1951 Ford Tailight Lense 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.

Aston Martin V8 Vantage N420 (2010): first pictures

Aston Martin has been entering the annual Nürburgring 24-hour race since 2006, developing a habit of commemorating their efforts with special edition 'motorsport-inspired' road cars. This is their latest version of the V8 Vantage, the N420.   You got it.

AutoStyle 2010

Earlier this year, we had the pleasure to attend AutoStyle 2010's design competition; a wonderfully familial, small-scale event that takes place in the picturesque village of San Benedetto Po, in northern Italy. Hosted by Berman, an aftermarket supplier of bespoke components to many OEMs, the event is a two-day gathering where many of the industry's designers, buyers and suppliers attend a conference to hear about the trends as perceived by automakers and to see the newest ‘special versions' created by budding designers. The 7th edition of the AutoStyle design competition showcased a wide array of aftermarket designs for the Ferrari California, Nissan Micra, Ford Focus, Alfa Romeo Giulietta and the Citroen DS Highrider concept.