Ten things we learned this week: 26 August 2016 edition

Having the wheels stolen from your car would probably appear in yours and most drivers’ ‘Top 10 Worst Scenarios’ list. Spare a thought then for the general manager of the Peltier Chevrolet dealership in Tyler, Texas, who is facing a $200,000 bill having lost wheels and tyres from 48 vehicles to thieves.

CCTV footage has revealed that the suspects arrived in the middle of night last Sunday, breaking in by cutting the locks and then knocking out the usually-lit floodlights at the dealership.

They then reportedly spent around four hours gathering their haul, leaving behind a yard strewn with abandoned lug nuts.

“We’ll go through and do a full safety inspection, get wheels and tyres replaced and we’ve contacted our insurance company,” said GM David Bates, adding: “It’s rough but we’ll get through it.”

Image credit: Detective Gary King, East Texas Auto Theft Task Force

As in legally. On a track.

Renault has announced that it is launching a junior racing championship for 14-17-year-olds in the UK next year, with a 12-round, six-event racing programme built around the school calendar.

Competitors will partake in a warm-up, a qualifying session and two races in identical Renault Sport 220 Trophys at each of the events, although the circuits they’ll be racing on have yet to be confirmed.

To conform to the regulations the Clios will be limited to a top speed of 100mph and will have sixth gear blocked, although Renault promise that simple modifications will allow the vehicles to compete in other series.

Describing it as “the perfect arena” to showcase driver ability, Renault’s Will Fewkes confirmed that annual running costs are expected to come in at around £30,000. Money well spent?

The Mercedes G Wagen has conquered deserts, tundra and all manner of other wildernesses, but a flaw has finally been uncovered: a gentle slope in Stoke Newington.

Radio 1’s Nick Grimshaw had to miss his morning breakfast show on Monday after reportedly swerving to avoid a cat on his way to work in the £80,000 4x4.

“I turned out of my house, my car flipped over and went over on its side,” he explained the next day. “People were like, ‘You can’t have been doing 15 miles per hour.’ I was. That’s how embarrassing this was.”

Can a G Wagen really be rolled at that speed? Yikes.

If you’re a reserve driver for a Formula One team, then there’s a good chance that the summer break will have gone practically unnoticed.

True, McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne was called into action earlier in the year when Fernando Alonso injured himself in the opening grand prix in Melbourne, but other than testing and racing in the Super Formula series, the Belgian’s calendar hasn’t exactly been rammed.

It’s no wonder then that the 24-year-old had time for a spot of Uber driving in Brussels earlier this week, with users of the taxi-hailing app able to request a ride with him in a McLaren 570S.

If his performance in Bahrain was anything to go by, he’ll have got five stars for speed across the board...

Image credit: Stoffel Vandoorne

Not only do the highest-paid footballers earn enough money to buy a new supercar every week, they are also well connected enough to come by them free of charge. Nice for some, right?

On Monday several members of Bayern Munich’s first team squad were handed an Audi each as a company car for the coming year, as part of a commercial arrangement with the manufacturer dating back to 2002.

The RS models were said to be the most popular choice among the players with 15 of them opting for either an RS 6 or an RS 7, while manager Carlo Ancelotti had already called dibs on an S8 plus.

Each of the cars will get a registration plate including ‘M-DM’, referring to the Munich side being ‘Deutscher Meister’ (German Champions). Nicht fair!

In other truck news, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the US have announced new rules that should make medium and heavy duty vehicles more efficient.

Coming into effect in 2021, the idea is that emissions from things like lorries and buses will be steadily reduced over a period of six years. While trucks will be more expensive at first, the EPA and NHTSA believe long-haul drivers will easily recoup the money in saved fuel.

In fact, they calculate that around two billion gallons of oil will be preserved over the lifetime of the vehicles sold as part of the programme.

So that means there will be more to go around for supercars and convertibles. Hooray!

We’ll all have to think about our very last journey at some point in our lives, so why not plan to go out in style?

It’s the kind of thinking that gave birth to Italian company Ellena Autotrasformazioni, who have been in the business of constructing funeral hearses for the last 20 years.

Their latest creation is this G3.0, which takes its inspiration – and presumably many, many components – from the Maserati Ghibli.

If the G3.0 is anything like the Ghibli post-conversion then the ride quality won’t be up to much, but we reckon you’ll be past caring by the time you, um, require its services.

It still looks pretty stylish though. To die for, in fact.

Image credit: Ellena srl autotrasformazioni