Pirelli Tire 275/35r20 Pzero on 2040-parts.com

Studebaker trees: Dead company, living advertisement

Some of you may have seen this already; it’s been popular on the map sites for a while. But those who don’t know about Bendix Woods County Park west of South Bend, Ind., feast your eyes on 5,000 pine trees, planted in 1937, spelling Studebaker when viewed from high enough. Bendix Woods park was formerly the Studebaker proving grounds, and much of the track surface is still visible in satellite photos.

SEMA 2008 show report: Volkswagen Passat CC

By Ben Whitworth Motor Shows 07 November 2008 09:00 Volkswagen’s sobriety took a back seat at the SEMA show in Las Vegas this week – it pulled the covers off a pair of muscle-bound Passat CCs, a racy 295bhp Tiguan and a grunty diesel Jetta aimed at cajoling the American market into turning its back on gasoline. The unambiguously named Performance CC – designed by Volkswagen’s California-based design centre – gets a shot in the arm from a three-stage turbo boost to its 2.0-litre TSI engine. In Eco mode you get a modest 222bhp and 236 lb ft of torque, GT mode hikes those outputs to 252bhp and 268 lbs ft, while the Full Power stage unleashes 311bhp and 313 lb ft.

One Lap of the Web: A homebuilt KITT, and Tacoma vs. your girlfriend

Hagerty is profiling a homemade version of KITT from the "Knight Rider" TV series. Builder Chris Palmer needed five Pontiac Trans-Ams, tons of visits to eBay and hundreds of hours of work with help from friends. Check out the result here.