The Fiction: The Motorway

In Martha's second trip on the TARDIS in the new Doctor Who, the Doctor takes her to New New York. Much like its present-day namesake, this city is trapped by traffic.

In fact, the only living residents of the city have been stuck in a quagmire called "the Motorway" for decades, all trying to get to a better place. Some even resort to kidnapping so that they can drive in the HOV lanes, which they've heard can cut years off their travel time. Once Martha is kidnapped she finds out they'll make it the ten miles to their destination in a short six years.

The Reality: Traffic and congestion.

It's been said that Americans spend an average of over 100 hours a year commuting, so it's no wonder that scientists are constantly trying to find ways to improve the driving experience. Writers are always imagining new ways for their heroes to get from point A to point B. But how many of those writer's dreams are coming true? Read on.

The fiction: Computer driven cars

Seen in: I, Robot
Pros: You can read, nap, or solve crimes while you're traveling. Accident cleanup is a snap.
Cons: Should the computer system decide to become murderous, you're in a lot of trouble.

The Reality: The Darpa Challenge

(image courtesy of the Team VictorTango website)

DARPA presents prizes to teams creating cars that drive on their own using "various sensors and positioning systems." Their 2007 challenge asked the vehicles to navigate an urban environment and "executing simulated military supply missions while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections, and avoiding obstacles." Three and a half million dollars in prizes were awarded and six teams finished the course.

The Fiction: Mag-Lev Cars

Seen In: Minority Report
Pros: You can pave everything and make it a road, giving D.C. residents as many lanes than they could ever want. Pull right up to your 200th floor apartment.
Cons: Imagine an accident at those speeds, on the side of a skyscraper. Makes car chase a lot more dangerous.

The Reality: Mag-Lev trains.

While we haven't started putting mag-lev systems in cars yet, we have put them into trains. Japan has the most famous trains using the technology, where magnets are used to both levitate and propel the train. Using magnetic levitation for travel has a lot of advantages, including speed. Not to mention the potential benefits to the environment, and the noise reduction. As we pointed out earlier, the future of rail transport in the U.S. might very well lie with mag-lev technology.

The Fiction: Flying Cars

Seen In: The Fifth Element, many many others
Pros: No need for roads anymore, the sky is open to everybody.
Cons: The sky is open to everybody. The view becomes nothing but cars, and traffic is a nightmare still.

The Reality: Hovercraft

Vehicles that float on a cushion of air are actually more popular and widely used than most people think. They're good for going over any terrain, and they're used by militaries around the world. It also is the technology on this list that you are most likely to make in your own garage, if all the YouTube videos are any indication. It is unlikely that the flying cars in science fiction are powered by jets of air, but so far it's the closest thing we've got.

The Fiction: Vehicle A.I. that talks to you

Seen in: Knight Rider
Pros: Can let you know when it needs maintenance, keep you entertained on long drives, drive for you if you need to beat up some bad guys.
Cons: Can get a little snippy. Might lock you out.

The Reality: turn by turn GPS, cars that talk to each other

While we're not quite to the point where our vehicles are having conversations, we do have plenty of robotic female voices telling us to "turn left" and after we make a wrong turn, they scold us with a "recalculating." But GPS systems have become commonplace. What's the next frontier of the technology? Cars that converse with each other.

In this video from cNet, we see that systems are being designed where two vehicles will send signals back and forth in order to keep track of their distance from each other, their speeds, and other relevant information. The same system can also get information from stop lights to relay to the driver, letting you know if you really should try to gun through that yellow light, or maybe you should try to stop.

Does it seem like these innovations are too far outside our grasp? Well there are two famous fictional cars that science has managed to replicate, at least to some degree:

The Fiction: The Batmobile

The Reality: Voice recognition software, OnStar, and "the Tumbler."

The Batmobile's features change from model to model, in fact there is even a website devoted solely to tracking the changes in the vehicle. There have been numerous defensive innovations, as well as offensive weaponry installed over the years. While most cars aren't driving around with side-mounted spherical bombs, the Batmobile has long had voice recognition software. Now the Ford Sync system comes standard in many of their models, one of the many ways our cars are starting to obey our vocal commands.

