One Lap of the Web: Wax that woody; Bentley gets high-tech

-- Bentley comes striding into the 21st century with a Mulsanne souped up with no fewer than two keyboard-equipped iPads in the backseat, hidden behind veneered wood inlays. In a short film titled "Intelligent Details" -- one must assume Bentley marketers had to resist the urge to call it "Intelligent Design" -- Luc Donckerwolke, director of design, and Sang Yup Lee, head of exterior design, go for a ride in black-and-white Manhattan. Naturally, they are not driving. "If you need technology," says Lee, from the backseat, "just push the button here and technology comes." He pushes a button, and an iPad slides out. Sometimes, the driving is the worst part about cars.

-- On one of the episodes of the Hooniverse podcast, I divulged to my dear co-host Jeff Glucker that that Honda had a secret NSX they'll lend to anyone who has a story to tell. Glucker immediately called Honda, resulting in this story at Hooniverse about his time with the 2005 Acura NSX.

-- Ivan Stewart had been working as an ironworker, true to the nickname he would earn years later, when he filled in for a high school friend at the Ensenada 300. He wound up driving the entire route by himself, something which would become his trademark -- two years later he would win the Baja 500 solo, and in 1976 he would drive 20 hours across the Baja 1000 and win the Valvoline Ironman Award. The name stuck.

-- Is this the first Jaguar F-Type crash? No, but it's definitely the most brutal. Fortunately, we see the driver getting out and immediately rationalizing his participation in the Simola Hillclimb.

-- Surf cars used to be cool, man. It used to be, like, you picked up a Ford woody for a couple bucks because nobody wanted a car with termite damage, then you'd add glasspacks and cruise Van Nuys Boulevard and listen to Mexican radio and not give a damn about anything. "Anyone trying to pinpoint the exact moment when surfing began its long, slow, ongoing separation from the realm of cool," writes Surfer Magazine, whose editorial staff holds meetings where they fret about this sort of thing, "could do worse than ID the guy who decided it would be a good idea to restore his woody instead of push it gently over the nearest cliff."

Image via PHS Collector Car World.

By Blake Z. Rong