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

Who's Where: Steve Mattin appointed Design Director at Avtovaz Lada

Steve Mattin will soon be relocating to his new home – Russia. The former Vice President and Design Director of Volvo Cars has been tapped by Avtovaz Lada to lead its design operations into the future, designing a new era of passenger vehicles for the 40-year-old brand. He will start his new role October 1 this year.

Creapole: creating the next generation of creative designers

As the automotive industry continues to look towards other design disciplines for inspiration and ideas, French design school Creapole is increasingly well positioned to cater for their needs. While relatively small, Creapole's range of courses – which as well as Transport Design includes Product Design, Fashion, Art Design, Visual Communication, Movie and Video Game Animation, and Interior Architecture – gives its students experience in a broad range of creative media. The foundations of Creapole's success lie in its hands-on approach not only to teaching, but also to the tools used by its students.

Volvo XC60 R-design – more detail

Volvo has released more details of the XC60 R-Design Although the XC60 R-Design doesn’t get any sort of power boost, it does get some tweaks to the setup to provide a more sporty drive. Volvo has stiffened up the chassis and added more damping, and tweaked the steering ratios to give a quicker response.  But Volvo reckons this has virtually  no impact on ride quality (which begs the question ‘Why didn’t they do it to start with if there’s no trade-off’) and sensibly they have not gone down the lowered suspension route, so the XC60 still has good ground clearance. Volvo has added a rear seat entertainment package option to the XC60 On the cosmetic front, the R-Design gets body coloured lower section, matt silk metallic finish for the trim and chrome tailpipes.