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Ferrari F12 gunning for GT-R's Nurburgring lap time?

Ferrari may not play the Nürburgring lap time game to the extent that Porsche, Nissan and Radical do, but it has been known to go for some lap times of its own. And now an F12 Berlinetta has been spotted lapping the Nordschleife in an apparent record attempt.
The F12 reportedly had the track all to itself for about an hour and a half, suggesting one of two possibilities: either Ferrari is testing an updated version, or it's going for a lap record with the existing version. While it's impossible to tell what may be going on under the sheetmetal, the communications equipment taped to the roof appear to be the only outward modifications, and would seem to indicate the latter more than the former.
In between warm-up and cool-down laps, the F12 reportedly lapped the circuit in 7 minutes and 48 seconds - which wouldn't be anything spectacular in and of itself, but that lap apparently included 40 seconds of cool-down between T13 and Hatzenbach, suggesting a possible 7:08 lap time. That's the time which Nissan recently recorded in the GT-R Nismo, indicating that Ferrari could be going for Godzilla's top time as the fastest front-engined, street-legal car ever to lap the 'Ring, ahead of the Dodge Viper ACR, Lexus LFA with the Nürburgring Package and Corvette ZR1 (but behind Ferrari's own track-bound 599XX, which clocked a 6:58 lap time four years ago).

'Ferrari' is an oft-banned search term in China, but why?

The Internet has been a boon for car enthusiasts; after all, information about any car ever made is available at a few taps of the keyboard, whenever you'd like. Unfortunately, some Chinese motor heads are not quite as lucky because state censors have been intermittently banning searches for Ferrari on the country's micro-blogging sites, according to Time.
The problem has nothing to do with Maranello's supercars; it's what they represent. The Prancing Horse has become the symbol for so-called "princelings," wealthy young Chinese who use their parents' privileges in the Communist elite to afford luxuries.
The first bout of censorship came in 2011 when the son of then-high-ranking politician Bo Xilai was spotted cruising around Beijing in a red Ferrari, a vehicle much more expensive than he should have been able to afford. It started trending on Chinese social media, and censors began blocking searches for Ferrari in the car's red color. The Italian brand was censored again briefly in 2012 when a Chinese investor crashed his Prancing Horse into two other cars in Singapore.

Ferrari 250 GTO may have set new sale record at $52M

Records are made to be broken, and it seems that one may have just been snapped again. An Italian website is reporting that a Ferrari 250 GTO, owned by American collector Paul Pappalardo, recently sold for $52 million.
Now, this is far from confirmed - Pappalardo responded to questions about the sale saying, "I do not confirm these things, I have no comment about!" - and if it's a private sale, it's unlikely that we'll ever know the exact amount of the transaction. If that figure is correct, though, it easily eclipses the $35 million made in a 250 GTO sale in April of 2012, as well as the $27.5-million sale of a 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 NART Spider sold at RM's Monterey auctions in August.
What makes a car that had 39 examples built more valuable than one that had only 10 units produced? Racing pedigree. The 250 GTO is a racing legend, with each car having a unique provenance that is more than enough to add some serious value. According to 0-100.it, the GTO in question, 5111GT, found its first owner in French racer and winner of the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans, Jean Guichet, back in 1963. The Frenchman used the V12-powered racer to win the GT category of the Tour de France Automobile in that same year.