1950's Packard Chrome Ashtray on 2040-parts.com

Oh, puh-leeze: Lighten up, people

Rarely do I come to the defense of a competitive member of the fourth estate, but the people at Car and Driver are getting the hooey knocked out of them by everyone from "professional media representatives" to the NASCAR faithful. What was CD's egregious sin? Its editors concocted an April Fool's joke with them good ol' boys Chrysler and General Motors as its punchline.

Alfa Romeo MiTo (Cloverleaf) Quadrifoglio – Frankfurt catchup

The Alfa MiTo Cloverleaf unveiled at Frankfurt The MiTo Cloverleaf gets a hot version of the Fiat 1.4 Multair engine, producing 170bhp and mated to a new six-speed ‘box specially designed to deliver swift gear changes. For some reason Alfa hasn’t released performance figures for the Quadrifoglio, but it should be pretty competitive. Fuel economy is distinctly reasonable at an average 49mpg.

College Exhibition: Creapole MA Degree Show 2011

Creapole Design School – 'Ecole de Creation Management' as it refers to itself – has just held its annual Masters Week exhibition at its central Parisian premises. The focus of this year's show is 'intelligent technology', proposing alternative propulsion systems for the transport of tomorrow, from the urban to the aquatic, from the functional to the fictional. The challenge for these young designers is to take these new technologies and apply them in an attractive, meaningful and human way.