the Marauder [Video]

Yesterday we brought you news about the first episode of the seventh season of BBC’s Top Gear TV series which aired last night featuring the Paramount Group’s Marauder. The South African-built armored vehicle was driven by TG presenter Richard Hammond in its native country.

However, “driven” is an understatement, since Hammond made the Marauder flatten cars, smash through walls and defy lion attacks. He also took a bright red one for a drive around Johannesburg, creating quite a fuss.

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