2010 Dodge Challenger Se 3.5 High Output V6 Valve Cover Left Side on 2040-parts.com

First Sight: Mercedes-Benz SL

The new high-tech, low weight Mercedes SL roadster receives its official global unveil next week in Detroit but Car Design News got an early peek of the final production car and had a chat with its designers at Mercedes' US advanced design studio in Carlsbad, California back in November. "We want to get back to clean, long-lasting design," director of Mercedes global advanced design and SL project leader, Steffen Kohl told CDN at the exclusive preview of the sixth-generation model. "So the new SL is long, sleek and still full of tension in the feature lines but less wedgy." In a short presentation Kohl felt all SLs became successfully iconic in their times because they followed two key rules – ‘sensuality' and ‘cleanness' – but alluded that the first rule may have been lost in more recent eras.

OnStar tests Facebook updates, text-message reading services

General Motors' OnStar service is launching new features with the latest generation of its technology and is testing applications such as reading text messages and updating social-networking Web sites via voice command. The ninth generation of OnStar's software will let GM car owners use their smartphone to remotely start the engine and lock or unlock their cars. The service is called OnStar MyLink.

Volvo V60 diesel plug-in hybrid – again

Volvo V60 Plug-in Diesel Hybrid Last month we reported on the innovative Volvo V60 diesel plug-in hybrid, a proper advance in hybrid gubbins which Volvo are planning on revealing – in practically production-ready form – at next weeks Geneva Motor Show. We first reported Volvo’s intention to bring a diesel hybrid to market by 2012 back in 2009, and the story we ran at the end of January was confirmation of that. But now Volvo has churned out a chunky press release to tell us exactly what the V60 plug-in hybrid will offer, so we thought we ought to revisit this story one more time before Geneva.