Ah, summer…our busy season and when we aren’t busy, the time of the year where sitting at the desk becomes that much harder. There are races to spectate, announce and participate in, there are adventures to be had, and there are wrenches to spin. That means that we have little patience to paw through the tons of information we get throughout a week, but have no fear…we always like to go through the trimmings to find a few tasty bits of news blurbs for you. We shake the dust off of them, roast them lightly, and serve them up on a platter for you to partake at your will. Here is our Scrapple…enjoy!

1. Adding insult to the Dieselgate injury…

We all know about the gigantic plate full of crow that Volkswagen is being forced to chow down on, but just because it looks like they are starting to tolerate small bites of it, let’s add a seasoning to the mix: Tesla managed to knock Volkswagen (as a brand) out of the top 10 list of most valuable automotive brands. Audi somehow is still there, so a good deal of that has to do with name recognition, but still…for a company that the old players keep writing off as an upstart, this is big news. Somewhere in Stuttgart, a coffee mug was thrown across an office.

2. A good kind of Karma is finally here.

Quick rundown: the LS9 supercharged V8-powered VLF Destino, a Bob Lutz-led reboot of the former Fisker Karma EV luxury sedan, is finally being delivered to customers. Got $229,000 and no idea what to do with it? Buy one…then be a pal and let us test it, will ya? Moving on…

3. A Vauxhall Astra Diesel, this is most certainly not.

That is a 5.0L Ford Mustang GT in official “Battenberg” livery. It is being tested as a potential new vehicle for police forces in the United Kingdom. Police, celebrate. Anyone who finds themselves on the other side of that coin: hope you have enough car if you think that you can outrun one of these.

4. The ultimate response to an hours-long traffic jam.

Finding themselves stuck in a traffic jam in the Netherlands, the drummer for local band “The Moods”, Adriaan Stoop, broke out his kit and got in a little extra practice. You know it’s a bad day on the motorway when you just say f**k it and break out the drum kit in the middle of the asphalt.

5. Because seriously…it’s a rolling Xerox copy.

Range Rover Evoque? Nope…meet the LandWind X7, one of the biggest thorns in Jaguar Land Rover’s sides. This straight-up ripoff appeared a couple of years ago and from the second eyes were laid on it, cries of foul have been screamed from the tops of lungs within JLR. Now there is a lawsuit in a Beijing court against Jiangling Motors, the parent company of LandWind that could have some strong ramifications for the copycat styling practices that some Chinese manufacturers are known for. Watch this one closely…last time Honda only got a couple of million in damages after they took a company that made a clone of the CR-V to court.