The good oil: Bridgestone to show off 'Ecopia' at Top Gear Live

Organisers expect around 700 "love machines" at the car show at Ellerslie next Sunday, hosted by Porsche and billed as the "St Valentine's Day Classicar". A record 75 car clubs have signed on for the annual get-together, now in its 37th year. Alfa Romeo owners will commemorate the marque's 2010 centenary year; Daimler loyalists will mark 50 years of the SP250. As usual, the Intermarque Concours d'Elegance trophy is up for grabs. Entries this year range from a Citroen 2CV to a rare 1964 Ferrari 250GT Lusso. A1GP car Black Beauty will also show, says publicity director David Burke-Kennedy. Profits from the event are distributed equally among the car clubs, one of the reasons why it is so well supported each year.

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Bridgestone will use this month's Top Gear Live event to show off its latest tyre, a low rolling-resistance example called the Ecopia. The company has set up a cradle of sorts where two cars, one shod with the Ecopia, the other with a standard tyre, roll back and forth until they stop. Rival Michelin did something similar at the Paris motor show in 2008. The car using the high-tech tyres kept rolling long after the one wearing standard rubber had stopped - about 35 per cent further, from memory.

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Britain's consumer motoring magazine What Car? has named its best safety innovation for 2010: Mercedes-Benz' Attention Assist feature. It's designed to combat overtiredness in drivers, one of the most frequent causes of accidents. The system monitors over 70 parameters relating to driving behaviour and warns the driver if it detects fatigue.

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Ford's 2010 edition of in-car technology Sync comes with a number of useful extensions, including the ability to keep up with Twitter, stream internet radio and download turn-by-turn web maps at no cost. It takes a page from companies such as Facebook and Apple by supporting third-party applications. Ford reports that Sync-enabled vehicles sell twice as fast in the US as non-Sync-enabled ones. Other carmakers are taking notice. General Motors' electric Chevy Volt will allow drivers to control various car settings via smartphones.

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The BMW M5 has been spotted testing its new traction control system on icy roads in Scandinavia. Spy pictures of the go-fast sports sedan show subtle differences to the standard four-door, due in New Zealand this year. Expect deeper front and rear bumpers, a power bulge in the bonnet and the trademark "gills" in the front flanks. At the rear the giveaways are more obvious, with four roaring exhaust pipes protruding from the bumper. BMW has dropped the current car's naturally aspirated V10 engine in favour of a tweaked version of the direct-injection twin-turbo 4.4-litre V8 used in the X6 M and X5 M.

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At last count Jericho, Arkansas, had 184 residents, including seven cops and a handful of volunteer firemen. That was before the town's fire chief went to court for the third time to complain about the cops' speed traps. The mayor and all seven wallopers were there, too. A scuffle broke out. Somebody pulled a gun ... and Jericho joined the pages of good'ol boy folklore: The fire chief was shot, wounded, taken to hospital, charged with resisting arrest, and sacked. Jericho's firemen quit in protest. The mayor called an emergency meeting. The county sheriff arrived, cut it short and fired all seven policemen. Ain't nobody yet knows who pulled the trigger.

alastair.sloane@nzherald.co.nz