Arias Pistons 12.5:1 Compression 82mm Bore Honda B-series on 2040-parts.com

Cash-for-clunkers gems: Corvettes, Camaros, Mustangs and one infamous Bentley meet the end of the road

By now, the high-profile casualties of cash-for-clunkers are well documented: a Bentley Continental R and an Aston Martin DB7 Volante from 1997 and a 1985 Maserati Quattroporte all perished under the government-funded incentive program. But scratching beneath the surface reveals that scores of everyday enthusiast rides such as Mustangs, Camaros and even some Corvettes met ignominious endings by having their engines destroyed and their bodies crushed. While it’s likely that many of the nearly 700,000 clunkers turned in actually were at the end of their roads, the final report released by the government reveals the demise of plenty of affordable, likely still-fixable cars that could have been enjoyed by collectors of all ages.

Small cars bring higher risk while SUVs are safer, insurance-group study finds

As late as 2007, parents were warned against buying their driving-age teens SUVs because of the rollover risk. Now it seems those are some of the safest rides on the road, according to an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study released on Thursday. The Nissan 350Z sports car and the Titan pickup were on the low end of the list, along with the Chevrolet Aveo and the compact Cobalt sedan.

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.