2009 Hyundai Santa Fe Steering Column Oem F on 2040-parts.com

Bentley uses 3D printing to prototype new designs [w/Video]

3D printing is changing the way the world makes things by helping people of all disciplines to enhance and refine their ideas cheaply, quickly and effectively.  Bentley is the latest carmaker to utilize the technology to fabricate and prototype different parts to see how they'll look and work on the finished design. Using 3D printers, designers can produce parts from the exterior and interior such as the grille, tires, headlamps and door handles as well as combine different types of contrasting materials, ranging from hard plastics to rubbers of different tensile strengths.  The technology allows the user to create a solid 3D object straight from a digital model by printing layers of material on top of each other. This process rapidly decreases the delivery time, as parts can be printed overnight, and allows designers to be more creative in their ideas because of the reduced cost. Bentley isn't the first carmaker to use 3D printing technology. Audi announced last year it was beginning to prototype vehicle parts using 3D printers.

Ferrari Enzo successor to make 920 hp

About a decade and a half after Porsche eschewed its lightness-and-small-displacement strategy and built a five-liter sports racer to take down Ferrari at Le Mans, a different sort of war kicked off between the two marques: a battle for supremacy in the super-supercar market. In 1984, Ferrari built a radically modified twin-turbo 308 GTB with an eye toward Group B road-racing rules. Porsche countered the resultant 288 GTO with the mighty 959, which launched at about the same time as the 288's successor, the practically skeletal and infinitely loopier F40.

Saab on the road to independence

You’ve got to feel for Scandinavian car makers Saab and Volvo. Both swallowed up by big US car makers, and both now being abandoned in a vulnerable position after years of integrating their once independent products in to their parents infrastructure, they must wake up every day wondering if this is the day it all goes bang. Ford is simply trying (increasingly desperately) to off-load Volvo, but GM, which is in a much more precarious position than Ford, has now abandoned its Swedish child in a desperate attempt to appease Congress and survive.