In a set of ads using the Batman/Batman Returns style Batmobile, audiences discovered one feature that they could have installed in their own cars: OnStar. Of course, Batman has had hands free calling to his support network (namely Alfred) for years.

The most important thing to note is that when Christopher Nolan brought his own spin to the Batmobile in Batman Begins, the "Tumbler" was actually a functional vehicle. According to The History of the Batmobile:

"Their primary focus was to make this Batmobile as real as possible: at 9 feet wide and 15 feet long, the car weighed in at 2.5 tons but was still capable of 0-60MPH in under six seconds with a top speed of 110MPH. Thanks to its unique design, it is also capable of making unassisted jumps up to 30 feet."

One of the best car shows in the world, Top Gear, was able to actually have the car in the studio for a segment where they talk about its actual working features. There's a rumor that The Stig even took it on a lap around the track:

The Fiction: James Bond's Scuba Car from "The Spy Who Loved Me."

The Reality: The sQuba Submarine Car

James Bond was able to tool around underwater in a modified Lotus Espirit without getting his impeccable suit damp. The sQuba Submarine Car is not quite so watertight, but it still is a car that handily swims around underwater, just like the vehicle in the film. As Jalopnik reports:

"Though you're not going to stay dry if you want to go diving, because theres no airtight canopy to enclose you. To breathe, you'll have to wear a scuba mask connected to the car's integrated compressed-air tank. But who cares?! This is a car that goes underwater!"

You can read a complete write up of the car here.

See the car in action and learn about all its other features:

Since the sQuba is just a concept car at the moment, if you want a car that will travel land and water, you might have to settle for an amphibious car. In one of their most infamous segments, the gentlemen at Top Gear were challenged to make their own amphibious cars, and then cross the English Channel. You might be surprised at the results:

What's next in the future of transportation? The best place to find out is probably the science-fiction section of Netflix.

Our sister site Jalopnik has a stellar collection of movie cars — both official and replicas. These are mostly fan-made, drivable replicas of cars and bikes from science fiction.

Batmobiles

Some of the more ambitious projects are the Batmobiles. You can actually purchase kits to convert various car models into an Adam West-era Batmobile. But some fans prefer to make their Batmobiles the hard way.

It took Leif Garvin of Stockholm 20,000 hours and $1 million to convert a 1973 Lincoln Continental into the Tim Burton Batmobile. It may not be quite as hi-tech as Batman's car, but it does feature a voice recognition system and rear cameras. [via Toxel]

Bob Dullam attracted massive amounts of attention when he showed off his homemade Tumbler from Batman Begins. Dullam made the entire vehicle from scratch, and even made his own Batsuit and props to go with it. [via Superhero Hype]

And frequent builder Grant Hodgson made a Tumbler of his own. [via Jalopnik]

Bob Causey helped Dullam with his Tumbler and decided to create a Batmobile of his own. Causey took on the Batman Forever version, complete with a remote controlled top. [via /Film]

Kaneda's Bike

There are plenty of models of the iconic motorcycle from Akira, but many of those are non-working copies. Neo-Fukuoka, not a fan group but a professional garage, created multiple, working copies of Kaneda's bike, some offered for sale. [via Riding Sun]

But another fan, Matus, is also creating a replica of the bike from scratch, although he hasn't yet progressed to the exterior.

Mad Max Vehichles

Mad Max vehicles are a perennial favorite among vehicle modifiers. There are impressive lists of fan-made Interceptors at Last Interceptor and Mad Max Movies. But one fan stands out above them all. Adrian Bennett didn't just transform a Ford Falcon Coupe into the famous vehicle, he moved himself, his car, and his entire family from England to a tiny Australian town so he could live out his Mad Max fantasies. [via SCI FI Wire]

Other Mad Max vehicles have gotten the fan treatment as well, such as this Yellow Interceptor made by Grant Hodgson (who also did one of the Batman Tumblers):

And Goose's bike by Mike Acebo:

KITT

Knight Rider's KITT is another favorite, and again there are kits you can purchase to give your car KITT's Cylon eye. Of course, the best KITT mods don't just change the outside of the car, but are also incredibly detailed on the inside, such as this converted 1984 Firebird, which speaks in KITT's voice [via Jalopnik:

And this 1992 Firebird:

