1997 Toyota Camry Owner's Manual on 2040-parts.com

Tiremakers offer new tread designs and compounds for winter

When preparing your vehicle for winter, most people think about getting the battery tested, installing new wiper blades and having plenty of windshield-washer fluid on hand. Those are all good habits. But if you live in a cold-weather part of the country, installing a dedicated set of winter tires is another thing you should consider.

Mini Beachcomber Concept at Detroit motor show 2010

This funky beach-biased concept car has just appeared at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show in January. Called the Mini Beachcomber Concept, this flight-of-fancy Moke-inspired show car gives us our first glimpse of how Mini's production-spec 4x4 crossover will look at launch - we'll see the real car at the Geneva motor show in March 2010 ahead of an autumn UK launch. This four-seater, four-wheel-drive machine has been designed without doors or a conventional roof, so that its occupants are not cut off from the outside world.

Bluebird Electric aiming for UK Land Speed Record

Bluebird Electric You’d hope that anyone of any age would associate ‘Bluebird’ with ‘Campbell’, but as many of our schools don’t seem too keen on anything that may be even remotely considered part of Britain’s history, perhaps not. So we’ll just throw in that Sir Malcolm Campbell drove a variety of Bluebird (or Blue Bird) cars to new land speed records on Pendine Sands in the 1920s and his son, Donald Campbell, matched his father’s achievements with world speed records on both land and water – the only man to have held land and water speed records at the same time. And he too used the Bluebird moniker for his record-breaking transport of choice. Fast forward the best part of fifty years and it’s the grandson of Sir Malcolm – Don Wales – who’s plotting to take the Bluebird Electric to a new UK Land Speed Record, and planning to make a start on that quest at Pendine Sands (a location Top Gear fans will probably recognise – and was it Pendine Sands on the new Torchwood series last week?).