Revere Coastal Commander 6 Person Life Raft on 2040-parts.com

PSA: Your Green With Envy 2011 Dodge Challenger is on the way

Detroit can be a hard place to live, but for the car-inclined, it's also dotted with daily treasures that make the trouble worthwhile: Perhaps there's a manufacturer-plated Alfa Giulietta parked at the grocery store. A Chevrolet Volt parade cruising up Woodward Avenue on a random Wednesday. Or my treat this morning, a truckload of Green With Envy 2011 Dodge Challenger R/T Classics on their way to market.

Old is new again: Will a floor-hinged throttle pedal be in your future?

If you think that every little nut, bolt, switch, gear or widget in your new car wasn't scrutinized by a team of highly educated, overworked car geeks (read: engineers), think again. A couple of recent conversations with automotive engineers confirmed that virtually nothing that goes into a car today is taken for granted. During the recent Pebble Beach weekend, I had the pleasure of spending time with an engineer for Jaguar, and the subject turned to materials used for various switches in the cabin.

2014 BMW X3 Facelift and more efficient engines

The 2014 BMW X3 (pictured) gets a facelift and new engines The current version of the BMW X3 SUV has been with us for more than three years, so BMW are giving it a bit of a mid-cycle facelift and more frugal engines to keep the X3 on top of its – very successful – game. Engines on offer for the 2014 X3 include the 2.0 litre diesel in the sDrive18d which offers 148bhp and 56.8mpg and the 187bhp in the X3 xDrive20d which returns 52.3mpg, the xDrive30d – which gets the 3.0 litre diesel unit – with 254bhp and 47.9mpg and the X3 xDrive35 which has an impressive 309bhp but still manages official economy of 47.1mpg. When it comes to the cosmetic facelift bits, BMW hasn’t really pushed the boat out, but the new X3 does get a new headlight design which is sleeker, new front and rear bumpers and a new surround for the kidney grill, which all contrive to make the new X3 look even more like a baby X5.