It's normally illegal to profit from a crime - for example, a murderer can't sell his story to the papers (any more). I'd expect that to cover the situation you suggest as well.

This comes under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment, but I suspect it wasn't actually ordered by the judge, technically. Usually these measures are not imposed, but voluntarily agreed by the offender in exchange for a lighter sentence.

Just wondering, but if your wife has no interest in cars wouldn't it make more sense to buy her something utilitarian, cheap, and beige, and put the money towards something else? (That's assuming the S40 isn't the cheapest way to go.)

I'd be quite happy if my wife came home with a CrossCab. It would mean that she was starting to take an interest in cars.

Just thought I'd mention that my grandmother did that several times (to my grand-dad). It simply wasn't any of his business as far as she's concerned, and he certainly didn't object. He had no interest in cars, so had whatever beige box did the job, and she'd have her BMW or whatever.

Mikey dear, by definition all research is speculative. If you know what you're going to find, it's not research, is it? Obviously some research is more speculative than other research, but it's all speculative.

I think you misunderstood. You haven't been able to get a grey import into the UK for ten years or so. Not that you can only import 10 year old cars.

Behind the dashboard, of course. Anyone who's ever had to change dashboard bulbs will surely agree.

If you each have $3500 of fun-money to spend and you spend yours on the Rangey, why should she object? Course, if that was the food money for the next few months...

My dad's bought cars without consulting my mum on several occasions. She couldn't care less. In the first place, he's the one who knows how much money there is to spend, and, more importantly, she doesn't really care what she drives.

Just thought I'd point out that R&D is, by its very nature, speculative. Just because someone does research into something doesn't mean it's effective or economically viable, just that it might be. If something will pay back the research costs a thousand-to-one if it is successful, there only needs to be a…

Rocket fuel is used in every car on the roads - solid rocket motors often burn rubber as the fuel, along with some kind of oxidiser.

By the look of it, the sides of the cylinders are longer than the diameters. More would fit in the truck if they're up on end. Maybe not enough to matter, though. For all I know it's so that the illegal immigrants rolled into the centre of the bales are more comfortable.

I'd go down the light-weight route as well. I was just pointing out that size isn't too much of an issue because there's evidently a fair bit of space to work with if you can fit a V8, even a relatively compact one like the Rover V8, under the bonnet.

Pushrods are outdated. Presumably there are compromises that mean it makes sense for GM to keep using them. What would they be?

Can't believe I completely forgot to post this at the time:

You'd be surprised how big an engine you can fit under the bonnet of a Caterham - there are some Rover V8s out there, I seem to recall.

A 250GTO is worth around $10 million these days. We value the lives of African children at around $10 each at most. Clearly we, as a society, think the Ferrari is far more significant than a handful of children in Africa.

So are they all going to be banned for life and possibly face criminal charges? Whoever that arsehole was who got out of his car and ran for a couple of minutes to join in a fight he wasn't involved in should just get packed off to Afghanistan if he's so keen.

Jag XJ-C or first-gen XJ6 would be perfect :)