Amsterdam, Zurich, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Vancouver, Oslo and more are all great cities of the world which are succeeding in making the lives better for their residents via innovative transportation policies. Over the years, Streetfilms producers have “visited many places we thought were doing best practices.” This group of videos they created along the way highlights amazing urban environments around the world.

“Founded in 2006, Streetfilms has become the go-to organization for educational films about sustainable transportation, and inspires action and behavioral change worldwide. Individuals, public agencies, non-profit organizations, schools, and transportation advocacy groups use Streetfilms to educate decision makers and make change for livable streets in their communities.” View more here.

The Chevrolet Corvette’s long list of silver screen starring roles turned America’s first mass-produced sports car into an automotive pop culture icon.

One of the Corvette‘s first film appearances was in the 1955 film noir classic Kiss Me Deadly. Directed by Robert Aldrich, the movie starred Ralph Meeker as Mickey Spillane’s hard-boiled private investigator Mike Hammer. The latter roamed the mean streets of Los Angeles in his 1954 Corvette, one of only 3,640 manufactured that year and one of only FOUR painted black.

Hammer’s black ‘vette may have looked cool but performance was anything but hot due to the pedestrian Stovebolt Six engine under its fiberglass hood. GM introduced a V8 for 1955 but limited model year production to just 700 in order to move the rest of the slow-selling ’54s. Even so, Hammer’s sleek (for the times) ride definitely added badly-needed panache to a niche model whose future was very much in doubt.

True Lies – 1959 Corvette

True Lies, a 1994 action-adventure-comedy starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Tia Carrere, Bill Paxton, Eliza Dushku, and even Charlton Heston has aged rather well. Ditto for the red 1959 Corvette driven by Paxton (playing sleazy used car salesmen Simon) as he regales AH-nold on his time-tested seduction technique: “Let’s face it, Harry, the ‘Vette gets ’em wet.”

Clambake – 1959 Corvette XP-87 Stingray Racer

“Hey buddy, where’s the gas cap on this thing?” Built in 1959 “to test handling ease and performance,” the Corvette XP-87 racer won an SCCA National Championship in 1960. It was then modified with the addition of a passenger seat and made the rounds of the auto show circuit.

The XP-87 bowed out in grand style, appearing in the 1967 film Clambake as the private car of Elvis Presley’s oil tycoon character. Thank you, XP-87, thank you very much.

Heavy Metal – 1960 Corvette

“You can hedge your bet on a clean Corvette”… Heavy Metal – the 1981 animated sci-fi fantasy film produced by Ivan Reitman and inspired by the eponymous graphic magazine, featured a 1960 Corvette but if you arrived a few minutes late to the movie theater, you probably missed it.

Here’s a link to the ‘vette’s impressive entrance (dude totally sticks the landing!) in which it literally brings evil to the world in the form of the glowing green loc-nar. Mustang owners most definitely approve.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Like A Rock Star 12 Iconic Movie Corvettes

If you’ve ever wondered what the cars of Mad Max: Fury Road would look like all cleaned up, or you want some inspiration for a totally bonkers hot rod creation of your own, check out this photo series by photographer John Platt. Minute details of the vehicles can be seen in shockingly pristine states, as they were just after their creation and prior to the start of filming, giving us a good look at all the custom contraptions welded together into junkyard monsters.

In the movie, there’s so much desert dust kicked up by the tires of all those vehicles, we miss out on a lot of those details. The cars are appropriately filthy – and in this universe, they probably always would have been.

It’s hard to imagine anyone putting time and effort into washing and shining them up in between epic chases on the sand, and all those parts came from scrap yards anyway.

That makes Platt’s photo series all the more satisfying. He got to photograph some of the movie’s 150 custom vehicles in his studio with proper lighting before they got dirty, and it’s a good thing, too – most of them were utterly destroyed during filming.

Production designer Colin Gibson individually designed and sculpted each car and motorcycle according to writer and director George Miller’s vision. No wonder it took 15 years to complete pre-production. See the whole series here.

Star Wars character Princess Leia, played by the late Carrie Fisher, has been feted in street art and graffiti for a long time in countries far, far away.

While spray-painted graffiti and, especially, stencils have been the most common methods of applying Princess Leia to urban infrastructure, there is another unlikely yet undeniably successful medium: tile mosaics. Since 1998 the secretive street artist known as Invader (after his Space Invaders-inspired style) has applied over a thousand 8-bit tile mosaics in over 30 nations around the world. His economical rendering of Princess Leia, as captured by Flickr user ratskaweiller, looks down from the wall of a building on Paris’ 6th arrondissement.

Maid in the Shades

Flickr user Aaron Kinzer (ascension9studios) captured this vivid triptych of Star Wars characters plastered to a wall in Melbourne, Australia. Yeah, we’d ALL need shades if everyone was really that pink.

Hello Princess

“Most of the characters I created before Lucasfilm and Sanrio lawyers came knocking at my door (no joke),” explains creator Dan Knispel of his Hello Wars character stickers.

Due to their conveniently adhesive nature, Hello Wars stickers have turned up on applicable surfaces ’round the globe. Flickr user Darth Admin captured several such appearances of the Princess Kitty character as shown above.

Graffiti Wars

The revival of the Star Wars film franchise with The Force Awakens in late 2015 sparked a corresponding explosion of relevant street art. You’ll find the expansive multi-artist mural above in Melbourne’, Australia’s graffiti mecca of Hosier Lane. Flickr users City of Melbourne – Official and sherlockedtxh snapped the images above on December 21st of 2015, shortly after the blockbuster film was released worldwide.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Wars Star Street Art Graffiti Tributes To Princess Leia

Quite possibly the most filmed and photographed bridge in the world, the Sixth Street Viaduct, spanning the Los Angeles River, is a challenging icon to replace, but the Ribbon of Light aims to try.

The famous Art-Deco viaduct in question, built in 1932, has been featured in dozens of films, television shows, music videos and video games, including Grease, Gone in 60 Seconds, Terminators 2 and 3, Madonna’s ‘Borderline’ video and episodes of Lost and 24.

Some sequences show the most recognizable part (directly over the LA river) being driven across, but many are shot from the river below. Unfortunately for fans, its was deemed seismically unstable thanks to compromised concrete supports, despite its historic landmark status with the city.

Architect Michael Maltzan, responsible for its replacement, has made his design an epic ode to its iconic curves, reprising and repeating them across a much longer portion of the new structure.

The new structure features arched trusses to be illuminated at night, suspended over a series of parks and paths being developed below and alongside it. A series of staircases and ramps will allow pedestrians and bikers to move up, down and across it as well.

The architects are clearly cognizant of the landmark they are replacing, and, in a way, are preserving its visibility through these repetitive forms, which actually extend much further out on either side than the original arches.

From the architects: “The project foresees a multi-modal future for the city, one that accommodates cars, incorporates significant new bicycle connections, and also increases connectivity for pedestrians to access the viaduct, not only at its endpoints, but along the entirety of the viaduct, linking the bridge, the Los Angeles River, and future urban landscapes in a more meaningful relationship.”

“These pairs of repeated concrete arches and cable-supported roadway deck are simultaneously elegant and efficient. The design approach unifies and optimizes the architecture of the viaduct through repetition, creating a unique configuration through the repeated use of arches, roadway and pier forms: an iconic structure.”