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Bloodhound hits 210 mph in test for land speed record run

It was actually 210 miles per hour, 10 mph faster than promised. The rest of the day went swimmingly, and on schedule, by the Bloodhound land speed record team. "The car ran for 20 minutes, and it did two full-power runs, with full power for 5 seconds, and 0 to 200 mph in just under 9 seconds," said Mark Chapman, Bloodhound's chief engineer. "So the exciting bits were about 18 seconds long, but people were here from dawn to dusk. The atmosphere was unbelievable." Bloodhound, which will travel at 70 mph simply on the idle of its EJ200 jet engine, had to be held back on the brakes before wing commander Andy Green floored it for 5 seconds. The jet flamed and roared on afterburner and then it was over. I might have given a little squeak; it was mightily impressive. "This is a really big engine," said Richard Noble, Bloodhound project director and former land speed record holder, "and when it runs, there's a flame and a crackle and boom, and people think, 'My goodness, that's really something.'" It was, and Green might well have thought so when he first came to apply the brakes in testing for the inaugural public run last week on the runway at RAF St Mawgan near Newquay in Cornwall. "We've had some interesting times working out how carbon brakes work, because they do take a while to warm up," said Chapman. "The cockpit footage online shows Andy's eyes looking like dinner plates when he puts his foot on the brake and nothing happens for a bit." Typically, Green took it all in his stride. He is one of just three people alive to have traveled at 600 mph on the ground (Richard Noble and Craig Breedlove are the others) and was hugely impressed with Bloodhound. "The car is absolutely fabulous," he said. "From day one, it felt right: crisp and precise, you can feel it on the road; it's super. There was only one slight surprise on the braking and that was more to do with the engine over-swing." This meant that the Rolls-Royce Eurofighter engine wouldn't shut off immediately when Green lifted from the throttle. "That delay was a real surprise to us," he said, "because all previous jet cars have had mechanical fuel-control systems where a rod closes a valve and a quarter of second later, all thrust has gone. The EJ200 engine, though, manages its own fuel supply based on what the digital throttle request is, and it takes quite a lot longer to stop.

The Rolls-Royce of cocktails is a coddling ride for your tastebuds

In our last installment of the irregular and irreverent series on drinks loosely connected to – or named after – automobiles, we sipped a Speedway Cocktail, a drink that was as exciting (and dangerous) as the early Indy 500. This time, we're stirring a Rolls-Royce Cocktail with a silver spoon. And, as always, enjoy cocktails (and reading about them) while you're not behind the wheel. If the rumors we hear are correct, Rolls-Royce will be unveiling an all-new Phantom this summer. The arrival of a flagship Roller isn't quite as rare as the coronation of a new member of the British Royal Family, but is tres recherche nonetheless. Since the nameplate's founding nearly 100 years ago, this will be only the eighth generation of Phantom to be delivered into the greedy hands of the world's vilest oligarchs. If you're one of the .01 percent, this is cause for a drink, and what better cocktail to raise in toast than one named for the brand itself? (For us 99.99 percenters, the answer is easy: Molotov.) As you might expect, the Rolls-Royce cocktail is kind of a classied-up version of an upscale iteration of an already elegant drink, conjugated from the classic (gin) martini and it well-married brother, the Martinez. "It's basically a very wet martini," says Paul Hletko, founder of FEW Spirits, an Evanston, Illinois gin and whiskey distillery acronymically (and winkingly) named for local maven Frances Elizabeth Willard, who helped found the Women's Christian Temperance Union – one of the forces behind Prohibition. "Two-to-one is a fantastic ratio of gin to vermouth that really lets the vermouth shine, and then having that split between dry and sweet vermouths gives you fantastic and rich complexity, with that little bit of Benedictine being that really nice herbal add," Hletko told us. It all sounds intriguingly botanical, and the drink itself has a reputation as being a favorite among bartenders, a coupe brimming with insider insight. "In the history of drinking there are many cocktails made with vermouth and gin," says legendary mixologist Charles Schumann from Schumann's Gastronomie in Munich.

Ward's releases 10 Best Interiors list for 2014

While we're still a ways off from the automotive awards season proper, where things like North American Car and Truck of the Year, Motor Trend's Car of the Year and Car and Driver's Ten Best are named, that doesn't mean there aren't trophies being handed out to deserving automakers. Ward's 10 Best Interiors being one of them.
As the name might imply, the magazine focuses on the very best interior treatments in the US market. Whereas some awards purposely exclude extreme, high-dollar offerings, Ward's considers them - the only requirement is that a vehicle has a "new or significantly redesigned interior."
Ward's offered up the list of winners in simple, alphabetical order, and it only seems fair to do the same: