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$4.5M Maryland mansion has a brick street with classic cars in its basement

At one extremely large residence in Potomac, Maryland, the residents need not call the driver to head into town. Instead, the people who lived and will live in this house can simply take a walk downstairs to hit up the post office, or the theater, or the massage parlor. These faux shops are just a small part of a re-created old-style downtown strip, complete with a brick drive and classic collector cars.  Brought to light by Twitter user @victoriaxxviii, 11610 Highland Farm Road, Potomac, Maryland, is a 12,089-square-foot gated mansion that sits on four acres, with the opportunity to buy two more next to it. It has seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms in the main house, a guest house with two bedrooms and a bathroom, and a pool house with a full kitchen and a bathroom. The place also has a heated pool and a tennis court. Yet, none of that would be of interest if not for the items hidden in the home's finished basement.  Best understood by seeing the photos above, the lower level of the house was built to resemble an old town. In addition to the aforementioned stores, it also has a sports shop, a flower shop, an inn, a tattoo parlor, a church, and most important, an auto repair shop and gas station. The repair shop is key, as there are several collectible cars positioned throughout the winding town road. Seen in the photos are a Citroen 2CV, a Jaguar E-Type roadster, a scooter, and a third vintage car that appears to be from the '20s or '30s.  The house was built in 1987 and features four garage spots. It is currently listed for $4.5 million, but it is unclear if the downstairs cars are included in the purchase. Visit Washington Fine Properties for more photos of the house and extra information about its amenities. Related Video:    

Regulators consider adding more carmakers to Takata recall

Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal has been getting a lot of press recently, but the Takata airbag inflator affair could be grabbing headlines again soon. According to Bloomberg, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is contemplating an expansion to the campaign that could add seven automakers to the 12 already affected. They are Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Spartan Motors, Suzuki, Tesla, Volvo Trucks, and VW Group. To be clear, there's no recall for any of these automakers, yet. The government is simply asking for a full list of vehicles that each of them have with Takata-supplied inflators containing ammonium nitrate propellant. The agency is concerned this substance could play a roll in the ruptures. "NHTSA is considering not only whether to issue an administrative order that would coordinate the remedy programs associated with the current Takata recalls, but also whether such an order should include expansion of the current recalls," the letters say. All seven can be viewed, here. From a report supplied by Takata, the government already knows that the company supplied 887,055 inflators with ammonium-nitrate propellant to VW and 184,926 of them to Tesla. In an incident during the summer, a side airbag allegedly burst in a 2015 VW Tiguan. In early September, NHTSA put out a revised report that there were 23.4 million inflators to be replaced in 19.2 million vehicles in the US. An earlier accounting from the agency had about 34 million of the parts in 30 million cars. High humidity is still believed to be among the biggest risk factors for the ruptures. Although, if ammonium nitrate also gets the blame, some already recalled models might need to be repaired again. Related Video:

Check out Harry Metcalfe's 1978 Jaguar XJ 5.3 V12 Coupe

Jaguar may have built its business producing luxury sedans, but it also made some superb coupes over the years, from the XK120 through the E-Type, XJS and XJ220 to today's F-Type. The automaker has largely steered clear of turning its four-door models into two-doors, but there was a time when it did exactly that. And Harry Metcalfe, former editor of the British car magazine Evo, just happens to have one in his garage. Based on the Series II XJ sedan, the XJ Coupe was long and elegant – something along the lines of what you might see today in the form of the Mercedes S-Class Coupe, but smaller and built the better part of four decades ago. With only around 10,000 of them made, the pillar-less XJ-C was much rarer than the more iconic E-Type, and even fewer of them packed the 5.3-liter fuel-injected V12 engine. That makes the former Evo editor's ride a rather scarce one indeed, and well worth checking out in his latest video clip.