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

The Super Bowl's most refreshingly honest car ad

In 2000's High Fidelity, hapless record-store owner Rob Gordon -- played memorably by John Cusack -- opines, “What really matters is what you like, not what you are like." In the year 2000, I was 24 years old and was working on a punk rock magazine, an environment not dissimilar from Gordon's Championship Vinyl. The line made a lot of sense to me; it was a quiet, back-of-the-head maxim that informed much of what my friends and I did and how we saw people. It's a shallow way of looking at things, but for those of us who came of age amid the us-vs.-them liberal identity politics of the '90s, awash as we were in Public Enemy's political consciousness, the post-AIDS gay-rights push and the loud-fast feminism of the riot grrrl movement, there was a good chance that if somebody liked the things you liked, they thought like you and they were good.

Porsche 911 Black Edition (2011) at 2011 Geneva motor show

The current Porsche 911 isn’t dead yet – this is the run-out Black Edition special. Just 1911 examples will ever be built, and it’s loaded with extras to keep 911 sales ticking over until the all-new version is unveiled later this year. Unlike the Carrera GTS, which is the most focussed (and brilliant) 911 this side of a Porsche Motorsport product, the Black Edition is based on the entry level Carrera.

Next BMW X1 loses inline-six, gets smaller and lighter

The second-generation BMW X1, expected here in early 2016, is smaller and lighter than the existing first-generation model. The new X1 loses optional six-cylinder power; a new high-output four-cylinder replaces it. A high-ranking BMW manager confirmed the new X1 abandons today's longitudinal engine layout for a version of the new transverse-engine platform the 2-series Active Tourer uses.