Oer Bumper Guard Bracket K338 on 2040-parts.com

Vehicle emissions are down and fuel economy is up, EPA reports

The Environmental Protection Agency released its emissions and fuel-economy report for 2010. Adjusted emissions are down across the board, at 395 grams of carbon dioxide per mile. That's a record low for the post-1975 database.

Pioneer App Radio officially unveiled

Pioneer has officially unveiled the App Radio that AutoWeek told you about earlier this month. Now that it's willing to talk, Pioneer claims that the radio and audio system is "the first in-vehicle product designed to utilize the processing power, storage capacity, network connectivity and apps of the iPhone and iPod Touch as the primary source for its information and entertainment capabilities." That does sound a lot like what Mini Connected and, in a more platform-agnostic sense, Ford Sync are doing. Pioneer said it couldn't speak to the similarity of those systems, but Ted Cardenas, director of marketing for Pioneer's car-electronics division, briefed us on installation of the device and what Pioneer is doing to minimize driver distraction.

Paramount Marauder – yep, the one from Top Gear

The Marauder lays waste a wall We knew the Hamster was off to South Africa to play with a vehicle that made the Hummer look like a Tonka Toy. And we knew – because they ‘hinted’ at it when we spoke to them last week – that the whole Top Gear segment had more than a little to do with the Paramount Group in South Africa, purveyors of innovative armoured vehicles. So, as suspected, we were treated to Richard conquering the Urban Jungle of Johannesburg in the Paramount Marauder, an aptly-named, go anywhere, seemingly indestructible piece of military hardware made street-legal.