1950 Pontiac Dash on 2040-parts.com

Biker attempts to beat London marathon record... in traffic

AS BRITISH favourite Mo Farah prepares to challenge the British record at the London Marathon this weekend, an enterprising biker has decided to try it himself – in the thick of London traffic. On closed roads a man vs machine race would be a bit one-sided, but with the average speed of a fast marathon runner being 12.43mph and the average speed of a motorbike in London traffic being 12.5mph, the result turned out not to be so clear-cut – the biker missing out on the record by a full five minutes. Using the same BMW F800GS Adventure as is loaned to the marathon organisers, Michael Mann of online community Bike Social followed the route as closely as possible, albeit with a few extra loops where the runners will take advantage of closed one-way streets.

BMW 5-Series GT to get xDrive – BMW 740d xDrive announced

BMW are adding xDrive as an option across the 5 Series GT range We really don’t ‘Get’ the BMW 5 Series GT. To be fair, we haven’t driven one so it’s a viewpoint from afar. But we can’t deny it fills the gap between the 5 Series Estate and the 5 Series Saloon,  we just hadn’t realised that there was a gap that needed filling.

One Lap of the Web: preservation-class edition

-- This video about a preserved Volkswagen dealership in Brazil is in Portuguese, and even if you don't know Portuguese, it will still make sense to you if you're a car person. (Or, you can activate the English subtitles on YouTube, as it's an interesting story.) -- What's the best truck for scaling vertical surfaces? That's right, it's the Unimog, and this week there's a 1965 example (that would be the oval-faced version) on the eBays with a rather realistic Buy it Now price.