1958-1964 Chevrolet Corvette Pickup Nos Oil Dipstick 3846810 on 2040-parts.com

Seat opens new Global Design Center

Seat has opened its new Global Design Center, located within the Technical Center close to its manufacturing operations in Martorell, near Barcelona. A week of opening celebrations culminated with an event on Nov 8 for designers from the fields of architecture, fashion, industry, advertising, communication, art and photography, as well as specialised design media. More than 130 attendees were able to stroll around the Seat Design Center facilities in an informal and relaxed atmosphere.

Watch the 2,000-horsepower Banks Freightliner jump five cars

Mike Ryan does amazing things with the Banks Freightliner. And with Pikes Peak still half a year away, Ryan settles for practice in the Long Beach docks in "Size Matters 2." He weaves the semi in and out of boxes, does donuts in the same tight radius as a matte-black 240SX (driven by stuntman Daniel Leavitt, who ironically shares his name with a reckless driving attorney in Virgina), and dodges even larger trucks. (No Dodges, though there's the Freightliner connection.) All the elements of Ken Block's Gymkhana videos are here: the screeching electronic music, the moody industrial setting, the gratuitous slow-motion.

New 2013 Nissan Note gets more appealing

The new Nissan Note has turned in to a Ford Fiesta basher as Nissan turn the Note from a boring little MPV in to a convincing small hatch. We did think the Invitation would be watered down to produce a slightly titivated new Note for production, but much of the style has found its way through in to the new Note – which we first saw in the JDM Nissan Note last summer – and the Note now looks set to take on proper compact hatches like the Ford Fiesta. The nose of the new Note is now more convincing – with new headlights and grill – and the doors get a great big feature crease that looks like a giant smoothing iron has stamped its mark, although Nissan say it’s a ‘Squash Line’  whose ‘angles were inspired by the flight of a fast moving squash ball travelling around a court’.