1984-1985 General Motors Vacuum Block # 25517396, New on 2040-parts.com

Google driverless car will let you speed

Driverless cars are so clever, aren’t they? The potential to whisk us along in total comfort and relaxation while a silicon chip takes care of the driving may sound like bliss to some. However, despite recent news that self-driving cars will be legally allowed on our roads as early as next year, they might not be as clean cut and infallible as you might think.

College Exhibition: IED Degree Show 2008

Graduating students at the Istituto Europeo di Design of Turin (IED) recently completed a project created in association with BMW. The projects, presented at an exhibition entitled ‘Designing the BMW of 2015', followed a brief to design a car by interpreting the language evolution and the trademark essence in view of the company's future perspectives. Students were asked to research the needs, tastes and lifestyle of 35 year old individual in 2025 and find inspiration in natural elements (sun, sea, wind and earth) and in forms of expression (music, painting and art).

The no-show cars: a reader rant on mad concepts

Instigated by Harley Earl at General Motors in the late 30s with the quaintly named Buick Y-Job, show cars, or concept cars, were presented to an excited public eager for new things. As the world recovered from a depression and then a war, these vehicles pointed to a better future that many people believed in, including the people who produced them. And, although many of the concept cars of the 50s, with their Jetsons plexiglass roofs and notional nuclear powered engines seem ludicrous now, in their time they weren’t that cynical.