05 - 13 Chevrolet Corvette Racer Rally Stripe ( Vinyl Graphics ) on 2040-parts.com

Local Motors 'Design Our Car' competition opens

Local Motors has opened its first-ever ‘Design Our Car' competition, which encourages collaboration within the manufacturing community. The open-source automaker is providing two of its Rally Fighter cars, one of which will be built at the company's micro-factory in Arizona while the other will be built live in the Emerging Technology Center at September's International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago. Ideas from the design and engineering community are being sought to help design and select a skin for the Rally Fighter that will be built by the Local Motors team this spring.

BMW i8 Spyder leaks ahead of Beijing

BMW i8 Spyder What looks set to be the BMW i8 Spyder, an open top version of BMW’s i8 eco supercar, has leaked ahead of a debut at the Beijing Motor Show. The gestation period for BMW’s i8 eco supercar started with the reveal of the BMW Vision ED Concept back in 2009, with a production concept – and the BMW i8 name – arriving last summer. And now, ahead of a debut at the Beijing Motor Show in April we get the first photos of the BMW i8 Spyder.

American Picked

Toney Thomas knows his junk. Ask him about any of the thousands of items--from antique BB guns to ancient boat motors, from old service-station signage to historic military gear--in his 30-foot-by-60-foot storage barn in rural Michigan, and he'll most likely have a story to tell. Thomas's penchant for collecting led to his appearance on a fall episode of the History Channel's American Pickers with celebrity junk hunters Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz.