World Car of the Year 2014 – the contenders

The provisional list of entries for the 2014 World Car of the Year awards has been revealed – this is like the European Car of the Year awards, only judged on a global scale. Each candidate for the main awards must be available for sale on at least two continents. In addition to the main category, the World Car – or WCOTY – awards also includes separate prizes for the World Car Design of the Year, World Green Car and World Luxury Car, the last a change from the World Performance Car of previous years.

Project Car Hell: BMW-powered Opel Olympia vs. Aston-equipped Singer Nine

Editor's note: When you can't fit your newly acquired basket-case Jeep FC150 in the garage because you have an Autocar Sussita and a 1928 Studebaker President chassis buried beneath crates of Subaru 360 parts, you're in Project Car Hell. Our friend Murilee Martin is here to oil up the gates to Automotive Hades, bringing the series back with a couple of you'd-hafta-be-outta-your-mind hypothetical engine-swap projects. And be sure to check back for fresh installments of Project Car Hell every week.

Good news for British car factories

NEW FIGURES have revealed that UK-based car production raced ahead in April, resulting in the biggest monthly rise since July 2012. A total of 133,437 cars were made in the UK last month – a 21.3% increase on the April 2013 figure, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said. The excellent April figures took the year-so-far total to 538,240 – a 6.9% rise on the figure for January-April 2013.