Carlson 17253 Rear Drum Hardware Kit on 2040-parts.com

Arizona auctions: Early days filled with optimism

The sun kept shining--both as a metaphor and in reality--while the cars were selling at the Arizona auctions. As of late Thursday, Barrett-Jackson had completed three of its six days of sales. Preliminary numbers assembled by on-site reporters indicate total sales of $20.2 million at the halfway mark, with 100 percent of the 656 cars on offer sold.

Mini takes to the field for London 2012

Although there’s no motorsport in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Mini will be making an appearance during the track and field events in the Olympic stadium. A fleet of three remote-controlled, quarter-scale Mini Cooper JCWs are charged with retrieving javelins, discus, shot and hammer, and will cover around 6000 metres per day while on duty. Each ‘mini Mini’ has a potential payload of 8kg, and will be operated by specially-trained ‘Games Makers’.

Inside Bob Pond's car collection

Robert Pond was an industrialist, an aviator, a Navy pilot, an aircraft designer, a genuine car enthusiast, a philanthropist, a Minnesotan at heart and a man who turned a family business from eight employees to a global $100-million concern. Pond was born in 1924 in Edina, Minn., 10 miles southwest of Minneapolis. He signed up for the Navy Air Corps in 1942, and survived three years of training on J-3 Piper Cubs and PBY Catalinas to graduate in July of 1945 -- just three months before Japan surrendered to the US.