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A1 Team USA's Jonathan Summerton Challenges the World's Best Young Guns by Allan Brewer allan@fastmachines.com...

Bite of Big Apple Brings Out Throngs of OnLookers by Allan Brewer allan@fastmachines.com...

Saw this article in today's Times newspaper about robots. I've seen clips of Honda's ASIMO running and it's impressive stuff. How quickly are these robots coming? Probably Japan is the place to go to for an answer to that. The labour shortage there could well be a driver. Looks like there's a growing shortage of people there to do the dirty jobs and they don't have the equivalent of Poland/Romania/Mexico etc on their doorstep. Well, actually, they do, but they ain't letting them in and they'd rather have robots.

Clive Matthew-Wilson down in NZ tells me that he translates the entire Japanese Transport Department database and has full details on the latest Toyota/Lexus recalls over fuel pipes. Looks like a very useful link if you want more details on models affected.

I've started the day on an upbeatish note, fantasising about owning an Aston Martin over the usual extra strength two mugfuls of coffee (freshly ground beans, always). Interesting to reflect on the phenomenon of the 'super rich' and society's income distribution generally. There comes a point at which there are strains, but I guess there's an optimal balance that encourages the right amount of aspiration, entrepreneurial innovation and so on, without riots in the streets over the price of bread (or the value of pensions). London is a city that, in the early part of this century, encapsulates the new wealth and the lifestyles of the super rich - but it's a global trend. There might not be all that many of them, but wealth attracts wealth and these people are needing to spend on luxury items. No wonder Aston Martin is doing so well (Kuwait to produce the Rapide?). But the super rich might be due to be taken down a peg. House prices in UK are moving down and the credit crunch is still playing out in financial markets, the US economy is slowing down, Britain's to follow. Mind you, there are still the sporting superstars (or even just regular footballers on GBP100,000 a week), TV chefs and Russians to keep the Aston Martin orders coming in. I believe Astons can be troublesome though. Might be better to have a Jaguar XK8 and save some money, while also perhaps having to endure less trips to the garage. Just who am I kidding? I don't think I am excessively materialistic and there are much more important things in life, obviously, but it would be a duller world if there weren't things like Astons to momentarily fantasise about wouldn't it?

Indianapolis-based Team Puts Christmas Gift in Fans' Pockets by Allan Brewer allan@fastmachines.com...

Car Research and Pricing at Edmunds.com. Buying a car is a big investment, but it can be exciting and rewarding, especially if you feel like you got the right car at a fair price. Start investigating and discover what is fair at Edmunds.com on the car of your dreams. Is that car dealer really telling the truth? find out before you even set foot in a dealership what your trade in is worth and what the real value of what they are trying to sell you really is.

Car Research and Pricing at Edmunds.com. Buying a car is a big investment, but it can be exciting and rewarding, especially if you feel like you got the right car at a fair price. Start investigating and discover what is fair at Edmunds.com on the car of your dreams. Is that car dealer really telling the truth? find out before you even set foot in a dealership what your trade in is worth and what the real value of what they are trying to sell you really is.

The news that the Opel/Vauxhall Vectra replacement will debut at the London Motor Show in July next year is something of a coup for the London organisers. It's a very good global debut to have bagged for a show that is still finding its feet after the move from Birmingham's NEC. Even better, it's 'repeat business' from GM. I wouldn't mind betting that GM will be looking to do something spectacular - some kind of stunt - like it did with the Corsa in 2006 (my pics in this article). That was a pretty impressive stunt and ensured wide media coverage.

James Woolsey seemed an interesting fellow as a guest speaker at the SMMT din-dins last night (I have to say ‘seemed’ because I had earlier inadvertently swallowed a vat of very quaffable champagne – rude not to and all that). His remarks, bearing in mind who he is and where he has worked, couldn’t fail to make an impression. In a nutshell, he makes a connection between buying oil from the Middle East so that that region is awash with money and the international terrorism that emanates from there. Enriching the Middle East means that we are ourselves funding fundamentalist Islamic schools that teach their students to hate the West. And that’s the ‘malevolent threat’ to the West – terrorism. And there’s a ‘malignant threat’, which is global climate change. And both threats need to be dealt with. The root cause of the problem is both an oil-based economy and the problem of where the oil consumed comes from. Therefore, the consumption of fossil fuels needs to be cut. Woolsey is a big advocate of biofuels as well as electric plug-ins in the transportation sector. And he wants us to drop the nonsense of hydrogen - still a long way off, practically speaking, and hugely expensive in infrastructure terms. He’s coming at it from a mix of energy security and environmental concerns – but the energy security aspect seems like the bigger one in what he says. The Middle East region is certainly a mess on many levels – no question. And the share of known world oil reserves coming from there is going up. At least Woolsey is addressing something that many prefer not to talk about, head on. For all the fuss about Iran, just take a look at Saudi Arabia, so-called ‘friend of the West’. We have been taking the oil, paying the money and pretty much leaving them to it (bar the occasional fawning to supply the ridiculously wealthy feudal rulers with all manner of goods and military equipment).