1960's Vintage Rat Hot Rod Chevy Ii Underdash Air Conditioning Unit on 2040-parts.com

Volkswagen designer gets 2011 lifetime achievement award

Volkswagen Group designer Walter de'Silva was chosen for this year's Lifetime Design Achievement Award at EyesOn Design, which ran over Father's Day weekend in the Detroit area. About 260 invitation-only vehicles were in attendance at Sunday's car show on the grounds of the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe Shores. They were chosen based on this year's theme of "Designing for the Future." Only car designers who have previously won the Lifetime Design Achievement Award were allowed to vote on a winner for 2011.

BMW Concept X5 eDrive: Driving impressions

We got a chance to sample the BMW Concept X5 eDrive, a plug-in hybrid version of the BMW X5 luxury SUV, ahead of its appearance at BMW's New York auto show press conference. While comprehensive driving impressions will have to wait for a longer test, we were able to get some quick impressions of the new BMW hybrid at the company's New Jersey headquarters. The X5 eDrive made short work of the hills and curves around BMW's campus, with all mechanical systems working pretty seamlessly.

Fiat 500 by Diesel – now it’s the convertible 500C by Diesel

The Fiat 500C by Diesel Fiat has been trying hard to churn out as many limited edition versions of the 500 as MINI have managed on their own re-created motoring icon. That’s probably an impossible target (we reckoned that MINI managed a new model a month last year) but that’s not going to stop Fiat having a good old bash at milking the ‘Limited Edition’ market. One of the earliest limited edition specials from the Fiat 500 was the ‘Style’ makeover from designers Diesel.