Yamaha 660 Grizzly 686cc 102mm Big Bore Cylinder on 2040-parts.com

2014 VW Passat Executive and Executive Style revealed

2014 VW Passat Executive and Executive Style revealed Volkswagen has decided that buyers of the Passat – not exactly the best-selling car in the VW range – want some extra toys on their new Passat, so they’re introducing two new trim levels for 2014. The new trim levels – executive and Executive Style – sit above the entry-level Passat S and BlueMotion and bring extra goodies for not a lot more money than the Highline trim it replaces. The Passat executive comes with 17″ Michigan alloys, extra chrome, matt black roof rails (on the Estate), VW’s RNS 315 touchscreen SatNav, Vienna leather, heated front seats, electric driver’s seat, Climate, auto lights and wipers, Cruise and rear parking sensors.

Mini and Miles Ahead team up for teen driving school at Indy

Mini has teamed up with new teen driving school Miles Ahead to bring licensed youth to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and train them to drive properly. Indy 500 veteran Stephan Gregoire founded the effort to combat the high number of crashes, injuries and deaths involving teenage drivers. The chance of a teen crashing in the first three years of driving is 82.9 percent, according to Mini, and a 16-year-old is 20 times more likely to be killed in a crash than an adult.

The no-show cars: a reader rant on mad concepts

Instigated by Harley Earl at General Motors in the late 30s with the quaintly named Buick Y-Job, show cars, or concept cars, were presented to an excited public eager for new things. As the world recovered from a depression and then a war, these vehicles pointed to a better future that many people believed in, including the people who produced them. And, although many of the concept cars of the 50s, with their Jetsons plexiglass roofs and notional nuclear powered engines seem ludicrous now, in their time they weren’t that cynical.