1976-1981 Camaro Trans Am Firebird Driver Bucket Seat Right Inside Track on 2040-parts.com

Tesla Model S battery fire inquiry closed by NHTSA

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it closed a three-month-long investigation of fires in the Tesla Model S this week, as Tesla announced a design change to better shield the electric car's batteries. Tesla Motors Inc. said today it has started building the Model S with a titanium underbody shield to prevent battery fires like the two that occurred in the United States last year when Model S drivers struck road debris.

Black Stig Back!

The Stig Saga rolls on! As we reported a few weeks ago, White Stig (the Top Gear test driver) was outed as Ben Collins, and we speculated, as did everyone else, whether this would be the end of  White Stig. After all, when Black Stig was outed as Perry McCarthy he was unceremoniously killed-off by drowning when his XJS flew off the end of HMS Invincible.

One Lap of the Web: Let's visit Amelia Island in a short bus camper

-- Ken Kesey and friends spent most of the countercultural 1960s driving across the country in a 1939 International Harvester school bus painted in psychedelic colors. Portland, Maine architect Will Winkelman might do less drugs (we don't know), but the 1959 Chevrolet Viking short bus he designed might fit Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, especially if you stacked them head-to-toe. For his client, Winkelman designed a Moroccan theme of colorful patterns and textures across the curtains and twin beds, beaded light fixtures and wood paneling everywhere, approaching the project as one might approach boat-building or a particularly run-down Detroit "fixer-upper." The result has plumbing, power, an olive-drab paint scheme that blends into the New England woods, and the overall sense of a guest bedroom that you can escape in whenever you tire of your host's company.