1939 Heat Guage #1997919510899 on 2040-parts.com

World Car of the Year 2014 – the contenders

The provisional list of entries for the 2014 World Car of the Year awards has been revealed – this is like the European Car of the Year awards, only judged on a global scale. Each candidate for the main awards must be available for sale on at least two continents. In addition to the main category, the World Car – or WCOTY – awards also includes separate prizes for the World Car Design of the Year, World Green Car and World Luxury Car, the last a change from the World Performance Car of previous years.

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.

VW 1L and electric Audi R8 (2009) leak early

By Tim Pollard First Official Pictures 14 September 2009 13:44 As usual, the embargos are tumbling ahead of the 2009 Frankfurt motor show – with photos of the new VW 1L concept car and electric Audi R8 spreading like wildfire. Both were supposed to be surprises held for a soirée on the eve of the show. Volkswagen’s 1L concept car is Wolfsburg’s latest incarnation of its cigar-shaped two-seater.