By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

When it came to Saturday-morning cartoons, very few of us put any critical thinking towards the shows we were watching. It's a hard to do that when you're seven or eight. You just stare at the television with a big smile on your face and anything that happens on the shows is right. It's just accepted. When Wile E. Coyote accidentally runs straight off a cliff and doesn't start falling until he looks down, that's fine. Those are the rules.

But when you grow up and start applying things like, well, logic and - gasp! - science, well the cartoon universe starts to show its true colours.

That's exactly what Kyle Hill did in a guest blog with Scientific American regarding Fred Flintstone and his wood-and-stone 'car'. Hill started making some general assumptions about things like how much the car weighed, how fast Fred could conceivably get the machine moving (40 km/h), and the condition of the roads. All of these played into figuring out if Fred's two - admittedly huge and probably thickly calloused - feet could conceivably stop the 865-kg machine. 

Basically, Hill deduced that if Fred's feet were impervious to heat that he could stop the car in about eight metres, which isn't too shabby. But if we do take friction and its biggest byproduct - heat - into account, essentially Fred's feet would have ignited and burned, much like a failed landing gear on a commercial airplane.

Hill described the feeling Fred would encounter as similar to "standing on a belt sander, with an adolescent African elephant on your back."

In another exercise he links to in the original SA post, Hill also solves a physics question about how far Batman and the Joker would slide after a collision while fighting, which is another cool thing we never thought of either.

What do you think? What show/comic scenario would you like someone to try and answer using 'real' science? Or is this just a waste of time and we should leave our childhood heroes alone? Let us know!

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

Never one to shy away from on-screen vehicular carnage, the latest installment of the Die Hard franchise looks set to establish a new level of craziness.

According to USA Today, the new Die Hard takes Bruce Willis as John McClane to Europe for the first time, more specifically Moscow. His long-ignored son is in trouble and the reunion obviously doesn't go as planned...

Anyway, over the course of the movie, over 600 separate vehicles were used, from old Ladas to Lamborghinis, along with a bevy of high-dollar Mercedes-Benz products, including Unimogs, Sprinters and Zetros trucks. Of those, 132 were smoking unfixable wrecks, while 518 still needed significant work to fix.

"With Die Hard it's about how audacious the action is," director John Moore says. "So you have to drive over a Lamborghini. An actual one. And yes it hurts me. I'm a car fanatic."

The whole sequence boils down to 'several' minutes and, in the end, the final tally was over $11 million.

As crazy as that sounds, that's still nowhere near the most expensive cost for a movie car chase. That honour still goes to The Matrix Reloaded, where they actually built a 1.4-mile loop of freeway and over 300 cars. Cost? Over $40 million.

I'm eager to get out and see how the movie turns out... Has anyone already seen it? Worth the ticket price or wait until it hits Netflix?

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

Holy dollar-signs, Batman! The original Batmobile from the live-action Batman television show in the '60s went across the auction block at the annual Barrett-Jackson event in Scottsdale, AZ yesterday, and someone paid serious money for the one-off. In the end, $4.62 million dollars (before taxes and auction fees, of course) were needed to take the Batmobile home. 

The car, based on the Lincoln Futura concept car and suitably 'Bat-ified' by legendary customizer George Barris, is completely original, and featured some crime-fighting features like a Bat phone, a Batcomputer, a Bat-turn system that uses functioning twin parachutes, and much more. Barris was reportedly on hand during the auction to help drum up even more interest in the sale.

Other big-buck sales at Barrett-Jackson included Clark Gable's 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Coupe for $2,035,000; a 1947 Talbot-Lago T-26 Grand Sport for $2,035,000; a 1934 Duesenberg J Murphy LWB Custom Beverly Sedan at $1,430,000; the 1956 Chrysler Diablo Concept Convertible for $1,375,000 and a super-rare 1971 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda Convertible at $1,320,000.

Would you pay nearly five-million dollars for a Batmobile? Or any other vehicle made famous by movies or television? 

By Michelle Koueiter, AutoWeek

Designers from the United States, Germany and Japan will compete in the 2011 Los Angeles auto show Design Challenge to create Hollywood's hottest new movie car.

The event is part of the Design Los Angeles automobile designers' conference, held annually during the L.A. auto show press days, Nov. 16-17.

For the past eight years, major studios from around the globe have competed to come up with the most innovative product based on the chosen theme. The winning design for this year's challenge will be announced on Nov. 17 during the Design Los Angeles conference at the auto show.

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

After seeing Fast Five last week in theatres, my wife has been trying to remember all the 10 years of plot-twists, bad lines and explosions that make up the F&F series. Because this weekend looks to be a bum one in New Brunswick, we're contemplating sitting down and having a Furious marathon: all four previous movies in a row, but no popcorn 'cause the movies are corny enough!

I'd be open to introducing her to some of my other car movies... she's never seen Bullitt, tried to watch Ronin but fell asleep part-way through, and I still haven't snagged a DVD copy of Le Mans.

What are your favourite car flicks, and why? Corvette Summer? Gone in 60 Seconds? What's worth plunking down at least rental money for?

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

Fast Five, the fifth movie in the Fast and Furious series, hit theatres Friday. We've already published our picks for the franchise's top 10 vehicles, and now we're curious how many of you plan to see the film?

For me, they're brain-dead entertainment, with plenty of continuity and alternate-reality errors, but I still enjoy watching (and re-watching) whenever I can... plot holes and all.

When I attended a combined full-line Dodge/Chrysler event last year, new Dodge CEO Ralph Gilles was very proud that his company was in as the offical vehicle supplier: "We're all over it." Wonder how many of the original F&F fans would make the transition from high-revving Japanese compacts to V8-powered rear-drive full-size sedans?

Find more info about the film on MSN Canada Movies or watch the trailer now!

By Julie Alvin, AutoWeek

It may not be able to sprout wings and a propeller and carry you over traffic, but the original car from the 1968 movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang--up for auction at the Profiles in History auction house in Los Angeles--will certainly draw some stares.

Part of Profiles in History's Hollywood Memorabilia Auction 44 taking place May 14 and 15, the film's heroic car is still fully functional and road-ready, though sadly it lacks the faux flying equipment and flotation devices it sported during certain scenes. It was built by the Ford Racing Team and conceived by legendary production designer Ken Adams, who was the brain behind James Bond sets of the 1960s and '70s.

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

Some days it takes a while to come up with suitable posts for The Passing Lane. What to ask? How exactly to phrase things? Where to find pictures? What kind of responses do I think we'll get.

But days like today? They don't come very often.

Lamborghini has assembled a three-minute short film on its all-new Murcielago-replacing Aventador super car. Lock your office door, turn up the volume, and click play. Simple.

By Mark Atkinson, MSN Autos

Pontiac fans were crushed when General Motors pulled the life-support plug on the brand, mainly because their dreams of seeing a reborn Firebird were never fulfilled. This despite the Chevrolet Camaro still selling strongly despite some obvious flaws. Either way, no hope for the Poncho, right?

Wrong. Trans-Am fans should thank their lucky stars that producers of the upcoming sci-fi movie Jinn wanted to have a reborn futuristic muscle car as the ‘hero’. So, Classic Design Concepts (CDC), the company tasked with creating the movie cars, has decided to take advantage of its position and sell replicas to the general public.

By Mark Atkinson, MSN Autos

The late John Hughes had the pulse of the ‘80s teen generation. The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Weird Science became legendary pieces of film, but his masterpiece – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – gave his legacy some high-octane Italian passion.