Ten things we learned this week

If you've been near a games console in the last ten years, you should be familiar with the Banshee. In the Grand Theft Auto world of licence-free cars, it's a Dodge Viper in all but name.

A couple of years ago, West Coast Customs built a real-life Banshee. Based on a 2006 Viper SRT-10 (what else?), the fabrication of its one-off body totalled over $200,000, before it was given away in a promotion.

Its lucky first owner found it all a bit too high maintenance, though, and after selling it for $170,000, it has made its way through a couple more owners and around 7500 miles, before selling again this week for a relatively bargain $80,100, or the equivalent of £54,000.

Daylight robbery, an absolute steal, etc...

Fancy going rallying? Better check you understand pace notes. Might be good to get to grips with a sequential gearbox. Probably worth making sure you're a stong swimmer, too.

We refer you to this video from WRC Mexico, where driver Ott Tanak and co-driver Raigo Molder took an impromptu dip in their WRC Fiesta. And it's safe to say the time they're given to break free and escape before the car plummets into the ether is scant.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tanak has led a call for improved safety following his unplanned paddle.

If we could cover just one topic on TG.com, we'd pick dogs in cars. Pictures of dogs in cars, videos of dogs in cars, we're not fussed. There's little that warms our cockles more.

What we don't like, then, are dogs not in cars, particularly when those cars are fast moving and very close by. So praise be for the bikers of Brazil, then, doing their bit to turn around the less than salubrious reputation motorcycle gangs are often tarnished with. Watch this video and smile at humanity for the rest of the day.

This is the perfect American road trip

That's according to Randy Olson, a self-confessed ‘data tinkering' computer genius with previous of sussing out the perfect path to quickly finding where Wally is. Don't say he doesn't know how to ruin our fun.

Anyhow, rather than flick through an atlas with Trip Advisor loaded up in the background, he's used his computing cleverness to calculate a route across America (and back again) that takes in most of the country's states (48 of ‘em) and key landmarks (50 of those) with maximum efficiency.

The end result is the squiggle you see above; given it goes full circle, it can be started at any of its points, and Olson reckons it will take 9.33 days, though you'll need to expand that considerably to fit in the burgers, stopovers and selfies you'll surely want to indulge in along the way.

Not sold on the US? Olson has also worked his geeky magic on a map of Europe, producing a 16,000-mile, 14-day (!) trip that takes in 45 stops including Lapland, Monaco and Stonehenge. How good a road trip buddy he'd actually be has not been calculated.

Hang your head in shame. You've all been going out there, buying V10, flappy-paddle Audi R8s like you buy loaves of bread, while the sweetest models of the lot - those with click-clack manual gearchanges and creamy V8 engines - have sold in much paltrier numbers.

Therefore the new, second-gen R8 has eschewed both options and your only alternative to a stonkingly powered ten-cylinder engine is a mains-powered e-tron.

Both will doubtless be scintillating. But the sweet accessibility and involvement of the old, almost Ferrari 355-like entry-level model will be missed by us here, at least. Thanks a lot.

Scorch through a 50mph limit at 64mph here in Blighty and you'll get a £100 ticket if you're caught. Think that's unfair? The impatient Reima Kuisla did just that in his home country of Finland and ended up with a fine of 54,029 euros. That's over £38,000. Or a Porsche Boxster, in TG maths.

The reason for his rather plump penalty is Finland's laws, which see your punishment calculated in proportion to your income. Kuisla's 6.5million euro salary led to his best-roadster-on-sale shaped punishment.

Want to hear something scarier? It's not even half the size of Finland's most frightening speeding fine...

The Mitsubishi Lancer Evo - the former rally hero now outmuscled by hot hatches - has had the grim reaper looming over its spoiler-draped body for a long time now. But it's hung on in there.

And news has reached us this week of a new version to eke its life out just that little bit longer. It's the work of US tuner 311RS, who will show its work at the beginning of April, but the preview is pretty exciting.

It may sport some natty livery and oversized alloys, but those wheels are set to receive 500bhp. Take that, Golf R and Focus RS...

Good news! Actual, not-sarcastic-or-Dacia-Sandero-related good news!

As if buying a British-built Jaguar wasn't patriotic enough, JLR is giving former soldiers - out of work since finishing recent service - a crack at building cars. A bespoke training programme has seen ten former military personnel successfully claim a slice of the 1300 jobs announced to help Jag XE production along.

In the words of Alan Volkaerts, Operations Director at JLR's Solihull plant: "By working with ex-military staff and helping them strengthen their employability skills and relevant work experience, we can make a positive contribution to society as well as increasing the talent pool for our growing business."

Football team club shops flog some fairly predictable wares: replica kits, keyrings and signed photographs are sold at stadiums up and down the land. If you're a follower of German Bundesliga team Borussia Monchengladbach, though, you can indulge in something a little pricier. A car.

Meet the Monchengladbach Golf, complete with appropriate black and green livery. Joining the R-line bodykit on the ticked options box list are club crest emblazoned number plate holders and a matching sun visor.

Many questions come to mind, but the most pressing is this: why Monchengladbach? Wolfsburg, the football team of VW's hometown, currently sit 11 points above them in Germany's top division...

We could (and regularly do) geek out all day on Bloodhound SSC facts and figures. As its British team aims for 1000mph in the African desert, for instance, it uses a 542bhp Jaguar V8 simply as a fuel pump.

Joining the list of top trivia comes the numbers hurled out by this video. It shows some in-depth testing of the materials that will keep driver Andy Green out of harm's way. Harm, in this case, being a rogue piece of small debris hurtling towards his cockpit with the force of an articulated lorry.

This is the Bloodhound team making sure it will absorb the debris before it reaches the fleshiest, most vulnerable component inside. The result? Not even a cricket ball travelling at 1334mph will get in there...