00 01 02 Tahoe R. Side View Mirror Pass Right on 2040-parts.com

Designer Tom Matano part of start-up car company in Louisiana

A new auto company backed by Texas billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens and staffed by former Mazda design chief Tom Matano plans to build "environmentally friendly" vehicles in Louisiana. V-Vehicle Co., of San Diego, will bring about 1,400 workers to a Monroe plant that once belonged to General Motors, according to a statement Wednesday from the Louisiana Economic Development Web site.

New Nissan Altima guns for bigger slice of midsize-sedan segment

Nissan North America has launched production in Tennessee of the redesigned 2013 Altima sedan that it hopes will challenge the family-sedan supremacy of the Toyota Camry. "We didn't put all of the investment into this product and put in all the features with an expectation to be No. 2," said Bill Krueger, vice chairman of Nissan Americas, after the first 2013 model rolled off the line in Smyrna, Tenn., on May 15.

One Lap of the Web: The Greenwich Concours, racecars for the street and exclusivity at Ferrari

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- Over at Motor Authority, they're talking about the Audi W