1962 Ford Thunderbird Original Rearview Mirror on 2040-parts.com

New MINI price from £13,750 – on sale this weekend

The new 2014 MINI Hatch (pictured) goes on sale this weekend We had the reveal of the all new MINI at the end of last year at the Los Angeles and Tokyo Motor Shows, and the new MINI One turned up on MINI’s stand at the Geneva Motor Show this week. And now it’s going on sale in the UK. Sitting on BMW’s new UKL1 platform, the new MINI may be more BMW under the skin than before but, despite growing in size, it’s still very much a MINI.

Video: FiDU technology creating lightweight, inflatable metal structures

This short video, featuring designer Oskar Zieta, details the process and design possibilities behind products developed with FiDU (Freie Innendruck Umformung – "free internal pressure forming") technology. Zieta, a Polish designer, explains how the lightweight yet robust metal appears as a soft object yet when you touch it you realize that it is actually a hard metal. "Working with FIDU technology is similar to carving clay," Zieta explains.

A look at Volvo future products

Volvo wants to derive economies of scale from a new front-wheel-drive architecture called SPA, for Scalable Platform Architecture. The redesigned XC90 crossover due in 2014 will be the first to use the architecture. SPA was designed for a new family of four-cylinder gasoline and diesel engines that Volvo will begin using on existing models next fall.