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Drive-up bank robbery perpetrated with Cayenne and WRX

Thieves carried out what appears to be a movie-script-perfect robbery of a bank in Sydney, Australia early on Friday morning, using two stolen high-performance vehicles in the process.
At around 11:15 AM local time, in near mid-day light, reports say that two men in masks smashed into the side of a Westpac bank in a confirmed-stolen black Porsche Cayenne. The perpetrators were armed with sledgehammers according to witness reports, and took only about five minutes to take what they were after inside of the bank.
The rapid getaway was executed in a Subaru WRX, also confirmed as a stolen vehicle, while witnesses snapped camera phone images of the illicit goings on. One Twitter user posted a few of the images to his social media feed; you can take a look at them in our small gallery below. Follow on down for the full video report, from The Sydney Morning Herald.

Subaru funds Center For Pet Safety crash testing for dogs [w/video]

Crash-testing new vehicles to evaluate their ability to keep humans safe in accidents is nothing new, but thus far there has been little in the way of crash testing for dogs. Subaru, a company that portrays itself as pet friendly, hopes to raise awareness on the issue of pet safety by funding initial crash testing by the nonprofit Center for Pet Safety, Automotive News reports.
Real dogs were not used in the crash tests; three dummy dogs representing a 25-pound terrier, a 45-pound border collie and a 75-pound golden retriever were used. There are a variety of devices for sale that are supposed to restrain dogs from entering the front-seat area and distracting the driver - tethers, cages, nets and crates - but their effectiveness in a crash is unknown.
In Subaru's crash test, performed at a Virginia laboratory that tests child seats on a device that speeds down a track and stops abruptly, the results show that devices such as dog tethers are prone to break in a crash, sending the dog rocketing into whatever is in front of it. Rather alarmingly, the organization reports a 100-percent failure rate. In other words, "None of the harnesses were deemed safe enough to protect both the dog and the humans in the event of an accident." Yikes.

Subaru WRX S4 gets big power bump in Japan

A month after originally teasing it, Subaru is finally unveiling its WRX S4 model for Japan. It's a bit more than just a plush take on the sport sedan, because Subaru is fitting a more powerful version of the 2.0-liter, turbocharged boxer four-cylinder engine than we get on these shores.
The company says that S4 stands for "'Sports performance', 'Safety performance', 'Smart driving' and 'Sophisticated feel," and it certainly looks like this Rex ticks all of those boxes. The most surprising feature is the Japanese model's 2.0-liter turbo engine boasting 296 horsepower (221 kilowatts) and 295 pound-feet (400 Newton-meters) of torque in this application. That's quite a healthy upgrade over the 268 hp and 258 lb-ft that Americans get in the standard WRX, and it's even nipping at the heels of the 305 hp and 290 lb-ft from the STI with a 2.5-liter mill that we get over here.
While extra power is always welcome, enthusiasts might not be so thrilled that Subaru's Sport Lineartronic Continuously Variable Transmission is the sedan's only available gearbox. However, it offers a simulated eight-speed shifting mode when drivers notch the car into Sport# driving mode. Of course, the S4 also packs Subie's trademark all-wheel drive with Vehicle Dynamics Control and Active Torque Vectoring as standard.