Frankenstein's Car

The Gator Car from the original Death Race 2000 would have been more fun, but some Russian fans of the Death Race remake took an impressive crack at Frankenstein's car, starting with a Chevy Camaro. [English Russia]

The DeLorean Time Machine

A DeLorean is already a DeLorean with those retrofuturistic gull-wing doors. But add a flux capacitor, a temporal display on the dashboard, and a liberal sprinkling of light-up buttons, and you've got yourself Doc Brown's time machine. [Auto Blog]

Ecto-1

George Barris, who famously designed the original Batmobile among other TV cars, famously made a replica of Ghostbusters' classic car, one that is perpetually for sale. But others have taken on the Ecto-1 challenge as well. Ghostbusters fanatic Joe Kerezman created an Ecto-1 of his very own.

And a fan calling himself "Venkman21" modified his from a Cadillac ambulance.

Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder

They may not hover, but fans can always pretend in their homespun landspeeders. [all via Interbent]

This puppy was made from a 1988 Ford Escort and is actually a licensed, street-legal vehicle.

This pre-distressed model, created by Daniel Deutsch, runs on batteries and can climb to 25 MPH — impressive, though not exactly putting the "speed" in "landspeeder."

Why the teeth and the clown's head on a pole? It's an art car from Burning Man.

And this last one — which is a bit heavier on the wheels — comes from Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and annual Star Wars Day.

The Affective Intelligent Driving Agent, or AIDA for short, is the result of a collaboration between Audi and MIT to try and find a way to humanize the relationship between nagging automated systems and a frustrated driver... by adding a face to the nagging systems:

A laser projector the size of a deck of cards is mounted inside the head and projects colour graphics to create expressions on its "face". According to Mikey Siegel, part of a team at the MIT Media Lab collaborating with Audi to design AIDA, the versatile neck and face allow the robot to make a wide range of human-like gestures that can send subtle signals to the driver. A downturned face with pleading eyes, for example, indicates that AIDA is "worried" because the driver has failed to buckle the safety belt.

It's not only when seat belts are left unbuckled that it'll plead with you, however; the entire car will help it spy on you to know what mood you're in:

It uses sensors inside and outside the car to pick up clues about the driver's state of mind: grip strength and skin-conductivity sensors in the steering wheel, for example, tell the robot when the driver is tense. AIDA also uses GPS logs of a driver's travels to learn favourite locations and suggest better routes.

Yes, the future of GPS is part friendly robot, part driving-centric lie detector. And it's not just Audi who're working on this; according to New Scientist, both Nissan and Pioneer are already working on similar systems.

Robot driving companion brings emotion to navigation [New Scientist]

The Automotive X Prize, announced earlier this year, is challenging inventors around the world to, in the words of the official website, "inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles that help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change." 111 teams, from 11 countries worldwide, have signed up to compete, and now Juma Entertainment has also signed up - to make a television show of the whole thing. Juma executive producer Bob Horowitz calls the contest "overflowing with television potential," going on to add,

This is true reality TV, complete with colorful characters, ingenious technological triumphs and unanticipated setbacks.

With the demonstration portion of the competition planned for mid-2010, and the winner announced a year from now, Juma is currently looking for a network to buy the show.

X Prize steers to Reality TV [Variety]

Legend of Neil, Season 2, Ep. 3 — The Musical

But we'll never forget who explained what Dragon Sex really meant first, those clever car bloggers at Jalopnik plus they threw in an instructional music video for good measure.

Note, Bridges is without beard presently.

Thanks to this beautiful concept art discovered by TFO8, we can now see that the Devastator's head opens up into a giant grinder vortex, naturally. So that explains everything, right?

I'm sorry, but why do you need to grind something if you're going to put it into another vortex anyway? It looks pretty absurdly intense but I'm excited to see him give Optimus Prime the vortex for a mouth. . Look at him go, on the left.

In other botty news here are some beautiful images of the evil Lucifer Transformer Fallen, Skidz and Mudflap and Sideswipe.

[via Flickr]

In an astounding presentation this Tuesday at the Honda Tokyo headquarters, the car manufacturer debuted this video presentation where a subject, donning the heavily monitored helmet, made the ASIMO robot move, using his brain.

