Ford 9'' Panhard Pinion Mount on 2040-parts.com

Range Rover Sport claims desert crossing record

The last couple months have seen a number of cross-country record attempts, but here's one we didn't see coming, and frankly couldn't imagine taking place. But Land Rover claims to have broken the record for crossing Saudi Arabia's 'Empty Quarter,' starting at Wadi Adda Wasir in Saudi Arabia, and traveling east across the desert to the United Arab Emirates border. The 'Empty Quarter' is known to be one of the harshest and most challenging environments on the planet, and is actually the largest sand desert in the world and the second largest desert overall after the Sahara.

Driven: Renault Megane Coupe concept

Renault design this century hasn't exactly met with universal approval. The Vel Satis, though radical, was largely unloved. The Avantime lasted only a couple of years in production.

Mercedes-Benz CL gets a facelift for 2011

Three years after its introduction, Mercedes-Benz has given the CL a mid-cycle facelift, providing the big two-door with lightly altered bumpers--those up front with new LED daytime running lamps, reshaped headlamps, a more contoured hood, larger exterior mirrors with integrated indicators and revised tail-lamp lenses, among other detailed visual changes. More significant than the styling tweaks, however, are the changes underneath the hood, with the arrival of a new twin-turbocharged 4.6-liter V8 direct-injection gasoline engine--the first of Mercedes-Benz's advanced MoVe powerplants that aim to bring efficiency gains to its lineup. With 429 hp and 516 lb-ft of torque, the new engine delivers 47 hp and 125 lb-ft more than the naturally aspirated 5.5-liter V8 it replaces in the four-year-old CL500--enough to lower the luxury coupe's 0-to-62-mph time by 0.5 second to 4.9 seconds.