Wix Oil Filters 51522mp Lot Of 7 on 2040-parts.com

One Lap of the Web: The Economist talks cars, Maria Sharapova's Porsche and crazy bikers

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- Have you ever seen two motorcycles going wheel-to-wheel at 200 mph in the rain?

2013 Nissan LEAF updated

Nissan has updated the LEAF EV in Japan for 2013 with better range, less weight and a new LEAF S entry-level model. Revealed in Japan – but likely to come to the UK from 2013 when the LEAF starts rolling out of Nissan’s Sunderland factory – there are significant upgrades to the powertrain which result in both less weight and better range. Nissan has had a play with the electric powertrain and made it both smaller and lighter with a new motor that uses 40 per cent less dysprosium (a rare earth metal) than before, and comes in 30 per cent smaller and 10 per cent lighter, and a new streamline battery case and a few other tweaks drops the LEAF’s weight by 80kg.

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.