Richard Childress of NASCAR celebrates five years of making top-notch wines

Richard Childress didn't know what to expect when he and longtime friend and business partner Greg Johns began planning their small vineyard in central North Carolina in 2003. Childress knows racing--witness his Chevrolet-based teams' 89 major stock-car wins and six NASCAR championships since 1983. But even Childress realized he was a rookie backmarker when he opened Childress Vineyards in October 2004 along Route 52 south of Winston-Salem.

BMW Gran Lusso design explained in Pininfarina video

The two-door BMW Gran Lusso took center stage at the 2013 Villa d'Este Concourso d'Eleganza in Italy last weekend. The Pininfarina-designed, V12-equipped coupe could herald the return of the company's mighty 8-series Bimmers that rolled the streets in the 1990s. Pininfarina posted two videos of the BMW Gran Lusso on its YouTube channel on Wednesday.

Chevrolet UK has its best ever year

Now admittedly, Chevrolet UK is not starting from a point of market dominance in the UK, but any manufacturer who has managed to increase sales in 2008 is obviously doing something right. Chevrolet UK has announced that in 2008 it managed to increase its market share in the UK by 12.5%, from 0.76% to 0.86%, with total sales for the year of 18,372 cars (which is only a smidge higher than 2007, but the lower total sales for the UK Car market in 2008 meant a significant increase in market share for Chevrolet). Chevrolet Cruze - Launches in the UK in 2009 These are not figures that are going to frighten the pants off Ford and Vauxhall, but they are an indication that a certain part of the car buying public in the UK are looking at price as a major factor, and are prepared to sacrifice a degree of driving joy to get in to a new car at a lower price.