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Find out if the Ford Fiesta ST can match Europe's latest hot hatches

The V8 grunt of the Mustang has defined Ford performance cars in the US for the last 50 years, but in Europe, the Blue Oval has nearly as a long history of building some of the best hot hatches on the market with the Fiesta, Escort and later the Focus. The latest Fiesta ST has just hit the roads on both sides of the pond and has been enthusiastically received thanks to its combination of a peppy, turbocharged engine and hatchback utility.
However, Europe is getting a bumper crop of hot hatches at the moment, including the forthcoming, third-generation Mini Cooper S. Should Ford have waited to launch the ST until it knew how the competition performed? That's the answer that Xcar is after in its latest video, and it took the Fiesta to the track and some very misty, Welsh roads to find out. Scroll down to find out whether the ST stacks up.

An amazing Group B rally car collection heads to auction

Kicking off in 1982, the Group B era spawned some of the most fearsome rally cars of all time. The technologically advanced pioneers of all-wheel drive and turbocharging defined a time when automakers had carte blanche to build machines with unrestricted power, without the burden of homologating a large number of road cars to qualify. The results were sometimes deadly, leading the FIA to ban the class after 1986. Now, a collection of seven Group B monsters is headed across the block in Paris as part of the Artcurial auction, held in partnership with France's famed Retromobile show. The show has been delayed to June, however. There's a 1985 Peugeot 205 Turbo 16, one of 20 Evo II models that helped the company achieve two championships in Group B's short run. This particular example was driven by world champion Timo Salonen at the 1986 Swedish Rally, where it finished seventh due to an oil filter seal failure. Bruno Saby subsequently drove it at the 1986 Tour de Corse and Peugeot entered it at the 1986 Acropolis Rally as well. It's still registered to Peugeot Talbot Sport and represents a French technological achievement, according to Artcurial, comparable to the Concorde or TGV train. Representing Italy are a pair of Lancias in the iconic Martini livery. The Lancia 037 helped Bel Paese clinch its only Group B victory in 1983, after a hard-fought rivalry with Audi. It's one of the few Group B cars that weren't AWD, achieving its success the old-fashioned way, through lightness and superb handling. A second Lancia, a 1986 Delta S4, was the culmination of the Italian firm's later Group B efforts and one of Saby's favorites. While Group B was no more in 1987, the S4 was the predecessor to the Delta Integrale that would dominate WRC from 1987 through 1992. While the collection also includes greats like a Ford RS200, Renault 5 Maxi Turbo, and MG Metro 6R4, the centerpiece is the Audi Quattro Sport S1. The ultimate Group B machine, it introduced all-wheel-drive and turbocharging to the sport. It also employed the wildest use of wings and air dams to generate downforce. Tunable up to 590 horsepower, it could rocket to 60 mph in about three seconds. The car offered for sale came straight from Ingolstadt, a 1988 model built for the Race of Champions of ex-Group B cars. The collection was amassed in the late 80s and early 90s, not long after Group B's dissolution.

George W. Bush's 2009 Ford F-150 fizzles with $300,000 bid at Barrett-Jackson [UPDATE: w/video]

Despite some truly impassioned pleading from Jay Leno himself - including calling on Arizona's notoriously Republican-rich voters to beat the $600,000 level set the last time Leno sold a vehicle for this particular charity... in California - bidding for George Bush's 2009 Ford F-150 pickup truck stalled at $300,000.
All proceeds will be sent to the Fisher House Foundation, so at least it's $300K going to a good cause. Feel free to check out the live image gallery above, which includes shots showing Leno's skills helming the auction, and read through the official auction description below.
*UPDATE: Video of the auction and Leno's prods to the crowd for more money can now be seen below.