Gearhead Heaven

I know there are many of you out there with high-tech minds that ask yourselves thousands of what-ifs every day, and some of you even have the certifiable commitment to make some of them happen. Just the other day I recieved a couple emails with two prime examples. One was a guy who had built a (motion sensing) paintball sentry gun, and the other was a group of kids that built a water slide from the room of their house to the backyard with a ramp and a kiddie pool for a landing area. One of the on-lookers had his arm in a sling, most likely he was the first test pilot.

Well believe it or not, every once in a while GM puts together a team of its brightest to act on what seems a pschizophenic whim. Among many of its crazy projects GM has built a V12 B-body, a twin engine passenger car, and one of the most sophisticated suspensions ever built...technology that had only previously been used on racecars, and even then it had to prove practical. The creation of Active Suspension for actual use in production with the upcoming 1990 ZR1 was one of GM's most ambitious ideas of all. Though it never made it to production, the valuable information gained through creating it laid the ground work for what we now refer to as Active Handling. For more information on the Active Handling ZR1 stay tuned for an upcoming issue of GM High-Tech Performance.