Published 08th June, 2009
Ferrari may be up for a fight in F1, but they can clearly still hold their value.
 Image RM Auctions |
History was made in mid-May at the "Ferrari - Leggenda e Passione" auction, held at the company's legendary Maranello factory, when a 1957 pontoon-fender 250 Testa Rossa (TR) sold for a staggering €9,020,000 ($12.78m the highest amount ever paid for a car a auction. Only 22 examples of the car were ever made and the car sold competed in major races including the 1958 1000km Buenos Aires. |
In a case of "gasket heal thyself", supramolecular chemistry has created ‘self-healing' rubber which is now set to go into industrial production. French firm Arkema have spent the last 12 months fine-tuning the product which uses predominantly fatty acid oligomers which allows fractured surfaces to bond back together simply with light pressure. Could this be start of everlasting rubber bands?
| And finally, pilots of piston-engined aircraft in the US, and potentially around the world, could find themselves running on empty without an unleaded fuel option. In a report by the Wichita Eagle's Molly McMillin, it appears that currently prop-plane pilots are totally reliant on the continued supply of the world's only remaining lead additive for avgas - the UK-based division of Innospec. Although Innospec reassured the Eagle's reporter that supplies are not likely to dry up any time soon, an environmentally-friendly unleaded option is still being hunted down. |  Image Alex Layzell |