Ten things we learned this week: 27 November 2015 edition

There are better things to buy on Black Friday than store-brand electronics. Things like the Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 (seen here with a BMW M6), which in the US can be had for as little as $25,000 under list.

OK, it’s not a Black Friday deal exactly, but the fact remains that some US dealers are lopping vast sums of money off brand-new Camaros. And remember, these are Camaros with a 500bhp V8, carbon-ceramic brakes, a limited-slip diff, adaptive dampers and fancy tyres. Camaros that lap the Nurburgring in under 7m40s. For the equivalent of a little over £30,000.

We’ll take six.

Save for the odd wet race, modern-day Formula One is rarely a tremendously exciting spectacle. With a lot of it coming down to strategy, it’s a bit like chess. Only quicker. Unless you’re in a Manor.

Which is why it’s kind-of appropriate you can now buy a chess set where each piece is made out of a bit of F1 car. The parts, which all comes from Lotus and Renault F1 cars from between 2005 and 2011, are turned and machined into brilliantly intricate bishops, rooks, knights, and the wee fellas.

With Maldonado’s propensity for hitting things, we suspect parts from this season will be in good supply. They might have to sweep them off the track first, however…

Dan Ticktum (not pictured) is just 16 years old, which may go some way to explaining his conduct at the Silverstone round of the MSA Formula Championship.

Ticktum tangled with 19-year-old rival Ricky Collard on lap one, which dropped him to the back of the field.

Under a safety car, Ticktum then passed 13 yellow flags, four double yellows, two white flags and 15 safety car boards to catch and ram into his rival. Smart.

The pair retired from the race, with Ticktum this week handed a two-year racing ban, the second year suspended for 12 months on the proviso he behaves himself on track, keeps his bedroom tidy and finishes his homework on time.

Its reach is pretty limited for now, but some Volvo owners in Gothenburg can now have packages delivered into their cars.

Buy something from one of two online retailers and check the in-car delivery option, and a man will hunt for your car, open it with a special key and secrete your package in the no doubt capacious boot.

No word yet on whether it works while the car’s moving…

It took several thieves more than five hours to strip $300,000 worth of alloys from 45 vehicles at a Texan Chevy dealer this week.

The dealer’s general manager told a local news station the thieves left the vehicles on blocks of wood they’d bought with them, before fleeing in a big truck.

In unrelated news, unconfirmed reports from Abu Dhabi suggest the impoverished Lotus F1 team was this morning seen attempting to fit a set of polished chrome 19s to its F1 car.

We are late, but we don’t care. This week, the TG office has mostly been caught in an infinite YouTube loop of videos, showing old school buses slamming into each other at high speed.

It’s called figure-of-eight racing, and it involves very silly men taking to a Scalextric-like crossover track, only without the bridge. Cue many rather serious accidents. They do it with cars, too. With boats hitched to the trailers. Yeah.

The McLaren P1, Ferrari LaFerrari and Porsche 918 are engaged in what can only be described as a war of speed.

As people start getting their hands on all three at once – something we did, ahem, last year – Koenigsegg has issued a quiet reminder that its offerings are faster than the lot.

“Does it trouble Koenigsegg that we’re not included in tests like these?” the company asks. “That we’re not included in the #HolyTrinity that publications are writing about so much?

“Not really. Well, not until such a time as it troubles any of our customers.”

We don’t think that will happen anytime soon, seeing as the Agera R and One:1 are both quicker than any of the ‘Holy Trinity’.

Hashtag burn.

No, they didn’t actually heave it off the edge of a cliff. This Miura is the very same one from the opening sequence of the Italian Job, for sale in Cheshire for an undisclosed sum. Expect many millions.

Delivered to its first owner immediately after filming, it’s one of three 1968 cars finished in this particular orange hue, and the only with a white leather interior.

It’s had a new engine and a spot of paintwork over the years, but we still reckon this ranks among the most desirable Miuras around. If you’re looking to buy Top Gear a Christmas present…

Alfa has launched a configurator – of sorts – for its many horsepowered Giulia, and try as we might, you can’t make it look rubbish. It just isn’t doable. There is no colour that doesn’t suit the Giulia, and no combination of wheel and brake caliper that make it look anything other than mightily gorgeous.

We’ll have one in blue, thanks. Now hurry up and make it real, Alfa.

We can’t think of why you might separate a car from its driver’s seat. It is surely one of the more crucial components, as anyone who has ever attempted to drive while standing up can surely testify.

And yet, police in Middlesborough this week came across an old Nissan Micra with an interesting modification. Its driver’s seat had been swapped for a garden chair. Judging by the pictures on the Mirror website, we suspect it offers roughly the same level of lumbar support as the standard seat.

The car, which was found abandoned in a field, was impounded. We’re so very close to being able to deploy the ‘police have nothing to go on’ gag here. But we won’t.