Continuing our inadvertent but now-critical ongoing coverage of things you can attach to the tow hitch of your pickup truck, these "Animated Hitch Critters" attach to your tail end, plugging into the brake light power lead so that they may shake theirs.

Designs include this vaguely seasonal deer with a target on its gut, as well as a pit bull, bass, and a hog on a motorcycle. They're just $25 dollars, or a fraction of the money you'll lose when someone sues you for distracting them seconds before they rear-end you.

Catalog Page [Skymall.com via RedFerret]

Previously: Tow Hitch TV Mount [BBG]
HitchSafe: Stash a Spare Key in Your Tow Hitch [BBG]

The "HitchSafe" slides inside your pickup truck hitch, making possible to hide a spare copy of your keys (and anything else) inside. The HitchSafe attaches to a standard two-inch hitch with a steel pin that is attached from the inside, making it difficult to remove it without the combination to the lock.

The HitchSafe has a single review on Amazon which indicates that water can get inside the vault, which isn't promising, but should still be fine for a spare key. The HitchSafe is $70.

Product Page [HitchSafe.com]

Previously: Tow Hitch TV Mount [BBG]

For just two hundred bucks, you can mount a flat-screen TV to the tow hitch of your pickup truck, making it possible to carry your expensive television close to the rock-strewn asphalt. But hey, at least when you get to the stadium parking lot for a little tailgating action, you can commiserate about your busted TV with your buddies.

Product Page [TowHitchTV.com] (Thanks, Edwin!)

Bicycle company Nirve offers several bike tires with patterns in the tread, including pinwheels, flames, and Japan's beloved anthropomorphic rectal suppository, Hello Kitty.

They're $20-25 a pop.

Catalog Page [Nirve.com] (Thanks, Riffola!)

This special edition Koenigsegg CCX-R not only runs on biofuel, it actually produces more power than the standard gasoline-powered CCX.

By following conscientious and forward thinking strategies, Koenigsegg has managed to create the Bio Fuel Powered CCXR - environmentally friendly 1200 with even more spectacular performance than the standard CCX.

These two almost conflicting results are made possible due to the simple fact that the ethanol in biofuel has the positive side effect of cooling the combustion chambers, as well as a higher octane value, well over 100 RON, which gives the high power. Due to the fact that the biofuel has higher octane and cooling characteristics, the power has gone up to 1018 hp at 7200 rpm and the torque to 1060 nm at 6100 rpm.

Yes, that would be 1,018 horsepower, which no matter how green and renewable the fuel, is going to take a lot of it.

Koenigsegg CCXR Special Edition met 1018pk (Dutch) [Autoblog.nl via World Car Fans via Jalopnik]

Gizmag has a nice piece up about the Aptera Typ-1 vehicle, hung on an interview with co-founder and CEO Steve Fambro. The more I hear about this car, the more entranced I become. They are reporting a projected 300mpg for the hybrid model, which will come out after the all-electric model.

Into the future, Steve Fambro believes that people and companies will eventually begin changing their habits to take into account the importance of energy consumption, and Aptera intends to remain at the forefront by adhering to its focus on efficiency and safety. "By changing the fundamental design constraint of the company from the very beginning - making it all about energy and safety - that design ethos is in every design element that we do. Towards the future it's about energy in all forms, lithium is not easy to get either and we don't want to leave one drug for another drug - oil for lithium - we are rethinking how we use the energy radically differently and will continue to make that a core part of the product.

Pardon the joke, but "Oil for Lithium" would be a really righteous band name.

If I had any reason whatsoever to own a car, my $500 deposit would already be down on one of these. I realize this makes me the same guy who in the '70s would have been pulling his tiny little European or Japanese runabout into the driveway of his three-bedroom ranch to the open-mouthed gawks of his Chrysler-washing neighbors, but I'm completely okay with that.

Aptera officially launches futuristic, super-efficient three wheeler [Gizmag]

Previously: Aptera Three-Wheeled Electric Car May Reach Production [Gadgets.BoingBoing.net]

Winding Road scanned this ad for the 1964 Honda T500 truck which, despite being printed in English, was never properly released in the States. What a looker.

