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This is The American Dream, the world's longest limo, at least according to the Guinness World Records organization. At 100 feet and 1.5 inches, we can't imagine it has too many challengers to its throne. But as impressive as this 25,000-odd pound, helipad-equipped, massive Cadillac is, what's even more impressive is that its restoration was completed at all. This limo was in terrible shape, a rotted hulk that would take a gargantuan effort to bring back to life.Abandoned in New York, it was first hauled to the Autoseum for an ill-fated restoration attempt. Then, with some difficulty (and a hood that flew off en route, never to be seen again), it was trucked down to the Dezerland Park car museum for another go—in several pieces—for another effort at revival. Here's what it looked like in 2013:Well, that effort has succeeded, as you can see. Michael Dezer—a prominent real estate developer in New York and Florida—and Michael Manning of Autoseum worked together to make it happen. Along the way, three Cadillacs were cannibalized, and untold amount of rust was removed, yards of leather and vinyl and carpet were employed, and the engine(s) were replaced. The subframe looks more like a bridge truss than anything you'd find in a vehicle, and in fact Manning admits rebuilding it was more of a civil engineering project than an automotive restoration.No fewer than six Eldorados were conjoined during the original construction of this 24-wheeled monster, conceived by Jay Ohrberg of Burbank, Calif.—the guy behind a few cars you may have heard of, like KITT from Knight Rider and the DeLorean time machine from Back to the Future. Originally, the vehicle had a swivel function, in order to attempt to navigate corners with more grace. It's not clear if that feature was retained in the restoration. Its tail housed a helipad, whose surface could be used as a putting green whenever the chopper wasn't around. In its original iteration, it also had two engines, dozens of windows, TVs, telephones, a lounge, a waterbed, a jacuzzi, and a swimming pool with a diving board. The American Dream is now functional, to the extent that it can be. With this length and an attendant cruise-ship-like turning radius, you can't simply drive this thing around. You need to carefully plan a route to make sure it has room to maneuver. Get it stuck and it'll take some creative towing to remove it. That said, whether stationary or on the go, Manning says there's room inside for 75, plus there's a pool on the back. The interior is mostly bare at the moment—in the video, Manning hints it could be built out to fit a customer—and it's so long the other end is barely visible from inside.There's no getting around it: The American Dream is excessive to the point of impracticality. But it's still the world record holder, taking the crown from itself with a 1.5-inch stretch. It's hilarious that a distance that small has any significance for a vehicle this large, but there it is. What happens to it next is anybody's guess, but we salute you, Floridians, for reviving The American Dream in all its excess.

VW Bus Meets ID Buzz What Powers It?How Far Can This Bus Go on a Single Charge?Styling the BusWhat's InsideHow Much Is a VW ID Buzz and When Can I Buy One? 2024 Volkswagen ID Buzz (Standard-Wheelbase) Specifications BASE PRICE $45,000-$60,000 (est) LAYOUT Rear-motor, RWD, 2-6-pass, 3-4-door van MOTOR 201-hp/229-lb-ft permanent-magnet-type electric TRANSMISSION 1-speed auto CURB WEIGHT 5,300 lb (MT est) WHEELBASE 117.6 in L x W x H 185.5 x 78.1 x 76.3 in 0-60 MPH 8.5 sec (MT est) EPA FUEL ECON Not yet rated EPA RANGE (COMB) 270 miles (MT est) ON SALE Fall, 2024 Show All

There is a legitimate debate to be had over whether Autopilot, Tesla's lane-centering and adaptive cruise control driver assists isn't as safe or capable as it claims. But as with many things Tesla, things can easily get muddy, and not just because the pioneering automotive automaker evaporated its PR team years ago. Take, for example, The Dawn Project founded by Dan O'Dowd, who also owns Green Hills Software, which technically competes with Tesla's software. O'Dowd himself has kicked off a congressional bid vowing to rid the world of the "scourge" that is Autopilot, and recently released a video showing a Tesla running Autopilot running over a child mannequin to "prove" the system's failings.Of course this gambit went viral, not least because it inspired Tesla's cult-like owners to use their own children—or try and borrow other children, and we're not joking—to disprove The Dawn Project's claims. Now, Tesla is declaring the original video is defamatory and demanding that the clip be removed, since it "misrepresents" the safety and capabilities of Autopilot and FSD (the step-above, still-not-yet-in-production Full Self Driving feature Tesla is real-world testing using its customers). As regular followers of Tesla's ups and downs are surely aware, there is mounting evidence that the Autopilot software isn't as perfect as Tesla and CEO Elon Musk claim it is. