04-08 Manual Mazda Rx8 Oem Flywheel J on 2040-parts.com

June sales get a pick-me-up from pickups

If there's a bright spot in June's tepid light-vehicle sales, it came from an unlikely segment. After slumping for several years as the economy tanked and gas prices spiked, pickup demand is rising faster than the overall sales gains of most automakers--serving as a pillar once again during the industry's fledgling recovery. And most of the buyers returning to showrooms are pickup enthusiasts, automakers say.

Factory Five Body Design Competition

Following in the footsteps of Local Motors, Factory Five is set to launch an open-sourced design contest to design its next car. Up until now, the Massachusetts-based company is famed for its Type '65 Shelby Cobra Coupe replicas and its GTM racecar. Teaming up with Grassroots Motorsports Magazine, Factory Five is now launching the design contest to design the bodywork for its latest project: a Subaru Impreza-engined, rear-wheel-drive two-seater that is expected to sell for under $9,000 in kit form, or $15,000 as a complete car.

SSC Tuatara revealed in Shanghai

Jerod Shelby reveals the SSC Tuatara in Shanghai We finally discovered last month that Shelby Supercars wouldn’t be calling their new Veyron-bashing hypercar the Ultimate Aero II (which seemed logical) but has instead taken a leaf out of Pagani’s ‘Book of obscure names for Supercars’ and decided on SSC Tuatara. Yep, SSC has named their hypercar after the Maori name for a lizard, a lizard with the fastest evolving DNA of any creature (doubtless the motivation for Jerod nicking the name for his car). Interestingly, a comment on the story we ran about the new SSC getting the Tuatara moniker said that as well as having the fastest evolving DNA of any creature, the Tuatara “…puts a tortoise to shame in the slow moving stakes, and is also regarded as a living link to the dinosaurs” which, for Jerod Shelby’s benefit, we should probably gloss over.