Autoblog

Follow the jump to watch "Car of Tomorrow"

Hmmm, make that long weekend entertainment. Let's close out the theme of vintage car 'toons with one of the best of them all. Once again, Tex Avery dishes out the laughs with "Car of Tomorrow", an all-time great that, among other things, gleefully jokes about running down pedestrians ("Just let 'em try to get away") and pokes fun at those ever-decisive women drivers. Unfortunately, the embedded version after the jump is the censored edition of the cartoon. The P.C. police at Time Warner (which also owns this site's parent, AOL) evidently felt that America could no longer handle the Indian convertible (with a teepee top) and the "sport roadster that's popular in China" (it's a snazzy rickshaw) when the short aired as part of Cartoon Network's ACME Hour. Fortunately, you can still check out the original, uncensored version on the web; it's just not currently embeddable. Follow the jump to watch the final installment of this holiday weekend's impromptu nostalgia 'toon trilogy. This was fun. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

[Source: YouTube]

Follow the jump to watch "One Cab's Family"

Judging by your comments, watching "Susie the Little Blue Coupe" yesterday brought back memories for many of you. Another thing that became very apparent is that you also hold Tex Avery's 1952 short, "One Cab's Family" in extremely high regard, and commenter "raf 280z" stuck a link to it in the thread. Like Susie, the Cab family's story is an endlessly re-watchable classic. Mom and Dad taxi welcome their adorable little boy into the family garage (note the wallpaper border inside -- one of many great touches), but as junior gets older, he gets a little rebellious, and trouble follows -- big trouble. So, grab your kids, sit back and enjoy it after the jump. "Nurse, check his oil, fill 'im up with gas and we'll take him home!"

[Source: YouTube]

If you've been dying to see animated versions of Click and Clack -- aliases Tom and Ray Magliozzi -- then you'll want to tune into your local PBS station tonight. Their new series, As the Wrench Turns, starts off with their presidential campaign, with one of the platforms being "America needs a lube job!" We're all for it. Big Bird and the Cookie Monster will also make a cameo, though we're not sure if it's tonight. Check your PBS site for local times, or check out the show's site for a preview of the mechanical mayhem.

[Source: Kicking Tires]

Back in 1960, the sky was the limit in terms of technology and industrial growth. 60 years earlier, only the rich had cars and telephones, and television was a pipe-dream. By 1960, however, every family had a car and a television, nuclear power had been invented, and jet airplanes transported people around the globe. The rush of growth led to futurists coming up with wild fantasies of the world to come, and we've found a real classic in the YouTube vault. After the jump is a nine minute cartoon from 1960 that details the future of transportation, from self-driving cars and flying ambulances to highways that are constructed in a day or two.

In some ways, the futuristic video was right on. It shows families driving in what is basically a glass-domed minivan that features children watching TV while dad gets up-to-the-second navigation updates via a punch-card system and a synchronized scanning map. Of course the car drove itself, too, but that technology is also well on its way. The video short mentioned solar power, but the vehicle that relied on the sun for motivation had no wheels and used an electro-glide for movement. Oddly enough, solar power came after atomic propulsion. And even though computers had been around since the 1940s, no mention of the technology was described during the video. Hit the jump to check oit, it's well worth a close look.

[Source: Chuck.Goolsbee.org]

We've been covering the auto industry for so long that we hardly bat an eyelash when an automaker does something that, to the rest of the educated world, appears insane. That's just the auto industry, we say, when trying to explain why well-received concepts aren't put into production, or why the best bits of vaporware never seem to materialize. But hey, people tell us we're the press and we'll report on every concept and press release that gets put into circulation because, frankly, we have nothing better to do. Scott Adams, the cartoonist who creates Dilbert, thinks this little game we play with the automakers will induce a grin from his audience. We'll let you be the judge – click the Read link to view Dilbert's latest Sunday strip.

Thanks for the tip, amp!

[Source: Dilbert.com]

Arriba! Volkswagen is enlisting the help of beloved wundermaus Speedy Gonzales in attracting Hispanic customers for its  GTI Mk V model. According to Daniel Marrero at Volkswagen's agency for Hispanic accounts, Speedy's iconic stature with the audience and his reputation for wit and creativity make him the perfect spokesmouse. The three commercials, slated for over a dozen of Hispanic television stations nationwide, use clips from the original Warner Bros. cartoons and depict Speedy outwitting his enemies.

[Source: Brandweek]