The good oil: Fiery Cobra recalled

Shelby Cobra. Photo / Supplied

Finishing touch to last week's story about the 50th anniversary edition of the Shelby Cobra, the open-top flyer with a British body and an American V8 heart. American Carroll Shelby (pictured) kept his 1962 original Cobra, using it over the years as personal transport. He raced it in a Cannonball Run race in Nevada where, he said, he was "waking up whole towns, blowing out windows, throwing belts and catching fire a couple of times, but finishing". He sold it four years ago, at auction in Arizona, where the 50th anniversary car was unveiled last week. Shelby's original fetched $6.5 million.

Enlisting Shakespeare

Toyota is working hard to find the plural for the word Prius, the name of the carmaker's petrol-electric hybrid. It is Latin for "to go before." Joining in to lend a hand is actor James Lipton, host of US television programmeInside the Actor's Studio. Lipton sits down with a pretend William Shakespeare, a group of cheerleaders and a spelling bee champion. Each guest casts their vote for the correct plural of Prius and voting is still open on Toyota's Prius Family site. "Prii" is leading strongly with 40 per cent of the vote. "Priuses" sits in second with 27 per cent while "Prius", "Prium" and "Prien" bring up the rear. The winning word will be revealed on February 20.

Chocolate car for two

In Japan, Christmas Eve is a romantic holiday during which couples eat special cakes. So what's Valentine's Day? An occasion for women to buy men chocolate, of course. Or even chocolate cars. Luxury Japanese jeweller and chocolatier Q-Pot has come up with a Smart ForTwo micro-car for Valentine's Day that looks like it's made of chocolate. The chocolate-themed paint scheme pushes the price of the special-edition ForTwo up by about $10,000.

Four-cylinders beat V8s

The V8 engine powered a mere 20.8 per cent of total North American light-vehicle production in 2010, down from 22.8 per cent in 2009, reports research group Ward's Auto. In contrast, the four-cylinder engine powered 64.5 per cent of all cars built in 2010, an increase from the 61.9 per cent in 2009. Ward's chalks up the rising popularity of the four-banger to technical improvements, such as direct injection, turbocharging and variable valve timing systems, that have transformed some four-cylinder engines into potent mills that consume significantly less fuel than many V6 and V8 engines.

Mexico jibes 'vulgar'

Top Gear presenters Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May are in hot water with the Mexican government over comments about Mexico's Mastretta MXT sports car. Hammond said: "Mexican cars are just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat." Clarkson joked that the BBC wouldn't receive any complaints from the Mexican ambassador because he would likely be asleep. He was not. The ambassador wrote to the BBC complaining that the presenters had used vulgar and bigoted language to describe the people of his country and that the remarks were both xenophobic and humiliating.

We are the world

* Sheriff's deputies in Florida were called to break up a fist fight in a caravan park between neighbours Joe Capes and Ronald Richards. The two were arguing over whether the late country singer Conway Twitty was gay. Richards said Twitty was gay; Capes said he wasn't. Cops arrested Capes for starting the scrap.

* Cops in Pennsylvania followed the blood trail from the supermarket to a car in the parking lot. There they found alleged shoplifter Michael Barton, blood dripping from his hands. Barton, 29, had cut himself removing razor blades from their packages in order to fit more into his pocket.