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Consumer Reports selling its road-tested roadsters [w/video]

Here's a chance to acquire a celebrity-owned vehicles, and this time at a discount instead of a premium. So the celebrity in this case is Consumer Reports, that magazine that could be equally adored and abhored by car enthusiasts. CR buys all of its test vehicles and usually finds willing second owners within its own ranks, but its opening its small used-car lot to the public. On the forecourt are four roadsters: an automatic 2012 Audi TT 2.0 TFSI Quattro S-Tronic with 6,600 miles for $36,500, a manual 2012 BMW Z4 sDrive28i with 8,400 miles for $45,000, a manual 2012 Mercedes-Benz SLK250 for $39,500 and a manual 2013 Porsche Boxster with 7,000 miles for $48,000.
Those numbers mean a savings of $9,000 to $10,000 before haggling - each car is listed with an "Asking price" so there could be some wiggle room if you show up with pockets full of dough and eyes full of serious intent. Since the money CR earns from the sales go back into the magazine's budget to buy more test cars, however, it probably won't take any oddball trades, so you can forget about getting any purchasing help from that track-day AMC Javelin project on blocks in the back yard.
The vehicles have been taken care of and spiffed up for sale; buyers will take delivery at the CR test track in East Haddam, Connecticut and get a tour of the facilities. While you're there they'll even take you on a lap around the track so you can feel how your car handles when driven by one of its testers. They will probably not help you with advice on which toaster and dehumidifier to buy - you'll still need to get a subscription for that. Have a look at the video below to see a day in the life of a CR test car.

Police arrest 'Fastest Lap Around Manhattan' driver [w/video]

Don't speed. Don't drive recklessly. Don't try to break the unofficial record for a lap of Manhattan. And if you go against this reasonable advice, do not, under any circumstances, record it and post the video on YouTube. If you do, you'll end up like Christopher Adam Tang - under arrest and facing a bevy of charges relating to the video.
Tang posted the video, which showed him lapping Manhattan in 24 minutes last Wednesday, and it quickly went viral. Now Tang, who went by the online moniker AfroDuck, is in cuffs. According to a local CBS affiliate, he was picked up at his home on Wednesday evening by police, who also seized the car used in the video, a 2006 BMW Z4.
What isn't clear is how Tang was caught. His video seems carefully done in that there are no outwardly visible signs that point to him, while the video itself is clearly sped up. While the NYPD hasn't come out and said that Tang was caught due to its extensive surveillance systems around the city, police commissioner Ray Kelly did point out that the new systems "will assist in this type of investigation." Let that serve as a warning to anyone that tries to break the 24-minute barrier. Scroll down to watch the full video.

2014 BMW 328i xDrive Gran Turismo

"The Ultimate Driving Machine" has been BMW's tagline for nearly 40 years. Launched in the 1970s, the marketing campaign was a stroke of genius by ad firm Ammirati & Puris, as the phrase helped differentiate the imported Bavarian cars from their fellow European rivals by subtly pointing out that Mercedes-Benz and Audi were offering luxury models, while BMW was selling sporty and youthful driving dynamics. The campaign worked - some would argue that stands among the most effective ad campaigns ever - and countless Baby Boomers embraced the brand's fun-to-drive image by taking delivery of the company's new models.
BMW still boasts that its vehicles are "The Ultimate Driving Machine" four decades later, but the brand is very different today. It offered just a few model lines in the mid-1970s, and only a handful of vehicles within. In 2014, the automaker offers an exhaustive range comprised of nearly a dozen lines with almost 50 different models. To survive and thrive, BMW has decided it must massively broaden its appeal.
One of the latest arrivals to BMW's ever-growing stable is the 2014 3 Series Gran Turismo. The five-door hatchback is best thought of as a smaller version of the company's 5 Series Gran Turismo built on stretched 3 Series platform that, in the case of this test car, shares the running gear of the 328i xDrive sedan. On paper, the five-passenger vehicle checks all the proper boxes with regards to performance, utility and economy. But does this family-focused 3 Series still deliver driving dynamics that qualify it for the title of Ultimate Driving Machine?