According to Britebart the robot can respond to commands to move its right hand or left hand, trot and mimic eating - all through the power of mind control. The project's still in the heavy research mode and isn't ready for a live trial, as the helmet wearer could be too easily distracted. Also, since brain patterns are not universally the same, each subject needs two to three hours of study before linking up to ASIMO.

But I'm even more curious as to what happens when the sexy lab instructor shows up? All kidding aside, this truly is a jaw-dropping feat. This technology could enable millions of disabled people to control robotic avatars or wheelchairs, along with numerous other possibilities. It's hard not to think that somewhere Ronald D. Moore is rubbing his hands together in delight, muttering "I warned you all."

Photo from AP/Koji Sasahara

While he was designing cars for VW, Simon also designed cars for a fictional company located in another galaxy called Cosmic Motors. In 2007 he published a book of Cosmic Motors designs, and created a website for the company, complete with an elaborate back story about its founding in 8966. Though the founders perished in a tragic space crash, their daredevil, spaceship-loving daughters took over the firm.

If Simon's designs for Tron 2 look anything like the Detonator above, or either of these luscious creations, we're totally sold on the concept design for the movie. These cars are what the cool kids call cherry.See more of Simon's amazing designs on his website. Thanks, J!

While we just got out of the panel, we wanted to be first to tell you the details on the movie adaptations. Both movies will receive four-book weekly work-ups. The four-book arc for Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen will be written by Simon Furman with artwork by Jon Davis-Hunt and Alex Milne. Covers will be drawn by Josh Nizzi.

The four-issue story arc for G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra will be written by Denton J. Tipton with artwork by Casey Maloney.

Put together by Rick Murphy and inspired by BSG's ships, The Trylon Viper car was sold as a kit in the 1990s, and what an amazing package that would have been to get in the mail.

The Trylon is outfitted with a snazzy blinking cockpit that measures 15' 4" long, 43" high and 76" wide at the Stern with an RX-7 engine. Which, according to car lord Ray Wert, is "insane" and "would probably leaves an oil slick in its wake...it's also wholly unreliable." But spaceships are fickle beasts, and I can only imagine assembling a Battlestar Galactica Viper is even harder because there was a war on people, a war with Cylons — so you have to take what you get, scrap metal and crappy engines be damned.

But before you jump into your Trylon Viper you might want to make sure it can turn.

[Three Wheelers] (Thanks Corey!)

It seems like every day, we come across about the "city car of the future." It's usually lightweight and next-gen, with an electric battery, solar panels, and lots of nano-carbon-fibres everywhere. To be honest, a lot of these designs look like kids' toys. Stuff like this. Or this. Not to mention this. Or hey, how about this foldable city car? These super-future cars always look teeny and clown-sized, plus they'll probably cost a fortune and fall apart the moment someone even looks at them harshly. Plus they're almost always one- or two-person vehicles.

Slightly more believable are some of the fancy public transportation ideas people come up with, like light rail or maglev trains. Or this crazy (but sorta cool) London bus:

But really, the more we think about it, the more we feel like the future of urban transportation in the first world will look the way it does now in the third world. That is, the boundaries between personal cars, buses and taxis will get blurred, and transport will have to be cheaper and more flexible.

A 2007 paper by the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions agreed — the Institute suggested a "Smart Jitney" system could be pressed into service quickly, and could reduce gasoline consumption and greenhouse gases by 50 to 75 percent. (Those numbers seem awfully optimistic to me. But you never know.)

As the Institute's report says, most U.S. cities don't have the density to make real mass transit (light rail, etc.) feasible. And electric batteries and hydrogen fuel cells aren't yet at the point where they're feasible for mass consumption. Blame our individualistic, car-centered culture — the Institute does — but we've created a system where only cars can serve our needs.

So we have to look to the jitney instead. Says the Institute:

A jitney is defined as a small bus that carries passengers over a regular route on a flexible schedule. Another definition of a jitney is basically an unlicensed taxicab. Basically, a jitney is a form of mass transit using cars and vans, not passenger buses. Jitneys typically are not required to travel specific routes on a specific schedule as are trains, buses and streetcars. They are both ancient and contemporary.

A friend of mine from Kenya said there are tons of van services there, which compete partly based on the type of music they play. There's the reggae bus, the hip-hop bus, etc. With private operators running their own van services, you could have whatever type of atmosphere, from professional to party bus, you wanted.