The T500 used the same engine as the famous S500 roadster, cranking out a whopping 38HP and 31 lb-ft of torque, yet that was still enough to get it to highway speeds (barely) with a fuel economy of around 50MPG.

There is nothing about this truck I don't love. I really wish vehicles like this were the default choice for today's driver. Sure, it could only haul around 880 pounds of stuff, but how often does the average person need to move around more than that?

Vintage Literature: 1964 Honda T500 [Winding Road]

The SR-71 Blackbird is hands-down my favorite jet. I may have to get a copy of this book, Sled Driver by Brian Shul, from which this anecdote is excerpted.

One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. ‘Ninety knots,’ ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. ‘One-twenty on the ground,’ was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was. ‘Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground,’ ATC responded.

The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter’s mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, ‘Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground.’ We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.

This is also an incredible idea to visualize:

Odd are the thoughts that wander through one’s mind in times like these. I found myself recalling the words of former SR-71 pilots who were fired upon while flying missions over North Vietnam. They said the few errant missile detonations they were able to observe from the cockpit looked like implosions rather than explosions. This was due to the great speed at which the jet was hurling away from the exploding missile.

SR-71: Now, That Was Some Airplane [Jobdig.com]

This "Smartstrap" is a 3,333-pound towing rope that stows safely away inside the retracting plastic case. That's good, since so many tow ropes get left in a lump at the bottom of a trunk or left to the elements in the bed of a pick-up.

It's 14-feet long and extends symmetrically up until the full length. (I'm fairly certain you must manually wind it back up when you're done.) It can be found for around $25.

A Self-Stowing Strap [Toolmonger]

I saw this commercial for the Ford Sync in-car computer system last night and thought it was pretty humorous. The way the actors so confidently command their environment really sells it. It's like one of those paleo-future "Imagine the Future" pieces from ten years back, only gone all pear shaped.

Artist Nemo Gould is building this fine-looking scooter from old gadgets and appliances, including a tail-light made from an old '50s vacuum cleaner.

The pictures on his site actually aren't in black-and-white, but for some reason that's the way OS X keeps grabbing images from his page.

Scooter update [Nemoatic.com] (Thanks, Meredith!]

A lucky joe got to tour Nissan's private Zama storage facility, full of rare and one-off cars from the auto manufacturer spanning several decades. He was nice enough to take dozens of pictures and put them online.

Whether you like Nissan's more recent racers or like looking at the odd old firetruck from 1950, there should be a little bit in there for everyone.

Zama storage facility & Autech HQ visit [TwinTurbo.net] (Thanks, Michael!)

Ignoring the alarmist headline, Matthew Phenix's overview of some of the latest safety features to be found in cars. Not just in high-end models, either.

Several cars now have lane-departure warning systems, and a Honda I drove in Japan went as far as to physically steer the car back into the the lane if it strayed (a device tested by driving the car around a high-speed oval with no hands on the wheel). Infiniti now has a system that uses a quartet of little cameras to synthesize a 360-degree overhead image of your car on the in-dash LCD, so presumably you no longer have to look out those tiresome windows during parking maneuvers.

The self-driving car of the future inches (safely) forward. First we'll see self-driven buses on major arteries, I suspect; once we get used to those for a few years, we'll start trusting our cars auto-pilot of highway stretches. Then somebody's car will turn him to jelly when it accidentally tries to park itself in his belly and we'll be set back another decade or two.

Is Safety Technology Replacing Common Sense? [Autopia]

The DARPA Urban Challenge, a competition for robotic cars that drive themselves, has finished, with a very impressive six cars completing the entire course. Carnegie Mellon's "Tartan Racing Team" took first prize. Danger Room notes that DARPA director Tony Tether is feeling the time for academics on the proving ground may be ending:

Tether couldn't have been more pleased with the race, calling it a "fantastic accomplishment," and saying that the technology for robotic vehicles was now just about ready for other companies and organizations to pick up the work in honing it further. "DARPA is an interesting organization," he said. "We really never finish anything. All we really do is show that it can be done. We take the technical excuse off the table, to the point where other people can no longer say 'Hey this is a very interesting idea, but you know that you can't do it.' I think that we're close to that point, that it's time for this technology to [be furthered] by somebody else."

Carnegie Takes First in DARPA's Urban Challenge [Danger Room]