2012 Ferrari 458 on 2040-cars

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Totaled Ferrari Dino sculpture sold for $250k

How much would you pay for a Dino? Although this sub-brand was supposed to offer lower-cost alternatives to more expensive Ferraris, a 246 GTS model with "chairs and flares" can fetch big bucks. The later, more angular 308 GT4 is less desirable, but the one above just sold for $250,000. Oh, and it's a complete wreck - an absolute write-off, as you can see. So how did it fetch a quarter million when it wouldn't be worth that much in pristine condition? Because this is art.
"Objet trouvé", to be specific, the French term for a common object elevated to a work of art. That's the way it ended up displayed by celebrated French artist Bertrand Lavier and the Galerie Yvon Lambert at the Foire Internationale d'Art Contemporain (FIAC) art fair at the Grand Palais in Paris last week, where an unnamed Turkish collector paid the landmark price. Let's hope he's not planning on restoring it, because it's apparently worth more totaled.

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."

Glickenhaus' FIA championship-winning P4/5 Competizione comes home [w/video]

The sexy Ferrari P4/5 Competizione, a cross between the lightweight F430 Scuderia and the race-only F430 GT2 with special Pininfarina bodywork, spent some time in Europe notching a few race victories. But it finally has made its way back to the US and into owner Jim Glickenhaus' collection, where it met its sister car and inspiration, the original P4/5.
During its short-but-sweet two-year racing campaign, it competed in just two races but left a big impact. We'd call any lap of the Nürburgring that's under seven minutes a victory, but, with the help of a hybrid drivetrain, the P4/5C qualified for the 2012 Nürburgring 24 Hours with a lap of 6:51. That's faster than any Ferrari-powered vehicle has ever gone around the 'Ring. The car then went on to win the EXP-1 class (for experimental vehicles), for a World Championship, and finished the race 12th overall in a field of 170 cars. Not bad at all.
For those who haven't kept up on the P4/5C, the hybrid powertrain was introduced to the one-off racecar for 2012 after it had attempted the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2011 with negligible results. A Ferrari 4.0-liter V8 was joined by a Formula One-style Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), good for a combined 563 horsepower.