Tesla Roadster Crashed @ 100MPH During Demo.

Posted by User ImageGreg Treadway | Uncategorized | Wednesday 5 November 2008 3:34 pm

Obviously I’m not the first to report this, but I could not resist adding to this blog.


During a demonstration run of a Tesla Roadster in Southern France, the driver (who was demoing it for the passenger) attempted to take a wet corner a bit too fast and ended up going off the road, smashing the front left and rear right quarters of the car. The passenger was thrown clear, luckily not through the windshield, but miraculously neither party was seriously injured.

What is it about this car that causes people to drive irresponsibly? I understand there was one Tesla that rear-ended a truck and this guy rammed another car at a stoplight. I know People don’t crash Porsches at this rate, do they? There are only fifty of these things in existence and now three are already out of commission! At least it hasn’t been the car’s fault and no one’s been hurt.
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Pricey Movie Posters

Posted by User ImageGreg Treadway | Uncategorized | Wednesday 5 November 2008 1:50 pm

Movie poster collections are mostly owned by nerds or film geeks. Very rarely are they looked upon as any kind of serious collection. Well, check out Ebay or some of the other auction houses lately and you’ll see pretty quick that those of us who have been collecting and ending up with some serious film history on our greedy, little, movie hands.


On Ebay for example you may see someone pay $10-20 for a “Lord of the Rings” poster or $5-10 for a “Knocked Up” poster. That now pales in comparison to those paying as much as $47,000 for the one of the few remaining “Grand Hotel” posters. 

Recently sold by the Austrian National Library in Vienna through an auction company in 2005, the most expensive movie poster was acquired by a private collector for $690,000. I think I have an inside track on who has it, but I’m not at liberty to say. Only three other copies of the poster are known to have survived to the current day—one in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and now the other two in the hands of private collectors. The expensive poster was created to promote Fritz Lang’s 1927 science fiction masterpiece, “Metropolis.”

The German film, set in the year 2026, dealt with the schism between two societal castes in the film’s titular city—the wealthy thinkers and planners and the underground working class. The film cost roughly $200 million, in modern currency, to make and was the most expensive silent movie at the time of its release. Sadly, much of the original footage has been lost and it cannot be viewed in its intended form. 

On a related note, renown collector and business consultant Doug Taylor will be auctioning part of his geek collection of original movie posters that won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The auction is due to start during the 80th annual Oscars ceremony on February 24th, 2008. The collection, lacking only three Best Picture posters, is the most complete collection of such posters outside of the Academy itself. He hopes to make at least a million from the sale.
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Palumbo Porsche 914

Posted by User ImageGreg Treadway | Uncategorized | Wednesday 5 November 2008 10:42 am


This is my friend Charlie Palumbo’s Porsche 914. I had the pleasure of meeting him while I lived in Hawaii. He has worked very hard on this little car. Believe me, when he started on this car it did not look or perform like it does now. While I was in Hawaii Charlie let me drive the car a little – what a thrill. Of course I have driven literally hundreds of 914s over the years, but there is nothing like driving your favorite car in your favorite place. Charlie was very nice to let me have that experience. Well now he is selling the car. It is on Ebay right now. I am one bidding on it. I know how much money it would cost to get a 914 to this condition and that amount is significantly more than the car will sell for. I hope Charlie gets what he needs for this one of a kind autos.

Charlie says in the ad that he will help with shipping from Honolulu. Believe it or not that is the easiest city in the US to ship a car, and I have shipped a few in my time. I even shipped my two jeeps to and from Hawaii when I moved to and fro from there. The shippers are really great there – their main concerns are whether there are any animals hanging out in the car. The islands don’t want any mainland animals they’re not ready for taking in. If there are any questions about Charlie’s car I can probably provide some answers as well as those experts he has listed in the Ebay ad.

The Porsche 914 was produced 1970-76. The 1970-72 years also saw the Porsche 916/6 which is the most coveted model. Some owners like Charlie have converted from the four cylinder to a six, his conversion is the correct way to do it and one of the best I have seen. The 914 replaced Porsche’s 912 and was also a venture with Volkswagen. Of course today we finally see Porsche buying up VW AG stock to soon own majority in VW after all these years. Porsche decided during development that having Volkswagen and Porsche models sharing the same body would be risky for business in the American market, and convinced Volkswagen to allow them to sell both versions as Porsches in North America.
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