95 Jeep Grand Cherokee Shift Assembly 30427 on 2040-parts.com

CDN-GM Interactive Design Competition 2014 now open!

Car Design News and General Motors are pleased to announce the 2014 edition of the CDN-GM Interactive Design Competition is now open for entry. This is the fourth running of the contest that challenges the design students of North America to create GM's future, with the guidance of professional designers and fellow students. Up for grabs are six, three-month paid internships that offer the chance to work alongside GM's design teams at the world-famous Tech Center in Warren, MI.

Aston Martin adds a V8 Vantage S

Slotted between Aston Martin's vaunted V8 Vantage and the venerable V12 variant comes a tweener model that promises to be anything but vague: Aston is adding the S variant, with more power and an upgraded transmission. The Vantage S draws power from the 4.7-liter V8 making 430 hp, 10 hp more than in the base Vantage. The S also adds 15 lb-ft of torque, boosting total twist to 361 lb-ft.

Post-World War II Japanese tin toys on display in New York

During the rebuilding of Japan after World War II, a Japanese toy designer took a discarded tin can and molded it into an intricate model car. Just inches in length, it created a phenomenon in the 1940s and '50s in Japan called “buriki.” Buriki is derived from “blik,” which is Dutch for "tin toy." A collection of 70 tin-toy vehicles manufactured in Japan is currently on display at New York's Japan Society Gallery. The exhibit, called “Buriki: Japanese Tin Toys from the Golden Age of the American Automobile, The Yoku Tanaka Collection,” runs until Aug.