2012 Audi Q5 Manual on 2040-parts.com

Viva La Viva

VAUXHALL is to resurrect the Viva name as it plans to launch an entry-level car to sit alongside its Mini rival the Adam and soon to be launched new Corsa supermini. For now the car maker isn’t giving much away, although it has revealed that the new car will be a five-door model. And while the new Viva will be a significant step up in terms of refinement and sophistication over its 1963 namesake, it’s clear that Vauxhall is keen to tap into the current trend for producing low cost cars that’s proved so successful for the likes of Dacia.

Kia announces upcoming concept

Kia will unveil an, as yet, unnamed concept car at the Geneva motor show this March. The concept, which the carmaker calls ‘provocative and racy', features a new take on Kia's signature tiger nose aesthetic that integrates the headlamps into the grille design in a narrow, full-width strip. The lamps themselves seem to be contructed of a pixelted, mesh-like light source.

Smart car inventor Nicolas Hayek dies

Nicolas Hayek, the engineer and industrialist who founded the Swiss watch company Swatch and brought the world the Smart car, died on June 28 of heart failure at his office in Switzerland. He was 82. Hayek saved the Swiss watch industry from lower-priced Asian competition in the early 1980s by offering colorful, inexpensive Swatch timepieces that he backed with equally colorful marketing.