basement Archives - usatoday24

It took an engineer 17 years to build the Lamborghini Countach of his dreams from the basement of his house. The problem was getting it out.

June 11, 2026 by usatoday24

There are motor fans. And then there’s Ken Imhoff. And this engineer from Wisconsin was not satisfied with having a poster of the Lamborghini Countach on his wall or with saving for years to buy one. He decided to make it himselfby hand, in the basement of his house. It took him 17 years. a movie. It all started in 1990, when Imhoff saw ‘Cannonball Run‘ (1981), directed by Hal Needham and featuring a Lamborghini Countach LP 400 S. Imhoff was amazed enough to make a decision that, seen from the outside, sounds crazy: build his own Lamborghini from scratch. How to build a Lamborghini in a basement. Imhoff began the project by erecting a wooden structure that served as a mold to shape the body panels. To work the aluminum he used an English wheel, a forming tool that allows you to create complex curves in sheet metal. He had to learn the hard way that welding too much at once causes deformations in the metal, so he perfected the technique with short, controlled welding points. The chassis is made of steel tube and the body is entirely made of aluminum. The model he used as a reference was the 1982 Countach LP 5000S. Details. To make the result as faithful as possible to the original, Imhoff incorporated authentic Lamborghini parts, such as the taillights, position lights, windshield and emblems. He even had replicas of the original wheels made from scratch. Where he did have to improvise was in the engine. And without the possibility of fitting an Italian V12, he opted for a Ford 351 Cleveland block, with forged pistons, polished cylinder heads and a more aggressive camshaft. The result was 514 horsepower at 6,800 rpm, according to collect CarBuzz. The transmission is a ZF five-speed and the suspension comes from a C4 Corvette. The whole thing weighs about 1,220 kilos, significantly less than a production Countach. The finish, almost at the level of a professional workshop. The body was painted in pearlescent metallic gray, a finish that has its own because it is usually more sensitive to any imperfection. The painting process was done in a professional paint booth, piece by piece (33 in total) because there was no way to get the booth into the basement. Each panel came out of the basement, was painted and carefully brought back down. Final sanding was done with 1,500 and 2,000 grit sandpaper, followed by three passes of the polisher. Just like point YouTube channel Wonder World, the shine achieved was difficult to distinguish from that of a factory car, according to those who saw it. Getting it out was an issue.. After 17 years working in the basement, Imhoff was faced with the task of removing the completed car from there. And one may wonder… Why wasn’t the project done outside or in the garage of his house? Well, according to Wonder World, Imhoff decided to do it there because the winters in his town are extremely cold, so he preferred to spend time in the basement, which is warmer. To get it out, they dug a dirt ramp outside, removed part of the basement wall and, with the help of a backhoe and some chains, pulled the car out by pulling it up the ramp over an improvised metal structure. It was the first time in 17 years that Imhoff was able to see his work in sunlight. On sale. Years after removing it from the basement, Imhoff noticed that the car was beginning to show signs of corrosion and concluded that he was not taking the proper care of it. “I’m doing you a disservice” and “actually it probably belongs to someone who may appreciate it more than I do,” counted Imhoff in words collected by the channel. So he put it up for sale on eBay with a starting price of $75,000. The bid reached 77,600, but the reserve price was not reached, so it did not end up selling on that occasion. Imhoff had invested around $65,000 in the project over almost two decades, as he confirmed. Ultimately, the car ended up selling to a Florida buyer for approximately $89,000, according to Wonder World. Since then, the car has continued to increase in value, as the Lambocars site public in 2023 that the current owner asked for $229,000 for it. It may seem absurd to have spent so much time building something and for the outcome to have been this. However, Imhoff ended up being honest with himself and decided that the value was not in having it, but in having built it and fulfilling his dream. In Xataka | This Aston Martin DB9 was sold for $57,000, but the craziest thing is not its price: it is the two flamethrowers it hides

Argentina has sought in the basement of the Supreme Court and something very Argentine has been found: Nazi material

May 14, 2025 by usatoday24

Argentina has maintained a somewhat complex relationship with the legacy of Nazism. During World War II, the country adopted a Neutrality position that allowed him to maintain “mixed” diplomatic ties, although he also took measures to stop the Nazi propaganda in his territory. However, after the conflict, the nation He became a refuge of numerous leaders and collaborators of the Nazi regime that fled from Europe, many With false documentation and under the protection of clandestine networks. Today, more than half a century later, someone has found another thread with Nazism … in the catacombs of the Supreme Court. An accidental finding. In the basement of the Supreme Court of Argentina, while organizations were carried out for the creation of an institutional museum, the operators randomly with something strange, several forgotten boxes for more than eighty years. The content, however, turned out to be an unexpected historical weight: notebooks stamped with Spastics, Nazi propaganda and other documents of the third Reich destined to disseminate the ideology of Adolf Hitler in Argentina in full boom of World War II. The finding, confirmed by the Supreme Court itself In a statementhighlighted the potential relevance of the materials to clarify episodes linked to the holocaust. In a recent ceremony, researchers, officials and representatives of the Argentine Jewish community formally opened part of the content, which includes thousands of red notebooks with Nazi symbols and registers of names and addresses that could correspond to members of the National Socialist Party outside Germany. The shipment that did not achieve its mission. Apparently, preliminary investigation allowed to track the origin of the boxes until the German embassy in Tokyospace from which it was sent to Buenos Aires on the Japanese ship Nan-A-Maru on June 20, 1941, when Argentina maintained a neutrality posture formal in the global conflict. The cargo was declared as personal effects by German diplomats in order to overcome customs controls. However, the Argentine authorities They detected their content And, concerned about the political implications of admitting Nazi propaganda, they sent the matter to the then Foreign Minister Enrique Ruiz Guiñazú. In August of that same year, Argentine officials opened some of the boxes and confirmed their propaganda character. Despite the German request that they were returned, a federal judge ordered his seizure and the transfer of the file to the Supreme Court, a space where the materials were archived and forgotten for decades. Argentine context in Nazism. We already said it at the beginning. Although the subsequent history made Argentina one of the more noticeable shelters Nazis and war criminals after the fall of the third Reich, the discovery of these boxes sheds new light on the efforts (previous and during the country’s conflict) to curb the ideological and organizational infiltration of national socialism. Already in 1939, the Argentine Attorney General had declared illegal and unconstitutional The activities of the local Nazi party, pointing them as an affront to national sovereignty. Likewise, it was forbidden that members of the German Nazi party access Argentine citizenship, showing an early will to cut any formal roots channel of the roots of the Hitlerism In the country. A time capsule. He counted In the New York Times Jonathan Karszenbaum, director of the Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires, that the volume of the documents found is overwhelming. Although the entire content has not yet been examined, the thorough analysis of the notebooks is expected to provide concrete clues about The network of supporters and Nazi operators in Latin America during the war. The most disturbing question, however, is how and why This material remained hidden for more than eighty years in the heart of the Argentine Judiciary, a key institution of the Republic. The rediscovery, with all its symbolism, raises a unique opportunity to clarify dark chapters of the country’s history and reaffirm an institutional commitment to truth, memory and justice. Image | Supreme Court of Argentina In Xataka | The crazy theory that states that Hitler escaped Argentina via Galicia: from a plane in Lugo to a submarine in Vigo In Xataka | Pederastia, bratwurst and jacuzzis: so it was and so is today the secret exile of the Nazis in Latin America

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