Question: What do makeup and Formula 1 have in common? The answer: Renée Jansen. Renée grew up watching Formula 1 with her dad, who's a mechanic moonlighting as a racer. He's the main inspiration behind her love for motorsport, and she still gets her regular dose of F1 history from him. She's always been partial to Ferrari (what kid doesn't love a red car?), but is also very taken with McLaren's history. Now all grown up at twenty-four, Renée is based in the Netherlands, where she still watches every race weekend with friends or family, while honing her makeup skills. Here's Renée's top 6 Formula 1-inspired looks: I did the top 3 of the constructors championship. So Mercedes - Red Bull - McLaren. Mostly taking their iconic colours and using it as eyeliner or eyeshadow. For the Mercedes one it also has 1 red star to honour Niki Lauda. Alpha Tauri: I simply took the logo and drew it on with blue since that is their second colour the main colour is obviously red, but in the logo it has yellow and green as well. And of course had to include the iconic prancing horse. Daniel Ricciardo helmet: this one…
We all really enjoyed meeting Shawn and John from the Get Out N Drive Podcast, and their trailblazin' '68 Chevy christened Saddletramp, who travels all across the Home of the Brave in search of unique restoration projects and niche car stories. For this month's classic car episode, in partnership with Car Facts Disc, we've got Douglas and his globetrottin' 1934 Riley TT Racing Six 12/4 Special. Her journey began in the hustle and bustle of London, before jumping ship to the Canal-ific landscape of Holland, finally traversing the Atlantic and into the Lone Star Texan State in the US of A. This Wiley Riley has grabbed the attention of the wider American public, including a headline feature in the Halloween Edition of the Vintage Sports-Car Club's (VSCC) newsletter. Without further ado, here's the journey of Douglas' '34 Riley, from a chunky 4-door Saloon navigating the inner channels of Central London to a sleek, open-topped racing car strutting itself on American soil. Enjoy! '34 Riley: Introduction Many Rileys were converted to race cars, as they had a strong engine for their size (in the 1500cc race class) and significant weight could be removed from the body to increase speed. When converted…
After a pretty grounded October edition, this month we'll get a bit 'Wacky' with one of this author’s favourite childhood cartoons, The Wacky Races, a wonderful show full of hi-jinks, drama and nonstop action. Here's November's top 5 most iconic and unusual vehicles. The Gruesome Twosome – 02 The Creepy Coupe Starting off our list is naturally the most fearsome, horror inspired, Gruesome Twosome and their Creepy Coupe. The two are very similar to some fantastical creatures, with Big Gruesome taking inspiration from Frankenstein, while Small Gruesome was akin to a purple skinned bloodsucker. Keeping with the horror and mythological concept, the Creepy Coupe is a hearse with a horror themed house attached. Equipped with a wide array of mystical capabilities such as bats, storms, serpents, ghost, and even a witch to help them win, and cause trouble for other racers... Oh and it also has a dragon, yes a dragon, that appears in every episode to help out too. Interestingly at the start of the show, the narrator refers to the coupe as ‘lurching along’, a reference to another popular cartoon of the time; the Addams Family. Race Record: 1st place – 3 times 2nd place – 3 times…
Mikaniki's car of the month in partnership with Luxury Lifestyle Photo credit: Luxury Lifestyle The Aventador SVJ Roadster is a masterclass in aerodynamics. Its cutting-edge ALA 2.0 system and top-of-the-class aero-vectoring allows you to carve corners with greater elegance and to cruise at long distances with minimal drag. Spearheaded by a naturally aspirated 6.5-Liter V12 Multi-Point Injection engine mated to a 7-speed Independent Shifting Rod transmission, offering 50 per cent faster shifts compared to a dual-clutch gearbox, this sporty beast delivers the power of 770 mighty horses and 531 lb-ft of torque. An emblematic addition to Lamborghini's impressive line up, the Aventador SVJ Roadster remains forever true to its sportscar badge. Photo credit: Luxury Lifestyle The larger air intakes and extended side skirts further accentuate the SVJ Roadster's aerodynamic prowess, boasting 40 per cent more downforce than the old Aventador SV Roadster. Meanwhile, the ultra-light carbon fiber bodywork and 2 6kg removable roof panels mean this is just 50 kgs heavier than Lambo's Nürburgring record-setting SVJ coupe. For those who thrive on the screech of a V12 hitting a 8,700rpm redline, the high-mounted naked exhaust adds to the illustrious sound experience, while shedding up to 19 kg on the overall weight…
Atlanta, Georgia. Home to CNN, the Centennial Olympic park, and avid race car driver, Simon Tibbett. With 23 wins, 43 podium finishes and 1 championship title under his belt, Simon's obsession with racing starts with an insurance appraisal and a few magazines. Mikaniki went behind the scenes with the race car driver himself in an exclusive one to one. Enjoy! It was all a dream... Kindling the love for racing It was pretty random. I had sort of always liked cars as I think many young kids do and my dad was into cars; he didn’t race or anything but we occasionally had car magazines around. Anyway, he was an insurance appraiser and had to go look at a car at Road Atlanta, which is a circuit here in Georgia. He brought home some magazines for my brother and I. I read them; I read about Le Mans, and the rest was history. I knew what I wanted to do. I didn’t know how hard it was going to be, but I feel like right then and there I was somehow hooked to sports car racing. Favourite racing car I would have to say the BMW M4 GT4. It’s a…