Best of all, the "smart jitney" system could use existing vehicles — all those soccer-mom SUVs and minivans are just crying out to be pressed into service.

The "smart" part of "smart jitney" involves using high tech to provide an extra margin of safety. Like, each jitney could have an Auto Event Recorder to make sure the driver is being safe and observing speed limits. You could have an online "reservation tracking system" which you could access via cellphone or internet.

Already, some cities are experimenting with a smart carpooling system, where drivers pick up random strangers. For example, in Oakland, CA, you can wait near a supermarket parking lot, at a smart carpooling stop, and drivers will come looking for people who need rides into San Francisco. Passengers share the price of gas.

These ideas are nothing new. As far back as 1968, the Johnson administration issued a 100-page report to Congress on the future of urban transportation, which hailed super-futuristic ideas such as the dial-a-bus, "a hybrid between an ordinary bus and a taxi." It would use the miracle of computers to keep track of people's transportation orders, and pick up passengers at or near their homes as required. Other ideas in the report included Personal Rapid Transit, a kind of light rail system with individual cars that your family could ride in, and "dualmode" systems that could be cars or rail cars, depending on the situation.

More recently, syndicated columnist George Will has written about the injustice of urban transit regulations. Cities hoard taxi "medallions," carefully regulating the number of cabdrivers and making it nigh impossible for new entrants to come into the system. Even worse, most cities ban "jitney" services, which are often the only way low-income people can get around. (A jitney is basically like a taxi service, except that it picks up as many people as will fit in the car, and then takes them, in turn, to their destinations.) I remember reading Will's columns on the subject a few times, but the most recent one I can find right now is a 2003 column in which he commented that Houston had "emancipated the providers of jitney services."

It's a perfect instance of well-meaning regulations holding back services that could actually help the most vulnerable people. Limits on taxi licenses might help keep taxi companies viable and allow for safety inspections, but they also help to leave tons of low-income people stranded.

After all the months of preparation, we finally hit the track with the io9 Apocalypsemobile, running in the 4-cylinder class of the Hangover 150 at Ransomville Speedway, just north of Niagara Falls, NY. You can probably tell from the photos, but just to drive home the point - it was really really really really really freaking cold that day. When I woke up, the temperature was 4. Degrees. Fahrenheit.

But before I get into the fun stuff, there's a bit of bad news. The track officials assigned numbers to everyone. Therefore, I couldn't use io9 as my official number, and had to paint out the 'o' to make my number 19. I was disappointed, but it was either that or not race.

And race we did. Previous years, it has been cold and snowy, but a within a few laps the cars had churned the dirt track into a quagmire of half-frozen mud. This kept speeds slow and made getting stuck more of a concern than crashing. There were also lots more cars in the past, so many that sometimes they ringed the entire track four deep at the start of the race. This year, those factors were not in effect. The cold had frozen the track solid, and the four-inch coating of snow was packed flat by the fifth lap. Car counts were down as well, perhaps due to general economic malaise. There were fewer than 40 cars in the 4-cylinder division. The fast track and open space meant the cars could really build up speed - a lot more speed than I expected.

If there's one thing the Apocalypsemobile had plenty of, it was speed. With a dual-overhead cam engine, it had in the neighborhood of 180 horsepower, and by the time I'd stripped the interior, it weighed significantly less than a ton. Of course, as soon as I climbed in it was probably back over a ton, but still, it had some serious kick. Once a I got a feel for it, I could blast down the straights, kick it sideways in the turns and dive past slower competitors with ease. Cars were spinning all around me, fading in and out of view through billowing clouds of snow (which occasionally blew inside my helmet, which was unpleasant). I avoided them all, becoming increasingly confident and aggressive.

And that, naturally, is what lead to the Apocalypsemobile's downfall. The photos probably tell the story better than I can, but here's how it went down: I went into turn one very fast, making an inside pass on a white minivan. I figured to slide high once I was past him, letting the front wheel drive vehicle's natural push carry me through the corner. Except someone had spun out and stopped near the wall directly in my path. I slammed into his rear corner hard. Hard enough to give myself a headache, even though I was wearing a helmet. Hard enough to destroy my right front tire, bend the front frame rail, and shake something loose in the engine (the leading theory involves the ignition system). The car still ran, but the engine pulsed rather than running steadily. As it sputtered, I could only manage about 20 or so mph, which felt terrible after the estimated 40-50 I'd been doing. The Apocalypsemobile and I soldiered on for quite a few more laps until someone spun me out in the turn. I ended up stuck in the snow at the bottom of the track, up against another car.

