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

Lotus gets Ferrari Designer

Ferrari Designer Donato Coco joins Lotus as Director of Design As we’ve reported umpteen times this year, Lotus are getting things very right. They’re selling the new Lotus Evora hand over fist and have plans in place to a convertible Evora and of course the new Lotus Esprit. Part of the long-term plan at Lotus is to bring the Hethel boys back to the top of the heap in the way Lotus were in the glory days of Colin Chapman.

One lap of the Web: The birth of the supercar, an #EpicFail and Ferrari 250 GT eye candy

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. -- The 1970s: An era of hippies, disco, space exploration and, most notably to us, the supercar.

BMW 1 Series dead in US after 2013

With its successor set to bow at the Detroit Auto Show in a couple of months' time, word's come down from BMW that 2013 will indeed be the end of the line for the BMW 1 Series — at least in the US. It will remain available elsewhere in the world as a three-door and five-door hatch. The coupe and convertible, meanwhile, are being replaced by the 2 Series, in convention with BMW's new naming scheme.