Road test. Ready? Get into your car, and drive in a straight line (no this isn’t an alcohol test, but similar). Notice your car pulling left or right? Or your steering wheel veering off to one side or the other and you have to pull it back up to centre it? Or can you maybe hear some sort of squealing sound? Guess what. It may need to check into rehab, I mean get an alignment. Here’s Mikaniki’s guide to wheel alignment. But why’s my car not driving in a straight line? There are lots of reasons why this happens. You may be taking a lot of left turns, or a lot of right turns, causing the left or right tires respectively to start wearing out, which then causes the misalignment. You always wanna make sure that your wheels are in tip top shape (actually a legal requirement in the UAE), so as to take care of any wear or tear. A couple of other reasons include: sudden jarring when you hit something like a pothole or the curb, or even a road accident, and when you modify the height of your car without also adjusting the suspension. So what’s wheel…
It's 1983, and Tom Cruise rolls up to a fuel station in a '79 Porsche 928. An attendant hobbles over to help fill 'er up. Attendant: Nice ride, Tom! What's it gunna be? Tom: Petrol, pronto. Thanks Fast forward to 2020. Tom Cruise rolls up to a fuel station in a BMW M5. The same attendant waddles over. Attendant: Nice ride, Tom! What's it gunna be? Tom: Petrol, pronto. Thanks. Attendant: Actually... Gone are the days where it was just petrol or diesel. The fuel menu now looks like something you can get at a Chinese restaurant, with oh so many considerations for you to bear in mind for your car. Which begs the question: What's the best fuel for my car? Mikaniki's guide to fuel types Here's Mikaniki's guide to these fuel types: PetrolDieselLPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas)BiofuelsHybridElectric Petrol Accounting for just over 60 per cent, petrol is by and large the most popular fuel type. There are two grades of petrol available in the UAE: Special (95 Octane) and Super (98 Octane). Don't be fooled by the 'Special' label, because it's far from it. 95 Octane petrol is basically sold all over the world, and is your bog standard,…
Phoo-ey! I'm still reeling from last month's Mad Max feature, which came jam packed with some insanely bizarre and utterly bad-ass rods! This time, however, we're going to turn it down a notch, taking a dive into one of the best car flicks of the millennium. I'm of course talking about the 2000 remake of Gone In 60 Seconds, starring Nicholas Cage as lead protagonist Randall ‘Memphis’ Raines. With a plot centred around stealing 50 rides in 3 days, there are a lot of cars that could fight for a spot in a top 5 list. We picked the ones that stood out due to either their fantastic movie scenes, the quality of the car itself, or maybe a bit of both. Enjoy! 2000 Volvo Turbo Wagon R Starting off our list is the Volvo V70 R AWD aka Lisa. It’s a sports wagon weighing in at 1600kg and possessing a 2.3L L5 Turbo DQHC engine pumping out 261 hp at 5700 rpm. It is a car perhaps better known for its comfort rather than its mechanical prowess. Yes I know, of all the cars to put on this list, how could this one possibly make it? Well, to be…
Hello, hello folks, it's that time of the month again (not that time), when we give you the scoop on some truly astonishing rebirths in the car world! Last month, we dug into the iconic restoration of a 1930 International a la Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This month, in partnership with Car Facts Disc, we're going deep into the heart of Missouri, where hardcore petrolheads Shawn Sherrill and John Meyer run their raw and heavy duty Get Out N Drive Podcast, sharing things you NEVER wanted to know about cars (except you TOTALLY do!) and why they should be out on the road and NOT in your garage (Hell yeah!). The beating heart of their cartastic adventures is a 1968 Chevrolet C10. Brought back from the brink and christened Saddletramp, this Chevy's gone from abandoned hunk-a-junk, to the star of a successful Podcast in a journey to remember. As John says: "Cars and driving are a part of the road trip of our lives and we need to keep that tradition in our lives and in the lives of the generations to come." Amen, sir. Amen. Becoming Saddletramp - humble beginnings “First pic of saddletramp in the spot we first…
Back in August, Mikaniki explored Elon Musk’s claims of going completely driverless by next year, with a detailed account of the 5 stages of autonomous vehicles, where we briefly touched on some of the things that can (and have already) gone wrong with self driving cars. In this piece, we’ll be focusing specifically on some of the more moralistic aspects. In other words, who to kill and who to save? The role of pre-installed human biases In the experimental game show 100 humans, a group of contestants were set a task to test racial bias. The contestants were armed with a faux side arm, and were asked to point and pull the trigger whenever they felt threatened. On the other side of the barrier, a white man and young African American man were also given a faux side arm and were asked to randomly pop up from behind certain obstacles, armed on some occasions, and unarmed on others. The purpose was to see how many times the civilians would point their weapons at an unarmed African American man as opposed to an armed white man, and the results were as expected: Four out of five times, a civilian pointed their…