That would have been fine were it not for the fact that my driver's side door was facing oncoming cars. Oncoming cars that were careening through the turn at high speed, barely in control. There were some moments of extreme terror as I pondered the effect of someone slamming into me. Then someone did, but luckily they hit a few feet behind my door. Resisting panic, I judged the amount of space available between my passenger window and the car I was pinned against. Enough space? I hoped so. I undid my shoulder belt, unlatched my lap belt, threw myself across the front seat (somehow remembering to grab my disposable camera in the process), then flung myself out onto the other car's hood. From there, I reached the safety of the infield.

Not 30 seconds after I got out (I was still taking my helmet off), a black Camaro slammed its rear corner directly into the spot I'd been sitting in. Close one.

Before we get to the photos, I have to thank some people for helping me make this whole Apocalypsemobile thing happen. This was easily the craziest, most fun thing I've ever done, and I could never have managed it on my own.

Thanks to:

My dad, who did enormous amounts of work on the car, contributed huge amounts of automotive knowledge, bought the battery, towed the car there with his truck, and acted as my squire in the pits, arming me for battle and making sure my trusty Saturn was mechanically sound.

Kurt, for letting me borrow his helmet. Without it, I have no doubt I would have cracked my skull in the crash.

Annalee, for being really supportive and enthusiastic, and sponsoring me.

My wife, for putting up with me keeping this thing in our garage for half a year, and not totally freaking out about the potential of me getting hurt.

My brother, for lots of enthusiasm and some excellent photographs.

Jim Mercurio, for letting me use his old drag racing seat belts.

James "Mac" McParland and www.titzenbeer.com for coming on board as an early sponsor.

io9er FredicvsMaximvs, who also sponsored the Apocalypsemobile.

Finally, here's the photo gallery. For reasons I cannot fathom, the photos appear in the gallery in random order, thus defeating my careful chronology. Still, they express the triumph and tragedy of the io9 Apocalypsemobile quite effectively. You can also check out the official race photos, as well as an excellent Youtube video that is well worth the watch. My favorite part starts around 1:10. The crowd's reaction is priceless.

A few things have changed since we last saw the Apocalypsemobile. It runs now, which is nice (though the "door ajar" alarm sounds constantly whenever the battery is connected). A hole has been carved into the hood - the rules dictate this modification "to expose the carburetor for fire fighting," and we followed the rules even though this car has no carburetor. You may also note the fin on the roof, required by the rules because the numbers on the side of the car will be obscured by mud almost instantly.

Recent work on the car has been somewhat difficult due to it being really freaking cold out. The temperature was 18 degrees F when I took these photos, and it was colder than that when we mounted the fin and painted it (I know, the paint on the fin looks pretty bad - I'll fix it before the race). On the other hand, the Apocalypsemobile looks great in its natural environment, a frigid post-apocalyptic wasteland rimmed with monstrous snow drifts, echoing with the howls of cannibalistic mutants. Seriously, it's a rough neighborhood.

The Apocalypsemobile has come a long way since it was first introduced. On January 1, 2009 it will enter it's first (and probably only) competition, in the 4-cylinder division of the enduro Hangover 150, held each year at Ransomville Speedway in Ransomville, NY. Fans who attend are asked to bring a non-perishable food item. Typically, this race brings in several large truckloads of food for local pantries. This year, the food will go to the Niagara Community Action Program.

Now enjoy your last look at the Apocalypsemobile before it meets whatever fate awaits it (with me inside!). With just some minor tinkering left to get done, mostly involving the seat belts, we're ready to roll. A trailer has been reserved. The car has been registered. A helmet has been borrowed. Friends and family have charged the batteries in their digital cameras (we should have video footage, too).

