Long, low and wide, with a hood that can be measured in furlongs, the M6 has foot-wide rear tires, heroic brakes (love the blue calipers) and a cruel, humorless, inscrutable face, like Iron Man with a kidney stone.

WSJ: 2013 BMW M6 Coupe Review: A Hurtling Flume Ride on Dry Land | Rumble Seat by Dan Neil

The compact rear-suspension design does open up space for the Verano's 14-cubic-foot trunk.

WSJ: 2012 Buick Verano 1SG Review: East Meets Something Less Than Zest | Rumble Seat by Dan Neil

The real action at techshop in Menlo Park, Calif. is a few rooms in the rear of a 15, 000-square-foot warehouse.

FORBES: Jim Newton's TechShop gives creativity a place to work out

The waves conceal whales, dolphins and sea turtles, and the western beaches are covered with armies of blue-backed soldier crabs that rear up on their hind legs and flee in panic at the approach of a human foot.

BBC: The perfect trip: Queensland

Its first grainy, wide-angle images showed its own left rear wheel parked on the surface of Gale Crater near the equator of Mars, close to the foot of a three-mile-high mountain it aims to explore in months to come.

WSJ: NASA's Curiosity Rover Lands on Mars