A1 Cardone Remanufactured Master Cylinder 10-3254 on 2040-parts.com

Kubrick's Jaguar memories: XJ12s and more

Once upon a time there was a small boy, about seven years old, who had taken an interest in cars at a rather early stage, mainly thanks to his old man, who was (and, thankfully, still is) a car enthusiast and, back in those days, a staunch supporter of a certain Southern German marque. This naturally meant that the small boy would sometimes be a bit annoyed by his father's occasionally overbearing passion, but at the same time usually knit his eyebrows himself whenever he came across something sporting four wheels but no blue & white propeller (which, he believed, was the way things were supposed to be). So the foundations had been laid to turn this very young chap into a proper petrolhead one day, but his interest remained relatively casual and moderate until that one fateful evening.

Sebastian Loeb smashes Pikes Peak record in Peugeot 208 T16 (video)

Sebastian Loeb smashes Pikes Peak record in Peugeot 208 T16 (pictured) This weekend saw the Pikes Peak hillcimb action, with powerful cars tackling the more than 12 mile course, with all its twists and turns, in a thrilling spectacle. But no spectacle was more thrilling that the run by Sebastian Loeb in the Peugeot 208 T16. The Peugeot 208 T16 (which bears about as much resemblance to your 208 as Loeb’s driving does to your Granny’s) gets a 3.2 litre twin turbo V6 with 875bhp, enough to hit 62mph in a scant 1.8 seconds and on to 150mph.

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.