Ten Things We Learned This Week

Clearly sick of young Middle Eastern gents grabbing the attentions of the automotive paparazzi in London's glitzy Knightsbridge, a Russian business student has hit back with some serious bling.

21-year-old Daria Radionova - a lady TG suspects may not hail from the wrong side of the tracks - has treated her Merc CLS 350 (registration (BA11 BYY) to a coat of more than a million Swarovski crystals.

"I wanted to have something unique and do something special," says Daria. "The people who did it came over from Russia and worked for 12 hours a day for two months on the car."

The crystals alone cost a reported £20,000, but Radionova insists she is of altruistic bent. "When I sell the car, I will give the money to charity," she says.

No word whether the CLS has been plagued by light-fingered ‘souvenir hunters' on London's streets, but we do know Radionova keeps a spare bag of the gems inside the car to patch up any losses.

TG's attempt to replicate this effect on our ratty BMW 320i, using 200 packets of Little Gems and a tub of Superglue, has thus far proved unwhelming. And lightly rat-infested.

Last year, Volvo Trucks' ‘The Epic Split' advert - starring an impressively flexible Jean-Claude Van Damme - went Full Viral, having recorded over 75 million YouTube hits to date.

And now the Scandivian lorrymeisters have released the follow-up to ‘The Epic Split'. It features rather fewer groin-tearing stretches, but it's rather jolly all the same.

Filmed on Italy's swanky Riviera, it purports to show hidden camera footage of a valet parker being surprised by a rather larger vehicle than usual.

We're not sure how ‘real' it all is - surely not everyone in Italy can be that louche and handsome? - but it's another good'un from our favourite Swedes, and further proof Volvo's mojo is on the rise. Time for that hot hatch please, chaps.

Watch the video here

Drag racing: it's just driving in a straight line, right? Well, it is if things go right. When things go wrong - especially in classic drag racing, in classic cars with a classic lack of rollover protection - drag racing tends to get rather... wonkier.

Just ask the driver of this souped-up 1955 Chevrolet. Lined up against a second-gen Camaro on the quarter-mile straight, all looked to be going smoothly until the Chevy decided it wanted a better look at its peripheral surroundings. From every angle.

Scroll forward to the minute mark, and prepare to wince as the retro rod enters a nasty fishtail before launching broadside across the track, a grizzly crash that ends with the Chevy's driver sticking feet-first through the space where the windscreen once lurked.

Amazingly, the driver emerged with nothing more than a limp. And, we're guessing, a quick prayer to his merciful Almighty.

Watch the video here

Vital scientific research by taxi app Ingogo this week revealed just a few of the items left in the back of minicabs by our absent-minded Australian brethren.

Along with the usual array of phones, wallets, keys and laptops, Antipodean lost luggage included (deep breath): a set of false teeth, a duck, a bag of cooked crayfish, an STI test result, inflatable animals, used underwear and a tent.

In the words of Dr Strangelove's Major Kong, a guy could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.

Bemusing news from Sofia, as tuning house Vilner sends us evidence of its latest project, dubbed the ‘BMW Stormtrooper'.

Careful visual inspection reveals this project to comprise a modified 6-Series convertible, a Darth Vader and a pair of his Stig-inspired henchmen... but beyond that, your guess is as good as ours.

Beyond the obvious ‘upgrades' to the 6's bodywork, wheels and interior, we've no clue whether the BMW's mechanicals have been upgraded to a potency befitting of a Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet.

More pressingly, we are unable to enlighten you on what the connection might be between a posh GT cabrio and George Lucas's sci-fi epic.

And we absolutely couldn't say for sure whether Vilner has obtained the relevant copyrights to pursue such a project. However, we suspect the g-force is strong with this one.

The Netherlands' contribution to global car culture has, in recent years, been limited to a few fitful attempts by Spyker, and of course the tilt-tastic ‘Carver' pod.

But now there's a new flying Dutchman on the scene: the Sixties-Le-Mans-racer-inspired Silvermine 11SR.

