Mr. Gasket 9703g Automatic Transmission Dipstick on 2040-parts.com

One Lap of the Web: We missed April Fools'

-- Yesterday was April Fools' Day, a holiday known in some cultures as "April 1st." We chose to ignore the staid, unamusing fake press releases touting everything from Ford C-Max charcoal grilles to Audi sushi to BMW's annual efforts. ("The Ultimate Sleeping Machine" is what Web commenters will inevitably post in an effort to deride the upcoming 2-series.) But Petrolicious did a tasteful video of a certain moneyed purist's most prized vehicle, a car with all the panache, style, and passione that only its beautiful curves could convey. The folks at Petrolicious begged for a ride in this dangerously exciting speed machine, and by Jove, they got it.

This guy is making Chrysler's interiors cool again

In any roomful of Detroit auto executives, the man most responsible for the dramatic interior improvements of Chrysler Group's vehicles stands out dramatically. Klaus Busse is tall and lanky with giant hands and an outsized smile. His standard attire is a light-gray windbreaker worn over a faded T-shirt and jeans.

Car makers to be forced to disclaim ‘Official’ economy figures

We’ve banged on for a long time about the futility of official economy figures, especially as car makers get better and better at ‘gaming’ the official economy tests to produce the results they want. Much of the impetus to create the best headline economy figure for a car is driven by taxation, with car makers well aware that the better the official economy results are, the lower their CO2 will be (CO2 isn’t tested for – it’s just extrapolated from the official mpg) and the more appealing the car will be to buyers, particularly fleet buyers. But a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) against Audi could at least see car makers having to admit in their adverts that the ‘official’ economy figure bears no relation to what owners can expect to achieve in the real world.