21 Yamaha Fx Cruiser Ho Muffler Exhaust Pipe Fb1800a on 2040-parts.com

New Mercedes A45 AMG has 105 years of 4WD on its side

With the new Mercedes A45 AMG on the horizon – complete with 4WD – Mercedes chart the history of all wheel drive on their vehicles. We tend to think of 4WD road cars as a modern innovation, and certainly very few 4WD road cars hit the road in a mainstream way much before the 1980s (the Jensen FF was hardly mainstream before someone points out that was in the 1960s). But the history of 4WD goes back, certainly in the case of Mercedes, a surprising 105 years when Daimler built the Dernburg-Wagen, a 4WD vehicle that not only got all-wheel drive but all wheel steering too.

BMW ‘Jump for Joy’ Video – the Audi dig.

BMW's latest Jump for Joy Video We’re still not too sure about BMW’s ‘Joy’ campaign. I know we all have to love fluffy bunnies and have nightmares about climate change, but can’t we leave that to car makers like Reva or even Tesla? Do BMW – The Ultimate Driving Machines – have to go the ‘Green Guru’ route?

GM to slash global vehicle platforms by more than half, to 14, by 2018

General Motors says it will cut the number of vehicle platforms it uses globally by more than half over the next decade, in a bid to reduce complexity and save on product-development costs. “More of our components will be common, and more of our vehicles will be on global architectures,” GM CEO Dan Akerson told analysts on Tuesday. His remarks came as GM kicked off a series of presentations online, billed as its 2011 Global Business Conference.