1955 Cessna 310 Nose Wheel Axle Assy on 2040-parts.com

2012 Ford Focus ST gets 297bhp

Those clever chaps at SuperChips have given the 2012 Ford Focus ST a bit of an ECU tweak to deliver 297bhp and an extra 85lb/ft of torque. When we reported last week that WTC outfit Arena had in roped Ford’s tuner of choice, Mountune, to give the new Ford Focus a makeover, we were a tad disappointed to discover that they were tweaking the rather journeyman Focus Zetec S. That meant the Zetec S got 200bhp – a handy jump – but we bemoaned the fact that they hadn’t fiddled with the Focus ST to give us a car to fill the void left by the absence of a Focus RS in the current iteration of the Focus.

Peugeot 3008 – new 163 HDi auto launches

The Peugeot 3008 HDi 163 auto is now available in the UK There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the Peugeot 3008 as far as we can see. It’s a very convincing crossover from Peugeot and has performed strongly since its release six months ago. We’ll be getting our chance to play in a few weeks when we have a 3008 Sport Hdi 150 booked in for review.

How safe are new minicars?

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) recently tested a total of 11 minicars in its relatively new small-overlap crash test, and the Chevrolet Spark was the only one to earn an Acceptable rating. The small-overlap crash test was instituted in 2012 with the goal of better replicating real-life car crashes, most of which don't follow the pattern of traditional government crash tests. Instead of a car hitting a stationary object with 100 percent of its front making contact, the small-overlap test examines how a car behaves in a frontal impact at 40 mph where only a quarter of the car's front hits an object.