I have to admit, the humor in this video goes a little far for me. Especially the cop falling over in the police office, but also Robin doing tricks on his bike and then jumping off a roof the wrong way. Robin should not be quite that incompetent if he's going to be Batman's partner, even in a kid-friendly game. Okay, enough grumbling. Here are some awesome pics:

Street Hawk: Few people remember Street Hawk, which tried to do for motorcycles what Knight Rider had done for cars and Airwolf had done for helicopters and Ernest Borgnine's career; namely, make them both cool and an indestructible force against crime. The 1985 show only lasted 13 episodes, but nonetheless introduced a whole generation of children to the idea that any motorbike that could shoot things and go up to 300mph was really awesome, even if it was ridden by someone called "Jesse Mach". It also introduced a whole generation of children to Tangerine Dream, who did the opening theme music, but that's not quite as cool.

Super-Cycle: Okay, so the Forever People's Super-Cycle may have three wheels, but it also had a few other things on its side: The ability to fly, for one. The ability to turn intangible and invisible, for another. And then there was that whole "being able to fly, and also transform into a protective shield for its owner" thing. Oh, and the fact that it could create a Boom Tube to travel anywhere within the known universe was pretty cool, as well. In fact, only one thing stops the Super-Cycle from being the most awesome bike ever created: the fact that it was revealed to be alive, then had sex with another Super-Cycle before retiring to take care of its baby cycle, Kirby. And, no, I only wish that I was making that last part up.

Condor: For fans of the mid-80s toyline MASK, there was only one character you really wanted to be: Brad Turner. Brad had it all - He was a rockstar, hill-climber (I love that that was part of his bio back then; was hill-climbing cool in the 80s and I missed it?), part-time pilot and, most important of all, the owner of Condor, a bright-green bike that turned into a helicopter... or, at least, a helicopter-esque bike. It was the kind of thing that made your crime-fighting a little easier, if a little less subtle. But then, when you're into the rockstar, hill-climbing life, who wants subtle?

Lawmaster: Judge Dredd's bike may, technically, have already made it to the silver screen in 1995's Sylvester Stallone vehicle but pretending that that movie doesn't exist hasn't steered me wrong yet, so why stop now? And the quality of any movie shouldn't be held against a bike as beautiful as the Lawmaster, which not only has a turbo boost strong enough to propel it into the air for however long the plot demands, but also boasts a laser, twin machine guns, a stun-gas-grenade launcher and AI autopilot amongst its hidden features. It even comes with its own CB radio... but then, it was created in 1977.

Speeder Bike: There may have been no wheels to speak of on these babies, but if any one of you pretends that you didn't want to ride one when you saw Return Of The Jedi as a kid, then you're lying. Not only was the speeder bike chase the best part of the movie, it was almost the only good part altogether... yet it was so good that it made you want to sit through all the Jabba and Ewok stuff just to see it again.

Admit it; if Death Race had featured these five bikes, it would've been a box office smash.

For those of you who are hoping for a smiple verdict on the movie, here it is: the car stunts are breathtaking, if occasionally confusing. Stuff blows up real good. Joan Allen is magnificent as the prison warden. Jason Statham is Jason Statham. The movie holds up pretty well, until it fizzles completely in the last 15-20 minutes. (Seriously, I can't remember when I've seen a movie take such a steep nose-dive in its last reel.)

It's true, as director Paul W.S. Anderson says, that the new Death Race isn't as overtly satirical as the 1970s original, Death Race 2000. This movie is actually too sledge-hammery to be a satire. It starts with a voice-over (and captions) telling us that it's 2012 and everything has gone ass-up. The U.S. economy is rotten, there are no jobs, and everyone's in prison. Prisons, meanwhile, have all been outsourced to private corporations, which try to make a profit through entertainment. First, it's just cage matches and stuff, but eventually it gets more elaborate, leading to the Death Race, which is a huge road rally of mutilation inside the prison grounds, broadcast on the Internet.

Then we see Jason Statham on his last day, working at a steel mill, which is closing down. The mill's owners cheat Statham and his fellow workers out of most of their final pay, and then call the riot cops on them before they can even grumble. "Self-fulfilling prophecy," Statham announces to the camera. The workers try to invoke working-class solidarity with the cops, but to no avail, and the violence begins, with the cops firing rubber bullets and beating the crap out of the downtrodden workers. From there, the movie zips forwards through the murder of Statham's sexy wife in his inexplicably nice house, and in a jiffy he's in prison for his wife's murder. His only hope of release: to take part in the Death Race and win.

