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

Contest: Volkswagen Slipstream wins 2007 LA Design Challenge

Volkswagen's Slipstream concept has won the fourth annual Design Challenge competition, part of the Design Los Angeles automobile designer's conference. The award was presented during the second press day of the 2007 Los Angeles Auto Show.  The theme of this year's competition, RoboCar of 2057, asked eight automotive design studios in California to form their vision of the future by depicting a vehicle that incorporates artificial intelligence engineered to make life easier and more attractive to consumers 50 years from now. Designers entered two-dimensional renderings and concept descriptions predicting how the rapidly advancing field of artificial intelligence will integrate into the automobile to make life safer, more practical and attractive, and the entries were judged by multi-discipline design professionals who selected the winner based on its originality of creative concept, integration of robotics and level of adaptation to a variety of environmental conditions and consumer needs.

One Lap of the Web: Bugatti Aerolithe, Jaguar D-type and the Copperstate 1000

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- Sympatico Autos brings us video of a meticulous, period-correct re-creation of the long-lost Bugatti Aerolithe on a proper Bugatti chassis.

Trouble at Bertone

It was hoped that Bertone would be exhibiting its latest concept, the B.A.T.11, in Geneva this year, a design inspired by the B.A.T.5., B.A.T.7 and B.A.T.9 concepts developed between 1953 and 1955. The car is based on the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione. But after receiving a release from Stile Bertone announcing the prototype on February 13, the company's communications department sent through another email stating that it would not, in fact, be attending the show this year.