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Italian police foil plot to snatch Enzo Ferrari's body

Italian authorities on Tuesday said they had foiled a plot to steal the body of automotive legend Enzo Ferrari. That's Enzo Ferrari the man, not Ferrari Enzo Ferrari the supercar. Ferrari died in 1988 at age 90. He founded the company that produces some of the world's fastest and most expensive cars. Police in Nuoro on the island of Sardinia told a news conference that a gang had planned to snatch the body and demand a ransom from the Ferrari family or the company, Reuters and Italian news outlets reported. Authorities said the plot was discovered during an investigation into arms and drug trafficking. Helicopters and parachute regiment officers were used to execute 34 arrest warrants. Ferrari's body is interred above ground in a family mausoleum in Modena, near the Ferrari plant at Maranello in central Italy. Gang members had allegedly conducted several inspections of the burial site to plan the operation. The Ferrari founder has been in the news a lot recently. Two movie biopics are coming out, in which Robert De Niro and Hugh Jackman will each play the racing great.Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Auto News Government/Legal Weird Car News Ferrari enzo ferrari

Full-camo Ferrari F12 M spied testing in Maranello

Going on five years old, the Ferrari F12 is due for a freshening. And so our spy photographers caught the next version of Ferrari's front-engine two-seater running around Maranello in full disguise. According to Autocar, the production version should appear at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show. Details at this point are scarce. In the photos you can see the large round brake lights behind the body coverings. They appear to be the same as those on the current F12, but don't count on that continuing through. As with the FF's evolution to the GTC4 Lusso, we expect some changes to the front and rear styling when the F12's suffix changes from Berlinetta to M. And with the GTC4 Lusso adopting a turbo V8, it's possible Ferrari will spread that option to the F12 M as well. But calm down, we're not expecting he V12 to go away. In fact, we expect it to get a power bump, similar to what we saw in the limited-edition F12 TdF, which puts out 769 horsepower, 39 more than the F12 Berlinetta. What we probably won't see in the upcoming F12 M is a hybrid powertain, despite the fact that all Ferraris are moving in that direction. That shift will happen with the F12's successor. Which leaves you plenty of time watch this video of the F12 M running around Maranello. Enjoy. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Featured Gallery Ferrari F12 M Spy Photos View 19 Photos Spy Photos Geneva Motor Show Ferrari Coupe Performance Supercars ferrari f12 berlinetta

BMW, Ferrari, VW cars use tungsten mined by terrorists

Bloomberg Markets is reporting that BMW, Volkswagen and Ferrari have been using tungsten ore sourced from Columbia's FARC rebel terrorists. The extensive story focuses on Columbia's illegal mining trade and calls into question the provenance of the rare ore that is used not only in crankshaft parts production, but is also found in the world's computing and telecommunications industry for use in screens.
The ore is mined by the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army), and exported to Pennsylvania, where it is refined. The refined ore is then sent over to Austria, where a company called Plansee turns it into a finished product. Now, it's important to note that we aren't talking about the world's supply of tungsten here. In 2012, Plansee's American refinery purchased 93.2 metric tons of tungsten, valued at $1.8 million. That's peanuts, with the entire Colombian tungsten mining industry producing just one percent of the world's supplies.
That doesn't make indirectly supporting FARC any more acceptable, though. BMW, VW and Ferrari are all committed to not accepting mineral supplies from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is also in the grips of a guerrilla insurrection funded, in part, by illegal mining. The same commitment would figure to extend to Colombian mining, but as BMW points out, it's difficult for a multi-national manufacturer to know where every item in its supply chain comes from. A company spokesperson says as much, telling Bloomberg, "These few grams out of the billions of tons of raw materials passing through the BMW supply chain are of no practical relevance."