1948-53 Dodge Truck Floor Upper Toe Board on 2040-parts.com

Retracing Steve McQueen's Los Angeles in his Jaguar XKSS

In 1958, Steve McQueen bought this Jaguar XKSS from a local TV personality who kept it parked in a studio lot on Sunset Boulevard. McQueen cajoled his wife Nellie into writing a check for $5,000 -- today around $40,000 -- and became the third owner of XKSS chassis No. 713, a car that had originally been imported a year earlier by Jaguar North America.

Mercedes SLC (or Mercedes GT): It’s Official Spy photo time – again

Mercedes turn spy photographers for the baby SLS – the Mercedes SLC/GT It’s almost 4 years since we first revealed there were plans afoot at Mercedes-Benz to build a small, nimbler SLS to take on the Porsche 911 – a car subsequently dubbed the Mercedes SLC – but not until 2014. Well, 2014 is less than half a year away, Mercedes confirmed the SLC was in the mix and now we get a set of ‘spy’ photos of the SLC (or Mercedes GT, perhaps) – straight from Mercedes. It’s not the first time Mercedes has tried to put spy photographers out of business, as both the SLS had ‘official’ spy photos and video, as did the new Mercedes SLK.

VW Taigun Compact SUV heading for production

It was a good-looking and appealing effort from VW to tap in to the very compact SUV market, with a real family look (a Tiguan on a boil wash), peppy little 3-cylinder 1.0 litre engine delivering 108bhp and a 0-62mph of 9.2 seconds (with 60mpg economy) and enough room to carry stuff and people thanks to an extra 50mm in the wheelbase compared to the Up! Now it looks like the Taigun is heading for production after VW’s Chief designer, Klaus Bishoff, told Autoexpress that he deeply believed the Taigun would be heading for VW showrooms very soon, and could be sold in the UK and Europe as well as in emerging markets. So you can add the Taigun to the list of VW’s SUV offerings, and with new versions of the Tiguan and Touareg (perhaps based on the CrossBlue Concept) and a Polo based SUV on the way too, it looks like VW are covering all the bases.