Dmi Src-3000 Sprint Car Engine Rotator Tool on 2040-parts.com

New 2013 Nissan Note gets more appealing

The new Nissan Note has turned in to a Ford Fiesta basher as Nissan turn the Note from a boring little MPV in to a convincing small hatch. We did think the Invitation would be watered down to produce a slightly titivated new Note for production, but much of the style has found its way through in to the new Note – which we first saw in the JDM Nissan Note last summer – and the Note now looks set to take on proper compact hatches like the Ford Fiesta. The nose of the new Note is now more convincing – with new headlights and grill – and the doors get a great big feature crease that looks like a giant smoothing iron has stamped its mark, although Nissan say it’s a ‘Squash Line’  whose ‘angles were inspired by the flight of a fast moving squash ball travelling around a court’.

Watch Tesla Model S testing new titanium armor

In a missive signed by Elon Musk himself, Tesla announced it would be adding titanium plates and aluminum deflectors to all new Model S sedans and offering free retrofits for the 20,000 or so existing EVs. The company earlier offered an over-the-air software update to raise the ground clearance of the Model S so the car would be more likely to clear dangerous road debris. The actions were in response to well-publicized fires in the electric luxury sedans.

One lap of the Web: Syphilis, a scary monster and one huge remote-controlled car

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- Karl Henkel, a numbers guru, brings perspective to the government's distracted driving fear mongering by sharing Mazda 626 monstrosity from 1:3 scale RC car that can travel up to 45 mph?