...and that gets passed on to the customer. As long as it's not an exhorbitant charge intended to lock the third party shops out, that sounds reasonable. The BMW dealer charges ~$100 if you go there...

One would think that the solution would be to provide access from third party shops to the DB through a similar interface...

I haven't driven Bolivian roads, but I have driven the Costa Rican part of that mountainous spine that goes (with some interruption) from southern Argentina all the way up into Canada. Solid rockface on one side, 1000 foot drop on the other, no guardrail, and oh yeah - here come two overloaded trucks in the other…

BMW 850Csi/Alpina B12 5.7 actually... (although I don't know the Ferrari order off the top of my head, they could be the same)

Italy is one of my favorite places - although it was much easier on a corporte expense account...

Thanks, Peter! It's been great to see a deeper perspective on things in your articles - we'll miss your great input.

Makes one wonder if the drivers have to "make weight" to retain the balance of the car before a race... although I believe there is ballast weight that can be shifted around...

I was actually surprised howmuch the driver position has moved around. Sure, there's a big switch from forward engined to rear engined, but the steering wheel position relative to the front wheels seems to move around quite a bit. I would think that you would want the driver sitting right around the center of…

The Airbus plant in Alabama is an interesting development - we already have a Boeing plant in Charleston, SC that recently delivered the plants first 787, there are lots of automobile plants in the southern states, and Siemens has also opened up a manufacturing facility for large gas turbines in NC, I believe. …

Douglas Fairbanks at the first Academy Awards... "Little Ceasar", is the only crime ring related film of his that comes up . Hmmm...

The day he took the hood home must have been interesting...

and yet you dismissed my #COTD nom with the link in the forum. See if you get another ;) (see jalopnik.com/cotd/forum )

Drive your dog in the car. Yes, you'll have to vaccum out some dog hair, but dog slobber is the strongest cleaner in the known universe. I don't care what gunk has ended up on your dash, wipe some dog slobber on it and it is just like the day it came out of the factory...

I may be simply not thinking here... but I can't recall a true sportscar made with a diesel in performance trim... (I _would_ like the option of more diesels here, though)

The problem is that in a cyclic industry (which both airline and automobile industries are), you need to be able to take advantage when the cycle is up... and lead time / capital investment is large for both industries... Automakers are going to have to have more efficient factories, such that they don't need to run…

I _love_ the puzzles - but an answer key the next day would help (that way we can all learn something...)

That's the new statistical notification system - I don't get notified at all, or when I do it's way late, so we should average out to correct notification. Why I'm out in the Roberto zone, and you're in with Ash, I have no idea. Maybe it's your Jalopnik Gold subscription? I let mine lapse like an idiot.

Here's the GE90 on the testbed aircraft (inboard port engine...)

I've used public transportation in DC, NYC, Barcelona... and it seems to work well. In most of this country, where there is very limited service (mostly busses), part of the failure is due to the fact that public transportation is initially pitched to those without access to cars, so the system ends up being built…

so GIS says that the 2nd gear picture is the Naked Chef guy, whom I know absolutely no idea about - anywone care to educate me on how he links into 2dnd gear?