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

First Sight: Mercedes-Benz SL

The new high-tech, low weight Mercedes SL roadster receives its official global unveil next week in Detroit but Car Design News got an early peek of the final production car and had a chat with its designers at Mercedes' US advanced design studio in Carlsbad, California back in November. "We want to get back to clean, long-lasting design," director of Mercedes global advanced design and SL project leader, Steffen Kohl told CDN at the exclusive preview of the sixth-generation model. "So the new SL is long, sleek and still full of tension in the feature lines but less wedgy." In a short presentation Kohl felt all SLs became successfully iconic in their times because they followed two key rules – ‘sensuality' and ‘cleanness' – but alluded that the first rule may have been lost in more recent eras.

Lotus makes double debuts at Pebble Beach

Lotus has a big presence at this week's Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance events, with the Evora GTE Road Car concept making its world premiere and the limited-production Matte Black Final Edition of the Exige making a U.S. debut. The Lotus Evora GTE Road Car concept will be shown for the first time at the McCall's Motorworks Revival event on Wednesday night at the Monterey Jet Center.

Suzuki Wagon R and Mazda AZ Wagon

Suzuki and Mazda have released one of the most important Japanese domestic market vehicles in recent years with the fully redesigned Suzuki Wagon R and Mazda AZ Wagon. Although relatively unknown outside the domestic market, with numerous tax breaks and low CO2 emissions, the kei-car (micro mini) is the largest and the most competitive segment in Japan, making up six of the top ten best-selling cars this year. The previous generation Wagon-R was the best-selling domestic passenger car for the last five consecutive years.