Bianco Avus (white) / Bordeaux & Nero; 20" Sport Diamond Wheels on 2040-cars

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Race Recap: 2014 Malaysian F1 Grand Prix [spoilers]

The Malaysian Grand Prix is always one of the jokers on the Formula One calendar: you know it's going to rain during the weekend, but you don't know when. This year it began during qualifying, the dammed up clouds over the Sepang track dumping their reservoirs just before Q1 and causing a 50-minute delay.
The conditions helped Infiniti Red Bull Racing close the gap on Mercedes AMG Petronas and split the Silver Arrows cars, Sebastian Vettel lining up in second on the grid behind pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton, ahead of Nico Rosberg. Fernando Alonso recovered from a suspension-damaging incident with Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kyvat to take fourth, followed by the second Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo in fifth, then the off-form Kimi Räikkönen in sixth in the second Ferrari, Nico Hülkenberg in the Force India, star rookie Kevin Magnussen in the first McLaren ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne in the Toro Rosso, and Jenson Button in the second McLaren finishing up the top ten.
After that, though, the clouds decided they were done with F1. Save a few drop at the final corners during the race, the track stayed completely dry. And except for the beginning and the end, for the most part, so was the race.

Drive like a prince: Join us for a walk through Monaco's car collection

Small, crowded, and a royal pain in the trunk lid to drive into during rush hour, Monaco sounds like an improbable location for a huge car museum. And yet, this tiny city-state has been closely linked to car culture for over a century. It hosts two major racing events every year, many of its residents would qualify for a frequent shopper card if Rolls-Royce issued one, and Prince Rainier III began assembling a collection of cars in the late 1950s. He opened his collection to the public in 1993 and the museum quickly turned into a popular tourist attraction. The collection continued to grow after his death in April 2005; it moved to a new facility located right on Hercules Port in July 2022. Monaco being Monaco, you'd expect to walk into a room full of the latest, shiniest, and most powerful supercars ever to shred a tire. That's not the case: while there is no shortage of high-horsepower machines, the first cars you see after paying ˆ10 (approximately $11) to get in are pre-war models. In that era, the template for the car as we know it in 2023 hadn't been created, so an eclectic assortment of expensive and dauntingly experimental machines roamed whatever roads were available to them. One is the Leyat Helica, which was built in France in 1921 with a 1.2-liter air-cooled flat-twin sourced from the world of aviation. Fittingly, the two-cylinder spun a massive, plane-like propeller. Government vehicles get a special spot in the museum. They range from a Cadillac Series 6700 with an amusing blend of period-correct French-market yellow headlights and massive fins to a 2011 Lexus LS 600h with a custom-made transparent roof panel that was built by Belgian coachbuilder Carat Duchatelet for Prince Albert II's wedding. Here's where it all gets a little weird: you've got a 1952 Austin FX3, a Ghia-bodied 1959 Fiat 500 Jolly, a 1960 BMW Isetta, and a 1971 Lotus Seven. That has to be someone's idea of a perfect four-car garage.  One of the most significant cars in the collection lurks in the far corner of the main hall, which is located a level below the entrance. At first glance, it's a kitted-out Renault 4CV with auxiliary lights, a racing number on the front end, and a period-correct registration number issued in the Bouches-du-Rhone department of France. It doesn't look all that different than the later, unmodified 4CV parked right next to it. Here's what's special about it: this is one of the small handful of Type 1063 models built by Renault for competition.

Ferrari worth over $11 billion, says Marchionne ahead of IPO

We all know that cars from Ferrari sell for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. But how much is Ferrari worth as a company? At least ten billion, according to its chairman. Speaking at the launch of the revised Fiat 500 in Turin on Friday, Fiat Chrysler CEO and Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne said he expected the vaunted Maranello-based supercar manufacturer and racing team to be valued at over 10 billion euros, or about $11 billion at current exchange rates. As Bloomberg points out, that would make Ferrari alone account for some 60 percent of the value of its parent company Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which is currently valued at over 16 billion euros. That may seem like an aggressive estimate, but we won't have to take Marchionne at his word for long. After having floated an Initial Public Offering on the New York Stock Exchange last year, Fiat Chrysler is preparing to do the same with its Ferrari unit as soon as October. FCA will not, of course, be selling off all of its shares. The projected scheme would have ten percent (worth about one billion by Marchionne's estimates) of Ferrari's shares floated on the NYSE. Another 10 percent is expected to remain in the hands of founder Enzo's son (and company vice chairman) Piero Ferrari's hands. The remaining 80 percent is slated to be distributed among Fiat Chrysler's existing stakeholders.