1959 Chevrolet Impala Rear Valances Backup Lights Complete on 2040-parts.com

McLaren Special Operations: Bespoke bits for your McLaren

McLaren Special Operations - your McLaren, your way We reported last week that McLaren had taken a customised MP4-12C to Pebble Beach and that it heralded the start of ‘McLaren Exclusive’ to customise customer cars. We were close, but its actually McLaren Special Operations -  and not McLaren Exclusive –  that’s doing the customising. But the principle is the same; McLaren will do pretty much anything you want done to your McLaren – as they always have – but with the McLaren Road Car division growing all the time it will all now come under the banner of the new  McLaren Special Operations division.

Aston Martin in talks with Mercedes for engine supply

It has seemed for some time that Aston Martin’s wish-list for future engines revolved around Mercedes. They currently use a V12 developed from Ford’s Mondeo V6 and a V8 that’s a development of the 4.2 litre that was in Jaguars (and Range Rovers) until a few years ago, but new engines (and new platforms) are vital if Aston are to remain competitive. Before the recent investment in AML by Investindustrial, there were plans for Aston to use both engines and platforms from Mercedes (the Lagonda SUV was built on the underpinnings of the Mercedes GL) and even the possibility that Aston Martin would design and build the next generation Maybach.

Intermot Motorcycle Show 2004

Motorcycle design is a term that conjures up many images to different people. To the majority North Americans, designing a motorcycle suggests a garage where several enthusiasts resembling the hit TV show Orange County Choppers assemble bikes based on the Harley Davidson model, with acres of chromed after market parts and hand lacquered custom paint jobs.To many others no thought is given at all to how the shapes of the bikes on the street came into being. The reality is that the major motorcycle manufacturers employ professional designers and serious technology the same way as in the car industry does, even if the final product is so different.