Ford teams up with Heinz for tomato car parts

Ford and Getty Images Forget carbonfibre, the new must-have material on your vehicle will soon be tomato fibre – or so Ford and food manufacturer Heinz are hoping. The American carmaker and the food giant have teamed up to "explore the use of tomato fibre to develop a sustainable bio-plastic material for vehicles," bringing environmentally friendly motoring to a whole new level. Ford and Heinz tomato car parts: how will they work?

Chevrolet to pull out of Europe

General Motors is ‘strengthening’ its ‘European brand strategy’ by pulling Chevrolet out of mainstream markets in Western and Eastern Europe. This is ‘largely due to a challenging business model and the difficult economic situation’ – but does not mean that Chevrolet is set to disappear entirely. On Bing: see pictures of European Chevrolets Find out how much a used Chevrolet costs on Auto Trader Instead, Chevrolet ‘tailor its presence’ by offering only select ‘iconic’ vehicles from the marque’s global portfolio.

Next Dodge Viper will shed some rough edges

Little by little we're getting a clearer picture of the next-generation Dodge Viper SRT10. During a conversation with Dodge boss Reid Bigland at the Los Angeles auto show, Bigland told me the redesigned Viper "will appeal to a broader segment of the market." The car is expected to debut in 2012 but is not likely to appear at the Detroit auto show, he says. Today's Viper is essentially a street-legal race car.