1998 Arctic Cat Zr 600 Brake Disc on 2040-parts.com

Essay: Variable Degrees of Translucency

Car door panels and fenders are generally made of steel, sometimes of aluminum or plastic composites, and you can't see through them. Car windows, on the other hand, are made of a transparent sandwich of glass and plastic - and you can see through them. But in the future there will be variable degrees of transparency: translucent elements where once there were none, traditional window areas that will have opaque elements and graduated progressions from opaque to see-through.

Sergio Marchionne warns of strife ahead in Europe

Fiat chief exec Sergio Marchionne today warned of troubled waters ahead as Europe's car makers prepare for a radical restructuring. Marchionne, who's the current president of trade body ACEA, said factory closures were looming and repeated his call for a concerted EU-wide response to overcapacity. He warned that national interest was blocking action to strip out excess capacity, caused after European new car demand crashed by 3 million in the past five years.

Toyota Hydrogen Fuel Cell on sale by 2015 at €100k

The 2003 Toyota Fine S Hydrogen FCEV Toyota has done a great job of turning the car buying public on to alternative powertrains with it Hybrid setup in the Prius, and now it plans to go the same route with a hydrogen-powered production Toyota. Despite Toyota’s headline commitment to hybrid cars, it has been beavering away for a long time with fuel cell technology for its cars. The photo at the top is of the 2003 Toyota Fine-S Concept which was developed to test the fledgeling hydrogen fuel cell setup, and Toyota were running fuel cell cars in Japan and California at this time too, although not, as far as we know, the Fine S.