We quickly realize the evil prison warden (Joan Allen) had Statham's wife killed and framed Statham, so he would take part in the race. And not too long after that, we're shown that Allen's character never intends to let anyone win enough races to get out of prison. The game is (say it with me) rigged. There are little video-gamey "power-up" symbols that you're supposed to drive over to get weapons or defenses, but they only work when Allen wants them to. Just like the steel-mill's owners, Allen has everything fixed in her favor. (I mentioned this movie was subtle, right?)

Whatever Anderson paid Allen to be in this movie, he should double it. She's easily the best thing about the film, enjoying the hell out of playing a one-dimensional monster. (As I mentioned yesterday, there's a shortage of decent villains, and Allen's character is up there, until the aforementioned terrible ending.) She's purely interested in profit, and driving Internet traffic to the webcast of the Death Race, and she'll do anything to get more online subscribers. The only time she's freaked out or flustered is when she thinks she won't get enough hits. The rest of the time, she's supremely in control — like in one scene where she's talking to Statham with one finger on the trigger of a gun under her desk, aimed at his crotch. It's Allen who really sells the movie's crazy premise, as a smiling yuppie surrounded by working-class men who fear and/or worship her.

We're constantly reminded, through fancy graphics, that this the Death Race is a webcast and that you have to pay to watch. It's a particularly web-savvy vision of a dystopian America in 2012, where the economy has collapsed and everybody's a prisoner one way or the other.

Did I mention this movie is kind of pornographic? It is. From the early shots of molten steel and sweaty men at the steel mill, to the numerous excuses for the camera to linger over Statham's bare torso and his encyclopedic muscle definition, to the cars themselves, men and machines are fetishized. Oh, there are women, too, besides Allen's long-legged warden. The prison buses in female convicts to be the "navigators" for most of the male drivers. Every time one of those women walks across the screen, the movie goes into slow-mo (literally) and a hip-hop song about sexy girls plays. The same song, two or three times, as if Anderson could only afford to license one sexy-girl song. But because of the movie's breakneck pace, it doesn't do too many of those slow-mo girlie shots, and most of the time, the only body we linger on is Statham's.

It's fitting that Death Race ends the summer that began with Iron Man. In Iron Man, we see Tony Stark's naked torso, and it's slightly flabby and vulnerable, symbolizing how fragile he is now that he's mortally wounded. In Death Race, you could write an anatomy textbook using Statham's naked muscles for reference. Robert Downey, Jr. is a rich guy who becomes part machine, pretty much working on his own, with some slight help from Professor Expendable in Afghanistan. Jason Statham helps to build the perfect driving machine, but he's working with a whole team of mechanics. And Statham isn't separate from the mechanics, just because he's the driver — when he's not on the track, he's working in the pit, as a junior mechanic. (This is mostly because it's supposed to be a secret that Statham's character is the masked racer Frankenstein, so he's posing as a mechanic. But it also establishes that he has solidarity with the grease monkeys, and much is made of his auto-mechanic training.)

Oh, and this wouldn't be a prison movie without a gay subtext. Luckily, the movie designates Tyrese Gibson's character, Machine Gun Joe, as the sole bearer of that burden. Machine Gun Joe is the only driver who has a male navigator instead of a female one, supposedly because his navigators tend to die quickly and the viewers would be too squeamish to watch that many women get killed. But his navigators are sort of his "bitches," and there's a running joke where people call his character gay, over and over. At the end of the film — major spoiler — he gets street clothes for himself and Statham, and they're super-faggy. Statham says "Anyone would think the guy who got these clothes..." And Gibson finishes the sentence: "...had no taste." They share a little "We're not really gay" laugh.

(Actually, the movie is mercifully free of "funny" rape, which is a trend I hope to see continue in prison movies.)

So yeah, Death Race is not a particularly smart or subtle movie — even Statham, in interviews, has been saying things like "It's not the Godfather." But it is an interesting spin on a dystopia where a tiny minority of powerful people screw over everybody else — and then sell us front-row seats for our own destruction, via the Internet. Sometimes, a movie doesn't have to be smart if it's vaguely topical and has lots of cars going boom. If it wasn't for the wimpy ending, I would recommend Death Race whole-heartedly, but as it is... it's okay.