The Badassitude Of The Lockheed A-12

The Badassitude Of The Lockheed A-12:

Welcome to Must Read, where we single out the best stories from around the automotive universe and beyond. Today we've got reports from The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Roadrunners Internationale, Speedhunters, and Hooniverse.

Carjack Victim Describes Harrowing Night — The Boston Globe

The events of the Boston Bombings last week were certifiably nuts. And it was really crazy for the man who owned the Mercedes SUV that was carjacked by the alleged bombers, the Tsarnaez brothers.

The 26-year-old Chinese entrepreneur had just pulled his new Mercedes to the curb on Brighton Avenue to answer a text when an old sedan swerved behind him, slamming to a stop. A man in dark clothes got out and approached the passenger window. It was nearly 11 p.m. last Thursday.
The man rapped on the glass, speaking quickly. Danny, unable to hear him, lowered the window — and the man reached an arm through, unlocked the door, and climbed in, brandishing a silver handgun.

What If We Never Run Out Of Oil? — The Atlantic

This is actually something I've been thinking about a lot recently. What if oil is more plentiful than we think? What if we aren't anywhere near running out?

As the great research ship Chikyu left Shimizu in January to mine the explosive ice beneath the Philippine Sea, chances are good that not one of the scientists aboard realized they might be closing the door on Winston Churchill’s world. Their lack of knowledge is unsurprising; beyond the ranks of petroleum-industry historians, Churchill’s outsize role in the history of energy is insufficiently appreciated.

The Challenge Of Transporting The A-12s To Area 51 — Roadrunners Internationale

If you aren't fascinated by some of the wilder fighter jets in our midst, then I don't think we could ever be friends. The Lockheed A-12 knocks my socks off.

From the beginning of Project OXCART, it was known that the A-12s would be built in the SkunkWorks within the Lockheed Plant complex in Burbank, California and that the A-12s would have to be transported overland to Area 51 for flight testing, development and training of the Project Pilots. Long before the first A-12 airplane was ready for transport, the full scale model was built and had to be taken to the Area for installation on the radar range for studies of its radar cross section. The carriages that contained the model were smaller but all of these were oversize requiring a special travel permit. This trip to haul the full scale model was started in November 1959 and took three days to complete. The largest of these packages was 65' long and 32.6' wide.

Hyperdesign In Extremis: Stephenson And The P1 — Speedhunters

The McLaren P1 is something else, kind of the Lockheed A12 of the road. This is a fantastic piece on that car.

To get under the skin of designing a hypercar – and what it takes to get into the position where you’re given the crayons and the freedom to be assigned that task – there’s no better person you could talk to than a man who’s been responsible for some of the most iconic cars of the last two decades. I present Frank Stephenson, from whose magic pen has sprung McLaren’s latest hypercar challenger: the P1.

Obscure Muscle Car Garage: 1977 Pontiac Can Am — Hooniverse

This car couldn't be any more '70s. None more '70s.

General Motors was in the midst of rolling out their new “downsized” full size cars, which shed a lot of weight, but maintained the interior dimensions. However, 1977 was also a record year for the “intermediates” that were not only larger (in exterior dimensions), but in most cases, a great deal heavier than their “full size” counterparts. During this time, Pontiac introduced a limited edition package available on the LeMans Sport Coupe, the 1977 Pontiac Can Am.

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