If you’ve ever wanted to run your very own one man repo service, but with a motorcycle instead of a standard tow-truck, then the Retriever is for you. It’s from Swedish company Coming Through. It’s basically a heavily modified Honda Goldwing 1800cc motorcycle that sports a hideaway car-towing rig on the back.

It’s designed specifically to get into those hard to reach breakdowns in traffic and will also let you swoon in on a deadbeats car real quick and get out before there’s any trouble. The car trailer features a 3 wheel design that somehow isolates the bike from the weight of the car, thus allowing the bike to corner naturally. The trailer even has its own brakes and is hydraulic powered. Just fit it around the car and then raise to secure it. That should open up some healthy competition in the field of towing.

So are you the type to pick up a call while driving or let your voicemail handle it? Chances are you take the call, but the truth is that driving while distracted is becoming more of a problem lately. People are dying. That’s why Canadian software company Aegis Mobility has developed software to help.

It’s called DriveAssist and the basically the software detects whether or not you’re driving and if you are, it will hold your calls, telling the person on the other end that you’re behind the wheel. It has an emergency feature built in. In an emergency the caller can enter an override and reach you. As a passenger you can also use the phone. But will people actually go for this, being so addicted to their devices?

This bit of public art blends nature with traffic in one confusing sculture. It’s Pierre Vivant’s Traffic Light Tree. A giant sculpture of fully-functioning traffic lights in London. For some reason it’s parked next to a roundabout near Canary Wharf.

It was created by the Public Art Commissions Agency and it’s sure to confuse tourists, since roundabouts are confusing all by themselves. Remember the Griswolds in that Vacation movie? The light cycles of the Tree/Traffic Light mimic the action of Canary Wharf, imitating the landscape, while the light patterns match the rhythm of the domestic, financial and commercial goings on. Pretty strange, but neat.

Is it a comment on church and state not being that separate? Or is Ned Flanders just really pissed off? Could be that there’s a holy war brewing and the weapons of mass religion are on the move. It’s art. Who knows what art means. The Church Tank by artist Chris Kuksi is pretty awesome.

Kind of like a war-time mullet, but instead of business in the front and party in the back, it’s: Religion up top and party on the bottom. The artist’s solo show opens November 22, 2008 at the Joshua Liner Gallery in New York City. Hell of a way to conduct a war. Blow stuff up, then confess your sins all from the same vehicle.

30 year-old Philadelphia guy Vin Marshall and nine of his friends built this 2,000-pound replica tank from junkyard parts, complete with a functioning pneumatic cannon that fires hot dogs. Believe it or not it moves using pedal power. It has enough room to fit hardware for six peddlers and yield about 1.5 horsepower.

Problem is that’s not enough to move tank treads, so they decided to use wheels instead. Then they gave it bicycle-like gearing to get more power from less exertion. When parade day arrived it all worked out and they were able to move along at 15 mph with a full load. It cost about $3000 to build. Why pink? I have no idea. Maybe because it fits the whole hot dog theme. I didn’t see any specs on how many dogs per minute it fires, but just the fact that it does it is impressive. Check out a video below.

There’s not a ton of information on this cat-themed motorcycle, but we can tell you that it’s powered by a 1200cc Buell 97 S3 Thunderbolt engine. We also believe it’s supposed to be a Jaguar, the cat body being fiberglass finished in ultra-high-gloss ebony polyurethane lacquer. The air intakes and exhaust system of course had to be custom-engineered to go along with the cat body.

They will definitely see you coming on this bike. That is, if you have any money left for gas after shelling out almost $600,000. It would be a perfect bike for say, Catwoman in the next Dark Knight movie.

Something just had sex with my eyes and it’s the Ferrari V4 Superbike concept, but instead of having a smoke and cuddling I made a lame excuse and left so I could tell you all about it. This has to be the absolute best attempt at a Ferrari motorcycle. The concept is the work of Israeli designer Amir Glinik, who based his design around the theoretical application of the Ferrari Enzo’s V12 engine, chopped down to four cylinders and modified to drive just one wheel in a motorcycle.

Glinik’s design has a sleek shape that is futuristic, but thoroughly ridable and it catches your attention like a long-legged blonde in a room full of Ugly Bettys. Glinik even planned out the controls, blending elements from an F-16 fighter jet and the high-tech Formula One steering wheel. It even sports a weatherproof touch-screen LCD on the fuel tank. This is one that I think anybody would want to see built.

If you have a Honda Civic and happen to be in Lancaster, California then you’ll want to drive over a magical and musical pock marked road with special grooves that plays a tune.

