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

One-off Porsche 911 Carrera 4S celebrates 5 million Facebook fans

Porsche has built a special 911 Carrera 4S (pictured) to celebrate 5 million Facebook Fans Car makers do like to get their Facebook fans to ‘design’ a car; it’s a good way of drawing fans in to the brand and give them an idea of what floats buyers’ boats. Some are not all that impressive, but the 911 Carrera 4S Porsche has built in celebration of getting 5 million fans on Facebook – designed with input from those fans – is actually quite understated. It comes in a quite fetching shade of Aqua Blue Metallic, a set of white 20″ alloys (a bit tacky), sports suspension and exhaust, an Aerokit with big back spoiler, personalised sill plates, brushed aluminium trim inside and a plaque telling the world this is a Porsche designed by 5 million Facebook fans.

Porsche 918 infotainment system to be based on HTML5

While some automakers, like Ford and General Motors, are beginning to open up their code to outside developers via application programming interfaces, Porsche's taking a very interesting route for the 918 Spyder's infotainment system. The the hybrid supercar's dashboard interface uses the same code that the modern Internet runs on: HTML5. Germany's AutoBild reports that Porsche cites the ease of programming as part of their rationale for the system; smartphone integration is another.

Ford invents agile, low-cost solution for prototyping, customization and limited production [w/video]

A new metal forming technique pioneered by Ford that drastically reduces the time and cost of producing low-volume and one-off body parts may lead to cost-effective customization, redesigns, one-offs and limited production runs. Ford Freeform Fabrication Technology (F3T) forms sheets of metal by two stylus-like tools, one on each side of the surface. Using CAD data they form the part to the exacting strength and finish tolerances usually associated with stamping dies.