11 12 13 14 Chevy Cruze Upper Battery Cover 1.4 L on 2040-parts.com

First Sight: Mercedes-Benz SL

The new high-tech, low weight Mercedes SL roadster receives its official global unveil next week in Detroit but Car Design News got an early peek of the final production car and had a chat with its designers at Mercedes' US advanced design studio in Carlsbad, California back in November. "We want to get back to clean, long-lasting design," director of Mercedes global advanced design and SL project leader, Steffen Kohl told CDN at the exclusive preview of the sixth-generation model. "So the new SL is long, sleek and still full of tension in the feature lines but less wedgy." In a short presentation Kohl felt all SLs became successfully iconic in their times because they followed two key rules – ‘sensuality' and ‘cleanness' – but alluded that the first rule may have been lost in more recent eras.

Porsche 911 GT3 RS (2010) bows in

The 2010 Porsche 911 GT3 RS will be at the Frankfurt Motor Show As you can probably guess, the first thing the latest GT3 RS gets is a hike in power, courtesy of the move from the old naturally aspirated 3.6 litre to the 3.8 litre you get in the new 911 Turbo, minus the turbos. But that still gives you 450bhp – up 15bhp on the regular GT3 – all of which gets shoved through a shorter ratio six-speed manual box. No nancy-boy paddles shifters here.

Two Italian car events vie for your amore on Monterey weekend

Last week we heard that Concorso Italiano, everyone's favorite Italian car happening, had been bought and was on its way to a new location on a golf course on the Monterey Peninsula. Now it turns out there are two Italian car events scheduled for the same day--Aug. 14--on the same peninsula.