Harken 7:1 Mainsheet System, Block And Tackle Sailboat Hobie on 2040-parts.com

Bench Racing: New crop of supercars

It's been a while since we've hypothetically raced a handful of cars around the office; long enough that an entirely new crop of supercars has arrived for us to chart, graph and dissect. Today we're zeroing in on the $1-$3 million price tag range, which fits the Ferrari LaFerrari, McLaren P1, Pagani Huayra and the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. The first three fit neatly, pricewise, at about $1.3 million.

BMW Vision ConnectedDrive (2011) first pictures

This gorgeous two-seat roadster is the BMW Vision ConnectedDrive, set to be unveiled at the 2011 Geneva motor show. Unlike some of BMW’s other Vision-tagged concept cars, this unfortunately isn’t a thinly disguised production car, but a study designed to highlight the company’s driver assistance systems.  However, although BMW has released no details on the engine or layout under the sexy skin, thankfully the Vision ConnectedDrive’s stunning styling (including the shark nose, wrap-around rear lights and layered body) will find its way onto future production BMWs.  For a start sensors in the headlamps and rear lights monitor the traffic situation and the environment around the car, while instead of wing mirrors there are antennas that receive navigation data and transmit other information. Inside the driver has a 3D head-up display, and the system can project information about the chosen sat-nav route so it appears at the exact point of a possible turn-off. The 3D system also displays information in the foreground or background of the display depending on its relevance.

700 medics call for car smoking ban

AROUND 700 medics and health experts are calling on the Government to ban smoking in cars carrying children ahead of a Commons vote on Monday. In a letter to the British Medical Journal (BMJ), respiratory experts said secondhand smoke was a "major cause of ill health in children", damaging the developing lungs, causing sudden infant death and leading to thousands of hospital trips every year. Signatories to the letter are being co-ordinated by Dr Nicholas Hopkinson from Imperial College London and chairman of the British Thoracic Society's chronic obstructive pulmonary disease specialist advisory group.