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

Local Motors 'Design Our Car' competition opens

Local Motors has opened its first-ever ‘Design Our Car' competition, which encourages collaboration within the manufacturing community. The open-source automaker is providing two of its Rally Fighter cars, one of which will be built at the company's micro-factory in Arizona while the other will be built live in the Emerging Technology Center at September's International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago. Ideas from the design and engineering community are being sought to help design and select a skin for the Rally Fighter that will be built by the Local Motors team this spring.

Saab sold to Spyker

General Motors' Saab division won't end up on the postbankruptcy scrap heap with Pontiac and Saturn. Just as Saab's death appeared imminent, the Swedish automaker was scooped up on Tuesday by Dutch supercar-maker Spyker Cars in a $74 million deal that has been in works for months. The deal is expected to close on Feb.

Audi A1 – the design tease

Audi are teasing the design of the new A1 in this latest video (below) If you’ve been living in a cave for the last few months you may have missed the news that Audi is about to launch what it hopes will be a MINI-bashing offering – the Audi A1. The A1 is actually destined for a public launch at the Geneva Motor Show in March – and Audi has threatened full disclosure for next month – but in the meantime it’s on a ‘Teaser’ blitz. We haven’t reported on every tease (we didn’t bother with the ‘Look – the new A1 has headlights’ one last week), but we have covered some, like the graffiti advert.