Ford Pickup Truck Seat on 2040-parts.com

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.

Hiromu Naruse: ‘Godfather’ of the LFA ‘Not Famous Enough’

Hiromu Naruse & Lexus LFA Last year we reported the death of Hiromu Naruse, Toyota’s chief test driver and a man considered to be the ‘Godfather’ of the Japanese performance car, and particularly the Lexus LFA, a car which consumed the last decade of his life and became the final testament to his enormous skill. At 67, Naruse-san was still as involved as ever, and it was whilst driving a Lexus LFA with the Nurburgring Package he met his end on a public road near the Nurburgring. A track, incidentally, he had driven more than any other Japanese driver.

New Maserati Quattroporte to get Supercharged Ferrari V6

It’s reported that the next generation Maserati Quattroporte will be offered with a Ferrari-built V8 turbo and Supercharged V6. The next generation Maserati Quattroporte has been a long time coming, and much of that is tied up with Fiat’s takeover of Chrysler. Normally, we could have expected a new Quattroporte to arrive by now, but with everything in the mix after Chrysler and Fiat became one, the exact future of the Quattroporte was in flux.