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is currently investigating the feature after several instances of Teslas crashing into stationary vehicles or objects roadside, namely emergency vehicles.The Video In QuestionOne video shows a Tesla Model 3 with FSD Beta 10.12.2 running over a child-sized mannequin in a crosswalk; the Tesla never slows down, even once it hits it. Another clip has better production value and is taken at Willow Springs International Raceway using a similar child-like mannequin, which is summarily mowed down by a Tesla in the same manner as in the other video.Initially, the response from Tesla's overzealous fans with small children of their own was to march those kids in front of their moving cars to "prove" that FSD and Autopilot work as intended. Fortunately, no children were sacrificed at the altar of Tesla's public relations, but YouTube did step in to remove many of those videos, leaving for the originals made by The Dawn Project.Now Tesla, according to a letter attained by the Washington Post, is demanding that The Dawn Project and Dan O'Dowd remove those videos because of their defamatory nature that have disparaged "Tesla's commercial interests" of Tesla's Full Self Driving technology. Dinna Eskin, senior director and deputy general counsel at Tesla, also demands in the letter that O'Dowd and The Dawn Project "immediately cease and desist further dissemination of all defamatory information, issue a formal public retraction within 24 hours and provide Tesla with the below demanded documentation."Many of the complaints or concerns aired by O'Dowd and his project are seemingly legitimate or possible to make in good faith, though it seems best to leave such investigation to the unbiased experts at NHTSA, which, again, has begun investigating other safety issues surrounding Tesla's Autopilot. While not every bad messenger needs to have a squeaky clean background, it's tough to paper over the obvious conflicts of interest between O'Dowd and software related to driver assistance features and, well, Tesla.Who is Dan O'Dowd?Dan O'Dowd is a software engineer who graduated from the California Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in 1976. He then went on to work on embedded development tools for early microprocessors used in Mattel's handheld electronic games of the late 1970s. O'Dowd also worked with National Semiconductor (who is now owned by Texas Instruments) to design the NS32000 32-bit microprocessor used in 1980s personal computers such as the IBM RT PC, the BBC Micro, and others. His company, Green Hills Software, was founded in 1982 and its claim to fame was being the "first and only" software company to develop an operating system (OS) that meet the NSA's certification for EAL 6+ High Robustness, meaning that it's incredibly difficult to attack this OS no matter how well funded and "hostile" your hacker is.Green Hills also states that it developed the OS for the Boeing 787, the Lockheed Martin F-35 multirole fighters, Boeing B1-B bomber, and Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle manufactured by Lockheed Martin and operated by NASA (which, coincidentally, has a glass cockpit derived from the 787's). Green Hills is also the Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) software supplier for the 2022 BMW iX EV crossover, which raises yet another, if slightly tangential conflict of interest here.O'Dowd also had a brief run as a Democratic primary candidate for California's Senator Seat (eventually won by Alex Padilla) and his campaign message was all about cybersecurity and Tesla's FSD and Autopilot safety. It was roughly around this time that The Dawn Project launched but it was a full-page New York Times ad back in January 2022 that got the attention of the general public. In that paid ad, The Dawn Project led with "Don't Be A Tesla Crash Test Dummy" and then laid out a case for why Autopilot and FSD were "unsafe at any speed." It and O'Dowd then began several video campaigns demonstrating the failures of Autopilot and FSD with child mannequins as was demonstrated above.Again, while Tesla may have a case against O'Dowd and O'Dowd might be merely asking fair safety related questions, the situation here is, frankly, a bit of a mess. To answer the obvious question here, which is whether or not a Tesla will indiscriminately flatten children should it meet them in a roadway while its Autopilot or FSD features are active, a lot more investigation needs to take place. We'll need more scientific endeavors than possibly biased social media clips of mannequins (or real children) being aimed at by moving Teslas. So, while it might seem like Tesla has a brewing problem here, so far, there isn't much to go on. That could change should anything come from the separate investigation being conducted by NHTSA and any corrective actions it recommends. But for now, can we think of the poor mannequins? Oh, and while Tesla has no PR team to reach out to, we assume (based on its cease and desist letter to O'Dowd) the automaker would prefer you not try and replicate The Dawn Project's, uh, project.