It was created by Honda for an upcoming advertising campaign. The road plays “The William Tell Overture”. (Most of us know it as the theme from The Lone Ranger) To get the most out of the musical road, the company advises you to drive over it with a Honda Civic because the road was tuned specifically to the tires and wheelbase of a Civic. Hit the link for a video. It somehow sounded more impressive with the Lone Ranger.

You have to develop a rhythm regarding stop lights. You don’t want to completely stop just as the light turns green. Fortunately for those with a bad sense of timing, Audi’s Travolution takes it upon itself to keep track of when the light changes. Audi is currently testing the system.

It works because “Travolution” networks cars with traffic signals wirelessly. This way you will always know exactly when the upcoming light is going to change, which tells you how fast you should be going. It’s a great way to save fuel, and might even help traffic to move more efficiently. One day it may even come standard in all cars. Next the car will be stopping for you whether you like it or not.

Back in February, the Dream Car 123 was the latest in pyramid power cars. Still is, but now instead of cruising the streets at about 45 mph, with an 80-mile range, it’s got a far greater range these days. It also has bullet proof glass should the Pope want to get in on the action. They’ve also cut costs considerably. Back in February, pricing for the amazingly un-streamlined car was about $60,000 in supplies.

Fast forward to today, with the Dream Car now costing about $8,000 in materials with a mass production model being somewhere between $16,000 and $24,000. A 3.5 hour charge will give the car a 240 mile-range for about $5 in electricity costs. Sure, people will see you coming and call 911, thinking you’re an alien, but it’s well worth it should you buy one in the future or build one yourself.

When you power a motorcycle with 24 petrol chain saws which have the best power to weight ratio, it has to be a hell of a ride. All of the chainsaw engines and the 5-speed Harley-Davidson transmission generates a total displacement of 1.9 litres, a power output of 125 kW (170 PS) and 130 Nm of torque at the centrifugal clutches.

That’s all technical talk, but I think we can assume that it’s fast and powerful. In case you were wondering, twelve engines are mounted in two rows of six on either side of the drive belt casing. Each engine is held in place by two threaded studs that normally serve to secure the guide bar to the chainsaw power head. The individual motors are coupled together in sets of three by means of a double-sided drive belt, making up eight modules in all. All in all pretty impressive and it looks like a strange jet-bike. Check out the video below and watch as they yank each engine to life as well as another of the bike in action.

Marcelo da Luz is not an alien. He has never probed another living thing. In fact he loves his home planet so much that for the past two years he has been driving his solar powered car across the country. But when he reached the Sarah Palin/alien fearing state of Alaska earlier in the week, his UFO car was spotted by a concerned citizen who called 911 to report a UFO sighting. Nevermind that UFO’s reside in the sky and this was on the road.

Alaskan police are not the sort to let aliens roam their highways so they went into action, probably hearing 70’s theme music in their heads, and pulled over Marcelo for interrogation. Once they realized that it was yet another human on the open road, they let bygones be bygones and let him go. Marcelo has has been pulled over at least seven times thanks to his odd vehicle.

Right off the bat, this is not in the same league as the Final Frontier bike. Apparently this comes from Greece where Star Trek must be very different. Apparently in their Star Trek starships are black little vehicles with a weak version of the saucer section bursting out of the roof, tiny red nacelles in back for speed and their own version of the Fonz giving two thumbs up.

I shouldn’t be so harsh. It says Star Trek Fan Club of Athens on it and they probably don’t have that large of a budget. Fact is any Trek car is awesome just because it exists. Still, if the klingon fan club pulled up next you at a light, they would laugh their facial ridges off and you would feel rightly embarrassed.

This device sounds too good to be true. It’s called the Blade and it screws onto the end of your tailpipe. Through extensive testing, it supposedly shows from 16-34% savings on gas! That’s an average of about 3.8 MPG’s. As an example, a US driver goes an average of about 30 miles per day or 10,800 miles per year. At the national average of 22 MPG that means about 490 gallons of gas. At $4, that’s roughly $2,000.

Apparently, when you add the BLADE to your tailpipe, you would only use about 418 gallons or about $1,675. Your savings would be roughly $325! Since I suck at math, I’m forced to take their word for it. The device costs $200, so you could make your money back in several months and still be saving after that. It saves gas, money and the environment. What more do you want?

The Dogsled quadcycle looks like it was built using a giant erector or K’Nex set. It’s the result of a father and son project. They wanted something interesting to ride around in at this year’s Burning Man festival. Something about the design leaves other similar projects in the dust. It’s environmentally friendly and when you divide the pedaling among 4 people, it’s a real breeze to operate. Looks like a whole lot of fun.