Porsche Panamera designer focused on rear-seat passengers

There's no mistaking it for anything but a Porsche, but with four doors and four full seats, the Panamera is like no previous Porsche. Styled by a team of in-house designers under the direction of Michael Mauer, the Panamera is 195.7 inches long, 76.0 inches wide and 55.8 inches tall--making it slightly shorter but wider and lower than the Maserati Quattroporte, with which it shares a coupelike profile. As with all such silhouettes, "the real challenge is giving the rear-seat passengers enough headroom," says Mauer.

Big Willie Robinson: 1942-2012

Big Willie Robinson was as much legend and myth as flesh and bone, and at six feet, six inches and weighing 300 pounds, with 21-inch biceps and a 58-inch chest, there was a lot of flesh and bone. Robinson was more than a drag racer, promoter and sanctioning-body president. He was the man who used the power of horsepower to unite people of all colors and creeds under the banner of drag racing, once saying at a race, “Ain't no colors here, it's all just engines.” As the founder and president of the National and International Brotherhood of Street Racers, he used racing to bring the races together.

Pensioner rescued from sinking car

A PENSIONER had a lucky escape when he was rescued from his car just before it sank under water after he was stranded on a tidal causeway. The man, in his 80s, was trapped inside the vehicle with the sea rising around him after he got stuck on the causeway between Overton and Sunderland Point, Lancashire, the RNLI said. Emergency services were called just before 3.30pm yesterday and the Morecambe RNLI's inshore lifeboat crew found the man inside the car and unable to open the doors because of the pressure of water.