60 Million and counting

The venerable Honda Super Cub motorcycle is  the best-selling vehicle in the history of internal combustion, and there are now more than 60 million of them on the road. That’s an amazing figure that speaks to the strength of a 49 cc motorcycle Soichiro Honda designed 50 years ago, helping spur Japan’s eventual rise to dominance in the motorcycle industry.

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When stealing a car it’s a good idea not to leave your address

Mitsuhisa Kobayashi, an unemployed 30-year-old in the small town of Itami northeast of Osaka, Japan, has been caught in an ingenious plot to steal cars.

Kobayashi worked with his two ex-wives. The women would rent a car, bringing it to Mr. Kobayashi. He had been a worker at an auto plant, and was able to attach a GPS device to a car where it would operate even while the car was turned off. A wife would return the car, and then Kobayashi would track it when someone else rented it. When he saw his chance — the car parked in a lot, say, with the current customer elsewhere — Kobayashi would use a key copy he’d made and steal the car.

Unfortunately it didn’t last: both of his ex-wives’ identification cards, used when renting the cars, were outdated and reflected a still-married status, as well as Kobayashi’s home address. When the ruse was discovered, finding the culprit was easy.

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Not bright, just crooked

A Philipsburg [Pennsylvania] man in jail for allegedly slashing a district judge’s tires got out of the Centre County Correctional Facility on Wednesday, walked across the street and boosted a car… according to police.

Shawn Allen Linberg, 18, who was in jail for allegedly slashing the tires of a car belonging to magisterial district judge, was arrested by state police in Philipsburg and arraigned Friday on theft and receiving stolen property charges.

Linberg was sent back to the Centre County jail on $50,000 straight bail set by District Judge Daniel Hoffman.

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