Kawasaki F7 175 Bushwacker Front Brake Cable on 2040-parts.com

Remember this day in GM history: The next century of automotive success starts now

President Obama's administration made history today with what some see as nothing short of government meddling in the affairs of big business. What I see is something else: I see the administration showing that it is serious and raising the level of concern from yellow to orange. Now there is a firm deadline and a message to bondholders, United Auto Worker union members and the American public: Do not be surprised if in the next 30 days--or even sooner-General Motors files for a controlled bankruptcy.

Alfa Romeo 4C in action at the Goodwood Festival of Speed (video)

The Alfa Romeo 4C made its dynamic debut (pictured) at the 2013 Goodwood Festival of Speed The long awaited Alfa Romeo 4C finally made its debut in production spec at the Geneva Motor Show in March, and at the weekend the 4C made its dynamic debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. To make sure the 4C made as big an impact as possible at Goodwood, we’d expected Alfa to run up the hillclimb in the launch edition 4C, which gets plenty of extra goodies including a carbon fibre body kit and spoiler, but this 4C looked to be a standard model. But even though we’d like to have seen the launch edition with its extra carbon fibre goodies, the standard car gets exactly the same 1750cc 4-cylinder petrol engine with enough get up and go, 236bhp, to move the lightweight 4C (under 900kg) to 62mph in just 4.5 seconds.

New Mercedes A45 AMG has 105 years of 4WD on its side

With the new Mercedes A45 AMG on the horizon – complete with 4WD – Mercedes chart the history of all wheel drive on their vehicles. We tend to think of 4WD road cars as a modern innovation, and certainly very few 4WD road cars hit the road in a mainstream way much before the 1980s (the Jensen FF was hardly mainstream before someone points out that was in the 1960s). But the history of 4WD goes back, certainly in the case of Mercedes, a surprising 105 years when Daimler built the Dernburg-Wagen, a 4WD vehicle that not only got all-wheel drive but all wheel steering too.