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

An Audience with Syd Mead at CCS

"Visual futurist and concept artist." Like some sort of Transformer, those words combine to create an ideal job description for many an industrial designer. With the world of design becoming more varied, and our jobs becoming more demanding of diversity, it's no surprise that many of us venture into adjacent professions. Industrial Design has adapted especially well recently to Hollywood, bringing our experience to recent films like Avatar and Prometheus, but the trend actually goes back several decades.

MSN readers back 80mph limit on UK motorways

Getty Images Half of you back an 80mph speed limit on British motorways, according to a poll of more than 40,000 MSN UK readers. An overwhelming 20,000 of you said the limit should be raised from the current 70mph, while a quarter of respondents preferred to stick with the status quo. Microsoft poll results Our poll was published in the week when the government announced plans to reduce the speed limit on a section of the M1 in Derbyshire and Yorkshire in a bid to cut air pollution.

Skoda confirms two new models

Skoda Vision D at Geneva - Skoda's new design direction It’s now got to the point with Skoda where the skip-on-wheels reputation of the ’70s and ’80s – and even the ‘Cheap’ VW tag of the ’90s and ’00s – has been completely eclipsed by the perception of Skoda as quite simply the maker of some crackingly good cars. Cars like the brilliant little Skoda Fabia vRS – which we’d take over the Polo GTI (much more character) – and the equally brilliant Skoda Yeti which, although it might not quite live up to Clarkson’s recent tongue-in-cheek assertion as the best car in the world is, nonetheless, exceptionally good. That change in perception is clear in the confident model range on offer from Skoda and the clever way in which it’s marketed.