1955-1956 Oldsmobile Spare Wheel Hold Down Rod on 2040-parts.com

Mercedes-Benz to cut production time, halve number of vehicle architectures

Mercedes-Benz is restructuring its global production network to cut the average production time for its models to 30 hours by 2015 from 43 in 2008. "We have increased productivity by 2 percent a year over the last few years. We will be accelerating our productivity efforts," Mercedes production boss Wolfgang Bernhard said during an investor conference that was part of the automaker's plant opening in Kecskemet, Hungary, on Thursday.

Finalists announced in exterior phase of CDN-GM Interactive Design competition

The exterior phase of the CDN-GM Interactive Design competition closed on the November 7th, with over 150 entries from design students based in the USA and Canada, making it our most popular interactive competition phase so far. After the press days of the recent LA Auto Show, judges and mentors from GM, along with our competition partners Dassault Systèmes, Faurecia and SRG Global, gathered at GM's North Hollywood advanced design studio to pick the finalists. Those chosen will be invited to attend the 2012 NAIAS in Detroit, along with finalists from the interiors phase, and on the second press day, interiors and exterior winners will be announced for each brand.

Meet the new 2014 BMW 4-series coupe

Thanks to certain European websites, BMW's 3-series coupe replacement is out a few hours early. Here's the 2014 BMW 4-series revealed in production form. The 4 will take on the Audi A5 and Mercedes-Benz C-class coupe and make its public debut at the Frankfurt motor show in September.