Anti Reversion Plate Holley 4150 / 4160 Mp-5006 on 2040-parts.com

Michelin Challenge Design 2007: The not so ugly truth about rising vehicle safety standards

Can cars be safe and beautiful at the same time? That may not have been the case a few decades ago when automakers were forced to hang those big, ugly so-called federal bumpers off the ends of their vehicles.  With vehicle safety standards on the rise around the globe are designers today feeling a little '70s deja vu when it comes to meeting the challenges of making cars safe as well as more fuel efficient? "(Back then) we said it was the end of automotive styling," says Patrick Le Quement, senior vice president for corporate design at Renault and one of the world's most influential automotive designers.

Fiat 500 gets Stop-Start

Flavour of the month, stop-start, and here’s another to add to the list. The Fiat 500 gets Start&Stop (I’ve lost count of the different monikers) as an option on the 1.2 Lounge, using Bosch technology to beef up the system to make it reliable. The Stop/Start also gets another Fiat moniker – Blue&Me – which gives the driver EcoDrive to aid emissions and adds hands-free phone and an entertainment system.

Project Car Hell, Unidentifiable German Coupes Edition: Borgward Isabella Coup

Welcome back to Project Car Hell, where every iron atom always finds the oxygen it seeks, every vehicle ran when parked, and the parts you need are always in another continent! Last week, we got all patriotic with a couple of classic American muscle cars, and that just whetted our appetite for cars that were smaller and more, you know, German. We gave you a tough choice between a couple of air-cooled Volkswagens not long ago, but this time we're interested in German marques that disappeared in the 1960s: NSU and Borgward.