Of course, the car has yet to be built, let alone break that record. But the effort is quite serious, these people are not amateurs, and they have serious sponsors. It will use one EJ200 jet like the one used by the Eurofighter – hopefully a real one, unlike the one I got into at Dubai two years ago – alongside an 18-inch hybrid rocket and a V12 piston engines. The 6500kg Bloodhound will have more than 21,000kg of thrust and a top speed of 1690km/h.

The driver will be former RAF Wing Commander Andy Green, who broke the landspeed record in 1997. [Bloodhound via Techradar]

If you’re having trouble getting over the price tag long enough to daydream, just think of how much you’re saving with the standard HD radio. Or think about a Tesla, which is dirt cheap in comparison. [Autocar via Dvice via Geekologie]

The move makes Rolls-Royce one of only two car manufacturers to offer HD radio standard, the other being Volvo. Audi and Mercedes-Benz will follow suit in 2011.

HD radio listeners: Does this excite you to no end or what? [CrunchGear]

As you might have guessed, a standard front engine avoids the afterburner setting cars on fire when the Frictionator hits the streets. [Frictionator via Jalopnik]

A project of Garnet Hertz of the Pasadena Art Centre College of Design, this is a classic OutRun arcade cabinet that’s been placed on an EVT America Electric Trike with electric motors that can go up to a whopping 32km/h.

Check out the below video to see a bit more about how this thing will work.

[ConceptLab via Jalopnik]

Remember that smart German iPhone-controlled car that used cameras, GPS and lasers to perfectly run through the streets of Berlin? Well, screw German efficient engineering. That’s not how it’s done in America.

Americans modify battered, crappy cars — like this 1988 Oldsmobile Delta — in just four weeks using “a few motors, potentiometers, a Compact RIO embedded controller and LabVIEW”, which get connected to the iPhone using Wi-Fi. And then we strip out the doors for fun. And we surf on its roof. Would you like to do it yourself? Well then, it’s your lucky day, Mad Max. Here’s a video tutorial:

And if that wasn’t enough, you can also drive it using a modded Power Wheels truck. America, I salute you. [Engineer Awesome via LikeCool]

Our eyes sufficiently rolled, we can continue. The video is a demo of SoundRacer, which promises to sync up with your car’s actual RPMs and engine sounds and mask them — via your speakers — with the engine sounds of real V8 and V10-powered vehicles.

Sure, it’s the tinfoil-wrapped cucumber in the jeans of the auto-tuning community, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t slightly impressed with the SoundRacer demo. It almost had a video game quality to it, and tricked me a bit into thinking the car was going a bit faster than it actually was.

It could very well be doctored or enhanced, sure, but the buy-in is $US40. I may bite. [SoundRacer via OhGizmo]

Sure the V2G is imagined for use on electrified, gridded highways, but I keep picturing racing over abandoned fields and straight into sunsets while making vrrrrooom-vrroooom-eeeeek-vrrrrrrrrroom sounds. [The Design Blog]

The T.27 is designed to be driven in the city. Since it’s ultra-light, Murray says it will be the most efficient car in its class, which probably sits somewhere between golf carts and failed European mini cars from the ’60s. The most innovative aspect is that it’s made using a process called iStream: Instead of stamping metal sheets like in normal car factories, this manufacturing method welds metal sheets together.

That results in factories that are one-fifth the size of traditional ones, less energy consumption and a car that looks like crap. And that, my friends, is the problem with the T.27: If something looks like crap people won’t buy it no matter how green and efficient it is.

Update: And yes, it looks like crap even with the fibre covers. People want real cars that feel solid. Not glorified golf carts painted in bright colours. [Daily Mail]

The module relays this information to your GPS unit via Bluetooth where you will be able to view a set of customisable gauges that provide details on things like fuel economy, RPMs, throttle position, intake manifold pressure, coolant temperature, intake air temperature and emissions.

Awesome? Yeah, sure. Will it save Garmin from destruction at the hands of a possible Google navigation juggernaut? No, probably not. [Cnet via NaviGadget via Ubergizmo via DVICE]