Dodge 'Muscle', Superman Used For New PCs

By Doug Olenick and Peter Suciu -- TWICE, 5/22/2006

New York — A pair of new look PCs from Alienware and PC Rides.com will give consumers a chance to replace their traditional looking computer with one sporting Superman's colors and another that impersonates a Dodge muscle car.

Alienware plans to release very limited edition Superman-branded desktop and laptop PCs this summer. Only 250 of the desktop and 350 of the notebook version will be sold, starting today. Customers can now sign up at to buy one. The models are inspired by the DC Comics' character; the laptop's system will feature the iconic S, while the desktops will be decked out with classic artwork of the Man of Steel. These systems will be leaping tall buildings later this month to coincide with the upcoming Warner Brothers Pictures' “Superman Returns,” which arrives in theaters in June.

The Miami-based company, which was acquired by Dell Computers earlier this spring, also introduced two new mobile systems at this week's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. These laptop PCs feature NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GPUs, and are available with a 17-inch LCD monitor as the Aurora m9700 and the 19-inch Aurora MALX.

Both systems are available online from Alienware beginning this week. Pricing has not been released.

PC Rides has taken chassis design to an entirely new level with computers encased in models of a Dodge Magnum, Charter and Viper ST10. The system itself is almost as high powered as the car they are impersonating. Each has an Intel Core Duo processor with 667MHz front-side bus and the Intel 945GM chipset. It can take 4GB of DDRS memory, an HDTV tuner, Gigabyte-level networking and a variety of hard drives. The consumer can configure it with Windows XP Home, XP Pro or Media Center Edition.

The basic system's price, excluding monitor, keyboard or accessories, is $1,500. The car model bodies are interchangeable with additional bodies carrying a $200 price tag. The PCs will ship in the August/September time frame.

Just in case appearances are not enough the PC makes the sound of a HEMI engine revving when it boots up. To further customize the body, a kit containing paint, decals, name-brand rims and tires is available.