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

Fitness-focused autonomous vehicle pedals to victory in Interior Motives Design Awards

Earlier tonight, on the eve of the first Paris Motor Show press day, the world's top designers and automotive journalists assembled at L'Espace Clacquesin in Paris to witness sponsors Ford and Volkswagen announce the 2014 Interior Motives Student Design of the Year: ‘Life Cycle' by Jason Chen and Dirk Wan of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, USA. Launched in January of this year and themed ‘Beyond Styling: a Design for Life', the competition asked students to create projects around three diverse but specific briefs: ‘Beyond Autonomous', which posed the question of what would happen if we were to combine the latest developments in computing and robotics with automobile design; ‘An Interior for Life', in which students were asked to focus on one feature or element of a car's interior and adapt it for dual use in a user's ordinary life; and ‘Pickup Truck of 2030', which challenged the young designers to extrapolate what the future might hold for this popular and versatile mode of transport. This year's contest attracted more than 200 entries from students based at 57 schools in 24 different countries.

Britain's favourite car brands revealed

Earlier this week, we revealed the results of the Driver Power survey by Auto Express, where drivers were asked to rate their cars for factors including reliability, running costs and performance. Now, MSN Cars can exclusively reveal the results of the manufacturer survey. In short, according to more than 50,000 motorists, these are the most satisfying and reliable brands in Britain.

McLaren P1 (2013) CAR's race-speed Goodwood ride

The McLaren P1 leaves the startline like a shard of shrapnel riding the percussion wave of an explosion. It needs high-definition slow-mo to describe it, like those films of a bullet shattering an apple, or the slow-motion shots of an F1 car skipping over a kerb, front wing flexing, tyres deflecting, all that physics captured in beautiful, drowsy detail. In my mind, when I re-live the first moments of my ride up the Goodwood hillclimb in McLaren’s new hypercar, I see the release of energy in the same 1500-frames-per-second style.