Chalk this one up to a twist put on a legal contract as Ben Collins has won his fight against BBC to release his memoir revealing The Stig.

In case you don’t know what we’re talking about, our favorite mystery test driver has been in the headlines recently after BBC took offense to his plans of publishing a memoir and thus took legal action to block the publishing of the book. According to BBC, publishing something as revealing as that would violate the terms of his contract, which specifically includes a confidentiality agreement to keep his true identity under wraps.

But, as it turns out, the network’s efforts were all in vain after a judge decided to reject BBC’s injunction to keep The Stig from publishing his written masterpiece. The reasoning behind the judge’s decision hasn’t been given, and we would find it quite interesting to know how BBC couldn’t win this fight. If a legal contract was signed, then how can it be ignored. Don’t get us wrong, we love that the cat is finally out of the bag, but the legality of the issue is quite perplexing.

In the days leading up to the hearing, a lot has been made about Ben Collins being identified as The Stig and while no confirmation has been made, the proof that Collins is, in fact, the mystery driver wasn’t any more evident after the man was spotted leaving the courthouse after the ruling was made. Collins kept mum on whether he was the man BBC wanted to put its shackles on, but you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to put two and two together.

As of now, though, The Stig, or Ben Collins, doesn’t have anybody – not even the BBC – impeding him from releasing his book which is set to launch on September 16th.

Judge decides against BBC on "Stig-Gate"; Ben Collins allowed to release book originally appeared on topspeed.com on Thursday, 2 September 2010 09:00 EST.

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Ferrari has finally issued a safety recall of the 458 Italia. Yes, finally.

After a disastrous few months that featured no less than five 458s inexplicably catching fire, the Italian supercar maker has finally conceded that there may, in fact, be something wrong with their new pride and joy.

Ferrari finally issued the recall after discovering that a certain adhesive material they used to attach a heat shield under the car’s rear fender has the potential to catch fire when subjected to high temperatures, which, in turn, could lead to a fire in the car’s engine. From all the photos we’ve seen of the burning 458s, each one of them looks to have taken place in the rear end of the car, which could indeed point to the adhesive as the main culprit behind the 458 barbecue fest.

To fix the problem, Ferrari has designed a new heat shield material that can replace the use of the defective adhesive by attaching it with rivets thereby completely removing the adhesive material that has caused all of these fires. So, if you happen to own a still-to-catch-fire 458 Italia, it’s absolutely a-must to contact your dealer as soon as possible and have this egregious problem fixed. You never know; if you don’t act quickly, that fire just might catch up to you and your beloved supercar.

Ferrari officially recalls the 458 Italia originally appeared on topspeed.com on Wednesday, 1 September 2010 20:00 EST.

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The king of the United Auto Workers, Bob King, has once again stood firm on his view to ban nonunion vehicles from UAW property. This time though, he went a little more hands on.

“Buying a U.S./UAW vehicle makes a difference,” King wrote in a two-page rebuttal to a blog post written by a Kansas City Business Journal reporter who was told to remove his Toyota Camry from a UAW parking lot.

The reporter, James Dornbrook, wrote that he was forced to move his car by a UAW member. Dornbrook also mentioned in his post that his Camry had more American-made parts than a Ford F-150.

While Dornbrook has a point, it apparently flew over the head of King, who wrote a long letter to the reporter. In it, he wrote how foreign automakers deny U.S workers the right to organize, something which the automakers deny.

“Foreign automakers accept U.S taxpayer’s dollars in incentives to build assembly plants in the United States, jeopardizing the future of middle-class workers in the domestic auto industry,” King wrote.

U.S automakers employ around 300,000 workers, which is still about two-thirds of all U.S autoworkers.

UAW President Bob King Reiterates Stance originally appeared on topspeed.com on Sunday, 22 August 2010 23:00 EST.

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With the Kia Rondo, it seems like it came in like a lamb and went out like a lamb. Nobody even noticed until someone sent in a tip to Autoblog. Even in its demise, Kia has been wishy-washy, simply stating that “Kia has not yet decided on a 2011 model, but the 2010 is still available in dealerships” even though the website makes it abundantly clear that the Rondo is gone in the USA, stating: “All good things must come to an end.”

Kia isn’t the only manufacturer with reservations about this segment in the United States. Chevrolet has recently announced that it will not bring its people mover, the Chevrolet Orlando, to the USA. When pressed for details as to why, GM staffers offered few concrete details and hinted that they felt it would not have competed well in the U.S. market. Do they mean the product or the concept?

Hit the jump to find out.

Kia Rondo’s Demise In USA: Can Small People Movers Sell Here? originally appeared on topspeed.com on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 18:00 EST.

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We don’t know what’s more impressive, the fact that the third-generation Volkswagen Scirocco rolled out its 100,000th model – it’s a Scirocco R 2.0 TSI with a Rising Blue Metallic exterior with a Titan Black interior – in VW’s plant in Portugal or that it did so without selling the car in North America and still pulled it off the feat in a little under two years.

