Some strange news ahead.
I’ll speak for everyone here when I say that we are used to seeing some occasional weird announcement here and there served to us by automotive companies. But in between Writing Fridays #7 and today’s WF post we’ve run into couple of surprising news that we absolutely had to include in this article.
So, today we have here upside down vehicles, restored truck that looks like the one from Back to the Future movies and oh, a new Ram truck concept that everyone is buzzing about right now. Even Volkswagen’s news, albeit a little sad have that dose of strangeness mainly due to the fact that the most of people we know thought VW Van, Kombi or Type 2 was already a part of history.
In this article we will also cover some other upcoming models, their prices just in case you are thinking about buying a new vehicle sometime in near future.
Even though before we mentioned that we don’t expect too much news over this period of a year, due to vacations and holidays, it looks like we got it wrong judging by what we are getting in our news feeds lately.
Ram Rumble Bee concept with an encased real life bee!
Annual Woodward Dream Cruise looked like perfect time for Chrysler to feature its re-imagination of their Rumble Bee trademark. “Bee” was first used for Super Bee muscle car that debuted in the late 1960s and was kept in production until early 1970s. It was designed in two-tone black and yellow color theme which made it stand out in the crowd of other generic vehicles. At the start of this millennium Ram recycled this idea for the variant of 3rd generation of the Ram Trucks.
Well, now they decided even that truck deserves to be remade.
New, 10th year anniversary Rumble Bee edition is based on 2013 Ram 1500 R/T, which is a two-drive model painted in yellow and black inside and outside of the vehicle. While outside yellow is dominating the look of the truck and black is used just for details, inside yellow and gray colors can be seen on stitchings on smooth black leather sport interior.
The truck also features 5.7-liter HEMI V8 which turns 24-inch wheels with 295 horsepower and 407 lb.-ft. of torque.
While there aren’t many other details surrounding 10th anniversary edition of Rumble Bee, one certainly caught our attention. An actual, real encased bee fixed into the 8-speed rotary shifter knob that, when lit up, expose a honeycomb pattern background, as shown on the picture.
That might complicate a little bit even the limited edition production of this version of the Rumble Bee. However at the moment there aren’t any signs when will Chrysler or will it even start manufacturing this concept.
Kombi Last Edition – Last VW Type 2 Microbus to be produced
Did you know that VW Type 2 or “that hippie van” is still being produced? No only that, but in fact it is the longest-produced vehicle in automotive industry. The only place in the world where this van is still manufactured is Brazil, ever since September 1957. Now, after 56 years this too will change and this legend is going to history, but not before proper farewell.
Kombi Last Edition is the the last good bye to beloved van that will be released from Brazilian production plant. The name stands for special series of Type 2 Microbus which will be produced in limited series of 600 vehicles. It will cost about $35.600 but due to limited series, Volkswagen’s stock probably won’t last long.
It’s interesting to note that this is an updated version of the classic. It has 78 horsepower (compared to original 28 hp) and interiors are also updated with sound system that can play MP3 files. Interiors also match that blue and white exterior which once again perfectly fit well-known body of this legend.
As for the reasons why production of Type 2 is discontinued right now, Volkswagen stated that that was done because of new Brazilian safety regulations which this model obviously can’t follow, so Kombi Last Edition will be manufactured and shipped out before these new safety rules are officially introduced.
Dodge Durango and Toyota Tundra prices
I am among those that really like how 2014 Dodge Durango looks like. Truth to be told, there is no part of this SUV that hasn’t been modified and changed, starting from new exterior look to fine tuning details, like better fuel economy through eight-speed automatic transmission. This way, Dodge claims that V6 Durango will get 25 mile per gallon on highway while V8 Durango will travel 23 miles per one gallon of fuel.
Contrary to these changes Dodge is committed to leaving the same price as the current model year. Its price will start from $29,795 for the base model, but 2014 Dodge Durango will also have more exclusive trim levels like Durango Citadel which will start at $40,995
Redesigned 2014 Toyota Tundra already got our attention, so this time we will focus on new details and main things about the model. It has been said that the full-size pickup truck will be offered in five grades which include either V6 or V8 engines and two or four wheel drive.
The cheapest will the base SR model which starts from $25,920. It features regular cab, two-wheel drive and 4.0L V6 engine. Compared to it, on the other end of the scale is 1794 Edition which will have CrewMax cab, four-wheel drive and 5.7L V8 FFV engine capable of doing the most work probably by itself. The 1794 Edition will cost from $47,320.
There are a lot of other options in between, since there is around 40 different versions of 2014 Toyota Tundra. Plenty of options for everyone’s taste since 2014 Toyota Tundra is definitely worth consideration.
Custom jobs like no other
Sure, we’ve seen some nice truck custom jobs so far, even posted some on our Facebook page, but going over search results recently we did managed to find one real gem.
One fan of the Back to the Future movie series, nicknamed on eBay as ‘barbackdan23′ decided to model his 1985 Toyota SR5 Truck based on the vehicle Marty McFly drives in the movies.
Everything on the truck is as authentic as it gets and judging by what the author of this beauty says he even drove it to the San Diego Comic Con where “people were going nuts over it”. Even though some people do these kind of stunts to sell better their vehicles, from the description on ebay page you can see the devotion and love owner put into it.
Unfortunately, if you are interested in buying it for yourself (and you are ready to fork over $14,500), the original listing is over so we can only assume it’s either sold or the owner gave up on selling it.
If a movie about time-travelling DeLorean DMC-12 isn’t your thing (we have hard time believing that though), then what about vehicle that looks like upside-down Camaro?
Well it looks like that because it is actually upside-down Camaro put on 1990 Ford Festiva base! The author of this bizarre creation is known by nickname ‘Speedycop’ and already had created similar oddities.He claims that those vehicles were awful even before they were stuck onto each other in this Frankenstein’s monster vehicle.
Now not only is it slow by set up, it also lacks aerodynamics, so even though its owner used it for racing (New Jersey’s LeMons), we are sure he does not expect great results from it… Ever.
And that’s it for this weeks Writing Friday’s, we told you it would be fun, didn’t we?