One Lap of the Web: Diesels, Deadmau5, Excalibur and Excelsior!

-- It's the 50th anniversary of Excalibur, the company with fine craftsmen who keep the neoclassical motoring dream alive, or in some vaguely zombielike semblance thereof. And while the Excalibur's retro vibes arose from the mausoleum of the Mercedes-Benz SSK, Hemmings has discovered Brooks Stevens's other neoclassic: the Excalibur 35X, meant to look like a Bugatti Type 35. Just 27 were built in Italy on the chassis of Opel Commodores, fitted with inline-sixes. What would Ettore do? We believe nearby CERN has harnessed the rotation of his corpse for electricity generation.

-- Ninety-five years ago yesterday, Cummins Diesel chugged into life in a cloud of smoke. Clessie Lyle Cummins founded the company in 1919, and within a decade a Cummins-powered race car finished the Indianapolis 500. In 1952, a turbodiesel Cummins took pole position at the Brickyard. We drove the first-ever Cummins-powered Dodge Ram, a 1985 prototype currently owned by the company, last September. Just think: there was a chance that our Ram 3500s could have been "Powered by Clessie."

-- Ever wonder how the Studebaker-Packard Hawk series evolved from 1956 to 1964? Now you know, thanks to this handy chart. May nobody ever catch you off-guard because you forgot that the Power Hawk only lasted one year.

-- From Flickr, a great selection of 1980s rally photos. Audi Quattros, mean Peugeots, a few Porsches, and an ever-wonderful Saab or three.

-- Deadmau5 wraps his Ferrari 458 Spider in Nyan Cat livery. Nyan Cat, for those unaware of such things, is a "meme" that was popular three years ago. A "meme" is defined as "a thing people do on the Internet," and "the Internet" is defined as a place you should never, ever go.

By Blake Z. Rong