A biweekly roundup of automotive news good, bad and just plain weird:

DRIVEWAYS HOLD 35 TIMES MORE HORSEPOWER THAN POWERPLANTS

Using some interesting math, Wired writer Alexis Madrigal has come up with figures that may astound you. According to his estimates, the average car has approximately 200 horsepower, and the average truck about 210 h.p. With around 250 million cars and trucks on the road, that means a whopping 50 billion horsepower, or more than 38,000 gigawatts of power.

More mind-blowing are the numbers for all the electricity-generating powerplants: added up, they produce approximately 1,087 gigawatts. The conclusion Madrigal draws is we all have way too much horsepower in our driveways, we're all addicted to oil and we should all go back the simpler times of blah blah blah.

What Madrigal doesn't take into account is that the energy-generating plants are running constantly at peak power, as opposed to a vehicle's engine, which very rarely sees redline. On the other hand, he does have a point: how much power do we really need out of our cars?

No similar figures were available for Canada, as it proved too difficult to measure the output of our natural resources. It was impossible to get all the caribou on the treadmill and the grizzlies kept eating the ptarmigans.

MINI CELEBRATES 50 YEARS WITH COUPE CONCEPT

It's 50 years since Mini first burst on to the scene with tiny, fun-to-drive cars that were perhaps the only thing that British Leyland ever got right. BMW's brand Mini has only been around for nine years, but they're perfectly happy to take credit for a half-century of nippy handling and cute styling. To celebrate, they've launched a new Mini concept.

Based on the turbocharged Cooper S, the Mini Coupe concept looks great! Actually, it looks like the design team hired an elephant to sit on a regular Mini, but that's no bad thing. With a chopped roof-line and a more slippery shape, it's a distillation of what makes a Mini so much fun.

HUMMER DEALER ADDS GUNS TO THE SHOWROOM

Times have been tough for your average Hummer dealers, what with the global financial crisis, skyrocketing fuel costs, the growing environmental consciousness of most people, and the fact that most Hummers are awful, terrible cars. Not to worry though, you just have to think outside the box: the ammunition box.

St. Louis-based dealer Jim Lynch (of course that's his name) had the brainwave of filling empty showroom space with enough firepower to satisfy an Alaskan governor. After all, you can't possibly afford the gas to drive all the way to the gun shop if you're at the helm of one of these behemoths, so might as well pick up an AK-47 with the oil change.

However, while selling semi-automatic weaponry at a car dealership is such a horrible idea that it makes me want to go hide under the covers with my Canadian passport, at least the tie-in makes more sense than that Hummer cologne. Perhaps other manufacturers will follow suit: you could soon be visiting the Mercedes-Benz day spa, BMW tasselled-loafer shop, or hit up the iMini store for a new phone.

PAPA JOHN'S PIZZA OWNER PAYS $250,000 FOR 1971 CAMARO

It's a story that will bring a tear to the eye of the most jaded gearhead. "Papa" John Schnatter has been reunited with the car that he sold to save the family business. The black-and-gold 1971* Camaro Z28 was Schnatter's pride and joy, but in 1983 he sold it to save his dad's tavern from closing. When the new owner came to pick the Camaro up, John was too sad to watch it drive away.

Mind you, the $2,800 he got for the car has turned into a huge pizza empire worth three-quarters of a billion dollars, so that turned out OK. However, no matter how much money he made, Schnatter always missed that Camaro. Over the years, he tried to track it down, even hiring an ex-FBI agent and posting a huge reward. But, as they say in the pizza business: no anchovies.

His luck changed when a family recognized the car's description. They had owned the car for a few years, and had sold it some time ago, but they still had the contact information of the guy who bought it. The new owner was only too happy to sell the Camaro back to Schnatter (for the US$250,000 reward), even though he'd made some modifications to the car.

The Camaro might just be the fastest pizza delivery car in the world, as it's souped-up for drag-racing and runs the quarter-mile in 9.5 seconds.

BOB DYLAN MIGHT BE YOUR GPS

Themed voices for GPS aren't really news: you can already have Homer Simpson, Ah-nold Schwarzenegger or Yoda giving you directions. Now it appears singer-songwriter Bob Dylan is throwing his hat into the ring.

Dylan announced on his Theme Time Radio Hour show that, "I am talking to a couple of car companies about being the voice of their GPS system. I think it would be good if you are looking for directions and hear my voice saying something like: left at the next street, no a right -- you know what? Just go straight. . . . I probably shouldn't do it because whichever way I go I always end up at one place: Lonely Avenue."

Personally, while it might seem like a good idea to have your directions incomprehensibly mumbled at you by America's Troubadour, the 15-minute harmonica solo following "turn left here" might get a little annoying.

Watch this space for all the best and worst of automotive news, or submit your own auto oddities to brakingnews@gmail.com.