1975 Corvette Tachometer on 2040-parts.com

Range Rover Sport desert-bashing exploits now on video

The new Range Rover Sport demolished the Empty Quarter Last month we reported on an adventure for the Range Rover Sport (to add to its recent Pikes Peak jaunt), with Land Rover taking the new Sport off to the Empty Quarter Desert in Saudi Arabia (which also runs through  Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen) to see if they could cross it in a day. The Empty Quarter – the largest sand desert in the world – has endless miles (well, 500 miles) of hostile sand and dunes and temperatures as high as 50C – so it was quite a task. Land Rover enlisted Dakar Rally man Moi Torrallardona to take the driver’s seat and he managed to take the RRS through the Empty quarter in just 10 hours 22 minutes at an average speed of 51.7 mph.

BMW 640d xDrive announced

On Thursday, Greg Kable waxed effusively about the new BMW M550d xDrive coupe, suggesting that it was the ultimate 5-series for everyday use. On Friday, Munich announced that the 5's two-door sibling will receive an AWD diesel variant: the 640d xDrive. While not quite as high-zoot as the 5-series' top oil burner, the 640d's 3.0-liter, twin-turbo straight-six cranks out a respectable 465 lb-ft of almighty torque between 1,500 rpm and 2,500 rpm, plus 313 hp at 4,400 rpm—numbers that, according to BMW, will carry the 6-series to 60 mph in 5.2 seconds.

Volkswagen Brands – enough for now

VW boss Martin Winterkorn says Volkswagen has enough brands Volkswagen seems to be on a world domination plan. Audi is expanding with every passing day and the VW Group (Auto Union to be) has an unrivalled list of brands under its umbrella, including Audi, SEAT, Skoda, Bentley, Lamborghini, Bugatti and of course VW itself. It also recently effectively took control of Porsche (after the failed efforts by Porsche to take control of VW) and has just announced a near 20% stake in Suzuki.