1968 Mercury 200 20hp Outboard on 2040-parts.com

Car sales rise as shutdown ends

DETROIT -- Combined U.S. sales by the Detroit 3 rose 14 percent last month, helped by strong demand for sedans and pickups and an increase in showroom traffic after the partial government shutdown ended. General Motors reported a 16 percent gain after losing market share in August and September.

Alfa Romeo 4C in action at the Goodwood Festival of Speed (video)

The Alfa Romeo 4C made its dynamic debut (pictured) at the 2013 Goodwood Festival of Speed The long awaited Alfa Romeo 4C finally made its debut in production spec at the Geneva Motor Show in March, and at the weekend the 4C made its dynamic debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. To make sure the 4C made as big an impact as possible at Goodwood, we’d expected Alfa to run up the hillclimb in the launch edition 4C, which gets plenty of extra goodies including a carbon fibre body kit and spoiler, but this 4C looked to be a standard model. But even though we’d like to have seen the launch edition with its extra carbon fibre goodies, the standard car gets exactly the same 1750cc 4-cylinder petrol engine with enough get up and go, 236bhp, to move the lightweight 4C (under 900kg) to 62mph in just 4.5 seconds.

UK car owners 'buy with their heart, not their head'

CAR BUYERS in the UK are an emotional lot and more let their heart decide which car they will buy rather than their head. Even drivers who think they make a decision using their head are often found to let more emotive considerations sway their final choice. In the Hiscox Head versus Heart study, common sense factors such as fuel economy, value for money and reliability are often over-ruled by heartfelt matters including comfort, speed and design.