Arias Pistons 12.5:1 Compression 82mm Bore Honda B-series on 2040-parts.com

Video: Jaguar's Julian Thomson on the importance of design values

Jaguar's Head of Advanced Design, Julian Thomson, appeared at this month's PSFK Conference in London giving a talk on design values. Thomson's talk, ‘Concepting Dreams, Making Reality Happen', dealt with questions of creating a design story as well as how Jaguar uses the value of its heritage while keeping things original and new. Thomson – the man behind the 2010 C-X75 and the recently revealed F-Type – said, "You can't get a good design story if you don't look at your heritage, where you came from, where your values came from." He went on to discuss the ‘sad years of Jaguar', from around 1968 to 2004 where Jaguar was too timid to develop and "essentially made the same-looking car." He put this down to a reluctance on Jaguar's part to move too far away from its successful models and, quite interestingly, because "not only did we start doing market research, we started asking Americans what they wanted." Watch the full video on the left.

Hennessey tunes C7 Corvette Stingray

Hennessey Performance and its gang of Texas tuners are planning upgrades for the 2014 Chevrolet Stingray Corvette before the car even hits the market. We're sure Corvette engineers working on the next ZR1 are taking notice, presumably with a chip on their collective shoulders. In October, the Hennessey HPE700 Corvette is expected to debut packing a claimed 700 hp, with help from an Eaton TVS R2300 supercharger.

A look at Mercedes-Benz future products

Are Americans ready to pay hefty prices for small, front-wheel-drive cars with features usually reserved for large German luxury cars? Mercedes-Benz is about to find out. Starting in the fall of next year, Mercedes will bring three, possibly four new compacts based on a new fwd platform to the United States.