Ten things we learned this week

There can be no greater cure for glum moods, tedious afternoons at work or gruesome hangovers. However you're feeling, prepared to have your spirits lifted sky-high by this wondrous video of a dog riding a tricycle.

Grinning already, aren't you? Barry the Bedlington terrier - besides sounding like he appears on children's TV - gets his kicks out of blasting downhill on the trike, looking not unlike the furrier, jollier, de-suited cousin of Saw-star Jigsaw.

"The three-year-old pet started by playing on skateboards," reports the Mail Online. "He then spotted the tricycle and sat on that instead, and before long the adventure-seeking dog was riding that too."

Barry, from Cumbria in England, hasn't yet mastered pedalling, so sticks to downhill runs rather than coast-to-coast trips. Whatever. He's still a tricycling dog. What next for Barry: learning to hoverboard?

Staying in the canine realm, a keen-eyed YouTuber has caught a pack of pooches causing trouble for an unsuspecting Toyota RAV4 owner in Russia.

The suspicious would accuse them of outright hooliganism - the white and black dog looking particularly yobbish as he ferociously rips rubber from rim.

Our hearts are kinder than that, though, and we're prepared to hypothesise that these well-meaning pups were strolling down the street, spotted a rogue flat tyre, and endeavoured to fix it before the owner got back to their car, thus avoiding a nasty surprise.

Much benefit of the doubt is required, given they've brought no spare tyre, nor any tools beside their pin-sharp incisors. But still. Nice try, lads.

 
Mere months after Australia smoked its way into 2015 with 103 simultaneous burnouts, Down Under's hard work has been quashed by the Americans.
 
“A total of 114 cars of nearly every conceivable make and model jammed onto the Memphis International Raceway (MIR) track to unofficially break the world record for largest continuous tyre burnout,” reports MIR’s website, somewhat underestimating just how many models of car are actually available.
 
You’ll no doubt have spotted the word ‘unofficial’; the Memphisians are awaiting the, um, rubber stamp of the Guinness World Records lot, but given they’ve announced the record beforehand, they’re clearly cocksure of their chances.
 
Over to you, Aussies…

 
British football teams are doing it all wrong. Win promotion to the Premier League and the default celebration appears to run thus: run around with your shirt off, throw it into the crowd, trot out some clichés to the telly cameras, go on an open-top bus tour of your team’s locality.
 
In Russia, as you might expect, things are done differently. FC Anzhi Makhachkala have marked their climb to the upper echelons of Russian football by, er, building a record-sized Lamborghini Gallardo model outside of their stadium.
 
At seven metres high, 11 metres wide and 25 metres long, it’s roughly five times the size of a regular Gallardo. But, though performance figures aren’t confirmed, we’d wager it’s 201mph slower. And 552bhp less powerful.
 
FC Anzhi says the giganta-Lambo will “always symbolize big and splendid success of our team”. What happens if they get relegated next season?

 
Okay, so these are scale models, with everything from Fiesta ST and new Focus RS to Shelby GT350R and GT supercar available, either pre ‘printed’ or as an electronic file for DIY construction.
 
But it’s a tantalising glimpse of a future where cars are bought electronically, before engorging themselves from a printer, ready to be driven without months of waiting for delivery to your dealer.
 
That may be as realistic as the monorail, hoverboard crammed vision of the future from decades ago. But we’re allowed to dream, yeah?

 
You’ve seen much jazzier top speeds on this website before, we concede. But a 24 per cent improvement over standard ain’t bad at all. And look how riotous bombing around in the Renaultsport Sandero looks!
 
As the Renault badges surely signify, we won’t be getting this in the UK. And Daciasport doesn’t exactly have a ring to it. But we’re still allowed to really, really want this to be good, aren’t we?
 
Specs haven’t been confirmed yet, but a 2.0-litre four-cylinder with around 140bhp mated to a six-speed manual gearbox is likely. It’s a mighty step up from a boggo 75bhp Sandero, and the idea of an even-more-Smartprice Suzuki Swift Sport excites us more than it perhaps should. We at least need a go in one…

 
If the Corvette sinkhole disaster made you blue, then worry not: its most significant victims are well on their way to being restored.
 
Following the salvation of a 2009 ZR1 Prototype last year, the millionth ‘Vette ever produced – a white-hued 1992 convertible – is now being brought back to its original condition with Chevrolet funding.
 
Those in charge of its restoration typically spend their time building concept cars, so this should be something of an interesting challenge. At around $750,000, it’s also reckoned to be the most valuable car sucked dramatically from the Bowling Green Corvette Museum last year.
 
One more ‘Vette – from 1962 – will be brought back to life, the remaining five cars deemed unsalvageable and staying damaged to form an upcoming exhibition about the sinkhole and its wrath.

McLaren's MSO special division continues its fine work, and it would appear there's a Sith Lord on its customer database.

Black and red is certainly a bold choice when it's applied thus, and this is sure to be a P1 that splits opinion.

If the striped diffuser and two-tone doors are still a little too subtle for you, then rest assured that the same colour scheme is applied even more liberally inside.

"I'd guess there probably is a point at which we'd say no, but we haven't reached it yet," MSO director Paul MacKenzie told TG a couple of years ago. Suffice to say, that point still seems to remain elusive.

Fiat has a past history of edgily sexualised advertising, and this latest video appears little different.

The Italian giant has teamed up with a German agency to produce an electronic billboard, which, when teamed up with ultrasound sensors in the two cars either side of a space, produces a corresponding on-screen helper happy to provide the international gestures of parking assistance for those having problems.

The bunny ears and flirtatious finger-wagging are, naturally, completely essential for the process.

But if you're worried it's all getting a bit too 1970s Carry On humour, fret not: the promotional video features a plethora of different on-screen characters willing and able to help troubled parkers. Phew.

We end on a very feelgood note, as the ACO confirmed this week that its experimental garage 56 entry will see Frederic Sausset race at next year's Le Mans 24 Hours.

Sausset is a quadruple amputee, having lost his limbs to a bacterial infection in 2012. He's started racing this year in a Ligier Prototype, and will pilot a specially developed Morgan-chassis LMP2 car in 2016, reports Autosport.

He'll operate the pedals via under-thigh controls, steering with a prosthetic right arm.

And if that's not enough to raise a smile, then let us tell you of 2017's garage 56 inhabitant: a 500bhp prototype powered by biomethane. As in, y'know, the substance brewed from the stuff that comes out of the back of cows...