90 Yamaha Big Bear 350 Drive Shaft Guard on 2040-parts.com

Bonhams' Greenwich auction will show Italian rarities

The biggest star of Bonhams' seventh annual Greenwich auction will be the 1975 Lamborghini Countach LP400 Periscopica shown above, a pristine early example of the legendary wedge with a single owner and less than 10,500 miles -- its roof carried a groove cut into the sheetmetal that allowed light to hit the rearview mirror, providing a still-laughable semblance of rearward visibility. Of course, the door is always preferable. Just 158 LP400 Countachs were ever produced, before the firm moved on in 1978 to the outrageously styled LP400S.

Book Review: Masters of Modern Car Design

Authors Bart Lenaerts and Lies Del Mol Publisher Waft ISBN 978-9081482042 Price €60 Available from http://www.waft.be/ There are surprisingly few books dedicated to car designers and fewer still that scratch below the surface of the slick, sharply-suited PR messages that have elevated today's top creatives to front men of many brands. The guys from Waft see things differently. They first came to our attention with their book Belgian Car Designers, profiling the surprising number of their countrymen holding top design seats.

Jaguar signs up Lana Del Rey to make the F-Type cool

Jaguar has revealed it has signed up singer songwriter Lana Del Rey to help promote the new F-Type sports car. Land Rover chose to use Mrs Beckham to promote the Range Rover Evoque, and went as far as allowing her input in a limited edition Evoque Beckham, a move that probably generated more column inches of PR for Land Rover than any amount of money could buy. So Jaguar are going a similar way with the F-Type, but instead of signing a Spice Girl they’ve had the sense to look at what is new and cool, and they’ve very sensibly decided the face of the F-Type is going to be singer songwriter Lana Del Rey.