London underpass to hold flood water

A PEDESTRIAN UNDERPASS is to be turned into an emergency pond to hold hundreds of thousands of litres of floodwater threatening homes and businesses in south London. The Purley Cross underpass will be used to hold water pumped from around 400 under-threat buildings in parts of Kenley and Purley and to stop a water treatment works which supplies tens of thousands of homes from flooding, Croydon Council said. The authority said the plan to use the underground footway to hold around 600,000 litres of water from tonight was approved after its "primary" pond at Purley Depot overflowed last night.

Mercedes-Benz prototypes spotted

Modern technology makes it harder for automakers to hide their upcoming products from prying eyes. Take, for example, these images sent to us from Autoweek subscriber Jonathan Peters while he was in Utah. Peters speculates that what he saw was a gathering of a varied Mercedes-Benz cars being tested, along with cars from other carmakers for comparisons.

Mazda brings diesel back to Indy with 6 Skyactiv-D

Diesel has enjoyed great success lately as a racing fuel, but there's one place it hasn't appeared for more than six decades: Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Mazda's breaking that dry spell this weekend, when its Mazda 6 Skyactiv-D race car will head to Indy for the Grand-Am race. We like the 6 in both road trim and racing livery, but that previous diesel-powered racer -- the Cummins Diesel Special -- is pretty neat too.