The work of engineer Frank Van Rouendal and designers Marco and Andries van Overbeeke, the track-spec 11SR employs a Subaru boxer six churning 325bhp through a six-speed sequential box to the rear wheels. There's also a road version that makes a more modest 225bhp.

We're told each 11SR will take six months to build, with the first deliveries expected early next year. Given (a) the number of promising sports car projects that disappear into obscurity before producing so much as a single example and (b) the ready availability of, ahem, distracting substances available in the Netherlands, we'd say that's an ambitious timeframe.

News reaches us from China that the city of Chongqing - recognising the challenge of texting while maintaining acceptable speed - has implemented a dedicated lane for those who wish to fiddle with their phones on their morning commute.

If this sounds like a recipe for crashy disaster, fear not. It turns out Chongqing's smartphone lane isn't for distracted, texting drivers, but instead for distracted, texting pedestrians.

A section of busy pavement has been divided into two sections, with one side warning: ‘Cell phones - walk in this lane at your own risk.'

"There are lots of elderly people and children in our street," explained a Chongqing spokesman. "Walking with your cellphone may cause unnecessary collisions."

Local news sources report the lane may actually have exacerbated the congestion problem, with tourists stopping to take photos of the lane. We're also told that avid texters seemed too distracted by their phones to pay sufficient attention to stay within the lane.

There's a lesson in there somewhere, isn't there?

For those of you sick of eBay listings depicting battered Vauxhall Corsas with MAD BASE SPEEKERS INNIT and AUTENTIC BODY CIT, relief comes in the otherworldly form of Mike Vetter's Extra Terrestrial Vehicle, listing in the States for a buy-it-now price of just $89,000.

Quite what the ETV is, beyond one of the oddest road-going contraptions we've ever laid eyes upon, remains far from clear. We're told the two-seater pod boasts a 2.0-litre supercharged Chevy engine good for 270bhp, and features adjustable air suspension, Lambo-style scissor doors and windows made of, um, glass.

However, there's no word on what chassis might lie beneath that strange, alien bodywork. Perhaps no one knows. Some say it was discovered one stormy night at the bottom of Arizona's Meteor Crater, steaming gently and emitting a faint humming noise. Others say it's probably a Ford Pinto under there.

Whichever way, the galactic pod is described as ‘used' but in ‘very good condition'. Seems Martian cephalopods take fine care of their runabouts.

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The F40 LM (Le Mans) was the track-only version of Ferrari's legendary Eighties supercar, a wings-and-slicks special even nastier than the road car upon which it was based.

With more aero, bigger brakes, a race-grade gearbox, no interior to speak of, and - most importantly - an uprated version of Ferrari's 2.9-litre twin-turbo V8 producing something in the region of 900bhp, it was a car to be approached with extreme caution, even in the (relatively) safe surrounds of a circuit.

Which is why news of a road-legal F40 LM coming up for sale in the USA has engendered more than a little concern within the Top Gear office. Listed at Hemmings.com, we're told the red LM - originally registered - has only this year been converted to street spec, and has just 11,000 miles on the clock.

Hemmings reports the LM is in mint condition, a state of affairs likely to rapidly change the first time its new owner takes it out on a greasy B-road on a wet morning.

The price? 1.25 million of your American dollars, or around three quarters of a million British poundlets. Subscription to Marks and Spencers' ‘unsoiled underwear' department not included.

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Sometimes it's just too much, isn't it? Life, we mean. The very act of continuing to muddle through everyday existence, to, in the words of F Scott Fitzgerald, 'beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.' Sometimes, maybe, it's best just to stop, if even for a second.

Which is why TG applauds this Sydney resident who, when his car conked out on a major thoroughfare in the Australian city, didn't blow his lid, or collapse in a weeping pile on the street at the thought of missed meetings and repair bills and the futility of our brief spin about this mortal coil.

Instead, the bemaned Aussie simply grabbed a towel, and took the opportunity to grab some rays on the roof of his car. Dedicated sunbathist, TG salutes you. When life gives you lemons, screw those damn lemons and top up your tan instead.

Watch the video here