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PM opens Williams F1’s new Advanced Engineering Centre

Prime minister David Cameron has today opened Williams Racing’s new £8 million Advanced Engineering Centre in Grove, Oxford. The new facility will help transfer Williams’ four decades of title-winning F1 expertise into the world of road cars – and the PM has challenged the engineers working there to continue helping Britain compete on the world stage by developing new business opportunities. On Bing: see pictures of Williams F1 cars Nismo Williams!

Half of all used cars go wrong ‘within a month’

With over seven million secondhand cars purchased in 2012, you’d expect one or two to develop a problem soon after purchase. But rather shockingly, as many as half of all used cars sold develop faults within a month of changing hands. That’s according to a report by the Citizens Advice Bureau, which helped with over 84,000 problems with secondhand motors in the past 12 months.

Watch the sad, final moments of a crusher-bound heap

Automotive wrecking yards are good places to reflect on the real-world values of heavily depreciated vehicles versus global current scrap-metal prices, and to see which cars have suddenly had the fix-it-versus-total-it line moved by insurance companies (the early-21st-century Subaru Legacy Outback, for example, appeared in large numbers in high-turnover wrecking yards just during the last year, as fairly minor collision damage on these cars is no longer worth fixing). You'll see the things that a car's last owner does in a desperate attempt to sell (or at least live with) an increasingly decrepit heap (as we learned in "Repo Man," you really will find a Little Tree in every car). During a recent trip to a San Jose, Calif., yard, I encountered this sad yet strangely compelling scene.