Either way, the achievement is amazing on all aspects, especially when you take into account the fact that before returning to the market in 2008, the Scirocco model was sitting on the shelves for the better part of 16 years; ever since it was discontinued way back in 1992.

Today, the Volkswagen Scirocco has once again become one of the brand’s most important vehicles and you don’t need to look any further than the building of the 100,000th model of the third-gen vehicle to prove that the Scirocco has once again become a hot commodity from people interested in purchasing a VW.

Volkswagen celebrates 100,000th Scirocco built originally appeared on topspeed.com on Sunday, 8 August 2010 19:33 EST.

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We’ve all been there. You’re standing in the line at a gas station and you look up to see that the lottery has been bumped up to some unimaginable number. As the clerk slowly rings up the customer in front of you, you think of all of the things you would be able to buy and accomplish if you were lucky enough to strike it rich. It’s your turn now and you’re feeling a little froggy, so you jump. One lotto ticket please.

Like we said, we’ve all been there. Unfortunately, some of us have been there a lot more times than others and the amount of money that is literally slipping right off your fingertips stacks up as your chances get trimmed down. This is the exact idea that designers Lauren Was and Adam Eckstrom from the Rhode Island School of Design wanted to convey when they took $39,000 worth of lotto tickets and built a Hummer H3. They wanted everyone to see that with the money people have spent on lotto tickets, they could have just saved it up and bought something cool with it.

Their designs don’t just stop at Hummers either. Check out the gallery to see what other things were built using the useless pieces of paper that people paid for. We’re glad they built a Hummer because no one else is going to anymore.

A Hummer H3 made out of Lotto tickets? originally appeared on topspeed.com on Friday, 6 August 2010 22:00 EST.

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Citroen is looking to make life a little easier for anybody whose life revolves around being connected on-line. The French automaker announced that their new line of vehicles, particularly the C3, C3 Picasso, C4, C4 Picasso, C5, C6, and DS3 will all be outfitted with wireless internet connectivity, appropriately titled, ‘WiFi On Board’.

Installation and use of the wireless Internet is relatively simple to do. All you need to have – apart from the car, of course – is a 3G or 3G+ SIM card, which is available just about anywhere these days. Install the card into the car’s wireless device and, voila, wireless Internet on the go!

And in the event someone decides to steal some of your signal – or to keep you from ‘abusing’ your wireless on-the-road connectivity – the car’s unique security feature comes with a roaming override function. The whole package is available for just £545, including installation and VAT charges at 17.5%. Citroen also announced that thenew feature will extend to a wider vehicular range sometime before the year ends.

Press Release after the jump.

Citroen to begin having on-board WiFi access on its vehicles originally appeared on topspeed.com on Monday, 12 July 2010 10:00 EST.

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It’s hard to imagine how an electric car would sell well in the United States. After all, we love our big vehicles. Yet, Nissan’s new Juke defined logic and is selling very well indeed. It’s affordable, looks pretty good, and offers gas free motoring for city dwellers, all for under $20,000.

Nissan has already sold thousands of the Juke in Japan and it’s well on its way to selling even more in the U.S. Nissan had a goal of 1,300 orders in the first month. Well, try 11,000 orders for the little electric machine. Nissan had 5,296 orders in the first week alone.

The most popular color for the Juke buyers is Radiant Red and the most chosen interior color is red. Sapphire Black came in second with White Pearl in third. We would have chosen Pacific Blue, but only 2 percent did.

The Juke also appears to be a male car. Almost 20 percent of Jukes sold were to men, age 50 or over. Who said the older generation didn’t like change?

Press Release after the jump.

Nissan Juke Off To Fast Start In U.S originally appeared on topspeed.com on Saturday, 10 July 2010 18:00 EST.

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Although Chrysler hasn’t officially released the new 2011 Dodge Challenger pricing, we can bet that the NADA Guide site is an accurate estimate. You can build your very own Challenger with various options and they even include pricing. It appears to be fairly legit too.

What makes this so interesting is if these numbers are true, then prices have gone up substantially. A base 2010 Challenger SE with the 3.6-liter V6 is around $23,695, while the 2011 model is $2,310 more, at $26,055. The Coupe R/T jumps by $1,910 to $33,520. The top of the line SRT-8, which is the one you should have, is $1,921 more, at $45,601. A steep price to pay for that sweet motor.

When it comes to paint colors, Dodge has a whole buffet of them. You can mix and match all you want, depending on the model you choose. There is Redline 3 Pearl, Green With Envy, Billet Metallic, and so on.

We look forward to getting a go in one of the last muscle cars on the planet with a much improved dashboard and a 6.4-liter HEMI.

NADA Guide gives us a glimpse of 2011 Challenger pricing originally appeared on topspeed.com on Tuesday, 6 July 2010 11:00 EST.

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