Ford Flathead Timing Cover, 1932-41, 59a Engine, 221 Or 239 on 2040-parts.com

'Rat run' short cuts make journeys slower

DRIVERS taking "rat-run" short cuts could actually be making their journeys slower, according to a survey. Congestion at the busiest times on local roads is twice as bad as on main highways, the poll from traffic information company TomTom found. It also revealed that traffic congestion in cities across the UK has got significantly worse over the past year.

Chinese Grand Prix qualifying: Hamilton takes pole for Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton has grabbed his first pole position for Mercedes for tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix, with team mate Nico Rosberg in fourth putting second place Kimi Raikkonen in the Lotus and third place Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari in a Mercedes sandwich. Felipe Massa takes fifth in the second Ferrari and Grosjean sixth in the second Lotus with the Toro Rosso of Ricciardo in seventh, but it’s behind that the things get more interesting, especially in a race context. Behind the leading seven are Jenson Button in the McLaren and Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull, but both are on different strategies to the rest of the leaders and will start tomorrow’s race on the medium tyres they used for final qualifying instead of the soft tyres.

Aston Martin DB9 1M: Aston’s Facebook celebration

To mark reaching one million followers on Facebook, Aston Martin invited its fans to help design a car – the Aston Martin DB9 1M. Just like every other car maker, Aston Martin is beginning to embrace the web as perhaps the best way to get their message across and showcase their products. Yesterday we had Aston Martin trumpeting its website traffic on the back of the launch of the new Vanquish, and now we get an Aston designed with the help of Aston’s Facebook Fans.