Hot enough for ya out there? Late July is always a cooker, doesn’t matter what part of the country you are in (SHUT UP, ALASKA!) and we always find ourselves torn between wanting to maximize the outdoor time before winter hits and wanting to plop in front of the air-conditioning vent for a nice, cool nap. Well, before you grab that pillow off of the couch and do that, at least check out the tastier bits of what we managed to strain out from all of the news of the week: Here’s your Scrapple!

1. Three diamonds don’t buy much anymore, it seems…

That weird swirling sound you may have been hearing for at least a couple of years is Mitsubishi. Once chock-filled with cool off-roaders, wicked all-wheel-drive grand tourers, hyperactive little eco-machines and an icon that had a sketchy manifold issue, they are now a two-trick pony: the Outlander SUV, which isn’t much, and the Mirage, which is, for all intents and purposes, a $12,995 easter egg on the lot. Nothing at all to get excited about. Many people (myself included) have been expecting Mitsubishi to pack it up and leave, and one of the biggest steps has to be the announced closing of the Normal, Illinois plant that used to be the home of Diamond Star Manufacturing, the Mitsu-Chrysler joint venture team that cranked out a lot of 1980s and 1990s hits before Mitsubishi bought up Chrysler’s stake in 1993. With the Outlander Sport the last vehicle known to come from Normal and no real positive blips on the horizon, there really isn’t much to say except good luck.

2. “Just, please, don’t make Aston Martins in Alabama…”

While purists are still twitching over the idea of an off-roader Aston Martin, what made them gasp and clutch their chest like Fred Sanford was when Aston announced that they were considering an Alabama-based manufacturing facility for the new vehicle. That didn’t sit well with upper heads in the U.K. It has even spurred the United Kingdom government into action, with Prime Minister David Cameron offering a hangar space at the former RAF/Ministry of Defence location of St. Athan, which would be just a couple of hours away from Aston’s HQ instead of…well, Alabama. Honestly, we’d be a bit intrigued to see what an Aston built in the States could be. We’re picturing a Rally Fighter competitor with better seats.

3. Psst. Hey, kid. Wanna own the Raptor and S7?

We won’t kid you in the least, it will cost a pretty penny, but for a very well-heeled auto geek, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. GA Global Partners, an entity that is in no way associated with Saleen, is offering up for sale the entire kit…the intellectual and property rights to the Saleen S7, Saleen S7R and Saleen S5S Raptor, as well as the entire parts inventory, memorabilia, molds, and most surprising of all, the only S5S Raptor created, period. Hope your pockets are deep.

4. Tasty Bite: Ford slipped, and now we know the price of the Focus RS:

A little website security goes a long way. Jalopnik readers found a way into a half-completed Ford page that displayed the car’s price: it starts at $36,305 and can climb to the $42,000 range. Sounds like a lot for a Focus? Not in this case: the 345 horsepower, all-wheel-drive Focus is priced in the same ballpark as the Dodge Challenger R/T Shaker Plus, Ford Mustang GT Premium, Chevrolet Camaro SS, and undercuts the BMW M235i. But more importantly, the figures nearly parallel the Focus’s natural rival, the Subaru WRX STI.

5. Good News: One of the first new Mazda Miatas gets totaled, Mazda gives the owner a new Miata.

As reported by Jalopnik, the owners of a brand-new Mazda Miata are receiving a new Miata after a Ford F-150 rear-ended them a mile down the road from the dealership, taking out not only the tail of the roadster, but the nose when the truck shoved the MX-5 into another car. Techincally, the dealership didn’t owe the couple anything since the paperwork and all was done, but it goes to show that there are some good people in the world.