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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.

Mitsubishi recalling i-MiEV models for brake problem

Mitsubishi is issuing a recall for the 2010-2014 i-MiEV that affects 1,810 units of the little electric car, because it's possible for the brake vacuum pump to stop working. If this happens, the result would be longer stopping distances, according to the company. The affected models were built between September 15, 2009, and March 25, 2014.
While this is just a single recall, there are actually two things that can cause this brake problem on the i-MiEV, according to Mitsubishi's filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. First, bad programming in the EV-ECU could cause the system to "falsely judge that the relay contact point is stuck," according to the full NHTSA defect notice PDF. Second, the vacuum pump exhaust hole could be corroded and blocked due to being splashed with road salt. However, the company says that if either fault happens, the brake warning lamp would illuminate, and there would be an audible alarm.
Depending on which issue is affecting an owner's i-MiEV, Mitsubishi is going to reprogram the software, replace the pump or both. Scroll down to read the recall report from NHTSA.

Ghosn: Restoring Mitsubishi's reputation is biggest challenge

After news that Mitsubishi falsified its fuel economy data on every vehicle it has sold in Japan since 1991, and the tumble in the company's value that followed, the troubled carmaker has an unlikely savior. Nissan has confirmed it will purchase over one third of Mitsubishi's stock, or 34 percent. The stake is valued at $2.2 billion. Ghosn says making Mitsubishi a part of the Renault-Nissan alliance will save billions in development costs. But the merger certainly isn't without challenges. "The biggest challenge is to support Mitsubishi changing itself and growing and being profitable and restoring its reputation," said Ghosn. Nissan is a natural partner for Mitsubishi, and since the fuel economy scandal escalated from discrepancies in the data regarding Mitsubishi-manufactured, Nissan-badged Japan-market vehicles, it makes sense for the company to sweep in and save the day. Nissan itself is partially owned by Renault, and Nissan has a 15-percent stake in the French automaker. Mitsubishi's chairman, Osamu Masuko says that the merger was inevitable, that it "would have happened one day" anyway, according to the New York Times. Carlos Ghosn, chairman of both Nissan and Renault, is confident they will be able to turn Mitsubishi's fortunes around. "We have the track record to make it work", Ghosn said, referring to the Renault-funded rescue of Nissan in the early 2000s. Related Video: